I think this enemies put him under more pressure than a man can reasonably be expected to bear, and eventually it was too much. I still vividly remember the Cathy Newman (Channel 4) interview: I have never seen an interviewer more clearly intent on ruining someone. He won that bout, but enduring that over and over again would wreck anybody.
In case it's not obvious, I have a lot of sympathy for Peterson. Many influencers are indeed obnoxious grifters, but Peterson really does seem to have been a good man who was trying his best. Having people come after you like that changes the way you look at the world. I had a much smaller, more intimate experience along the same lines and it definitely radicalised me in many ways.
Corvos
13d ago
The latter informs the former, though. I'm not saying they're literally too stupid to understand, they just won't explicitly think about the connection between the money they're hoping to get for the house and the money young people are spending on housing unless pushed quite hard.
For example, when I was growing up I was a noodle-armed nerd whose hobbies were reading and needlework. I liked (but never tried to wear) dresses, almost all my favourite characters were female, and I hated sports. The thought crossed my mind many times that I would have been happier if I'd been born as a woman, and I am very, very grateful that nobody was around to tell me "maybe you were".
@dovetailing put it well:
"What if that part of me that already -- at least somewhat -- wanted to be a woman had been socially encouraged, been amplified, been given a (positive-valence) identity category; what if I'd been encouraged to indulge in this, been offered "specialness" and affirmation and a ready-made memeplex, all when I was young and socially and emotionally vulnerable? Then I could see myself having gone down that path."
Corvos
16d ago
In my experience, boomers are very keen on the rising value of their house, and also upset that their children can't get on the property ladder. Falling property prices in London are met with horror and fury.
In other words, they generally don't connect "the rising value of my house" to the immiseration of young people.
Corvos
16d ago
The school really is pretty grim, though. Its big selling point is that it takes children from all sorts of different minority backgrounds, forces them to get along, and manages to educate them to a high level. But the price for that is severe: anything which might cause cultural conflict between children is removed. So all meals are vegetarian, to prevent conflict between vegetarians and meat-eaters. Muslims don't get to pray, and neither do Christians. I have sympathy in this specific case because the prayer conflict resulted from aggressive children forcing others to pray or be labelled bad muslims, but my feelings about the school are ambivalent.
If the only way to make a multicultural community work is an aggressive secularism that excises huge bits of everyday life, I'm not sure that's worth it.
I think it means, as you say, specific, personal drama from other forums. If I recall correctly, someone got tempbanned a few years ago for making a top-level post that was just a blow-by-blow of drama they'd had on a different site. I would guess the intent is to prevent the Motte being recruited for internet raids and turf wars. Probably less relevant now we aren't on reddit.
More options
Context Copy link