Does University "Indigenization" Threaten Open Inquiry?

The Laurier Society for Open Inquiry was founded by one Lindsay Shepherd, after the fiasco at Wilfred Laurier University in January 2018, wherein she was brought before the diversity inquisition (which, unlike its Spanish counterpart, we all very much expect these days) for showing a video of U of T prof Jordan Peterson expressing his controversial views on gender pronoun usage. The LSOI has since grown to include 180 academics, students and community supporters, most from Wilfred Laurier University (WLU) and the University of Waterloo, where the LSOI is based and most active.

The LSOI has fought an uphill battle with both of these educational institutions, who have shown considerable covert sympathy to antifa and other regressive left groups in their ongoing drive to censor controversial speakers and remake our intellectual culture along Soviet and Maoist lines. Besides giving Shepherd herself the third degree - and not the kind these institutions should be known for, other events were cancelled due to the age old tactic of fire alarmpulling, tacitly supported by Canadian university administrations despite the misuse of fire alarms being highly illegal, as well as by suspiciously elevated “security and police costs” which may be passed on to the speakers themselves or the groups hosting their events on college campuses, according to a recent policy revision at Waterloo University.

The LSOI has invited one Dr. Frances Widdowson, Associate Professor in the Department of Economics, Justice, and Policy Studies at Mount Royal University – my old alma mater - to present a public lecture at WLU entitled "Does University Indigenization Threaten Open Inquiry?" on May 9. The LSOI has launched a go fund me campaign to raise funds assessed to the group for additional security needs for this event.

And not without reason. Two antifa like groups: Kitchener-Waterloo Against Fascism and the Grand River IWW Defense Committee have announced their intent to protest the group in an event called "Racists Aren't Welcome Here" on the grounds that Lindsay Shepherd and Widdowson are racists, right wingers and white supremacist sympathizers. An odd action, given that Widdowson has described her politics as “Marxist-Socialist.” The event advises participants to wear masks. We can safely guess what that means.

Ah, Antifa. If it weren’t for you, we’d still not know for sure that the far left can be every bit as hysterical and stupid as the “Obama was a communist” tricorn hat and pointed hood crowd. They and the neo-Nazis really do deserve each other. 

And no, antifa aren’t the alternative left. They’re the mainstream regressive left, just a more extreme version of it. They're the militant wing of the intersectional feminist movement and don't really care about worker's rights or economic inequality all that much, despite the Marxist and syndicalist IWW facades. They're all about identity politics, which is actually closer to fascism than anything. That these groups are tacitly (and openly) supported by media, academia and other power structures in our society suggests that they're far cozier with the elites and real systems of power in our society than their pantomimes of resistance and protest would have us believe. 

This is the alternative left. These days, leftists who support free speech, leftists like us, are the alternative, not the main stream.

In case you’re wondering, “indigenization” is yet another fad/buzzword to emerge from the wacky world of academic intersectional social justice ideology. It’s not altogether different from “decolonization” which has led to such wonderful results – as indicated by rampaging mobs, vandalized buildings and intimidated students and faculty - in places ranging from South Africa to numerous US colleges such as Evergreen or UC Berkeley. Or the feminist “transformation of the academy” of the 1980s and 1990s, which ushered in so much of this propensity towards ideology masquerading as scholarship in the first place.

The academic veneer of such programs as “indigenization” includes, in the words of the abstract to Widdowson’s talk: 

… a number of components, including proposals to increase the number of courses on indigenous subjects, the symbolic recognition of indigenous cultures, and incentives for promoting and incorporating indigenous “knowledge systems.”

This should all sound familiar to anyone who was on hand to watch Occupy Wall Street completely implode. Widdowson worries, again according to the abstract: 

While some of these developments promise to enhance the university environment, others are a threat to the open and honest exchange of ideas. This is because some forms of symbolic recognition attempt to compel faculty and students to embrace a particular political and philosophical perspective, and dictates that “Indigenous knowledge and ways of knowing” be “respected and valued” discourage critical thinking.

You might be wondering: How specifically does examining things from an indigenous perspective discourage critical thinking? If anything, shouldn't it add to avenues by which one can approach an issue, thereby opening up different opportunities for students in considering said issue and encouraging them to think critically; as opposed to just following common "colonial" wisdom exclusively?

Of course, there's nothing wrong with examining "indigenous perspectives" as such, although, the question of who speaks for indigenous people as a whole stands out in my mind. One wonders if antifa groups or postmodernist academic leftists are the most authentic answers to this question. But there’s no inherent harm in the study of such ideas any more than there’s inherent harm in the study of feminist theory or critical race theory. Multiple perspective are preferable to a single perspective, after all. Were we to thoroughly demonize and try to silence these points of view, we would become the very thing we're trying to fight.

However, Widdowson’s abstract explains further: 

It is expected, in fact, that “Indigenous knowledge”, “research traditions”, and “new epistemologies” be welcomed uncritically, and indigenization advocates try to intimidate intellectual challengers with accusations of “racism” and “colonialism.” There are even arguments that the refutation of any indigenous idea constitutes “epistemological racism” or, more astonishingly, “epistemicide”. This pressure has a negative impact on open inquiry; it creates an emotional “no-go zone” that is hostile to examining indigenous-non-indigenous relations rationally. While this will increase the power of indigenization advocates and the resources made available to them, it will not improve indigenous education. Educational achievement can only be improved if people are better able to understand the world around them, and this is not facilitated by many indigenization initiatives.

This is a familiar pattern now. The problem, as we've seen time and again, is the high barrier of intellectual protectionism constructed around standpoint and conflict theory based ideologies. Rooted, of course, in the rationalization that those deemed historically marginalized require their own safe spaces - the true origin of this now so rightly ill reputed concept, to develop their own consciousness free of meddling from the dominant social groups. Capitulating to this line of thought was the original sin of academia that has led to the proliferation of the dogmatic regressive leftism of our time.

We know by now that this is intellectually catastrophic – the results of protecting any school of thought from scrutiny or criticism always end up being dogmatic, ideological echo chambers. Without external checks, belief systems have a well documented tendency to become extremist, excessive and intellectually lazy. This is why the SJWs resort to name calling and censorship, as opposed to debate, when faced with ideological opposition.

There's nothing indigenous in my mind about the construction of a manichean view that romanticizes so called indigenous knowledge while viewing “white” or “western” ways of knowing; logic, reason, enlightenment etc. as being innately oppressive and discriminatory. This is rooted in German critical theory and French poststructuralism. Germany and France were not indigenous first nations in North America, last time I checked.

Plus, while I can't attest to how effective "Indigenous knowledge”, “research traditions”, and “new epistemologies” would actually be since such concepts tend to be vaguely defined, I've always felt that this view that science, logic and empiricism were somehow inherently "white" was actually the most insidious form of white supremacy going. It implies that in order to remain culturally authentic, non European cultures should stick to premodern ways of thinking and leave this science stuff to us white guys, who are the only group expected to disdain its own premodern traditions in favor of enlightenment rationality. If I wanted to actually ensure the continuation of Eurocentric colonialism, that's precisely how I'd do it in this day and age. A problem, however, is that the predictably unequal outcomes you'd get from "indigenous" vs "white" methods of research and scholarship would be laid entirely at the feet of "institutional racism", thus fueling another round of dogmatic intersectional activism.

None of this precludes looking honestly at how the European conquest and settlement of the Americas proceeded, or at how evils that were visited upon the natives were rationalized. Nor should indigenous traditions be shunted aside entirely. They should be studied and understood honestly. An honest look at historical evils is not the same the demonization of the present day descendants of the perpetrators of those evils, and refusing to study such matters for fear of causing offense, usually to more conservative types, is capitulation to a political correctness of another sort, and not of a better sort than that which equates any criticism of social justice ideologies with oppression and racism themselves.

Our academic institutions must censor no one, and they must shelter no one's views from reasoned critical examination. Peaceful protest must be allowed. The heckler's veto must not be. The stakes are high. If free speech and free inquiry perish in our institutions of learning and research, than they are doomed in the broader society and in our civilization as a whole.

Read The Regressive Left: Theory, History and Methodology Pt 3: Academic Anarchy

Read The Regressive Left: Theory, History and Methodology Pt 4: Postmodern Pandemonium

Read The Regressive Left: Theory, History and Methodology Pt 5: Radical Ruckus

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7 Reasons Why Anything and Everything Should be up for Debate

"What are you?  Chicken?"

I fail to understand why the left in the western world has become so averse to open debate, especially on university campuses.

Are leftists afraid they won't win debates against climate change deniers, creation scientists, race realists, trickle down economists, the war on drugs, "Pray the gay away", alt-right blowhards, holocaust deniers, anti-vaxxers, men’s rights activists, 9/11 truthers, guys who go on about "cultural Marxism" or "women's place is in the home" tradcons?

Collectively, these do not strike me as an especially high bar.  So what gives?

It is rightly asserted that many far right wing ideologies are fundamentally irrational and so appeal to irrational people, and you're not likely to convince their core adherents outright, no matter how good your case may be.  Many also are little more than rationalizations for rank hatred and bigotry.  Others still have been debunked repeatedly and long ago, so to do so again is just tiresome and redundant.   Can’t we all just bury these stupid ideas and move on already?

Nevertheless, here are seven broad reasons why I think controversial reactionary opinions should be debated, or at least deconstructed in public forums. 

1 - You'll bring moderates and fence sitters into the more rational camp.  This happened a lot back in the days when the new atheism, the kind represented by Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins, went on the rational offensive against right wing Christianity.  I saw it happen online countless times during Bush’s second term in office.  In fact, it's precisely what happened to me.  

Regrettably, progressives are not repeating this prior success with the alt-right movement today. 

No-platforming the alt-right actually contributes to the image they’re seeking for themselves as a force to be feared.  A force to be feared is a force to be respected.  Maybe even a force to seek the protection and allegiance of in uncertain times.   When Hillary Clinton presented the alt-right and its internet icons in terms similar to the way the religious right fear-mongered over rock music back in the 1980s, she virtually handed Donald Trump the presidency.

Contrast this with the scathing deconstruction and ridicule to which the new atheists subjected the religious right.  The liberals - at long last - took the initiative.  Rather than no-platform the religious right, they made damn good and sure everybody heard – from the evangelist’s own mouths – exactly what they believed and how nonsensical and stupid it really was.  Memes that ridiculed religious conservatism – invisible pink unicorns, flying spaghetti monsters and the like, were viral phenomenon. 

Yes, hard as it may be to believe today, it was the progressives who were using meme magic in those days.  That makes Hillary Clinton’s campaign fear mongering and hysteria over a cartoon frog all the more laughable and tragic.   Let’s look at it from a different angle: guys on 4chan were using – among other things - a cartoon frog and an attendant “Cult of Kek” to attempt to revive fascist ideology in order to get Donald Trump in the White House.  The comedy – mixed in with a no-nonsense critique of their antiquated racial pseudo-science - pretty much writes itself at this point.  Had Hillary taken that approach, would world affairs now be different?  

With all due respect to Pepe – I must admit, I do have a soft spot for the guy. I can sympathise with him.  I know what it’s like to be on the receiving end of baseless moral panic.  

2 - You avoid the "lure of the forbidden fruit" effect that fringe opinions have with certain kinds of people.  If you explain the reasons why you think the way you do, you prove that you and the political faction of which you're part have nothing to hide.  If you rely instead on getting offended at the mere suggestion that an unorthodox opinion be explored, and pursue options for punishing people who hold such views, you lend legitimacy to the conspiratorial narratives that fringe right (or left) wing views tend to hold and come across as abusing your power.  This may even generate sympathy for those views - people naturally sympathise with the underdog.   

I think the present growth of the alt-right has been due in part to their quite deliberately exploiting this whole dynamic.  Compare this with the so called “Streisand Effect”, when attempts to smear or censor something actually give it exposure and contribute to its success.  Openly debunking controversial ideas, if indeed they are so wrong, takes that wind right out of their sails.

3 - You are conveying respect.  Respect not necessarily for the reactionary or the conspiracy theorist you are arguing with, but for the reasoning capacity of 3^rd parties and any audience such a debate might have.  The kinds of high-minded refusal to debate contentious matters that liberals so often display comes across as patronizing and condescending.  They assume audiences are like small children who need to be protected from potentially "harmful" opinions and too stupid to tell good ideas from bad.  Liberal people especially, with their professed egalitarianism and respect for the marginalized, have no business adopting such elitist views.  

These kinds of assumptions are, of course, true of some people, and those who refuse to change their views to accord with the facts should be held to censure and ridicule.  But surprisingly large numbers of people are put off by smugness, and may not care what you have to say no matter how right you are if you come across as a pompous know-it-all. 

This is especially true when progressives imply, as they often do, that to disagree with them on anything is to be racist, misogynist or Nazi.  Increasingly, people are not taking kindly to the emotional blackmail implicit in this kind of argumentation, and are taking their loyalties elsewhere.  And so they should.  Progressives are not owed loyalty or support any more than anybody else is, and need to stop using the good names of anti-racism and feminism as a legitimizing cover for their own snobbery and propensity to disrespect other people.

4 - It is an opportunity to illustrate what good and bad thinking are and how they work.  This is especially true in educational environments.  Explore the fallacies, and not just straight out logical fallacies.  Explore the deeper psychological appeal that extremist politics and conspiracy theories have, at least for certain personality types. 

Do not assume that the reason people hold reactionary or radical views is always bigotry, stupidity or some kind of vested interest, although any of those may be the case and the use of ideology to rationalize privilege, prejudice or abuse of power should, of course, be explored.  But people’s reasons for believing what they believe are surprisingly complex.  Subtle shifts in mental framing, for instance, can cause the same issue to appear very differently to two different people, and both views may be held and advanced in good faith and with the best of intentions.  It becomes increasingly important to understand this as politics grows ever more polarized. 

There are certainly times when it’s appropriate to call people out for advancing spiteful, hateful or flagrantly self serving views.  But be reasonably sure all other possibilities have been explored before resorting to this, or it is you and your own side  that will ultimately come across as looking vindictive and power hungry when it turns out the victim of your self righteous wrath really was acting in good faith.  Failure in this regard is damaging the image of progressive politics today, at a time when such politics have never been more needed.

The current tactic of moral outrage and no-platforming risks leaving students vulnerable to bad ideas down the road.

5 - It is intellectually honest.  If you've been right 19 times out of 20 in a dispute with your neighbor, that does not mean that you will automatically be right during the 21st dispute and thus have no need to make a sound case.  To believe otherwise is to forsake the very soundness of logic that you're presuming makes you right in the first case.

  

I get the sense that in the Obama years,  progressives were coasting on the winds of earlier success against the evangelicals.  They assumed that because they were usually right in their disputes with the conservatives, that they would always be right in their disputes with the conservatives, and so felt at liberty to dispense with those disputes entirely.  This led to intellectual arrogance and laziness. 

The problem with simply coasting on the winds of prior success is that those winds do not blow forever.  When they stop, you'd better still be able to keep flight of your own accord.  Progressives during Obama’s second term did not consider this.  As a result, Donald Trump is in the White House, the very evangelicals who were in abeyance only a short time ago again have access to the levers of power, and it is now the progressives who are being smeared and ridiculed as hypersensitive politically correct snowflakes.  Tragically, the lesson does not appear to have been learned.

6 – It sets a far better precedent.  Liberals are taking their dominance in media and academia as much for granted as they’re taking their sense of moral superiority.  And in doing so, are casting both away.  Do they really think they will enjoy the advantage of institutional power and media bias forever?

When the right is able to marshal sufficient force to themselves no-platform leftists, the progressives will have no right to complain about it.  Don’t think it can happen?  Surprise, it already has.  McCarthyism, anyone?  The red scare, anyone?  This is what’s so unfortunate about the left’s new found enthusiasm for getting so called racists and homophobes fired from their jobs.  They didn’t like it when socialists and trade unionists were blacklisted for their politics, and rightly so.  

When white male identity politics reaches critical mass, and are able to get leftists fired from their jobs for misandry or anti-white racism, progressive insistence that you can’t be racist or sexist against whites and males because “power plus prejudice” will fall on increasingly deaf ears.  Because guess what?  That line of thought is going to stop working sooner or later.  It will be called out for the self serving sophistry it really is.

You know what they say about those who live by the sword.

7 – Reactionary positions may be right about some things.  While their overall world views are heavily distorted, there’s often a kernel of truth at the heart of them.  This seems especially hard for progressives to deal with.  It’s also especially essential for progressives to deal with, or else they cede whole areas of valid concern to the reactionaries, and thereby give them more fertile soil in which to take root in public opinion.

Mass immigration, especially in Europe, has had serious negative social consequences, as tragic incidents such as the Rotherham Affair make clear.  Islamic theology really does have many retrograde elements, especially around women’s rights and LGBT rights.  Being a white male isn’t always all about power and privilege, especially since most white males are not among the truly rich and powerful.  Men do indeed face disadvantages that women do not, all other things being equal, as any divorced father dealing with the family court system would be happy to tell you.  Sexual liberation has contributed to family breakdown.

Concerns over “globalism” aren’t merely anti-semitic conspiracy theory fear mongering.  Economic globalization and the financialization of the economy have been devastating for the working classes, have decimated organized labor and it wasn’t all that long ago that opposing globalism was top priority for the political left.  It still needs to be.  Left wing thought really has become hegemonic on many college campuses as a result of a long march through the institutions; cultural Marxism so called. 

If progressives fail to acknowledge any of the above, or worse, try to suppress expression of any of the above, it will be their own reputation that suffers in the end.  It is impossible to completely suppress information and ideas in the internet age.  If the progressives do not listen to and acknowledge the legitimate grievances at the heart of many reactionary ideologies, those grievances will then serve to lend legitimacy to the illegitimate bigotry, paranoia and scapegoating that reactionaries build up around those grievances.  And leftists will have no one to blame for that but themselves.

Conclusion – It’s easy to simply dismiss reactionary views as stupid, not being worth the time of serious thinkers, as base fear mongering, bigotry or mere self serving rationalization for privilege and abuse of power.  Too easy, in fact, and a culture of smugness, arrogance and ideological entitlement has set in among liberals, especially in media, in academia and online.  

But it is culture that threatens to undermine the very virtues and principles upon which liberal and progressive world views professes to rest.  More and more people across the political spectrum are simply not accepting the progressive’s sense of entitlement to be agreed with on all things without question or explanation or else racist, misogynist or Nazi.   

Taking the time to marshal the facts and build a case against reactionary views from the ground up is not easy.  Taking the time to advance and defend such a case in a public forum is likewise not easy, and does not guarantee immediate results.  Many reactionaries will cling to outmoded and disproven views no matter how strong the case against them, will argue flagrantly stupid positions in rude, obnoxious ways and shamelessly grandstand on behalf of such obviously shameful ideas.  This is, quite understandably, frustrating.  

But in the long run, progressives have no choice.  Especially in an era of social media, and ease of access to information.  The criticisms of liberal snobbishness are not going to go away just because liberals happen to have access to most agenda setting media and can use it to handwave these criticisms.  Liberals don’t get to be right just because they want to be any more than anybody else does. 

The ash heap of history is littered with pompous elites who mistook what successes they did achieve for an intrinsic greatness that is owed the loyalty of all.  Assuming that one is owed agreement and loyalty today because of successes earned due to hard work yesterday is easy.  Understanding that one must keep doing the work today in order to earn agreement and loyalty tomorrow is hard.  But if progressive values are to continue to have a tomorrow, what is hard is what must be done today.

Ann Coulter to Speak at UC Berkely

Former Clinton secretary of Labor and current professor of public policy at UC Berkeley Robert Reich has spoken well of Berkeley's decision to reschedule rather than prevent entirely a speaking engagement by conservative commentator Ann Coulter.  Reich's words on his Facebook page were eloquent:

Free speech is the central idea of a university. If unpopular views can't be expressed at a university, university education is severely compromised, and the First Amendment is reduced to a popularity contest. 

Speech should not be blocked because it's offensive, provocative, or even hateful. The essence of education is provocation. Students should be able to directly hear and question someone who utters offensive or hateful things so they can understand why such statements are brainless and vacuous, and also gain a deeper appreciation for openness and tolerance. 

The only exception is when hateful speech is calculated to -- and is likely to -- incite violence by others toward groups or people against whom the hateful speech is directed. But even then, universities must make every effort to protect those individuals or groups rather than prevent such speech.   

Other luminaries in the US progressive establishment agree.  Quote Bernie Sanders:

Obviously Ann Coulter’s outrageous ― to my mind, off the wall. But you know, people have a right to give their two cents-worth, give a speech, without fear of violence and intimidation.

To me, it’s a sign of intellectual weakness.  If you can’t ask Ann Coulter in a polite way questions which expose the weakness of her arguments, if all you can do is boo, or shut her down, or prevent her from coming, what does that tell the world?” 

What are you afraid of ― her ideas? Ask her the hard questions.  Confront her intellectually. Booing people down, or intimidating people, or shutting down events, I don’t think that that works in any way.

 This after it was discovered that "groups responsible for recent clashes during demonstrations on campus and throughout the city planned to target Coulter’s event."

Representative  and deputy chair of the DNC, Keith Ellison (D-Minn) agrees:

Absolutely protest these people you don’t like, absolutely write against them, denounce them.  But the solution to bad speech is good speech, the solution to bad speech is more speech. Once you start saying, ‘You can’t talk,’ then whoever’s in power gets to impose that on whoever’s not in power and that’s not good.

The dissenting views turned up in the comments sections on Reich's Facebook page.  There are several stock responses on part of those who would advocate the no-platforming of Coulter, and they are worth considering.

Objection: "Free Speech means that the government cannot regulate your speech, and cannot punish you for it. It does not mean that you are entitled to a platform for that speech, or money for that speech, or an audience for that speech, or that people will not pelt you with tomatoes when issuing such speech."

Response: This is true, as far as it goes.  But the authority to deny a platform, and the authority to provide one, are ultimately the same.  If UC Berkeley has the right to deny Coulter a platform to speak, they also have the right to grant her one.  It looks like they offered to grant her one.  Now what?
 
This is a bogus response.  The right of UC Berkeley to choose who to allow to speak is not the issue here.  The kinds of progressives that raise this objection made perfectly clear their respect for UC Berkeley's right to make these kinds of decisions when they rioted and burned half the campus down in reaction to Milo Yiannopoulos's Feb 2 scheduled speech, among others. Entitled and self righteous regressives reserve for themselves and themselves only the right to decide who may or may not speak.  This is a consummately authoritarian mindset.  Recognize it as such.

Objection: "I think it is easy for people who have historically not been impacted by structural violence to say that people who spill vile from their mouths should speak. It would be a very different if Ann Coulter's rhetoric was her own and did not have any real impact on people however that is not the case. The White Nationalist anti-immigrant words that spill from her mouth have been widely supported and have translated to policies that target people based in their race and have over simplified a problem. The things that she is saying are dangerous and have real life very violent consequences for the Undocumented, Mixed Status people who they affect."

Response: I've seen multiple variations of this idea.  They all boil down to the idea that censoring hate speech is a necessary measure to take to protect the rights of the marginalized.  It is based on what is essentially a slippery slope argument. Which is itself a logical fallacy.  Violent and hateful speech leads to violent and hateful actions, especially on part of the privileged against the marginalized, or so we are told.

I would suggest that the real centers of power and privilege would be those with the authority to decide who may or may not speak.  A common error among those who suggest that oppression and hate are "structural" or "institutional" is that they then proceed to attach the label of "powerful" or "privileged" to identities rather than institutions.  The ears of one marginalized group are thus protected from "hate speech" only by marginalizing another group through censorship.  Censorship has always been the tool of the powerful, never of the marginalized.

Finally, stopping Ann Coulter speaking at UC Berkeley will not stop those who really harbor white nationalist views from having access to those views.  It is not at all hard to access those views online.  No-platforming Coulter only legitimizes the far right's own narratives of victimhood and marginalization.  It is bad strategy for Coulter's opponents to adopt.

Many other responses simply degenerate into "everybody who disagrees with me is evil Hitler."  With all of the vacuous signalling and faux cleverness that so often attend the expression of regressive views, some commenters suggested that "What could have stopped Hitler was 'moar freeze peach!'  Wow.  Just wow.  He mispelled "more" and "free speech."  What cleverness!  What wittiness!  I just can't get past how brilliant the online social justice crowd is!

Does anybody remember when, during the Bush administration, liberals used to say that if we curtail civil liberties in the name of fighting terrorism, the terrorists win? If we give into fear, the terrorists win?

That's what Al Qaeda wanted. To make our hatred and fear of them be the cause of our remaking our society in their image: violent, repressive and fundamentalist. A lesson the alt-right would do well to learn.

Now apply that same logic to fascism.

We adopt fascist methods in order to defeat fascism, the fascists win. We censor them, they win. We violently disrupt their meetings, they win.

Do you want to truly defeat fascism and fundamentalism? Do it by openly challenging their ideas. Rather than no-platforming them, give them all the platform in the world and let them hang themselves on their own stupidity. Of course, that also requires good, smart liberals - of the Sam Harris and Bill Maher mold, to step in and rip their ideas to shreds. 

Not so long ago, the likes of Maher and Harris had the religious right on the run. They didn't do this by trying to censor the evangelicals. They did it by making damn good and sure everybody knew exactly what the evangelicals had to say and how utterly ridiculous it was. How hard could it be to do this with the alt-right? If you can't be bothered to prove that Hitler was a complete maniac who slaughtered tens of millions because of utter nonsense racial conspiracy theories, that's just inexcusable intellectual laziness.

But this seems to be too much to ask of a progressive establishment characterized by the twitter social justice mob, who regards unquestioned agreement with their views as being their birthright because "marginalization", rather than their responsibility to win due to sound argument.  Instead, let's contribute to the Hitler mystique by trying to hide and bury his ideas and turn complete poppycock racial pseudoscience into an alluring forbidden fruit. Good thinking!

You try to censor and no platform fascists, you're telling them you're afraid of them. That feeds them. That makes them stronger. You can't stop people from accessing fascist ideas. I can download Mein Kampf right now on PDF. How are you going to no platform that?

You recognize the fact that people turn to extremist politics when they've lost confidence in mainstream politics. That means cleaning up the corruption and getting money out of politics. Actual government of the people, by the people, for the people.

Fascism arose the first time in the 1930s - the height of the great depression. An empty stomach will vote for anyone who promises to change that.  A fearful populace, as the population of Weimar Germany were of the Soviet threat, and a humiliated and shamed populace, as the population of Weimar Germany were after the Versailles Treaty, are more receptive to the honeyed words of demagogues delivering scapegoats and easy answers.   

What you don't do is blame the rise of fascism on the presence of free speech and other civil liberties. That's like blaming the outbreak of war on the existence of peace. They became authoritarian because they weren't authoritarian in the first place? Sure.

As something of an aside, I do think there are are legitimate public safety concerns here.  It is becoming apparent that Berkeley mayor Jesse Arreguin has ties with radical left groups in the Berkeley area.  While he is within his rights to hold whatever views he wishes, it bears mentioning that he also owes a duty of care to the citizens of Berkeley and to the students attending UC Berkeley.  The lack of police presence at the Milo riots and more recent clashes with alt-right counter protesters has been noted.  

Arreguin should be subject to a federal investigation to determine whether he's had a hand in this.  So too should staff and faculty at UC Berkeley, and those found having a hand in inciting or participating in riots should lose their jobs in addition to being subject to prosecution.  Students who participate in or incite riots must face expulsion and charges.  These consequences need to be made clear ahead of time, so that wannabe revolutionaries can think long and hard about how much this ridiculous LARPing is really worth to them.  This in stark contrast with the right to peaceful, non-violent and non-disruptive protest, which must be protected for student, faculty and political representatives alike.

It's worth noting that the violence has been escalating, and that following recent violent clashes, Berkeley antifa has expressed an interest in acquiring guns and learning how to use them.   

This is no laughing matter.  Injuries may now become fatalities.  It is Arreguin's responsibility to deploy Berkeley law enforcement to actually do their jobs and arrest rioters guilty of offenses, on both sides.  If they cannot do this alone, State and Federal officials should be contacted and the National Guard deployed to restore order, if needed.  

SJW Grandstanders will NOT go Away on Their Own

Youtubber "Mouthy Buddha" praises the stoicism and resolve of University of Toronto professor Jordan Peterson in the face of a noisy SJW demonstration against a talk he recently gave.  Mouthy Buddha commends Jordan for "time and time again setting an example for us" as the video shows him largely ignoring a rowdy group of protesters trying to shut down his lecture.  Mouthy Buddha's video may be viewed here.

These sentiments are echoed in the comments following the video.  

"Jon the Bastard" writes, "I wish I could be as stoic as Professor Peterson. The man is a Legend in the making."

"Mike Stewie" writes, "I agree - Peterson sets the standard. While I enjoy listening to the likes of Bearing & Undoomed; an abusive medium is not the way to engage public interest productively. By arguing rationally and non-offensively we make serious arguments, but we also polarize the conversation in a way that shows SJWs for what they are: spoiled & irrational children."

"quizads" writes, "Peterson has truly become a worthy example of nonviolent discourse. I am moved to tears as well."

Others praised him in almost religious terms:

"Jeremy David Evans" writes, "I also almost cried watching his upload.  Truly, he walks his talk. He is shooting for the Christic ideal and reaching it.  When the Israelites were bitten by their own sins and temptations, Moses placed the bronze serpent on a cross so that all who looked on it would be saved. Peterson has taken up the cross of persecution, gained the spotlight, and those of us that see his truth are ever more drawn into that place of truthfulness. The cost is great, but the reward greater: the resurrection of society."

"Marthin Lukas" writes, "Shit....that was.....Jesus-esque......damn it Prof. Jordan."

I would not condemn a man for being stoic and resolved, and I do find Prof. Peterson's conduct in the video to be admirable.  But sometimes turning the other cheek doesn't cut it.  Sometimes appeasement isn't the answer.  Neville Chamberlain is not remembered as a superior Prime Minister to Winston Churchill, and the Dalai Lama no doubt still waits for the communist Chinese to return to their senses so that he can return safely to Lhasa and resume his duties there.  He's been waiting a while now, and will be waiting a long time yet.

People have been waiting a long time for college leftists to come to their senses.  Political correctness was dismissed as a passing fad in the early 1990s, though the ideologies underlying it go back further than that.  Sure, the Students for a Democratic Society did peter out, but their legacy has not.  Feminist theory and critical race theory are multigenerational now.  The umbrella of ideological protectionism - the equation of criticism of the theories with actual misogyny and racism - has sheltered these theories from real scrutiny or opposition for decades.

Sometimes, a firm and decisive stand is what's required.  The SJWs are one of those times.  We've been waiting and appeasing.  Things only get worse.  It's time for the gloves to come off.  It's as simple as that.

The forerunners of today's SJWs did not go away after Allan Bloom published The Closing of the American mind in 1987.  They did not go away after Dinesh D'Sousa published Illiberal Education in 1990.  They did not go away after Christina Hoff Sommers published Who Stole Feminism in 1994.  They did not go away after the minor humiliation of the Alan Sokal affair in the late 1990s, Rolling Stone's false rape story, and have not gone away after Milo Yiannopoulos's repeated exposure of their campus antics.  

Smugly dismissing them as mentally unbalanced, as crybabies or as special snowflakes is not making them go away.  They will not go away despite the fact their women's studies degrees will not qualify them for good jobs.  They will not go away after being unfavorably compared to the generation that stormed the beaches of Normandy or even the generation that marched for civil rights back in the 1960s.  They have not gone away despite being shown on social media time and time and time again for being fools.  

Criticisms spanning the decades, from libertarian, men's rights, traditionalist, classical liberal or marxist materialist perspectives has done nothing, not one thing, to dislodge them.

Voting conservative will not make them go away.  Neither Brian Mulroney nor Stephen Harper did anything about this during their tenures as Tory PMs in Canada.  Nor did Margaret Thatcher, John Major or David Cameron in the UK. Even if Justin Trudeau was unseated by a Tory, even one so un-PC as Kevin O'Leary come 2020, or were Nigel Farage to (somehow) become PM in the UK in the next general, the smart money is on the SJWs becoming more, rather than less vehement. Stateside, they didn't go away after Nixon won the 1972 election or after Reagan won the 1980 election or after George W. Bush won in 2000.  

The foolishness of those who believed Trump's 2016 victory would prompt a rethink on part of identity politics progressives in academia and mass media must by now be perfectly representative of the oft quoted definition of insanity.  

Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

In fact, the title of Mouthy Buddha's video really does say it all.

SJWs are STRONGER Than Ever 2017.

He damn well knows this, and admits it in his own comments section:

The title may seem like hyperbole but it's not. Jordan Peterson's views are a minority within a minority in our university campuses, and although many students do side with him, and show him support, the onslaught from the regressive's truly are stronger than they used to be, because academia is now 100% behind the methods and tactics involved. 

They are vehemently against Jordan choosing not to say certain words, but are ok with students screaming "transphobic piece of shit". 

The following is the first sentence in a statement made by McMaster University: 

"We are 'deeply troubled' that Dr. Jordan Peterson has been invited to speak at McMaster." 

Right. He's too fashy, all the freedom for all and free speech stuff is troublesome. 

Let's all get our heads out of our asses here.  The SJWs aren't going anywhere on their own.  They won't be coming to their senses soon, or ever.  Because what they're doing is working, and they damn well know it.  The SJWs are winning.  It's as simple as that.  Brexit and Donald Trump did nothing whatsoever to change that.  One look at the advance of feminism, gay rights, and so on, especially in cultural institutions like academia and mass media make that perfectly clear.  It's so much easier to just shrug your shoulders and capitulate to whatever the latest demands are than it is to do what Jordan Peterson has done and dig in your heels on a matter of principle.  Especially when, unlike the SJWs, you're pretty much guaranteed to stand alone.

And that's precisely the problem.

If you wish to win a culture war, as the SJWs most certainly do, not standing alone is a fairly elementary principle.  And that's just the first of many things the regressive SJWs know that their shoulder shrugging, "what do you do?" asking political opponents don't.

The campus SJWs understand how grassroots activism and organizing work.  At the very least, they seem able to get names on petitions and participants for boycotts and protests.  They analyze the structures of institutions like colleges and look for the weak points where they can get the best results through the application of pressure.  They gain key positions of authority and instruction within academic institutions and use those positions to establish curriculum, guide research efforts and either allow or hinder the career development of students and fellow faculty depending on whether they tow or oppose the ideological party line.  They also structure their ideologies in such a way as to lend credibility to their inclination to use their institutional authority for ideological purposes.  By making claims that erode the perceived differences between scholarship and activism, for example, or subject to postmodernist deconstruction enlightenment notions of objectivity, neutrality and equality of right.

They study media and media relations, and not just on a surface level.  They know full well that the medium is the message.  They deconstruct literature and understand how language frames thought.  They understand the mythopoetic structure of political thought, and understand how important narrative construction is.  They are fully cognizant of the fact that framing and narrative consistently trump even the most airtight of logical arguments.  These people get degrees in English, psychology, sociology, religious studies, media studies and a host of other fields that delve deep into the workings of the human mind and the operations of social interaction.  While their ideas are flawed in the sense that any ideas that take root and become hegemonic in any closed social system become flawed due to ideological siloing, it certainly can't be said that they are lacking in political shrewdness or are fundamentally stupid.  If the SJWs are so dumb, why are they in charge?

They understand these things, and have understood them for decades.  The results speak for themselves.  In Canada, besides academic and media hegemony, a firmly established deep state consisting of advocacy on behalf of women's groups, aboriginal groups, pro-immigrant groups and so on insures that they control the narrative regardless of the party in political office, and genuine dissent carries with it risks of ostracization, job loss or even an appearance before one of our Orwellian "Human Rights" tribunals, as indeed Professor Peterson is being threatened with.

That's quite the little knapsack of privilege we've just unpacked.  The good news is that there's nothing preventing those with a genuine concern for free speech on campuses and elsewhere from understanding the workings of any of the above either.

The end game for anti-regressives, whatever their stripe, will have to look something like this.  I've already published these, but will do so again, to give an idea of what's possible given time and, more importantly, effort.

Three particularly important goals for enemies of regressivism:

• Requiring that intent to harass or create a “poisoned environment” be proven on at least a balance of probabilities or a preponderance of evidence in order to secure a remedy in court over a harassment or hate speech allegation.  “Privileged” people cannot be held responsible, on pain of professional or even legal consequences, for the emotional states of “marginalized” people, given what we know of how the human mind works, regardless of “social context” so prized by regressive social theorists.

• As a corollary to the above, political opinion and opinion on social issues should be a protected category of legal discrimination, especially in employment, just as race, gender, etc.  It should be especially costly to terminate an employee for expressing an opinion on political or social issues, just as it is for protected grounds for discrimination.  Exemptions to this can be extended if the non-expression of certain views can be shown to be a bona-fide occupational requirement.  There’s plenty of information about these  concepts in fields pertaining to human resources management and employment law.

•  Strong College Campus Free Speech legislation must be passed, preferably at the federal level but at least at the state/provincial level.   It's provisions would include the following:

1. Require colleges to adopt, at the governance level, policy statements that make crystal clear organizational commitment to free expression, and make crystal clear that it is not the university's role to protect students or faculty from ideas they find offensive or disagreeable.
2. The campus must be declared open to any speaker invited by students, student groups or faculty.  Disinvitation of controversial speakers should thus be prohibited.
3. There must be serious consequences for actions that result in shutting down speakers on college campuses or harassment of students and faculty for political reasons, including complicit administration failing to act accordingly in response to such events.  Suspensions for first offenses, expulsion/termination for cause in the case of repeat offenses, and even legal prosecution if warranted.  
4. Independent bodies should be established to investigate student and/or faculty allegations of "ideological gatekeeping", which I define as attempts to block the academic progress or careers of students or staff for political or ideological reasons.  This body would also be emboldened to investigate claims of ideological indoctrination in academic settings.  Remedies could include reprimands or other disciplinary measures up to and including termination (in the case of multiple repeat convictions) against offending faculty members.
5. The legislation itself would contain language cautioning academic institutions against fostering or allowing to be fostered a campus culture that romanticizes violent extremism, direct action, and other militant and confrontational forms of activism.  Honest discussion of the above would be permitted.
6. Strong protections for the due process rights of students and faculty charged under any of the above sections, and strong protections for the rights of student and faculty to engage in peaceful and non-disruptive protest. 

People simply must have assurance of their protection from legal or employment related repercussions for expressing their views if regressivism of all kinds is to be pushed to the margins of society.  If they not already have been, these ideas or ideas like them need to be adopted in your jurisdiction.

The SJWs will not go away by themselves. We must know this.  We must accept this.  This means complete acceptance of the fact that they will settle for nothing less than totalitarian control.  They are indeed getting stronger and getting bolder because they've been successful, for the most part.  It doesn't matter how many people dislike them.

The good news is, it doesn't have to.  If dislike can make the jump into no-nonsense organized and effective opposition, I think we'd all be surprised at just how weak the SJWs actually are.

Regressive Left Pt. 2: Senseless Social Justice

The migrant rape crisis coincides with the emergence of the term “social justice warrior” as a pejorative rather than as a complimentary term, especially following the infamous gamergate controversy. Compare with “political correctness” in the 1990s.  Both political correctness and social justice warrior denote dogmatism and authoritarianism in identity politics, and both are used interchangeably by the right wing as snarl terms to attack all liberal and leftist thought.

Regressive leftism and SJWs are now a major internet phenomena, with newsblogs and pundits both for and against being major sources of controversy and thus big business, especially in ad revenue generated clickbait social media outlets.  The problem is especially bad on college campuses, as the Feb 2, 2017 UC Berkeley riots so recently brought to the attention of so many.

The present form of SJW leftism seemed to kick into high gear during the Obama years, especially at the high water mark of the Occupy Wall Street movement.  Beneath the veneer of what came across as a radical protest against the entrenchment of corporate power in American politics were deep strains of regressivism.

Some of it were cultural dysfunctions that plagued American radicalism throughout its entire history: a preoccupation with direct democracy and mass-consensus decision making resulting in movement paralysis.  But alongside this was a kind of SJW operational prototype called the “progressive stack” wherein preference at meetings was given to members of "marginalized groups" over the "privileged."  White males spoke last at meetings, if at all,  Accompanying this were the now familiar accoutrements of the feminization of radicalism: anti-heterosexuality and the insistence upon white and/or male free spaces and ideas being at the heart of the movement.  The only way to end the dominance of one group would be, it would seem, is the imposition of the dominance of another.

"We are the 99%" became "Queer womyn of color uber-alles!"

All of this has had the effect of creating a huge space on the political right to capitalize on popular anxieties over Muslim immigration, frustration with frivolous social justice activism and the dictatorial political correctness underlying it all, that the progressives refuse to acknowledge.  The results have no doubt contributed greatly to the rise of populist nationalism, of the kind exemplified by Marine Le Pen, Nigel Farage and Donald Trump, across Europe and the English speaking world.

Donald Trump's electoral victory stunned a world that had written him off as an unqualified racist and misogynistic curmudgeon.  In retrospect, it is easy to see how his win is a vote of non-confidence against both a GOP establishment that has had no new ideas since Reagan, and a hopelessly compromised DNC establishment that stacked the deck against Bernie Sanders in favor of Hillary Clinton - a corporatist hawk with a lengthy record of voting with the Bush administration behind a thin girl-power veneer.  None of this has taught the DNC much needed lessons about the dangers of ignoring public concerns in favor of doubling down on the narratives dominant in their own mainstream media echo chambers.

The sudden emergence of the identity obsessed social justice warrior in tandem with the Occupy movement does give one pause.  We also know through WikiLeaks that a well funded and concerted effort to create a “liberal echo chamber” began in the 2007-2008 period.  But this echo chamber was built upon a firmly established foundation. Regressive leftism predates America’s first black president.  In his 2007 book What’s Left, British leftist Nick Cohen attacks what he perceives as a knee-jerk anti-western tendency in the English speaking western world, which causes them to cherry pick the human rights causes that galvanize them and find common cause with authoritarian government and regimes abroad.

Center left parties in the western world gradually built electoral coalitions around the demographic changes that have been occurring since the 1970s.  Both immigration and political correctness are key components of this coalition.  It was a politically sensible move back in the 1990s when socialism fell out of favor and the clout of organized labor declined due to outsourcing, automation and a more conservative political climate.  But, as Sam Harris enunciates in this video, this coalition is becoming toxic for the center left.

Accusations of racism as a means of stifling debate and smearing opponents have worn thin on once sympathetic populations.

On the subject of Sam Harris, it would seem at first glance that the so called new atheist writers of the early 21^st century: besides Sam Harris there were Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens, among others, who do not seem to typify regressive leftism.  Most of these figures are not that left wing for one thing, and for another, their criticisms of the dogmatism and irrationality of religious belief were in direct keeping with the humanist liberal tradition of Bertrand Russel and others like him.  It was these authors who first informed the online “skeptic community” that are among today’s staunchest critics of regressive leftism. 

But they set many precedents that helped to legitimize the current wave of regressives.  Some of this was inadvertent: the doctrine of original sin both created and legitimized internalized guilt and inferiority complexes, which subsequently sought out other forms of expression after Christian theology had been thoroughly deconstructed.  White male guilt, by now long institutionalized in some branches of academia for reasons soon to be expanded on, stepped in to fill this psychological void.  In even deeply personal affairs, this dynamic proved useful to certain types of people – radical feminism made it acceptable to think sex is dirty again.  Notice that regressive leftism wasn’t nearly as successful in regions such as the US south, where the Southern Baptist Convention did not liberalize to nearly the degree that mainline protestant denominations did.

The new atheism also galvanized the current crop of SJWs more directly when they made treatment of women and racial minorities a part of their overall critique of religious belief.  Moreover, I think, the new atheism went beyond politics or even relationships between people in their critiques, but also politicized people’s most deeply held beliefs.  While lip service was paid to freedom of conscience, as far as the online league of the militant Godless was concerned, one was on the side of wrong, backwardness and oppression merely for having the wrong beliefs.  Oftentimes, merely believing in the Christian God was equated to being a racist or a fascist sympathizer. 

None of this is to say that critique of religious doctrine is itself inherently regressive, nor did the early 21st century crop of atheist authors pioneer ideological policing in "liberal" quarters.  But stating, or at least implying, that one is stupid or morally wrong for holding the incorrect beliefs both sets and follows dangerous precedents, even if sometimes warranted.  This is especially so when there is, as there frequently was in online flame wars between Christians and atheists, a strong undertone of classist elitism, with religiosity, together with racism, misogyny and homophobia, being associated with being poor, uneducated or a redneck.  While many of Harris, Dawkins and Hitchens's critiques of Christian doctrine were fair and accurate, liberal stances in the culture wars were accompanied, perhaps unwittingly, by a growing tendency to stand above, rather than beside, the poor and marginalized.  So long as the poor and marginalized were white, mind you.

Plus, prior to the very recent emergence of controversy surrounding regressive left coddling of Islamism and the whole SJW phenomenon - itself due in part to a schism within the skeptic community over its alleged sexism, the new atheists were extremely sensitive to any suggestion that repression and dogmatism could come from atheists or from the left.  But as we shall see, and have seen, it can and does.

Controversies surrounding dogmatism and censorship on western college campuses predate the presidency of George W. Bush.  Shock pundits such as Milo Yiannopoulos were not the first to call our attention to fanatical and dogmatic enclaves of left wing ideologues on college campuses.  During the Clinton years, and even during the presidency of W’s father, concerns over “political correctness” were raised by authors such as Allan Bloom, Dinesh D’Sousa and Christina Hoff Sommers.  The ideological foundations of the present SJW movement had been long in the process of being laid even then.

Concern was raised not merely regarding the radical nature of the ideas being taught in black studies or women’s studies departments, but with the impact leftist movements were having on campuses.  Concerns that a western conservatism built entirely on anti-communism and then at the peak of its power and influence, were willing, for the most part, to ignore in the days following the collapse of the Berlin wall and the break up of the USSR. 

... Continued in Part 3: Academic Anarchy

Anti regressive battles to be fought.

What would an effective response to the regressive left, and increasingly the regressive right as well, look like? Three particularly important goals for enemies of regressivism:

• Requiring that intent to harass or create a “poisoned environment” be proven on at least a balance of probabilities or a preponderance of evidence in order to secure a remedy in court over a harassment or hate speech allegation.  “Privileged” people cannot be held responsible, on pain of professional or even legal consequences, for the emotional states of “marginalized” people, given what we know of how the human mind works, regardless of “social context” so prized by regressive social theorists.

• As a corollary to the above, political opinion and opinion on social issues should be a protected category of legal discrimination, especially in employment, just as race, gender, etc.  It should be especially costly to terminate an employee for expressing an opinion on political or social issues, just as it is for protected grounds for discrimination.  Exemptions to this can be extended if the non-expression of certain views can be shown to be a bona-fide occupational requirement.  There’s plenty of information about these  concepts in fields pertaining to human resources management and employment law.

•  Strong College Campus Free Speech legislation must be passed, preferably at the federal level but at least at the state/provincial level.   It's provisions would include the following:

1. Require colleges to adopt, at the governance level, policy statements that make crystal clear organizational commitment to free expression, and make crystal clear that it is not the university's role to protect students or faculty from ideas they find offensive or disagreeable.
2. The campus must be declared open to any speaker invited by students, student groups or faculty.  Disinvitation of controversial speakers should thus be prohibited.
3. There must be serious consequences for actions that result in shutting down speakers on college campuses or harassment of students and faculty for political reasons, including complicit administration failing to act accordingly in response to such events.  Suspensions for first offenses, expulsion/termination for cause in the case of repeat offenses, and even legal prosecution if warranted.  
4. Independent bodies should be established to investigate student and/or faculty allegations of "ideological gatekeeping", which I define as attempts to block the academic progress or careers of students or staff for political or ideological reasons.  This body would also be emboldened to investigate claims of ideological indoctrination in academic settings.  Remedies could include reprimands or other disciplinary measures up to and including termination (in the case of multiple repeat convictions) against offending faculty members.
5. The legislation itself would contain language cautioning academic institutions against fostering or allowing to be fostered a campus culture that romanticizes violent extremism, direct action, and other militant and confrontational forms of activism.  Honest discussion of the above would be permitted.
6. Strong protections for the due process rights of students and faculty charged under any of the above sections, and strong protections for the rights of student and faculty to engage in peaceful and non-disruptive protest. 

People simply must have assurance of their protection from legal or employment related repercussions for expressing their views if regressivism of all kinds is to be pushed to the margins of society.  If they not already have been, these ideas or ideas like them need to be adopted in your jurisdiction.

Any more ideas on what is needed to defeat regressivism?  Let me know in the comments section!