I鈥檝e been following the news story about Lindsay Shepherd and Wilfred Laurier University with great interest. If you are unfamiliar, Shepherd is a teaching assistant, who presented a video to first year communications students. The video was, actually, a televised debate to illustrate the politics of grammar, and in particular, gender pronouns. Shepherd offered no opinion when she presented the video. That, as it turns out, was her undoing because she ended up being reprimanded for violating the school鈥檚 Gendered and Sexual Violence policy.聽 She was bullied by three university administrators but the young lady was smart enough to record the lashing and there is no question her superiors were big time out of line. Laurier has faced significant backlash and have offered a half handed apology but there is no sign of reprimand to Shepherd鈥檚 interrogators.聽 Shepherd wasn鈥檛 allowed to even learn how many people had complained of her 鈥榮preading transphobia鈥� lecture. I suspect, the answer is one.聽 Shepherd was told she was welcome to have an opinion (yet she didn鈥檛 give it), but bringing the subject into the context of the classroom can make for an unsafe learning environment for these young adults. The superiors told Shepherd these young adults do not have the critical toolkit to pick apart something of this nature. She was also told what she did was akin to presenting a Hitler lecture.聽
Ah yes, one of the left鈥檚 favorite tactics. Compare everything to Hitler. One thing that crazy left wing people always seem to ignore is that the world鈥檚 worst rulers and dictators all came from a hard left background. But, I digress.
I saw a Tweet last week that put extreme left wing people in the perfect light. It was stated by a retired lawyer, who describes it this way:聽 鈥淒efend and tolerate the most intolerant barbaric cultures in the name of tolerance, then become viciously intolerant to those not tolerant of the intolerant barbaric practices.鈥� The tweet was a response to our Liberal government鈥檚 vague program that is designed to treat returning ISIS fighters with love and reintegration. I believe the term we are, officially, using is Returning Islamic Travelers. Unbelievable. 聽
Jordan B. Peterson is a lecturer from the University of Toronto and his opinion was the one shown in the video played by Shepherd that has the Laurier administrators deeply offended.聽 Peterson has decided to take on those who are politically correct with a great deal of vigilance. The video clips I鈥檝e watched of him are not at all hateful. The guy is trying to restore some common sense to a country that let it go running out the door long ago. Peterson gives the best definition of politically correct people that I have ever seen. He says, 鈥淚t鈥檚 an ideological game.聽 The outcome is designed to make the player feel superior and also to take serious axe swings at the foundation of society.聽 They identify a domain of human endeavour and note that some people are doing, comparatively, better and some people are doing, comparatively, worse. Define those doing worse as victims.聽 Define those doing better as perpetrators. Identify with the victims, have a set of enemies handy to vent your resentment towards and then feel good even though it required no work on your part and then, endlessly, repeat.鈥� This couldn鈥檛 be any more true, in my opinion. 聽
Peterson also says he used to work for Rachel Notley鈥檚 father and mother in the NDP and has some very nice things to say about them. So, he can鈥檛 be all that radical of a right winger. Yet, Peterson says he also noted that many Party functionaries didn鈥檛 like the working class, at all, like they claim. They just hated the rich. In fact, they are so resentful that they are willing to pull down any structure that has hierarchy because of resentment of not being on the top. 聽
I think where Peterson strikes a nerve with some folks is his refusal to adopt 鈥榥ew鈥� pronouns to address people. In fact, in the televised video shown to the communications students, Peterson says U of T has made anti-racism and anti-biased training as mandatory for Human Resources employees.聽 He feels it鈥檚 an incursion into the domain of political opinion and free speech. When asked if he had taken the training, Peterson says, sharply, 鈥淣o way, not a chance.鈥�
He makes a very good point when talking about how 鈥榥ew鈥� words get introduced and accepted. You don鈥檛 ever see words that are created and forced on to people. And, he鈥檚 right.聽 For example, the word 鈥榯weet鈥� or the word 鈥榮elfie鈥� have been introduced, almost by accident. Yet, we鈥檝e all accepted them and use them and know what they mean. I have to agree that telling me I 鈥榟ave鈥� to use ze and zir because they are 鈥榥ew鈥� gender neutral pronouns created by some bureaucrat with no work to do is an infringement on my free speech and an attempt to shove something on to society that isn鈥檛, necessarily, welcomed. 聽
The entire video is on YouTube.聽 It鈥檚 called, 鈥楪enders, Rights, and Freedom Of Speech鈥�. It鈥檚 an hour long, but there are parts of the debate that are fantastic if you are the type of person who enjoys listening to two sides of a story with an open mind.
Nice person mentions return next week.
