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Culture War Roundup for the week of August 28, 2023

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Peterson disparages a former client as "vindictive", dismisses their complaints as a "pack of lies"

I don't see the problem here? There's a good chance that the client was vindictive, and their complaints were based on lies. As long as he doesn't reveal any of his clients' personal information, there's no issue with him expressing his views on these matters.

and refers to a fellow practicing physician as "criminal" for performing an otherwise legal surgery.

Obviously he's using "criminal" in this case to pass moral judgment on the physician's conduct, rather than making an accusation about actual illegalities. Censuring Peterson for this statement comes off as an attempt to establish this physician's conduct, and the medical establishment's treatment of gender issues more broadly, as being beyond ethical scrutiny - which is something that I certainly cannot accept.

For the most part I disagree with the OP's post, but I do basically agree with the idea that describing someone as "criminal" is defamatory in a way that describing them as "evil" isn't.

On the other hand, this standard is probably applied inconsistently (hard to imagine a psychologist getting into trouble for describing Trump as a criminal, even if Trump had never been convicted of any crimes).

I don't think this is a desirable standard.

Imagine if a psychologist in the 1960s was disciplined for describing another psychologist who performed lobotomies as a "criminal."