By Olivia Pierson
http://www.oliviapierson.org/b...
If ever there lived a personification of the worst aspects of our post-modern culture, it is genderqueer Professor of Physics, A.W Peet, who left NZ’s shores and now thankfully resides in Toronto. Apologies O Canada! (Though you probably deserve it.)
I first stumbled across this scrawny little autocrat when viewing an interview with the eminently sensible Professor of Psychology at Toronto University, Jordan Peterson. Peterson came under fire back in 2016 for his opposition to the Canadian government’s Bill C-16, which sought to amend the Canadian Human Rights Act and the Criminal Code by adding “gender identity and self expression” as protected ground from discrimination. The bill has since been passed. Peterson argued that the bill was an assault on free speech where he as a professor could be prosecuted under human rights laws if he fails to call a transsexual student or faculty member by the individual's pronoun of choice: “zie" and “zir" etc - or in Peet’s case the particularly language-bending “they” in reference to itself as a singular entity.
Peterson contended that he doesn’t believe that other people have the right to determine what language he uses, especially when it’s backed by punitive legislation. He added:
“It is a dangerous precedent to demand that people use certain words when they are formulating their own ideas.”
Peterson was profoundly correct that controlling speech by means of the law is dangerous. In fact it is the mark of a culture on the path to totalitarianism - a fact that Peterson knows well, and this is why he tenaciously fights it.
Communism under Josef Stalin and Mao Zedong brutally controlled speech - and purposely placed all speech in the realm of the political by encouraging citizens to spy and report on their neighbours for unacceptable phrases and conversations. Transgressors were made examples of by being arrested, denounced, tortured, imprisoned and usually murdered - exactly what is happening in North Korea as I write. This was the nefarious foundation of “politically correct” speech in the 20th Century. We should all flee a million miles away from anything that slightly smacks of it.
Totalitarian regimes need to pervert language in order to control and restrict freedom of thought, since thoughts are the powerful mental concepts which fuel our actions - but without the words to name concepts the mind literally cannot conceive of them. Policing the words and phrases of grown human beings is naked population control.
George Orwell gave us an unforgettable example of this thought control in his famous book 1984, where the only vocal utterances allowed were called “newspeak” - and compliance was compulsory.
The fearless Russian-American author Ayn Rand, who defected from the Soviet Union, wrote her insightful little book Anthem about a collectivist society that has eradicated the pronouns "I,""you" and "mine" in language and thought - only "we,""they" and "our" are allowed in their stead. It depicts a purely group-oriented social order where the individual was a thoroughly forbidden concept, along with all of its ensuing creations - livelihood, love, joy, family, innovation, art and technology.
In a priceless and very telling moment during the interview with Peterson and Peet, Peet responded to the idea that compelling people to speak “correctly” is dangerous with what has to be one of the most vacuous comebacks one could ever witness. It piped:
“One of the things I’d like to really look at in this controversy is to watch out for who’s getting centred in the discussion. Political Correctness is code that powerful people use when they are annoyed that they are not the centre of attention in any given discussion… and Bill C-16 is actually not about cisgender people, it’s about protections for transgender people - and that’s, you know, it’s not about Jordan Peterson.”
Huh? As Peet knew full well because he and Peterson are colleagues, it was Peterson who was given authoritarian letters of warning from Toronto University for “talking about” not complying with the proposed legislation. It “centred” him (another example of Peet's perversion of language), whether Peterson damn well wanted it or not!
The clincher was Peet’s resentful use of the term “powerful people.”
Peterson is indeed a powerful man but not because he wields power over others (as Peet desires to do). Peterson is powerful because he's intelligent, thoughtful, rational, articulate and won’t be pushed around by squeaky little leftist bullies who demand that the rest of the world comply with their subjective whims. It is Peterson’s resolute and competent objectivity which makes him so very powerful - and that is almost the perfect definition of what a real man ought to be. Peet should've be taking notes since it's trying so hard to be something resembling a man.
I dearly wish Jordan Peterson would come to live in New Zealand. We need objective intellectuals of his caliber. The other entity not so much... it should stay in Canada.