If anybody has a suggestion for a BRIEF discussion of POMO's history, please post it. — Bitter Crank

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_WcK7WdttxqX0lFWmx5ZGRyQjA/view?usp=sharing

9 pages brief?

[Delete] @Baden

[Delete] @Baden

Sorry, I couldn't get through it. I love Canadians and Canadian accents, and I like that Peterson talks thoughtfully and intellectually rather than haranguing angrily, but he takes way too long to get anywhere (he rambles all over the place!), and I'm not going to sacrifice 1 hour and 12 minutes plus of my precious time to see if he can make any sort of a case for a proposition that sounds ludicrous to me - that Marx somehow is responsible for identity politics. I find Marx persuasive and I find identity politics very unhelpful and I'd be very surprised if there were any credible connection between the two.

If you have a version of the argument that can be put in a few paragraphs, I'd be happy to read it, but my time's too precious to waste on that video, delightful though his accent may be.

PS It doesn't help his case at all that the lectern he's at has a big sign saying 'TRUMP Hotels'. It's not his fault, just bad luck, but it reduces his chances of changing anybody's mind to just about zero.

Since when do newborn babies lack the right to life? — Maw

It was an irony, since behind "reproductive rights" hides oppression of the weak and downtrodden, who cannot speak (literarily all aborted babies). Seems like you're not very good with figures of speech.

And is that really all you have to say? — Maw

For the most part, since you didn't address the substance of the video. You tell me identity politics is not recent. Peterson didn't claim it is. Neither did I for that matter. Then you proceed to go on a tirade that is besides the point and illustrates that you haven't watched even half of the video.

1) identity politics also a right-wing strategy too, from the Southern Strategy to Breitbart and Fox News, and in fact, many forms of left-wing identity movements are formed because of right-wing opposition — Maw

This is just finger-pointing, you don't explain how Breitbart, Fox, etc. are identity politics.

2) "The Left" is not in uniformed agreement on the importance or focus on identity politics. Notable democratic politicians, for example, Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, Hilary Clinton, Barack Obama, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, etc. clearly don't consider politics to be reducible to identity. — Maw

The point isn't whether politics is reducible to identity or not. The point is that some of them, like Hillary Clinton, campaigned on the fact that she's a woman, Obama campaigned on the fact that he's black, etc. What the hell is "breaking the glass ceiling" huh? Isn't that effectively telling a segment of the population "you will be able to do whatsoever you want if I'm President, so vote for me", thus trying to bank on greed, self-interest and divisiveness to get elected?

Effectively, they did run sexist and racist campaigns - "vote for me because I'm like you, a woman" - "vote for me because I'm like you, a black man, and I will be the first black President - after me, you too will be able to be President". Those are racist and sexist grounds for running a campaign - a campaign which is essentially divisive. And sure, there is identity politics on the right side too, though not as prominent. But there are right-wing groups which do seek to get the votes of white evangelicals, etc. Ideally, a campaign should be conciliatory, not bringing up more and more divisions. In this regard, Trump also failed, though part of his failure is due to the cognitive dissonance of the left who just refuse to come to terms with reality.

Also, you seem to think that Peterson (or myself) is your regular conservative who doesn't care about environmental protection, free healthcare, and other such goods. You are deluded mate.

From the list you named, Sanders is probably less focused on identity politics than the rest, though he is also with the 1% vs 99% that he speaks of literarily every single time he opens his mouth.

Circular and laughably naive, no wonder you readily subscribe to Peterson's vapid "self-help" philosophy. — Maw

Yeah, only that I was saying all this for quite a few years already, seems like you haven't been reading what I was saying on PF. As for Peterson's self-help - well, some of it I found helpful. You should try it, it might bring good results in your life. If it doesn't, then just don't use it.

Rest of the comments will be addressed later.

From what little I've seen of Jordan Peterson, I don't object to much of what he says. But I think the phrase 'the lie of white privilege' is silly.

White privilege is simply not having to wonder whether a stranger will suddenly start to abuse you on the bus, just because of what you look like. In the US it is also not having to fear a police officer every time one comes near, that they may stop and search you, or even shoot you, because of what you look like. One would have to live under a rock to think that such a privilege does not exist.

Where claims about white privilege become silly is when they start to imply that ALL white people are better off than ALL non-whites, and there do seem to be plenty of extremists that say or imply such things. But the fact that the notion of white privilege may be misused by silly people does not imply that the notion itself is flawed. — andrewk

It is flawed, and racist. The concept of white privilege itself is an unfair generalization of a certain group based on the color of their skin.

Everything you said is true actually. Certain people fear and wonder about some unseen boogie-man that is out to get you because they were raised in an environment of fear. But that is all it is - a fear, not reality. How can anyone even rationally think that the concept of white privilege holds any water when we have so many successful minorities, and the way minorities are now held up on a pedastal while being white is now seen as detriment to one's character. I've been mistreated by cops and I'm caucasian. The fact is that there are some cops that are just assholes, not racists. Yes, there are some racists cops. There are also racist minorities. Your job or color of skin doesn't seem to have an effect on how you view other groups. How you are raised does.

PS It doesn't help his case at all that the lectern he's at has a big sign saying 'TRUMP Hotels'. It's not his fault, just bad luck, but it reduces his chances of changing anybody's mind to just about zero. — andrewk

I had the same distraction factor of seeing the TRUMP brand. Plus the fake decor behind the lectern.

I had the same distraction factor of seeing the TRUMP brand. — Bitter Crank

Oh dear, what's wrong with the TRUMP brand now?

Plus the fake decor behind the lecture. — Bitter Crank

I thought the setting looked quite nice and fancy, though I don't know the place.

I thought the setting looked quite nice and fancy, though I don't know the place. — Agustino

Oh dear... So now we know what your mansion will look like. Hint: if you're going to go for the ruling class look in decor, go all the way: fako wood paneling, fako styrofoam beams in the ceiling, fako oriental-type carpets, fako leather/oak/horsehair-stuffed chairs, etc. No visible florescent lighting, use period colors, no anachronistic brand names on anything.

The fake decoration wasn't hideous, certainly, but it was the wrong fake decoration for the space. A modern hotel conference room isn't entitled to (possible, but probably not) marble statuary (too white, bright for one thing), books that look leather bound (either fake or bought by the ton by interior decoration supply companies) and fako 18th-19th century woodwork. There were too many other signals that this was merely a conference room in a hotel -- the chairs, lighting, walls, paint, etc.

The decor has nothing to do with what Peterson said or didn't say -- it was just off-putting on its own.

Oh dear, what's wrong with the TRUMP brand now? — Agustino

As a hotel brand, nothing I suppose. It's just that the eponymous developer of the brand happens to be POTUS, and as such is disturbing in ever so many ways.

Oh dear... So now we know what your mansion will look like.

The fake decoration wasn't hideous, certainly, but it was the wrong fake decoration for the space. A modern hotel conference room isn't entitled to (possible, but probably not) marble statuary (too white, bright for one thing), books that look leather bound (either fake or bought by the ton by interior decoration supply companies) and fako 18th-19th century woodwork. There were too many other signals that this was merely a conference room in a hotel -- the chairs, lighting, walls, paint, etc. — Bitter Crank

I guess this would go in another thread, but why is it off-putting if it's fake? The point of the decoration is to look nice, not to be original, no? I guess it would need to match with the rest of the hotel, but then I don't know how that looks.

It's just that the eponymous developer of the brand happens to be POTUS, and as such is disturbing in ever so many ways. — Bitter Crank

So, what about that makes it disturbing? If he wasn't POTUS, would that not be disturbing?

If he wasn't POTUS, would that not be disturbing? — Agustino

No. Then God would be in his heaven where he belongs and all would be right with the world, sort of.

Yes, decoration is supposed to look nice. It aimed high but missed. You can't "legitimately" glue some veneer onto wallboard and call the job done.

Part of the problem was that the camera angle was too wide. Had it narrowed in on Peterson, the podium, and the fako backdrop, it would have come off better. As Oscar Wilde put it, "Only shallow people do not judge by appearances".

Paul Fussell wrote a book a few decades back, Class: A Guide Through the American Status System, that explains all this. There are certain features of the would-be old-money upper class look. even though one is, like yourself. a nouvelle arrivee. For instance, the wood floor should be dark wood -- as if it had been walked on for at least 200 years. There are products available to achieve the desired darkness.

One should buy real oriental rugs of course, made by suffering children under horrible working conditions, but they need to be old oriental rugs, slightly threadbare. After all, they were bought when Wilson was president. And so on.

So, Agustino, a lot of the stuff that gets batted around these days from the left and the right both is like fako interior decorations. It just isn't real.

No. Then God would be in his heaven where he belongs and all would be right with the world, sort of. — Bitter Crank

>:O - well, I personally think having Trump as President is infinitely better than having Hillary as President. The difference is between having visible problems, and having invisible problems. The latter is worse.

Paul Fussell wrote a book a few decades back, Class: A Guide Through the American Status System, that explains all this. There are certain features of the would-be old-money upper class look. even though one is, like yourself. a nouvelle arrivee. For instance, the wood floor should be dark wood -- as if it had been walked on for at least 200 years. There are products available to achieve the desired darkness.

One should buy real oriental rugs of course, made by suffering children under horrible working conditions, but they need to be old oriental rugs, slightly threadbare. After all, they were bought when Wilson was president. And so on. — Bitter Crank

I never understood why some people think this way, to me it just seems some uncalled for snob-ism. If it looks nice, it looks nice, who really cares whether the carpet is "authentic" or not? Like what difference does it make, if it looks the same? I may be an uncultured barbarian, but this seems self-evident to me.

No Augustino, purposely using obfuscatory language such as "aborted newborns" is chicanery, and you use it a a crux to evade my point entirely when I challenge your ludicrous claim in the opening post that identity politics "breaks our social unity". Yes, Hilary Clinton is a woman, and Barack Obama is a black American, and both leveraged their identities to connect and inspire a group of voters. Never did they claim that those groups could "do anything" once they were elected. Never did they use divisively racial or sexist language when speaking to different population segments. It is not racist or sexist to connect with people of your own skin color or gender. It does dissolve our "social unity". To claim otherwise is a mixture of stupidity and ignorance.

Yes, Hilary Clinton is a woman, and Barack Obama is a black American, and both leveraged their identities to connect and inspire a group of voters. Never did they claim that those groups could "do anything" once they were elected. Never did they use divisively racial or sexist language when speaking to different population segments. It is not racist or sexist to connect with people of your own skin color or gender. It does dissolve our "social unity". To claim otherwise is a mixture of stupidity and ignorance. — Maw

So if a white man leverages his identity to connect with and inspire people of his own skin color and gender in order to get voted into office, can you imagine what the left would say? Oh, Neo-nazi! White Supremacist! Patriarchy! Oh dear...

Uncultured barbarians who have the means generally want entre to the class with matching amounts of money. The Cultured barbarians who got there first generally want to fence in their estates to keep new money out. Yes, it is snobbism, of course. This is an old problem for new money. As you become a wildly successful uncultured barbarian, rolling in cash from your various entrepreneurial activities, you will want to join the cocktail party / dinner party / dance party / board room circuit along with the other successful people.

How do you do that? You probably don't have a pedigree which would win you admission (no recent tzars, dukes, or earls in your family tree). Being white isn't privilege enough. Academic degrees definitely won't cut it. What you will do is fake a background. There are standardized methods of doing this. You live in the right kind of mansion, wear the right kind of clothes, go to the right church, give generously to the right charities, volunteer your services on the right committees, and in 30 years you might be accepted, grudgingly. Then your sons and daughters will reap the reward. They will be accepted as scions of money old enough not to still stink.

And per George Bernard Shaw, you also talk the right way. Very important to get the accent and idiom down cold.

Agustino Jr. can then marry the daughter (or son, if they turns out gay) of the leading family. It's a long range project. Good luck.

Hear hear. aka (Y)

Are you incapable of seeing the asymmetry of power, both historical and modern, of women and blacks between white males in America? For fuck's sake, America has still never had a woman president, and a large voting block would nevertheless rather have a vile misogynist instead; one who also claimed that the previous president, a black man, was not born in America, among other vile racist things. In America, these identities are not equal.

Are you incapable of seeing the asymmetry of power, both historical and modern, of women and blacks between white males in America? — Maw

No, I don't like double standards. If the black lesbian woman is allowed to rightfully connect with and appeal to people like her, so should the white, straight man be allowed to appeal to people like him. That's real equality.

As for what happened historically, that's irrelevant today. We're no longer a society which practices slavery, or where women don't have rights, so we don't have to pretend to still be one.

We must now act according to current times, when things aren't as they used to be 200 years ago.

For fuck's sake, America has still never had a woman president — Maw

Right, America has also still never had a Chinese president. Should that worry us?

In a society where the equality of all before the law exists, it is not relevant that the President is black or white. As Deng Xiaoping said, who cares if the cat is black or white, so long as it catches mice? People should be President based on competency, not on sex, gender, etc. Some people on the left today really have a distorted view of things. It's really sick to think about putting someone to do a job, when you know that that person is less competent than the other options available, just because that person comes from a minority group. If a President does a poor job, it affects everyone - competency is really important.

if a white man leverages his identity to connect with people of his own skin color and gender in order to get voted into office, can you imagine what the left would say? Oh, Neo-nazi! White Supremacist! Patriarchy! — Agustino

There is a difference between being a white male, and putting that status forward in terms of blood, virility, fatherland, and all that. As Peterson pointed out, white people and male people have certain advantages (and disadvantages). A minority of white people hold a good share of the power in society, so being white is an indication that one will have enough power to carry out at least some parts of one's political platform.

Barack Obama's single greatest liability was that he was a successful black man, something that conservatives found terminally irksome. The conservatives probably would have liked him better if he used poor grammar, mumbled, and had a couple of drug convictions and a robbery or two on his record. That he was a lawyer, college professor, crisp English speaker, cool calm and collected, crime record free, and more cultured than them was just... intolerable.

Rightly or wrongly, men have occupied a lot of leadership positions, and seeing a male in a leadership role is comforting to many people, in a way that seeing a woman in the same position is not. One doesn't have to "leverage" white, male; it's already been done.

The white supremacists, on the other hand, explicitly put forward their race, gender, heterosexuality, uncircumcised dick, and so forth, against blacks, gays, Jews, and whoever is on their list of unwanted. They don't attempt to appeal to a broad spectrum of society -- anything but.

There is a difference between being a white male, and putting that status forward in terms of blood, virility, fatherland, and all that. — Bitter Crank

I agree, I did not say that being a white male and appealing to other white males is the same as being a Nazi.

Barack Obama's single greatest liability was that he was a successful black man, something that conservatives found terminally irksome. The conservatives probably would have liked him better if he used poor grammar, mumbled, and had a couple of drug convictions and a robbery or two on his record. That he was a lawyer, college professor, crisp English speaker, cool calm and collected, crime record free, and more cultured than them was just... intolerable. — Bitter Crank

Personally, I think that the way BO tried to implement his healthcare reform in the US was wrong, and also his approach to the economy, including the bailouts, were very wrong. In many regards, he was a career politician, who did what the establishment wanted of him, and now he opened a foundation (to receive some more money that is still owed to him) and things will go on from there. He's living the basic, traditional life of someone successful.

The white supremacists, on the other hand, explicitly put forward their race, gender, heterosexuality, uncircumcised dick, and so forth, against blacks, gays, Jews, and whoever is on their list of unwanted. They don't attempt to appeal to a broad spectrum of society -- anything but. — Bitter Crank

Well yeah, but that's a different thing from what I was describing. I was just making a point that the left does not want to acknowledge that there are reasonable ways to appeal to voters who have the same identity as you (for example white male), without being a white supremacist, neo-nazi, etc.

Uncultured barbarians who have the means generally want entre to the class with matching amounts of money. The Cultured barbarians who got there first generally want to fence in their estates to keep new money out. Yes, it is snobbism, of course. This is an old problem for new money. As you become a wildly successful uncultured barbarian, rolling in cash from your various entrepreneurial activities, you will want to join the cocktail party / dinner party / dance party / board room circuit along with the other successful people. — Bitter Crank

I don't know, I don't think I'd like many of those things or be interested in them tbh. I don't like spending non-work related time around or talking to rich people.

How do you do that? You probably don't have a pedigree which would win you admission (no recent tzars, dukes, or earls in your family tree). Being white isn't privilege enough. Academic degrees definitely won't cut it. What you will do is fake a background. There are standardized methods of doing this. You live in the right kind of mansion, wear the right kind of clothes, go to the right church, give generously to the right charities, volunteer your services on the right committees, and in 30 years you might be accepted, grudgingly. Then your sons and daughters will reap the reward. They will be accepted as scions of money old enough not to still stink.

And per George Bernard Shaw, you also talk the right way. Very important to get the accent and idiom down cold.

Agustino Jr. can then marry the daughter (or son, if they turns out gay) of the leading family. It's a long range project. Good luck. — Bitter Crank

Well, my whole life I have fought against hypocrisy & convention, it would really be a shame to become one myself.

Barack Obama — Bitter Crank

But, unlike with regards to Bush, I don't have a lot of negative things to say about Obama, precisely because he was a career politician who stuck to the party line. What can I say? He did what Presidents usually do. That's it. The problem, of course, is that it's rare to have a good President.

And by the way, I think that if someone says "Vote for me because I'm (insert Gender, Skin Color, etc.)" then they are racist, sexist and the like, and there are no excuses for this. It doesn't matter if they are black or white, male or female. It's as bad in either case. As if having a certain skin color or gender ought to qualify you for being President :s - as if your skin color or gender was relevant to your competency for the job. It is the foundational trait of racism, sexism and the like to claim that gender, race, etc. instead of competency, qualifies someone for the job. We're really on some dangerous territory here if we think that this postmodernist absurdity makes any sense.

Having understood the totality of belief systems operative within every single humanities subject and some arguments in human developmental biology, the brave keyboard warrior quickly diagnosed Cultural Marxism as the corrupt core of their tyrannical ideology and sought to dismantle it with critique. He knew this was an ideological war, and saw enemies in the margins of every argument. They were all brandishing abusive notions of charitable readings, historical critique, and alien forms of philosophical argument that must be dismissed as nonsense without study.

He first attacked The Enemy on the grounds of freedom of speech - noting that upon aggregation into the True Form of Cultural Marxism, they attempted to suppress free thinking scientifically rational thought and clear, intuitive philosophy through the organon of Political Correctness. They didn't even represent scientific progress in his field and the Elect Academics which were enshrined in his Worldview with charity and citation. The Enemy pretended to be kind, but was in reality an interposition on all thought because of its cancerous ideologies expressed in fey words incomprehensible to his image of the Modern Man.

He then attacked The Enemy in their infernal residence - the Tumbler. As soon as the Tumbler was cut open with his mighty e-peen of Enlightenment and Common Sense, the carrion shrieks of "TRIGGERED " resonated throughout the infernal bowels of The Tumbler. Upon destroying the Tumbler, the throat of The Corrupted Academy's voice in the world was silenced, and Cultural Marxism was no more

No Agustino, what would be worrying is if America voted for a white male president regardless of qualifications and competency. Use Hilary Clinton as a succedaneum for your Chinese-American candidate, and you have the madness that was the 2016 election. It is ironic that you fail to see the racism and sexism embedded in this country and in the election, that enabled the most unqualified Presidential candidate in modern American history to capture the White House. It is impossible to imagine Obama or Clinton acting even remotely similar to Trump, and get anywhere near the candidacy. Otherwise, no serious modern Presidential candidate, Clinton, Obama, or otherwise, have claimed that their political qualifications stem simply from the color of their skin, or gender. I also don't see how you can wedge "post-modernism" in there. You are angry at non-existent issues. Read up on sociological issues in America, from race-relations to patriarchal dominance that exist historically and to this day. Start with Joe Feagin on race-relations, and spare us all of your blathering.