Jordan Peterson & former Deputy Prime Minister of Australia John Anderson have a debate on COVID:
What’s with the Australian tendency to go full-lockdown? From an American perspective, why did so many choose the idea of security over freedom (relative to risk and medical/political authority?).
What are some better ways to think about costs/benefits and COVID risks than the ones being discussed now in Britain, Canada, America and Australia?
Choose your external threat: Increasingly authoritarian, post-ish Communist Chinese party leadership, and the China/Russia axis are shaping up to pose many threats to the Anglosphere. Perhaps your favored external threat is Islamic terrorism, or increasing migratory pressure on your borders as a citizen. These threats are quite real. Maybe it’s the ideologues now within many American institutions, seeking to disrupt the bedrocks of freedom of speech and rule of law. Very real, indeed.
As John Anderson points out, what about during the Blitz in London?
Another possibilityof threat-ranking: We have a likely lab-created and enhanced corona virus, now on track to become another human free-rider, killing a few million of us every season. This is a very real threat. We have an ongoing problem that could end-up anywhere between same level of risk as a virulent strain of flu or higher. We have very real front lines to this disease. A fairly shitty, but unavoidable outcome?
What about people who refuse, claiming health or other reasons?
Your deeper principles often mirror evaluations of threat across dimensions (conservatives focused on the common defense against outside invaders, the political Left focused more on external threats (within the West) against health care/education and collectivist conceptions of the moral good)
COVID-19 in King County, Washington (Seattle Area). Well, here we go.
Progressive thinking, to me, gets human nature fundamentally wrong (recognizing human potential generally through the oppressed/oppressor lens as well as through collective and group identity). A lot of progressivism needs an oppressor (evil) for its existence and such evil is usually found within the West (the religious, the traditional, those with ‘power’ etc.) Radical and nihilistic thinking (including a lot of anarchism) is nothing if not ruthlessly cynical about power.
As I see things: The vaccine mandate expresses the counter-cultural, anti-establishment logic which was there all along: A two-tiered society based on vaccine status looks a lot like the vaguely aristocratic, two-tiered society increasingly shaping up in Seattle/Portland/San Francisco. ‘Authority is bad. Oh, look, I”m the authority now‘ doesn’t exactly inspire institutional trust.
Are all the homeless, now frozen out of businesses, for lack of a vaccine passport, better off than they were before the vaccine passport?
What about conscientious objectors or health objectors to the vaccine? What about many small businesses being asked to enforce the new rules?
The utopia on the horizon fades for ever and forever as they move.
We are seeing some people in the social sciences use quantitative methodologies to try and understand what’s been going on in many universities, with regard to political philosophy, ideology, and collectivist movements.
The modern fields of psychology, evo and moral psychology, sociology, economics, etc all now seem to have practitioners addressing some threats that (R)eason enthroned can pose to all of our liberties, or at least, the radical and revolutionary ideologues who often profess Reason/Anti-Reason as their guide; seeking immediate social change and influence.
What kinds of people join social justice movements and believe/claim to believe righteously and truly in such causes? How much of what they say is true?
How might they fit into a broader framework of ‘-isms,’ often seeking radical equality (of outcome) and collective liberation from dominatory oppression? What potential cost is there to all of our liberties, traditions, and institutions regarding this particular raft of ideas?
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Intellectually, as this blog has noted, there is often a watered-down Hegelianism at work in many movements seeking radical and revolutionary freedom (the master/slave dialectic and the absolute idealism providing intellectual foundation for much of what is called cultural relativism these days, which provided foundation for the Marxism and post-Marxism found in such movements).
Here’s Peterson being questioned by a group as to the merits of his ideas:
As to demands for the use of non-gendered pronouns (which is currently trending): I will say that I have sympathy for people on the margins, people with few options and not many opportunities, people who face uphill battles, and sometimes genuine threats of physical violence.
That said, I don’t enjoy the idea of playing a game I can’t win. More speech, not less, is the means to arrive at more truth. Allowing the people you actually fear the freedom to express their ideas allows more sunlight into civil society. I loathe the use of force and the desire to control the thoughts, language and minds of others.
I loathe it even more when it is used as part of a program which attacks our institutions and the legitimate authority required to maintain our institutions, and thus, many of our freedoms.
I most loathe it when it is used to treat other individuals as objects of scorn and oppression, or to shout them down in righteous anger.
Have you learned nothing?
***One rebuttal to the above, of course, would be Hayekian: There is no knowledge that would allow any person or group of persons to centrally plan a language any more than there is knowledge for anyone to centrally plan an economy (yes, you can compile a dictionary a la Samuel Johnson but, no, Esperanto is probably something of a top-down, rationalistic pipe-dream).
As to those Canadian Human Rights Commissions, as previously posted:
Here are {Ezra} Levant’s opening statements during his investigation:
Originally, a letter was written by Syed Soharwardy, an imam living in Alberta, to the Alberta Human Rights Commission. Soharwardy claimed that the cartoons were morally offensive to the religion of Islam. Levant believed his decision to publish the cartoons was protected by Canadian law, and that Soharwardy found a path to legal action (at the expense of Canadian taxpayers) through the Human Rights Commission because no one else would take Soharwardy’s claims seriously.
One of Levant’s main concerns seems to be the the way in which someone like Soharwardy, (with unchallenged religious beliefs, and illiberal ideas of social freedom), has infringed upon his freedoms through an institution like the Alberta Human Rights Commission.
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Heading towards a theme, here’s Mark Steyn discussing complaints brought against Macleans, Canada’s largest publication, by the President of the Canadian Islamic Congress (who sent three representatives) to TVOntario. They were upset at the pieces Steyn had published there. The complaints went through the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal for alleged “Islamophobia” and “promoting hate:”
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Pretty heated.
Again, the focus here is not whether Islam is a religion whose followers would eventually clash with the idea of separation of church and state, and/or identify with a larger global pan-Muslim population at the expense of their adopted countries. That’s a different debate. We know that here in America, they are granted a space created by our Constitution for freedom of religion in the public square and no specific religious test for office. They must follow our laws and are protected by them. Living and working alongside one another has its benefits and I generally favor the melting pot approach.
The debate here focuses on the effect that multiculturalism, the human rights crowd, and the public sentiment behind them can have upon freedom of expression when Human Rights Commissions are allowed legal recourse to settle this kind of dispute. This is one of the consequences of those ideas in action, and it’s not exactly liberal. It’s the multicultural solution, and it can be absolutely chilling on speech, placing onerous financial burdens on citizens, and it can create a sort of shadow court with aims of its own (if not jurisdiction) operating alongside the regular courts.
We’re not anywhere near Choudary territory yet, but remember that Nidal Hasan, the Ft. Hood shooter, had some problems with “workplace violence”. Most multiculturalists really don’t see a problem with their approach.
***A friend points out that the illiberal tendencies of the Muslim complainants in both cases and the illiberalism of the multiculturalists is a good fit. Just don’t be a Canadian on the receiving end.
***This also helps to confirm the libertarian contention that libertarians are the true classical liberals, and modern liberalism has followed the logic of moral relativism, a lot of Continental, New Left, neo-Marxist influences in feminism and race theory which lead to an unhealthy desire to control and be controlled by the State, which will grow larger and larger.
R.I.P. Nathan Cirillo. Thoughts and prayers to his family, as he was the Canadian soldier killed by a lone gunman likely motivated by that gunman’s recent conversion to Islam.
Just a few doors away from the gunman’s path was today Canada’s Wednesday caucus, apparently including the Prime Minister and his party in a room on one side, and the opposition in a room on the other.
It’s a small world after all. Crazed, possibly self-radicalizing morons seeing themselves as part of a global ideological and religious struggle just need to be included in the ‘community’…
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Cathy Young suggests the Federalist Society has gone soft for pulling-out having her as a speaker:
‘In its response to my column on my relationship with the Federalist Society’s speakers bureau, the Federalist Society claims that it continues to host events on the same topic that got me dropped from their list—challenging hardline feminist doctrines on “rape culture” and rape legislation—and speakers who share the same “basic perspective” as mine.’
This blog tries to focus on feminist ideology and its discontents; the warmed-over and mainstreamed activists, the utopians (flip-side totalitarians as you can bet there’s a moral framework and human nature under all the power theories and bad incentives)…the radicals who keep doing radical things.
I think there ought to be a more honest brokering of the costs to having such folks drive debate, as well as more sunlight disinfecting what is often just re-hashed critical theory, an ideology celebrating victimhood and denigrating its capitalist oppressors.
The personal ain’t political, and let’s face it, much of this logic doesn’t often lead to liberal places, even if it has meant more freedom for some, and likely, many women, in many cases.
Such people, similar to religious zealots and various other true-believers, need to be put continually into their proper context.
Gender equity feminists are what I take Thomas Sowell to mean by ‘intellectuals’ and include many ‘intellectuals’ who use statistics to often justify preconceived ideas….which is misusing statistics:
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These are pretty much the kinds of policymakers finding a listening ear and ideological ally in the White House right now:
Originally, a letter was written by Syed Soharwardy, an imam living in Alberta, to the Alberta Human Rights Commission. Soharwardy claimed that the cartoons were morally offensive to the religion of Islam. Levant believed his decision to publish the cartoons was protected by Canadian law, and that Soharwardy found a path to legal action (at the expense of Canadian taxpayers) through the Human Rights Commission because no one else would take Soharwardy’s claims seriously.
One of Levant’s main concerns seems to be the the way in which someone like Soharwardy, (with unchallenged religious beliefs, and illiberal ideas of social freedom), has infringed upon his freedoms through an institution like the Alberta Human Rights Commission.
———————————————–
Heading towards a theme, here’s Mark Steyn discussing complaints brought against Macleans, Canada’s largest publication, by the President of the Canadian Islamic Congress (who sent three representatives) to TVOntario. They were upset at the pieces Steyn had published there. The complaints went through the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal for alleged “Islamophobia” and “promoting hate:”
————————————–
Pretty heated.
Again, the focus here is not whether Islam is a religion whose followers would eventually clash with the idea of separation of church and state, and/or identify with a larger global pan-Muslim population at the expense of their adopted countries. That’s a different debate. We know that here in America, they are granted a space created by our Constitution for freedom of religion in the public square and no specific religious test for office. They must follow our laws and are protected by them. Living and working alongside one another has its benefits and I generally favor the melting pot approach.
The debate here focuses on the effect that multiculturalism, the human rights crowd, and the public sentiment behind them can have upon freedom of expression when Human Rights Commissions are allowed legal recourse to settle this kind of dispute. This is one of the consequences of those ideas in action, and it’s not exactly liberal. It’s the multicultural solution, and it can be absolutely chilling on speech, placing onerous financial burdens on citizens, and it can create a sort of shadow court with aims of its own (if not jurisdiction) operating alongside the regular courts.
We’re not anywhere near Choudary territory yet, but remember that Nidal Hasan, the Ft. Hood shooter, had some problems with “workplace violence”. Most multiculturalists really don’t see a problem with their approach.
***A friend points out that the illiberal tendencies of the Muslim complainants in both cases and the illiberalism of the multiculturalists is a good fit. Just don’t be a Canadian on the receiving end.
***This also helps to confirm the libertarian contention that libertarians are the true classical liberals, and modern liberalism has followed the logic of moral relativism, a lot of Continental, New Left, neo-Marxist influences in feminism and race theory which lead to an unhealthy desire to control and be controlled by the State, which will grow larger and larger.
Originally, a letter was written by Syed Soharwardy, an imam living in Alberta, to the Alberta Human Rights Commission. Soharwardy claimed that the cartoons were morally offensive to the religion of Islam. Levant believed his decision to publish the cartoons was protected by Canadian law, and that Soharwardy found a path to legal action (at the expense of Canadian taxpayers) through the Human Rights Commission because no one else would take Soharwardy’s claims seriously.
One of Levant’s main concerns seems to be the the way in which someone like Soharwardy, (with unchallenged religious beliefs, and illiberal ideas of social freedom), has infringed upon his freedoms through an institution like the Alberta Human Rights Commission.
———————————————–
Heading towards a theme, here’s Mark Steyn discussing complaints brought against Macleans, Canada’s largest publication, by the President of the Canadian Islamic Congress (who sent three representatives) to TVOntario. They were upset at the pieces Steyn had published there. The complaints went through the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal for alleged “Islamophobia” and “promoting hate:”
————————————–
Pretty heated.
Again, the focus here is not whether Islam is a religion whose followers would eventually clash with the idea of separation of church and state, and/or identify with a larger global pan-Muslim population at the expense of their adopted countries. That’s a different debate. We know that here in America, they are granted a space created by our Constitution for freedom of religion in the public square and no specific religious test for office. They must follow our laws and are protected by them. Living and working alongside one another has its benefits and I generally favor the melting pot approach.
The debate here focuses on the effect that multiculturalism, the human rights crowd, and the public sentiment behind them can have upon freedom of expression when Human Rights Commissions are allowed legal recourse to settle this kind of dispute. This is one of the consequences of those ideas in action, and it’s not exactly liberal. It’s the multicultural solution, and it can be absolutely chilling on speech, placing onerous financial burdens on citizens, and it can create a sort of shadow court with aims of its own (if not jurisdiction) operating alongside the regular courts.
We’re not anywhere near Choudary territory yet, but remember that Nidal Hasan, the Ft. Hood shooter, had some problems with “workplace violence”. Most multiculturalists really don’t see a problem with their approach.
***A friend points out that the illiberal tendencies of the Muslim complainants in both cases and the illiberalism of the multiculturalists is a good fit. Just don’t be a Canadian on the receiving end.
***This also helps to confirm the libertarian contention that libertarians are the true classical liberals, and modern liberalism has followed the logic of moral relativism, a lot of Continental, New Left, neo-Marxist influences in feminism and race theory which lead to an unhealthy desire to control and be controlled by the State, which will grow larger and larger.
