In a Telegraph article ostensibly about the pro-Hamas protests, Jordan Peterson describes the emerging new system:
If you are successful, in any guise, by any standards of comparison whatsoever, then you are a victimiser. If you are not, you are a victim.
A rigid moral claim accompanies this act of starkly black-and-white comparison: there are, as well, only two forms of acceptable and laudable moral conduct or reputation. If you are a victim, or an “ally,” you are with no further effort goodness incarnate. This is supposed, on “philosophical” grounds, to be self-evident, following as it does so deservedly in the wake of your loudly trumpeted compassion. If you are a victimiser, however, look the hell out: you are evil incarnate, and inescapably so: a predatory parasite, rightly subject to the most brutal of treatment. Indeed, the terrible treatment you thereby experience does nothing but redound to the credit of your so-Godly-and-compassionate persecutors.
If you are a victimiser, after all, you have no moral standing whatsoever. No punishment is therefore undeserved, or sufficiently severe. This is true even if you are “only” a member of a victimising group, and have done nothing wrong other than that, because “individual” is a category that within the postmodern philosophy no longer exists.
If you are a victim, by contrast, any and all moral outrage is justified, worthy and laudable – even morally required – even if you are merely a self-aggrandising, vindictive and hypocritical “ally” of some marginalised group. The fact that such latitude in reactive or vengeful action fully opens the door to the worst possible actions by the worst imaginable narcissists and psychopaths is also something rapidly glossed over or ignored by the vengeful ideologues of the postmodern Left – most likely because it is an outcome most intensely desired in the their most resentful fantasies.
The article begins “We are now exposed to the truly appalling spectacle of widespread demonstrations across the West supporting – explicitly or implicitly – the terrorists of Hamas.”
What exactly is a demonstration that ‘implicitly’ supports the terrorist of Hamas? Is it a demonstration that doesn’t in fact support the terrorists of Hamas, but which is claimed by Jordan Peterson to do so?
How about a demonstration which gives lip service to the “genocide is bad, mmkay” idea but which also supports the political objectives of Hamas, or one which doesn’t explicitly support even those objectives but which pretends that the attack by Hamas and the response by Israel are somehow morally equivalent?
Not to mention all the smarmy SOBs who like to somehow infer that all of the horrible things Hamas does are a logical and inevitable consequence of the evils of the Joos.
Ayn Rand said very similar things in Atlas Shrugged, which is all about the inversion of moral values.
Haven’t looked at the full article yet, but going by the quote, J. Peterson misses something fundamental:
It’s not like that; it’s more like:
If you are **a member of a successful intersectional group**, in any guise, by any standards of comparison whatsoever, then you are a victimiser. If you are not, you are a victim.
Which is to say, Claudine Gay is a victim, while any Jewish toilet cleaner at Harvard is an oppressor. (Assuming, for the sake of argument, that there are Jewish toilet cleaner.)
Sally Kornbluth gets away with being Jewish, because she allows rampant antisemitism at MIT.
The concept of ruling class is completely lost in Wokeness.
The thing is, it’s set up to be compellingly divisive – “If you’re not with us virtuous people, then you’re against us and with those animals” (or some such nonsense). A dichotomy.
I support the cessation of the ongoing cultural genocide of Palestinians, seemingly committed by Israel/Zionists – including Nakba 1.0 and now Nakba 2.0.
What happened on 7th October was apparently an entirely predictable result of years of the Zionist Federation failing to live up to the 2 conditions of the 1917 Balfour Declaration made to the Zionist Federation of Great Britain and Ireland.
Palestinians’ human and other rights have been steadfastly abused/denied since then, in gross contravention of one of the two conditions.
This effectively led to the creation and funding of Hamas.
As a result, innocent Israeli and Palestinian civilians are being killed – collateral damage and pawns in a bloodbath of mutual hatred.
One can support the long overdue restoration of Palestinians’ rights, without supporting the reportedly heinous policies/actions of either the Zionist Federation/Israel, or Hamas.
I reject the attempt to force me into the dichotomy – it’s an ideological trap and a distraction from the central issue of Palestinian rights per the conditions in the 1917 Balfour declaration.
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The Arabs in the Holy Land can have all the rights they want, if they stop killing Jews, advocating for killing Jews, and encouraging others to kill Jews.
The Arabs in the Holy Land can have all the rights they want, if they stop killing Jews, advocating for killing Jews, and encouraging others to kill Jews. – you don’t understand (or I’m guessing you do…), the Right they want recognized is their “right to kill Jews”. “But our religion DEMANDS it – how can you, or even the Jews themselves for that matter, object to us doing it?!” If only they’d confine their efforts to killing other Arabs, nobody would object – everybody’s doing it.
The thing is, it’s set up to be compellingly divisive – that. We’ve seen so many of these:
– “Black people can’t be racist – only wypipo can be racist, and they always are. It’s really simple, everybody!”
– Slavery was INVENTED in the United States, and it’s never been practised ANYWHERE else, EVER! Only AMERICANS could ever be so horrid!”
– I am NOT oppressing him ( – or “them” – )! I am a VICTIM here, and THEY are the OPPRESSORS! ‘Who says?” – I DO!!!”
They’re all facets of “muh feelz are more important than your facts”; and as stated by the lovely {/sarc} Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, “Being morally right is more important than being factually correct.” But occasionally, and not nearly often enough although the pendulum is beginning to swing back, it blows-up in the “victim’s” face in a delightful fashion.
You see, these rules are unchallengeable – ask any adherent to them – somebody branded an “oppressor” just IS. And all it takes to sideline one of them, is is somebody more “victim-like” to proclaim that THEY are the victim here, and the original professor of victimhood is in fact, oppressing them; then it’s immediately over, and they are sidelined for good. And best of all, they are now cancelled and silenced – and they get to experience for themselves what they’ve been putting everybody else they don’t like through. So sad…
As Kate of Small Dead Animals puts it, “Sorry, we didn’t make the new rules. But those are the new rules.”
Dr Jordan Peterson, an ex member of the Canadian socialist New Democratic Party, knows – there is a name for the world view that holds “if you are successful you are victimiser” (an “exploiter and oppressor”) and that name is MARXISM.
The international establishment may NOT be consciously Marxist – but it is saturated with Marxist assumptions, so when it sees “well off Jews” and “poverty stricken Palestinians” it assumes that the former are to blame for the condition of the latter.
The Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci called this saturation of ideas, so that people could serve a doctrine without-even-knowing-they-are-doing-it, “ideological hegemony”.
Tragically the Western establishment, from the education system to the media to even Big Business, is massively influenced by false Marxist ideas – without, in many cases, knowing that the false ideas are Marxist.
Oh you choose to forget Jordania creation…