Now that we have a new thread, in order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a complete and thorough read before posting!
NOTE: When providing a source, please provide a very brief summary on what it's about and what purpose it adds to the discussion. The supporting statement should clearly explain why the subject is relevant and needs to be discussed. Please follow this rule especially for tweets.
Your supporting statement should always come BEFORE you provide the source.
On April 07 2018 18:59 Schmobutzen wrote: I don't like to defend Peterson but he never said that with the lipstick women ask to get sexually assaulted, he just said that with lipstick they heighten their sexual signals, which is only very true. Peterson doesn't want to understand the history of communism. There lies his bias. There is no A Marxism! Lenin's and Stalin's and Mao's communism were tyrannies as! Although Stephen Kotkin showed a different interpretation as he unveiled the private discussions of Stalin and co and they were even in private a lot more communists than we thought...
I suppose I should have used the term sexual harassment instead of sexual assault, but Peterson clearly says that using makeup and wearing high heels is "hypocritical" for women who want to end sexual harassment, and he brings up this point as a direct counterpoint when responding that he believes sexual harassment should end. I feel like the implications for victim blaming are quite clear here, in his suggestion that women should go out of their way to be seen as unattractive as possible (despite the fact that sexual attraction is subjective and often times different for different people... like how some men are less attracted to women who put on certain makeup or use certain colors):
His point was made in the context of the workplace, but it's fundamentally and pragmatically no different than saying "That girl was being catcalled (or worse) as she walked down the street, but what did she expect, given what she was wearing?"
On April 07 2018 21:21 Schmobutzen wrote: It is not as silly as you think. The problem is, that men are more predators and aggressive. Paired with signals it can lead to unwanted attentions.
I think that is a very interesting subject, but not for thus thread. Ok?
I think sexual harassment/ assault and people's views on them are a legitimate topic, and certainly Peterson (although Canadian) has been given quite a well-supported platform by conservatives and people who are very freedom of speech -oriented, especially when it comes to gender pronouns and other issues.
Holy shit. He's even worse than I think he is every time I hear him speak. "We don't know what the rules are, here's a rule: no make-up in the work place."
It's not even as subtle as I was giving him "credit" for in the previous post. As soon as you start talking about rules that focus on not doing anything that might look provocative, even passively, as opposed to not being a harasser, you aren't interested in the problem being solved. You are interested in writing the social code of conduct to be easy for potential harassers to follow.
I agree. If we go down his path of assigning rules to lower the likelihood of sexual harassment, I think another stupid (but arguably better, considering it focuses on men rather than women, and in their conversation they were working off the premise that men are the harassers and women are the victims, which isn't always true but whatever) rule should be that men can only come to work in oversized shirts and pants with Cheetos stains and body odor, because if they're purposely being asked to not appear well-dressed and sharp and visually appealing and powerful, women won't have to worry about looking the part of a professional either.
I'm in favour of this rule. I'll finally be on a level playing field with all my male colleagues.
In all seriousness though, the concerning conclusion that we can draw from all of this is that we have somehow built a society where looking sexually attractive and looking professional are seen as one and the same, or at least where looking professional entails the same devices that you would use to look sexually attractive.
Probably around the time when the common position for a woman in an office building was as secretaries.
This part isn't hard to figure out. We live in a Capitalist society.
Money = Power
Power = Fundamentally attractive (irrespective of society)
Well-dressed = Probably having money
Thus suggesting all of the rest. It's not an accident that the more up-market your job is the more 'professional' you have to dress, the better your hair and shoes have to look, etc.
On April 07 2018 18:59 Schmobutzen wrote: I don't like to defend Peterson but he never said that with the lipstick women ask to get sexually assaulted, he just said that with lipstick they heighten their sexual signals, which is only very true. Peterson doesn't want to understand the history of communism. There lies his bias. There is no A Marxism! Lenin's and Stalin's and Mao's communism were tyrannies as! Although Stephen Kotkin showed a different interpretation as he unveiled the private discussions of Stalin and co and they were even in private a lot more communists than we thought...
I suppose I should have used the term sexual harassment instead of sexual assault, but Peterson clearly says that using makeup and wearing high heels is "hypocritical" for women who want to end sexual harassment, and he brings up this point as a direct counterpoint when responding that he believes sexual harassment should end. I feel like the implications for victim blaming are quite clear here, in his suggestion that women should go out of their way to be seen as unattractive as possible (despite the fact that sexual attraction is subjective and often times different for different people... like how some men are less attracted to women who put on certain makeup or use certain colors):
His point was made in the context of the workplace, but it's fundamentally and pragmatically no different than saying "That girl was being catcalled (or worse) as she walked down the street, but what did she expect, given what she was wearing?"
On April 07 2018 21:21 Schmobutzen wrote: It is not as silly as you think. The problem is, that men are more predators and aggressive. Paired with signals it can lead to unwanted attentions.
I think that is a very interesting subject, but not for thus thread. Ok?
I think sexual harassment/ assault and people's views on them are a legitimate topic, and certainly Peterson (although Canadian) has been given quite a well-supported platform by conservatives and people who are very freedom of speech -oriented, especially when it comes to gender pronouns and other issues.
Holy shit. He's even worse than I think he is every time I hear him speak. "We don't know what the rules are, here's a rule: no make-up in the work place."
It's not even as subtle as I was giving him "credit" for in the previous post. As soon as you start talking about rules that focus on not doing anything that might look provocative, even passively, as opposed to not being a harasser, you aren't interested in the problem being solved. You are interested in writing the social code of conduct to be easy for potential harassers to follow.
I agree. If we go down his path of assigning rules to lower the likelihood of sexual harassment, I think another stupid (but arguably better, considering it focuses on men rather than women, and in their conversation they were working off the premise that men are the harassers and women are the victims, which isn't always true but whatever) rule should be that men can only come to work in oversized shirts and pants with Cheetos stains and body odor, because if they're purposely being asked to not appear well-dressed and sharp and visually appealing and powerful, women won't have to worry about looking the part of a professional either.
I'm in favour of this rule. I'll finally be on a level playing field with all my male colleagues.
In all seriousness though, the concerning conclusion that we can draw from all of this is that we have somehow built a society where looking sexually attractive and looking professional are seen as one and the same, or at least where looking professional entails the same devices that you would use to look sexually attractive.
Probably around the time when the common position for a woman in an office building was as secretaries.
This part isn't hard to figure out. We live in a Capitalist society.
Money = Power
Power = Fundamentally attractive (irrespective of society)
Well-dressed = Probably having money
Thus suggesting all of the rest. It's not an accident that the more up-market your job is the more 'professional' you have to dress, the better your hair and shoes have to look, etc.
What's funny about that is there's nothing unprofessional about wearing cloths fitting your task. Putting a suit on a personal trainer doesn't make them more professional, it makes them less professional. The suit has a lot of purposes, but one is distinguish those who do manual labor from those who don't.
Not doing manual labor is not more professional than doing it. There we see the suit isn't intended to convey professionalism at all, it's intended to convey social class.
That's why billionaires think it's cute when they dress like the plebs.
Most jobs (especially those where looking "professional" in this way is considered important) involve some social actions. Social actions are more likely to succeed if the other person thinks that you are attractive. (One can argue why that is the case, but i doubt anyone argues that it is the case). Thus, you are more effective at your job if you are more attractive. Which makes dressing in an attractive way a reasonable expectation in that job.
I would especially like to mention that in jobs that don't require a lot of social interaction, looking "professional" as in suit, makeup etc... is usually not seen as important. (In fact, i can't really think of a counterexample to this)
What i fundamentally hate about this victim-blaming side of discussions about sexual harassment is how denigrating it is to me as a man. It seems like the people who use stuff like "she wears lipstick, thus you can't blame the people harassing her" etc... see men as utterly incapable of any control over their actions. I am not a fucking animal. I am capable of behaving like a human being. And thus, i am responsible for my own actions, i am not reacting to stimulus without any thought. If you are incapable of acting like a decent person because a woman wears lipstick or a short shirt, the reason is not that you are a man, the reason for that is that you are an asshole. Don't pull me into your being shitty. I have nothing to do with that.
On April 07 2018 23:33 Simberto wrote: Another, even simpler explanation:
Most jobs (especially those where looking "professional" in this way is considered important) involve some social actions. Social actions are more likely to succeed if the other person thinks that you are attractive. (One can argue why that is the case, but i doubt anyone argues that it is the case). Thus, you are more effective at your job if you are more attractive. Which makes dressing in an attractive way a reasonable expectation in that job.
I would especially like to mention that in jobs that don't require a lot of social interaction, looking "professional" as in suit, makeup etc... is usually not seen as important. (In fact, i can't really think of a counterexample to this)
What i fundamentally hate about this victim-blaming side of discussions about sexual harassment is how denigrating it is to me as a man. It seems like the people who use stuff like "she wears lipstick, thus you can't blame the people harassing her" etc... see men as utterly incapable of any control over their actions. I am not a fucking animal. I am capable of behaving like a human being. And thus, i am responsible for my own actions, i am not reacting to stimulus without any thought. If you are incapable of acting like a decent person because a woman wears lipstick or a short shirt, the reason is not that you are a man, the reason for that is that you are an asshole. Don't pull me into your being shitty. I have nothing to do with that.
Non-public facing civil service jobs are one that come to mind (might be different over there), here pretty much any office expected suits, but has slowly transitioned to shirts and ties for workers and suits for managers. Outside of offices it's tiered differently. For instance Walmart. You can tell the position of someone by their attire. Not in a "we're all equal but different" kind of identification way, but a quite visual caste system reflected right down to the materials used.
"professionalism" is most certainly a class issue as well as a gender issue. The social interaction focus plays a part but the deeper root is classism.
EDIT: Agreed in not wanting to be lumped in with the enlightened savages without self-control.
On April 07 2018 20:42 Schmobutzen wrote: Nur Peterson's point is this: why prop up your sexual attractiveness in a work environment at all? Even if this is only a secondary or a tertiary effect? Some signals can have tiny but nonetheless profound effects and can be misinterpreted.
The obvious answer being that they get paid less if they don’t. Blaming them for playing the game is dumb.
On April 08 2018 01:15 Acrofales wrote: Wtf does any of this pseudo red pill bullshit have to do with us politics. I thought I had clicked on the wrong thread...
One of the US political parties has been overtaken by red pill misogynists. That is unfortunately why it is relevant.
On April 08 2018 01:15 Acrofales wrote: Wtf does any of this pseudo red pill bullshit have to do with us politics. I thought I had clicked on the wrong thread...
Just our occasional foray into a detour of identity politics and gender roles.
On April 08 2018 01:15 Acrofales wrote: Wtf does any of this pseudo red pill bullshit have to do with us politics. I thought I had clicked on the wrong thread...
One of the US political parties has been overtaken by red pill misogynists. That is unfortunately why it is relevant.
For what it's worth, I believe the New Jersey Hampshire (edit, thanks zlefin) Republican representative who literally founded r/TheRedPill resigned. I was worried it'd just help his political career
On April 08 2018 01:15 Acrofales wrote: Wtf does any of this pseudo red pill bullshit have to do with us politics. I thought I had clicked on the wrong thread...
One of the US political parties has been overtaken by red pill misogynists. That is unfortunately why it is relevant.
For what it's worth, I believe the New Jersey Republican representative who literally founded r/TheRedPill resigned. I was worried it'd just help his political career
On April 08 2018 01:15 Acrofales wrote: Wtf does any of this pseudo red pill bullshit have to do with us politics. I thought I had clicked on the wrong thread...
One of the US political parties has been overtaken by red pill misogynists. That is unfortunately why it is relevant.
I never miss the irony in these people unironically calling themselves red-pilled, in reference to a film that pretty much digs into the exact opposite of what these people push for. It's pretty useful for knowing nothing of value is gonna come out of that person's mouth.
On April 08 2018 01:15 Acrofales wrote: Wtf does any of this pseudo red pill bullshit have to do with us politics. I thought I had clicked on the wrong thread...
One of the US political parties has been overtaken by red pill misogynists. That is unfortunately why it is relevant.
I never miss the irony in these people unironically calling themselves red-pilled, in reference to a film that pretty much digs into the exact opposite of what these people push for. It's pretty useful for knowing nothing of value is gonna come out of that person's mouth.
I honestly never got the connection. Sure I understand where the reference is coming from, but like you said it doesn't have anything to do with what these guys are for, you could argue it's the exact opposite.
It's funny to see Peterson discussed by people who clearly have no idea what he's about, and also clearly get their distilled second-hand information on his (enormously profound to say the least) belief system from apartchik media like the Guardian and other partisan rags that keep producing - for reasons that should appear suspicious to any sensible person - wildly satirical, stumbling, fumbling hit pieces on the man . . . while asking for money in their site banners lol.
In the grand scheme of things, you're just adding fire to the cultural shift you don't see happening (though looking acutely into its more concerning ill symptoms, such as MGTOW, alt-right, pua, the apparent existential impotence of millenials in the real world etc., should have been obvious red flags) because eventually, many legitimately curious people are so shockingly surprised to learn how much sense is made by someone so reviled and misrepresented by the cultural establishment, they begin to suspect, like Sam Harris recently said, that the left has gone batshit insane on its "de-platforming" and shaming enforcement of the "golden path" - or whatever it's calling its ing-soc project nowadays - to a degree it can no longer even be talked to without employing misrepresentations and hysteria.
Get at least moderately informed, really. Please. I don't even know how he gets brought up in this discussion? I was stating my opinion on democracy, which let's be honest produced President Trump so ... you can't hate one with a passion and pedestal the other. There are some emerging problems, clearly.
Also, opening (for what seems like the first time ever because hey, you need massive balls) the discussion of women constantly passively flaunting their sexual attraction in the workplace, where it really has no business participating as a human trait since we're supposedly looking for a sexuality-free - you know, professional, meritocratic and so on - environment where men are expected to not only keep their own sexual impulses in check (...doh!) but also off their bias radar etc, etc, etc seems like a rather reasonable issue in a time demonstrably obsessed with talking about issues of sexuality. It's just not something anyone would expect since 1) you need to raise the entire problem to a higher conceptual plane of inquiry 2) womyn are apparently the only sex
User was warned for this post (not an acceptable way to start the post)
On the basis of its recurringly one-sided articles, whose narrative tone you can guess in advance on every single issue?
Name ten issues and I can give you the Guardian stance on them without getting one wrong. How is that "journalism"?
I consider it to be the ultimate ideological turd-publication of 2018, and I used to read it with genuine interest for many years. Now I read Quilette instead while hoping the same doesn't happen to the New Yorker.
This is my simple shit test in the bamboozling modern age: if you see the title of an article about some highly complex and divisive issue like migration, BLM, "liberal capitalism", #meToo etc., and you're able to accurately guess exactly how the issue will be presented, down to a T, you're not reading a medium, you're ingesting propaganda.
BTW while I'm still here, Shapiro and Peterson aren't "on the same side". At all. They literally have almost nothing in common apart from being religious and respectfully traditionalist when it comes to social norms and the economy. It's simply not a half-decent grasp of the situation if that's what a person believes. And neither is Molyneux (!!!)
Ben is a shill for his particular political agenda whose above-average rhetorical skills are somehow confused for intelligence (though he fails to pass the shit test every time, whether addressing guns, abortion, Palestine, you name it). He's basically the mirror version of Cenk in that regard, and I don't take any of the two seriously.
Moulin rogue on the other hand is a scare-tactic-peddling mysoginist. Hasn't he announced the collapse of the dollar like five times by now? He's basically a clown.
I'm pretty well familiar with all three so you can trust me on that assessment. Seeing these men constantly lumped together (only because they share some of the same "fans", most of whom are on the less astute part of the rather hard-ish right) is enough to make me seriously worried about the resolution of public discourse.
On April 08 2018 02:54 Kickboxer wrote: It's funny to see Peterson discussed by people who clearly have no idea what he's about, and also clearly get their distilled second-hand information on his (enormously profound to say the least) belief system from apartchik media like the Guardian and other partisan rags that keep producing - for reasons that should appear suspicious to any sensible person - wildly satirical, stumbling, fumbling hit pieces on the man . . . while asking for money in their site banners lol.
I can't speak for anyone else, but my information that I obtain about Peterson, while partially from news articles, is mostly from watching him take part in live debates and interviews and class lectures (including the clip that I actually posted). Despite your accusation that information about Peterson has been "distilled" by "partisan rags", the vast majority of videos that I've found- especially those on YouTube- are actually presented by pro-Peterson supporters. I become informed by watching those videos and listening to what Jordan Peterson says, which is how I've constructed my opinion of him.
And I agree with a lot of the things he says. And I disagree with plenty of other things he says.
On April 08 2018 03:19 Kickboxer wrote: On the basis of its recurringly one-sided articles, whose narrative tone you can guess in advance on every single issue?
Name ten issues and I can give you the Guardian stance on them without getting one wrong. How is that "journalism"?
I consider it to be the ultimate ideological turd-publication of 2018, and I used to read it with genuine interest for many years. Now I read Quilette instead while hoping the same doesn't happen to the New Yorker.
This is my simple shit test in the bamboozling modern age: if you see the title of an article about some highly complex and divisive issue like migration, BLM, "liberal capitalism", #meToo etc., and you're able to accurately guess exactly how the issue will be presented, down to a T, you're not reading a medium, you're ingesting propaganda.
so are you claiming that the quality of the guardian used to be decent, and it just got worse recently?
also, on the guardian's stances, are you getting those from the editorial board, or the reporting part?
I'd also be interested to your answer on the prior question I had a bit back when you were bringing up stupid voters (i.e. are you one of the people who should be voting if such a system were implemented to limit the vote to some level of smartness/knowledge)
Cool PlasmaBall, in that case I can respect your opinion. I'm not sure I'll be around long anyway since I seem to have gotten a fresh warning (?) for what I naively believed to be a rather well laid-out post and a direct response to certain snarky comments.
On top of that, I'm just back from a two-week ban earned for speaking jocularly about Obama and Clinton (would be ok if Trump I bet), which was preceded by a week-long ban for making a joke about Sessions that another poster literally described "as the funniest thing he's read on TL" and others approved of as well.
Because it was funny. You can go back and see.
To me, what I perceive as blatant over-moderation (in the context of my other posts which I've tried to keep constructive as I've been here for a decade or so) on a site I've always perceived as well-balanced is sheer proof of the issues we're talking about. It feels like the Comrades are about to ship me off to wrongthink land any time now.
Zlefin I can't say if I've became aware of the Guardian issue due to my own persisting cognitive slide from the moderate left to (what I guess is now seen as) the moderate right, or if it's changes in their writing. I was severely disappointed by several articles in a row, and then the hit piece they did on Peterson was the final nail in this regard for me since I'm pretty sure I know the topic very well. It was, and I'm not kidding, one of the dirtiest smear pieces I've ever read.
As to who should be voting in an ideal democracy, that's an extensive and complicated issue. What I can say for certain is "not everyone". People who understand civic matters and concept like information bubbles and fake news, going forward. On some issues, though I consider myself to be unusually smart relatively speaking, I would not put even myself in that category, no. Maybe we need an AI running things.
Most of Petersons appeal is just that a loud section of the left actually is completely bonkers and that there is like no conservative intellectual that isn't a complete hack or somehow totally crazy on some issues. I agree on plenty of his stuff but much of it is just plain obvious and think he is completely off on others. He for sure isn't the boogeyman much of the media paints him as, but the worship he gets from his fans is plain ridiculous. That he has such success with his self help book and plenty of plain common sense themes feels weird to me. The guy could tell people to close their jacket if its cold and some would praise him for it
EPT
