Sunday, February 14, 2021



Hit-job journalism misses the target again

Jordan Peterson's critics continue to ignore the most interesting thing about him

The hit-job interview is a staple of British journalism. There is, I suppose, an obvious attraction to it: while it can destroy its subject, it can also make the career of a journalist. And yet for the reader, listener or viewer, it can also be deeply boring — for the simple reason that if the journalist makes clear their conclusion from the outset, there’s no chance of having a reasonable discussion. People who agree with it rejoice, those who don’t switch off. Nothing gets learned; no ideas are properly discussed.

Such was the case with an interview published in last week’s Sunday Times by the journalist Decca Aitkenhead. Her subject was Professor Jordan Peterson, and, like everything to do with Peterson, the interview has kicked up a fair amount of fuss — principally because it was so mean and hostile.

Peterson has been exceptionally ill of late. Since he withdrew from public life 18 months ago, he has almost died a number of times. He has since recovered, and will next month publish the sequel to his phenomenal bestseller ’12 Rules for Life’.

A fortnight ago, we spoke together publicly for the first time since his illness and discussed a number of themes, ranging from last month’s storming of the Capitol to the meaning of life. Despite the terrible health issues he has had to endure, I was relieved to find Jordan in fine working order. As ever, he was thoughtful, engaged and intricately knowledgeable.

Our conversation lasted just under two hours, but — as is usually the case with Jordan — it left me wanting more, as is the way with any serious discussion. Although hers was an interview with Peterson, rather than a discussion, it is obvious that Aitkenhead, who has spent much of her career at the Guardian, had a very different aim.

In the fallout since the interview, the Peterson family have made public the messages that The Sunday Times sent in an attempt to persuade Peterson to do the interview. These communications talked of the sympathy that the journalist felt towards Peterson after his ill-health. A commissioning editor at the paper wished him well and described how the profile piece “would cover his life and career to date”. The paper promised: “We run longform features, telling the whole story, rather than short flashy headlines.”

The resulting piece was headlined: “Jordan Peterson on his depression, drug dependency and Russian rehab hell” — which while not “short” is hardly the opposite of “flashy”.

The same standards appear to have been applied to the piece’s accuracy. During the interview, Aitkenhead made a number of serious errors — including the claim that Peterson had been diagnosed with schizophrenia. It was immediately repeated in newspapers around the world, before the Peterson family posted a recording of the interview, showing that it was incorrect. Ordinarily accusing someone of schizophrenia would be a major issue; that it has only formed a part of the discussion surely says something about the relentless hostility of the rest of the interview.

Atikenhead seemed unsympathetic to Peterson’s illness. And a considerable portion of the interview is dedicated to disparaging Mikhaila, who had helped to facilitate the interview. As is clear from the recording, a number of Aitkenhead’s claims — such as that Mikhaila at one point “interrupts sharply… raises her voice and waves her arms” — are what a benevolent editor might call “colour”, but what other people might call “exaggeration”.

And it is the ‘colour’ that Aitkenhead pumps into the piece that is so revealing. For example, we are told that Mikhaila talks “with the zealous, spiky conviction of a President Trump press spokeswoman”. Why — of all the women in the world — might that imprecise example come to mind, other than to try and force a link between Trump and Peterson? Elsewhere, there is little subtlety: “Parallels with Donald Trump come to mind; another unhappy man closed off from his emotions, projecting strong man mythology while hunkered down in a bunker with his family against the world.”

Such a comparison is so inexact as to be wilful. Regardless of whether Donald Trump is “closed off from his emotions” — and that never seems to have been his problem — Peterson’s connection to his own emotions, and indeed his fragility while speaking in public, is one of the traits that makes him most unusual. I have seen large auditoriums hold their breath as they have heard Peterson’s voice teeter on the edge of tears. But that needn’t bother Aitkenhead, who seems more intent on carrying out hits.

That would certainly explain her diagnosis of Peterson’s recent battle with various prescription drugs: “I wonder whether toxic masculinity might have been a culprit.” But how does such a claim bring any value to her piece? Why use the term “toxic masculinity”, as though it is a genuine medical condition which can only be diagnosed by journalists of a certain political persuasion?

The problem with all this is that not only does it reveal an interviewer’s ideological motivations, but, more importantly, it means that the reader doesn’t learn anything of value. Of course, the fact that Jordan Peterson has been ill is of some interest. But it is the least interesting “interesting thing” about him.

Yet the same mistakes continue to be played out over and over again — each time being replicated almost exactly. In her piece, Aitkenhead refers in passing to the now infamous exchange between Peterson and Channel 4’s Cathy Newman: “His explosive confrontation with Cathy Newman on Channel 4 News in 2018 resulted in the network calling in security experts after some of his supporters posted abuse and threats online.”

In fact, that exchange was a rare glitch in the media matrix. Channel 4 sent their interviewer in to do the usual, crass and ill-informed hatchet job. She was meant to put words into her interviewee’s mouths, deliberately misrepresent his thoughts and then send him packing, only for Peterson to expertly turn the tables, reducing his interviewer to silence. But as this latest incident demonstrates, Channel 4’s failure seems to have done little to discourage journalists from burnishing their portfolios with hit-jobs.

In the end, what’s most striking about Peterson’s Sunday Times interview is how it proves that a certain type of journalist simply won’t give up. Even after all these years, the attempt to bring Peterson down continues. But by continuing their crusade, his detractors continue to ignore the most interesting thing about him: why it is that Peterson has made such a difference to peoples’ lives.

For that is an unusual phenomenon; unusual on such a scale that you’d think a journalist might care to find out what is going on here. Yet once again, the person sent to do over Peterson was not acting as a journalist, but as an ideological opponent hoping to finally take him out. And once again, the person who came off worse was not the subject of the interview, but its author.

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Woke Pentagon Attacks Skepticism and Extremism

It’s good to know the adults are back in charge. Otherwise, we’d lie awake in bed at night, wondering what we’re going to do about those twin scourges of global warming and white supremacy.

Naturally, the architect for this new approach to national defense will be Joe Biden’s man at the Pentagon. As The Washington Times reports, “Across the armed forces, climate change and its ripple effects are taking center stage. … The military’s climate change mitigation efforts certainly did not stop during the Trump administration, but the issue was pushed to the political back burner. Top leadership in the Defense Department rarely spoke out on environmental matters despite mounting concerns behind the scenes that it remain a top priority.

Now, analysts and military insiders say, the Pentagon under Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has an opening to reshape the climate change debate fundamentally and permanently, perhaps putting an end to any remaining internal skepticism over whether the issue is deserving of time and resources.”

Got that? The Pentagon will no longer tolerate climate skeptics. Because, well, the science is settled.

Austin, 67, is our nation’s first black secretary of defense and therefore the perfect embodiment of the Biden administration’s obsession with race. A West Point graduate and former commander of U.S. Central Command under Barack Obama, Austin retired in 2016 and therefore needed a waiver from Congress to override the law that says a member of our military must wait seven years from active service to take the top civilian post.

“Given the immense and urgent threats and challenges our nation faces, he should be confirmed swiftly,” Biden wrote in a predictably hagiographic Atlantic op-ed. “The fact is, Austin’s many strengths and his intimate knowledge of the Department of Defense and our government are uniquely matched to the challenges and crises we face.”

Austin got his waiver, and he was quickly confirmed on a 93-2 vote in the Senate. Missouri’s Josh Hawley and Utah’s Mike Lee were opposed.

Once confirmed, Austin didn’t waste any time getting to the crux of what ails our nation’s military. As The Hill reports, “Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on Wednesday ordered a U.S. military-wide ‘stand-down’ to address extremism in the ranks, an issue that has long stumped Pentagon leaders but came to the forefront after the Jan. 6 breach of the U.S. Capitol. The Defense Department is still scant on details on Austin’s decision, which came after he met with Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Mark Milley and the service secretaries and chiefs on Wednesday morning. Leaders are expected to hold ‘needed discussions’ with subordinates about extremism in the next 60 days, top department spokesperson John Kirby told reporters at the Pentagon.”

The Washington Examiner adds, “The FBI is reportedly investigating 25 individuals at the riot who might be active service members or veterans, according to the Military Times. Almost nothing is known about the status or details of any of the investigations. The only service member who authorities have fingered as part of the siege on the Capitol is Timothy Louis Hale-Cusanelli, an Army reservist.”

Lloyd Austin, said Joe Biden, “is the person we need in this moment.” We’re to assume, then, that this moment demands that our military focus on the non-calamity of climate change and the white supremacist “extremism” that has infected its rotten ranks. If those two initiatives don’t build troop morale, it’s hard to imagine what will.

But here we thought the mission of our Department of Defense was “to provide the military forces needed to deter war and ensure our nation’s security” — you know, like it says right here on its website.

We can only hope that our military readiness doesn’t suffer, and that our failure to focus on war-fighting doesn’t prove provocative.

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Religious freedom threatened by the proposed “Equality Act"

You might expect churches and religious schools, of all places, to remain safe from the government’s meddling hands.

Our Constitution does guarantee religious freedom, after all.

But if the “Equality Act” is passed—which President Biden has promised to push for in the first 100 days of his administration—not even churches and religious schools will be safe from the government’s reach.

The deceptively named “Equality Act” would add “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” as protected classes to existing laws banning discrimination in places of public accommodation, employment, housing, and by recipients of federal financial assistance.

And while its name may sound nice to some, the “Equality Act” actually poses devastating and unprecedented threats to religious freedom.

We’ve already seen examples of these threats where similar legislation has been passed at the state and local levels. Now, let’s take a look at what the “Equality Act” would mean for churches and religious schools.

Forcing churches to abandon biblical teaching on human sexuality
In Massachusetts, state officials declared that churches are subject to state public accommodation laws. That meant if churches host public activities – something as simple as a spaghetti supper – they would be forced to open women’s private changing areas and restrooms to biological men. If a church refused, it would face crippling fines and even jail time.

This impacted people like Pastor Esteban Carrasco and House of Destiny Ministries. Esteban and his church wanted to open a women’s shelter for survivors of domestic violence. But according to this interpretation of the law, they would be forced to allow men who identify as female to use the same changing rooms, restrooms, and living facilities as these vulnerable women.

Thankfully, in response to an ADF lawsuit, state officials reversed course and admitted that the First Amendment protects a church’s freedom to operate consistently with its faith even when it hosts community outreach events.

But situations like this will multiply if the “Equality Act” is imposed on the whole country.

Demanding Christian schools act against their beliefs
In South Euclid, Ohio, city officials passed a city ordinance that adds sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression as protected classes under the law.

This deeply concerned The Lyceum, a classical, Catholic school, so it spoke out against the ordinance from the very beginning. Still, the city voted to pass it.

The Lyceum operates according to the teachings of the Catholic Church, including its beliefs on human sexuality and marriage – and it asks its employees to do the same. It also asks its students to abide by the school’s faith-based conduct policies while the student attends The Lyceum.

The Lyceum was concerned that the ordinance could force it to employ people whose actions conflict with the school’s beliefs, and might force the school to abandon its faith-based standards for student conduct. The Lyceum reached out to the city multiple times to find out if it would face substantial fines and even jail time for its administration if it operates according to its religious beliefs. But the city refused to say.

That’s why ADF filed a lawsuit on behalf of The Lyceum.

Thankfully, in response to the lawsuit, the city admitted that The Lyceum has the right to hire employees that share its beliefs. But the school would likely not have that same freedom if the “Equality Act” becomes the law of the land.

The “Equality Act” also threatens religious colleges and universities, forbidding college students from using their federal tuition assistance at schools that “discriminate” on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity. That means any Christian university that has a code of conduct prohibiting sex outside of marriage or that declines to let biological males compete on women’s sports teams could lose federal student aid.

While you might expect churches and Christian schools to be safe from such government overreach, experience tells us that this will not be the case if the “Equality Act” is made law.

The bottom line is that our laws must respect freedom and promote justice for every citizen, no matter who they are. But that is not what the “Equality Act” does. Instead, it threatens Americans’ fundamental liberties. And that is something no American should stand for.

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When the Hateful Think They Are the Virtuous

This week, Virginia Heffernan, a columnist for the Los Angeles Times, unleashed the most perverse column in recent memory. The title: “What can you do about the Trumpites next door?”

Heffernan wasn’t lamenting neighbors who had tagged her house with pro-Trump graffiti, or who had participated in the Jan. 6 riots, or who had even held an election watch party and turned the music up too loud.

No, Heffernan was lamenting the travails of living next door to Trump supporters … who had cleared her driveway of snow.

Heffernan writes, “Trumpites next door to our pandemic getaway … just plowed our driveway without being asked and did a great job.” This simple act launched Heffernan into a journey of angst and rage.

“How am I going to resist demands for unity in the face of this act of aggressive niceness?” she laments. “I realize I owe them thanks—and, man, it really looks like the guy back-dragged the driveway like a pro—but how much thanks?”

In order to justify the answer she wants to give—as little thanks as possible, because, after all, these are Evil Trumpites—Heffernan proceeds to speculate as to her neighbors’ motives: Perhaps they only cleared her driveway because she and they were white.

Or perhaps this whole event was a reminder that members of evil groups sometimes do good—she compares them to the Shiite terrorist group Hezbollah, Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, and the Nazis.

If she treats her neighbors with too much decency, she reminds herself, that might make her like an upper-middle-class family from France who collaborated with the Nazis and lamented the Nazis’ defeat because of their commitment to being “polite.”

Heffernan seethes with the agony of cognitive dissonance. “My neighbors supported a man who showed near-murderous contempt for the majority of Americans,” she writes. “They kept him in business with their support. But the plowing.”

In the end, Heffernan’s solution is to be nice—but not that nice. She will offer a “wave and a thanks,” but she is “not ready to knock on the door with a covered dish yet.”

She’s unwilling to give her neighbors “absolution,” ignoring the fact that they have not asked for absolution, nor do they require absolution for the great sin of voting differently and clearing her driveway of snow.

“Free driveway work, as nice as it is,” Heffernan states, “is just not the same currency as justice and truth.”

The only way she’ll be able to truly treat her neighbors decently is if they recognize “the truth about the Trump administration” and work “for justice for all those whom the administration harmed.” Then, she’ll be decent to her neighbors.

Heffernan’s neighbors should immediately pile as much snow as humanly possible back onto her driveway, hose it off, and let it freeze.

The nasty snootiness Heffernan evidences is all too common these days. Heffernan obviously judges her neighbors not on the basis of what she knows about them but on stereotypes she holds about all Trump voters.

When faced with the reality that those who disagree with her can be nice and decent people, she simply dismisses the possibility altogether, justifying her own viciousness by referencing their supposedly radical political beliefs. Which, of course, makes her the villainess in this particular morality play.

But she’s too blind to see it. These days, tens of millions of Americans are. And so, the social fabric continues to shred, all in the name of depraved, unearned moral superiority.

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My other blogs. Main ones below:

http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com TONGUE-TIED)

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://john-ray.blogspot.com (FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

https://heofen.blogspot.com/ (MY OTHER BLOGS)

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1 comment:

ScienceABC123 said...

How does that comment go... "Haters are going to hate."