Category Archives: Jordan Peterson

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Our most-read story was on the Port Tech Center Arena looking to staff up before it begins hosting concerts, gaming competitions and other events. Coming in second place was a piece about workers at a local Starbucks vying to make it the chain's first Texas store to unionize.

Chalk that up to the Great Resignation? Hard to say, but it certainly looks like readers are paying close attention to employment matters.

Read on for our other most-read stories of the week a mixed bag that includesSan Antonio City Council shenanigans, a controversial self-help author andan outdoor screening of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.

10. Right-wing favorite Jordan Peterson coming to San Antonio's Tobin Center on Thursday

9. Current Events: San Antonio lets the powerful cut to the front of the line for COVID relief funds

8. COVID-denier Ted Nugent's Detroit Muscle tour skipping San Antonio for Fredericksburg

7. Antisemitic flyer campaign targets homes in San Antonio's Alamo Heights neighborhood

6. San Antonio Botanical Garden's Foodie Cinema pairs Willy Wonka with chocolate-themed menu

5. San Antonio's Trinity University reclassified as National University, UTSA as R1 research school

4. San Antonio officer suspended after department says he made inappropriate remarks to coworker

3. San Antonio couple accused in beating death of 12-year-old left in their care

2. San Antonio Starbucks vying to be the first in Texas to unionize

1. San Antonio's Tech Port Center Arena is hiring as it prepares to open next month

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Tech Port Center Arena, Starbucks Union: The top 10 headlines in San Antonio this week - San Antonio Current

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. The No. 7-ranked Indiana Hoosiers will host its annual "Head to the Hall" game on Saturday at 3 p.m. versus the Michigan State Spartans in a rescheduled matchup.

Indiana (17-3, 9-1 Big Ten) was originally supposed to play Michigan State (13-10, 7-5 Big Ten) on Jan. 19, but the game was postponed due to COVID-19 protocol within Indiana's program as part of the Hoosiers' 15-day break.

Since then, the Spartans have won four of their six games including their most recent 63-57 win over No. 4 Michigan, the Hoosiers' only Big Ten loss this season.

Michigan State is led by senior guard Nia Clouden who's averaging 21.3 points per game. Freshman forward Matilda Ekh adds 12.2 points contributing to the Spartans' average 73 points per game just barely higher than Indiana's 72.6 points.

The Hoosiers were led by starting forward Mackenzie Holmes until shewas sidelined with a knee injury before the Nebraska game in mid-January.

"Since Mack's been out, there's been many games where it just seems like the offense has been hard to find, and we had to keep grinding away and at times manufacture the pieces in different spots," Indiana head coach Teri Moren said.

That all changed on Wednesday when the Hoosiers shut down Illinois 93-61 on the road. Graduate student guard Ali Patberg led the way with 26 points to move her up as Indiana's ninth all-time leading scorer with 1,613 career points. She also ranks third in program assists with 486.

"We expect Ali to be a force for us offensively," Moren said. "The last two games haven't looked like that for her, but I thought she came out tonight (Wednesday) and was assertive really looking to take shots."

In the mean time while Holmes heals, sophomore Kiandra Browne is replacing her as starting forward.

Moren said Browne is doing exactly what the team hoped she would do and loves when she snags the offensive rebound by tipping it out to her teammates. She totaled six points and six rebounds in the win over the Fighting Illini.

As far as Holmes goes, Moren said expect her to be back sooner than later.

"I think she's getting closer," Moren said. "She is on the floor not from a team perspective, but she is doing some individual stuff right now. I think everybody's excited about where she is right now in terms of her rehab and her recovery of getting back on the floor soon."

Until then, Indiana has more players that are eager to fill in. Freshman guard Kailtin Peterson came in off the bench in the Illinois win to relieve starters and put down a career-high 11 points on three three-pointers.

"I just try to stay ready and play hard whenever I'm in for my teammates and coaches," Peterson said. "We all work hard, and it's paying off, and we work together. We're close with each other."

The Hoosiers shot 57.6 percent from the floor in a game Moren called one of the team's best offensive performances.

"I felt like we were shooting the ball well," Moren said. "I felt like things were going our way, and I think it just gives everybody including our staff, including the bench a lot of energy and a lot of confidence that things are going our way."

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"Head to the Hall" for an Indiana Women's Basketball Rescheduled Matchup Versus Michigan State - CalBearsMaven

Jordan Peterson is a Canadian clinical psychologist, cultural critic, and professor of psychology at the University of Toronto. His main areas of study are the psychology of religious and ideological belief, and the assessment and improvement of personality and performance.

From 1993 to 1997, Peterson lived in Arlington, Massachusetts, while teaching and conducting research at Harvard University as an assistant and an associate professor in the psychology department. During his time at Harvard, he studied aggression arising from drug and alcohol abuse, and supervised a number of unconventional thesis proposals. Afterwards, he returned to Canada and took up a post as a professor at the University of Toronto.

In 1999, Routledge published Peterson's Maps of Meaning: The Architecture of Belief. The book, which took Peterson 13 years to complete, describes a comprehensive theory for how we construct meaning, represented by the mythical process of the exploratory hero, and provides an interpretation of religious and mythical models of reality presented in a way that is compatible with modern scientific understanding of how the brain works. It synthesizes ideas drawn from narratives in mythology, religion, literature and philosophy, as well as research from neuropsychology, in "the classic, old-fashioned tradition of social science."

Peterson's primary goal was to examine why individuals, not simply groups, engage in social conflict, and to model the path individuals take that results in atrocities like the Gulag, the Auschwitz concentration camp and the Rwandan genocide. Peterson considers himself a pragmatist, and uses science and neuropsychology to examine and learn from the belief systems of the past and vice versa, but his theory is primarily phenomenological. In the book, he explores the origins of evil, and also posits that an analysis of the world's religious ideas might allow us to describe our essential morality and eventually develop a universal system of morality.

Harvey Shepard, writing in the Religion column of the Montreal Gazette, stated: "To me, the book reflects its author's profound moral sense and vast erudition in areas ranging from clinical psychology to scripture and a good deal of personal soul searching. ... Peterson's vision is both fully informed by current scientific and pragmatic methods, and in important ways deeply conservative and traditional."

In 2004, a 13-part TV series based on his book Maps of Meaning: The Architecture of Belief aired on TVOntario. He has also appeared on that network on shows such as Big Ideas, and as a frequent guest and essayist on The Agenda with Steve Paikin since 2008.

In 2013, Peterson began recording his lectures ("Personality and Its Transformations", "Maps of Meaning: The Architecture of Belief") and uploading them to YouTube. His YouTube channel has gathered more than 600,000 subscribers and his videos have received more than 35 million views as of January 2018. He has also appeared on The Joe Rogan Experience, The Gavin McInnes Show, Steven Crowder's Louder with Crowder, Dave Rubin's The Rubin Report, Stefan Molyneux's Freedomain Radio, h3h3Productions's H3 Podcast, Sam Harris's Waking Up podcast, Gad Saad's The Saad Truth series and other online shows. In December 2016, Peterson started his own podcast, The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast, which has 37 episodes as of January 10, 2018, including academic guests such as Camille Paglia, Martin Daly, and James W. Pennebaker, while on his channel he has also interviewed Stephen Hicks, Richard J. Haier, and Jonathan Haidt among others. In January 2017, he hired a production team to film his psychology lectures at the University of Toronto.

Peterson with his colleagues Robert O. Pihl, Daniel Higgins, and Michaela Schippers produced a writing therapy program with series of online writing exercises, titled the Self Authoring Suite. It includes the Past Authoring Program, a guided autobiography; two Present Authoring Programs, which allow the participant to analyze their personality faults and virtues in terms of the Big Five personality model; and the Future Authoring Program, which guides participants through the process of planning their desired futures. The latter program was used with McGill University undergraduates on academic probation to improve their grades, as well since 2011 at Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University. The Self Authoring Programs were developed partially from research by James W. Pennebaker at the University of Texas at Austin and Gary Latham at the Rotman School of Management of the University of Toronto. Pennebaker demonstrated that writing about traumatic or uncertain events and situations improved mental and physical health, while Latham demonstrated that personal planning exercises help make people more productive. According to Peterson, more than 10,000 students have used the program as of January 2017, with drop-out rates decreasing by 25% and GPAs rising by 20%.

In May 2017 he started new project, titled "The psychological significance of the Biblical stories", a series of live theatre lectures in which he analyzes archetypal narratives in Genesis as patterns of behaviour vital for both personal, social and cultural stability.

His upcoming book "12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos" will be released on January 23rd, 2018. It was released in the UK on January 16th. Dr. Peterson is currently on tour throughout North America, Europe and Australia.

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12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos: Peterson, Jordan ...

Internet users have been left baffled by a photo of clinical psychologist Jordan Peterson with musician Skrillex that the controversial Canadian author shared on Twitter on Friday.

Peterson shared the photo to his more than two million Twitter followers with the simple message "Guess who" and the image led to an outpouring of reactions from social media users.

Skrillex, whose real name is Sonny John Moore, is a DJ and musician who had significant success in the 2010s and won three Grammy Awards in 2011. He went on to win a further five Grammys.

Peterson later tweeted at Skrillex to say: "Good to see you yesterday."

Some Twitter users expressed shock and anger at Skrillex for appearing with Peterson, who has made a number of controversial statements in the past, and others suggested that the DJ had now been "canceled."

"You just got Skrillex canceled," wrote Twitter user Matt Humphrey in reply to Peterson's photo.

Drew Westmoreland seemed to agree, writing: "Well Skrillex is cancelled now" followed by a laughing cry emoji.

User @danthedirt appeared to joke that he would have to get rid of his collection of Skrillex music, tweeting: "Time to burn all my Skrillex albums" along with a photo of a public bonfire.

"Man... Why out @Skrillex like this @jordanbpeterson? Will only bring him trouble," tweeted Daniel Eskander.

Some users appeared to be confused about why Peterson and Skrillex would be pictured together.

"Soooooo... Skrillex in a photo with Jordan Peterson... I need to understand the context of that. Are they buds, or was it just a 'photo op'?" tweeted user @urzapolariz said.

"Never would I have ever thought I'd see these two in the same pic," wrote Billy Bouchard.

Twitter user @kurosomnium joked about the apparent surprise of seeing Peterson with Skrillex.

"'I wonder why Skrillex is trending, maybe people are having a nostalgia moment right now.' *sees tweet* 'Oh. Oh no,'" they tweeted.

Jared Holt, a resident fellow at the Atlantic Council's Digital Forensic Research Lab, joked about the possibility of a collaboration between the two and made reference to Peterson's voice, which has sometimes been compared to Kermit the Frog'sthat comparison has become a long-running joke among Peterson's critics.

"When do we get to watch Jordan Peterson sob and break down describing the biblical turmoil represented in the drop of 2010-era Skrillex," Holt tweeted.

"Kermit the Frog voice: 'Drops used to be drops and that was it. Now the kids talk about hyperpop. But only in the wub wub can a boy find sa,'" he joked.

Peterson has long been a controversial figure. Speaking to Joe Rogan on his podcast last week, the clinical psychologist claimed there was "no such thing as climate" and he has recently been an outspoken supporter of Canadian truckers protesting against a vaccine mandate in Ottawa.

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Skrillex and Jordan Peterson Photo Leaves the Internet Baffled - Newsweek

A judicial review has been filed in Federal Court challenging the government for its travel restrictions prohibiting travel for unvaccinated people.

The Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms (JCCF) filed the legal application Thursday on behalf of Maxime Bernier, leader of the Peoples Party of Canada.

In a statement, JCCF said Bernier is being prevented from fully participating in his political role by Orders issued by Transport Canada, under instructions of the Prime Minister, said the statement.

With implementation of these orders, Mr. Bernier is restricted in participating in democratic discussions and the electoral process.

The statement asserts Bernier leader of the fifth largest political party in Canada is required to travel to participate in various political, intellectual and charitable activities across Canada and flew more than 79,000 km for work purposes in 2021. JCCF suggested travel of this volume is only reasonably feasible by air.

Referencing the federal governments October 30 limitation stating anyone travelling by air, train or ship must show proof of vaccination, JCCF said approximately six million unvaccinated Canadians 15% of the population have now been banned from travel.

Canadians cannot travel to help sick loved ones, to get to work, to attend university, to visit family and friends, to take international vacations, and to live ordinary lives like other citizens, said the statement.

The JCCF said in its opinion, the travel restrictions violate Canadians constitutionally protected rights and are discriminatory.

Besides theCharterproviding mobility rights that allow Canadians to freely enter and leave the country, and travel unhindered between provinces, theCharteralso guarantees citizens equal access to political institutions, public debate and the electoral process, said the statement.

The COVID-19 zealots are attempting to gag dissenting voices like mine by any means possible. One such tactic is to prevent people from meeting and organizing politically, said Bernier.

The courts must put an end to this segregation.

The mainstream media give me almost no air time. I have to go and meet people all across Canada to keep my party growing and get the word out.

If I have to travel the equivalent of fourteen times the distance from Victoria to St.Johns in a year, Im certainly not going to do it by car or bike.

Samuel Bachand, primary counsel for the JCCF in Qubec, said although Canada is considered to be one of the most democratic countries in the world, it is the only country in the developed world that has banned vaccine-free travellers from air travel.

Democracy is not the property of the vaccinated, nor is it some kind of reward for well-behaved children, said Bachand, adding, All Canadians, of all political affiliations, must be free to travel.

Melanie Risdon is a reporter with the Western Standardmrisdon@westernstandardonline.com

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Butts threatens legal action against Peterson in Twitter battle - Western Standard

Every parent wants toprotecttheir child from prejudice. Yet some activists and writers claim that state lawmakers proposals to reject educators use of critical race theory in K-12 schools is acampaignthat thrives on caricature.

We saw an example of this in a Twitter exchange between the best-selling author Jordan Peterson and the Manhattan Institute Senior Fellow Chris Rufo this week.

Peterson argued that banning critical race theory in schools is a bad idea because ideas are defeated by better ideas. Peterson also added that critical race theory cant be defined or policed.

Rufo, who has documented the ways in which educators application of critical race theory leads to racial discrimination, appropriately responded by saying state proposals that defend teachers and students from these activities must becareful to restrict racialist abuse.Schools have a coercive power over children, Rufo argued.

Also, critical race theory can be defined (its architects left a canon defining its main ideas) and lawmakers are responsible for addressing violations of existing law. The Heritage Foundationsmodel policycontains such careful provisions and prohibits compelled speechwith compelled speech being a natural consequence of school officials applications of critical race theory in classrooms (or anywhere else).

As I explain in my book Splintered: Critical Race Theory and the Progressive War on Truth, critical race theorypromotes racial discriminationand Marxism. One critical race theorist calledKarl Marxs ideasdazzling and riveting to contemporary theorists. Critical race theory has an activist dimension and questions the very foundations of constitutional law, according to two of the theorys founders, Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic.

There is a wave of popular opinion rejecting the theorys biased applications. State lawmakers are considering proposals that defend teachers and students from being forced to believe ideas that clash with their personal values and Americas founding ideals, including ideas thatviolatethe Civil Rights Act of 1964. Here are some examples of proposals that are rejecting racial discrimination, not banning critical race theory:

Criticshave claimed such proposals prevent schools from making people feel discomfort, as though teachers will need to avoid discussing the harsh truths about slavery and racism in Americas past. But the proposals are specific regarding school activities and instructional practices and do not ban black history, as one Florida lawmaker who opposes the state proposal claimed.

Floridas proposal, for example, says that a public employee cannot force a teacher or student to believe that an individual should feel discomfort, guilt, anguish based on their skin color. The proposal is not an invitation to censor school material but a firm statement opposing racism.

Some school officials know that racially discriminatory behavior will not stand in court. Earlier this week in Massachusetts, Wellesley public school leaders justsettled a lawsuit with Parents Defending Education, an advocacy organization exposing radical content in schools, who argued that the districts racial affinity groups were illegal. These affinity activities separate students by race for different school activities.

State proposals to reject critical race theory should protect teachers and students from prejudice by prohibiting compelled speech, reinforcing the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, and even stating that nothing in such proposals shall limit classroom discussions (Georgias proposal, for one, contains such a provision).

Before denouncing state proposals for using the words discomfort, guilt, and anguish in relation to K-12 schools, critics should look closer at what lawmakers are attempting to do: protect children from racism.

This piece originally appeared in The Daily Signal

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State Lawmakers Are Combating Racism the Right Way. Here's What You Need to Know. - Heritage.org

Canada Unity 2022, the group of anti-vaccine protestors who have snarled traffic in Ottawa and earned accolades in the right-wing media, wants to talk to you about Bitcoin.

A handful of the groups organizers held a press conference on Facebook Live Wednesday that quickly devolved into a presentation on the popular form of cryptocurrency, confusing many of their supporters who were watching online.

Are we at a press conference for Freedom Convoy 2022 or having some guy shove Bitcoin down our throats? one commenter griped. Very disappointed! I came to see updates about progress made by our Truckers.

The convoy protests began in late January, after a loose affiliation of truckers banded together to drive from western Canada to the nations capital of Ottawa to voice opposition to COVID-19 vaccine mandates for truckers crossing the border into the US. The movement has been embraced by Republican politicians in the US, including Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. The Canadian government has hit back, denouncing foreign interference from the US.

But very little of that was discussed at todays press conference. The event kicked off with three of the protest movements organizers, including Tamara Lich, a former fitness instructor and singer in an Alberta band called Blind Monday, who played a prominent role in organizing a GoFundMe campaign that raised about 10 million Canadian dollars ($7.8 million) for the anti-vaxx protest.

After spending several minutes disparaging fake news and praising supporters like Jordan Peterson, a philosopher whose work is admired by the right, the group turned to Bitcoin.

BJ Dichter, who introduced himself as vice president and spokesperson for the Freedom Convoy, said the group has been in touch with some of the most prominent Bitcoiners on YouTube to learn how to use cryptocurrency to raise money for their cause. (GoFundMe shut down the groups fundraising campaign last week, citing violence and other unlawful activity during the demonstrations.)

Dichter turned the press conference over to a man named Nick who he described as the groups Bitcoin team lead for the Freedom Convoy. Nick, sporting a thick beard and a black sweatshirt with the Bitcoin logo in the upper-right corner, started by setting expectations. I wouldnt call myself an expert, he said. But I am a liaison to the experts in the Bitcoin world. Nick said the aim was to fight for the groups freedom to raise money without being shackled by the censorship put in place by our legacy financial system.

After several minutes of a lecture on the advantages of a decentralized fundraising platform, supporters watching the livestream seemed flummoxed.

This is not what I thought it would be, thanks guys but Im thinking you will be losing some money support with this... anyway, have a good day, wrote one commenter. Others implored the group to ditch the Bitcoin talk and get back to the issue at hand: truckers fighting against vaccine mandates.

I get the safety of donating to Bitcoin but why are we promoting digital currency?! another wrote.

In some respects, the convergence of the anti-vaxx protests and Bitcoin was probably inevitable. Last month, the protests drew support from one of the biggest proponents of Bitcoin in the world, Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who tweeted Canadian truckers rule. Former President Donald Trump has voiced support, and right-wing figures from Tucker Carlson to Ben Shapiro to Michael Flynn have seized on the trucker protests.

The group sees Bitcoin as a possible solution to its fundraising woes. And they may have some support, too. A group of Canadian Bitcoin supporters who go by the moniker HonkHonkHodl have created a crypto crowdfunding campaign on the platform Tallycoin as an alternative funding portal for the Freedom Convoy.

According to Tallycoin, the group has raised 1.5 billion in satoshis, with the goal of reaching 2.1 billion.

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The anti-vaxx Canadian truckers want to talk to you about Bitcoin - The Verge

Talking media, politics, censorship and other topics with the brilliant, irreverent, and increasingly influential British comic

By Matt Taibbi / Substack

Had a terrific and wide-ranging talk recently with someone Ive long admired, the comedian, actor, and podcaster Russell Brand, for his podcastUnder the Skin. I dont often end an interview and think, Wow, I actually like that guy, but that happened in this case, which I hope is reflected in the show. The above is a just-posted excerpt.

Some of you may have seen, in recent days, a tweet that describes Brand and a ridiculous range of other Joe Rogan guests as right-wing. The list is full of people who clearly dont fit that description, from Tulsi Gabbard to Steven Pinker and beyond:

This is exhibit A in a phenomenon thats become ubiquitous in mainstream press, where right-wing has become a stand-in for heterodox or dissenting or even just open-minded. Brands show, which now has 4.9 million subscribers (it was 4.8 million when we spoke), has been the repeated subject of crude smear jobs describing him as an alt-right Pied Piper, with the most shameless example being aDaily Beastpiece from Octobercalled, Comedian Russell Brand Has Become a Powerful Voice for Conservatives and Anti-Vaxxers.

That piece went off on Brand for having vaccine-skeptic views and running a conspiracy theory-laden YouTube channel, which led one to expect an avalanche of nuttery. Then you got into the piece and found theBeastscomplaints were things like questioning mandates and pondering whether people could trust Bill Gates. (That last line is such a perfect artifact of aristocratic cluelessness, it belongs in a museum). Worse, according to theBeast,Brand showed interviews of vaccine skeptics without mocking or denouncing them, almost like he was interested in hearing why they think what they think. Even more treacherously, he suggested people think for themselves:

A December 2020 video titled, Covid Vaccine Skepticism or Trust?, released just as the vaccine was rolling out in the U.K., saw Brand airing a series of clips of vaccine skeptics being interviewed on the street, before sharing, Im certainly by no means saying Dont take a vaccine, neither am I saying Do take a vaccine and railing against an increase in government authority and decrease in personal liberties that is concerning.

Much like the NBC Verification Unit that tried to getThe Federalistin hot water with Google over supposed hate speech, and the reporters fromThe GuardianandThe Washington Postwho just pulled thesame stuntwith Substack over vaccine misinformation,The Beastbragged about its (ultimately failed) efforts to get Brand stuck in YouTube timeout over these offenses:

On Wednesday, YouTube announced it planned to crack down on content posted to its platform that spread medical misinformation, saying it had already removed more than 130,000 videos within the past year that violated its COVID-19 vaccine policies. YouTube said of Brands channel, Were reviewing the videos raised by The Daily Beast.

Of course, Brands real crime is the basis of the shows success: the welcoming, positive tone, the breezy lack of judgment, and a refusal to denounce anyone as enemies. The opening salutation Welcome, you 4.9 million shimmering wonders, you awakening souls, my brothers and sisters is a funnier, more exultant update on radioman Lowell Thomass legendary salutation from a century ago, Good evening,everybody. Thomas set the tone for generations of media outlets that saw their programs as places where the whole population could come together for discussion and debate, as opposed to being herded into warring camps. Brand is doing the same thing, just with more panache (saying a lot, since Thomas was also a storied stage performer).

This willingness to court all audiences is an affront to the basic formula of current commercial media, which relies upon a strategy of identifying out-groups and rallying audiences to escalating hatreds. Any show that sends an opposite message that people with differing views can and should coexist, or that people who cross conventional wisdom may be interviewed for any reason beyond being called out, must now themselves be considered reactionary. Were seeing how intense the propaganda about this sort of thing can get with the Rogan situation. Make no mistake, if the Jim Acostas and Brian Stelters andDaily Beastsof the world succeed in chopping Rogans knees out, they will go looking for the next target, which could easily be Brand or anyone else on that list of right wing terrors.

I dont want to get into this too much, as Ive interviewed some other people on that list and want to share their takes on this as well later on. Still, this phenomenon has now reached points of absurdity, where being antiwar or supportive of free speech or even just sort of generally chill and forgiving all part of the liberals basic toolkit, once can inspire accusations of rightist treachery.

Transparently, this is a tactic by a political mainstream so desperate to control what people say and think that it refuses to concede theres even a word for legitimate disagreement with its dictates. As stupid as mainstream press people are in general, this specific stratagem is clever. First, it provides a massive disincentive for left-liberal thinkers to step an inch outside conventional thinking. Secondly, while people are arguing over the superficial provocation Hey, wait, Im not a right-winger! even more dubious notions are slipped in through the back door, like the idea that Joe Rogan isnt allowed to interview conservatives, or that if he does, he must do so using some bizarre pre-approved mathematical ratio.

No matter what, its definitely true now that anyone who disagrees with the standard line on anything, from Russiagate to intervention in Syria or Ukraine to whether or not Anthony Fauci lied a time or five, can sooner or later expect to wake up wearing the wrongthink tag.

More later, but in the meantime, heres Brand on what he thought, when he discovered that Russ, me, the person that I live inside of, was being described as right-wing:

Matt Taibbi, author of the New York Times bestsellers The Divide, Griftopia, and The Great Derangement, is a contributing editor for Rolling Stone and winner of the 2007 National Magazine Award for Columns and Commentary.

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Matt Taibbi: Conversation With Russell Brand, Who Isnt Right Wing - Scheerpost.com

Quick, how many cubes can you rotate in your brain? If youre struggling to even form the image of a cube in your mind, let alone rotate it, then Im sorry to say that youre not a shape rotator. You are, in fact, probably a wordcel. If you have no idea what wordcel and shape rotators are, I will explain it to you, and Im sorry your curiosity has brought you to this article.

At its base, the dichotomy is simple. Wordcels are people who are good with words. Shape rotators are people who are good with math and abstract thought. Use of the terms has skyrocketed online in the past few months, and especially in the last few days.

The term shape rotator has been floating around online for a few years now. The term wordcel has been around less than a year. Youre hearing about them now thanks to a venture capitalist and a Washington Post reporter.

On Feb. 2, Netscape co-founder turned venture capitalist Marc Andreessen tweeted what was, to most, incomprehensible gibberish.

Washington Post technology and culture columnist Taylor Lorenz screencapped Andreessens tweet and shared it with her followers. This set off a chain reaction that elevated the terms wordcel and shape rotator into the mainstream, elevating an extremely online dichotomy into a confusing and terrible new front in our horrifying culture wars.

Much of Americas culture war can be cynically flattened and viewed through the lens of these two words; woke wordcels live in the land of philosophy and books and liberal colleges, clinging to ideals espoused in their precious books, tweeting about Wordle, while shape rotators are out here coding, building businesses, doing engineering, etc. etc.

Pretty soon, Jordan Peterson was getting in on the action.

The terms connote more than their simple definitions. The suffix -cel comes from incel, and is meant to imply that the person described is a stifled loser. (A gymcel, for example, is an incel who takes solace in constantly working out.) But wordcel has no relation to sex, like other -cel. According to its supposed creator, however, it is meant as a slur or insult against people who are good with words.

In a long essay about the origins of the terms, the prolific Twitter shitposter roon claimed to have invented the term wordcel on in October of 2021 while engaging in a discourse battle online.

To the best of my knowledge, I coined the word in the heat of battle with another prodigious schizoposter (Mr. @Logo_Daedalus, whom I feel no animosity towards), and he became a kind of ur-example archetypal figure in the wordcel sphere, roon said in their essay. A deep yet largely unintelligible expert in the humanities, history and philosophy, his verbal abstractions have led him quite far from the base reality we share. While some of these types will become presidents, poets, priests, the vast majority will live and die producing little value, chasing down rhetorical dead-ends, with their scholarship forgotten. This is the central tragedy of the wordcel.

The shape rotator, too, is a common archetype of the online world. This is a person who can do their taxes in a breezy afternoon but struggles to make eye contact during dinner. They may be very good at details and bad at seeing the bigger picture, roon wrote. The demarcation isnt just between STEM and humanitiesyou will absolutely find wordcels in the STEM domainrather, its about modes of thinking. Its about realism, thing-orientation over people-orientation, and investigative grounding in the tangible world.

The etymology of shape rotator has to do with cognitive tests that feature 3D objects and ask the test taker to rotate them. These kinds of tests were popularized in the 1970s and some researchers believed the results could help predict intelligence and certain cognitive abilities. Basically, if you could quickly rotate shapes, you were probably smart and good at math according to some shape rotators in the 1970s.

And thus a new thing for people to fight about online was born. According to roon, shape rotators like Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg have recently gained historical power and are changing the world. The wordcels are pissed about it and struggling to maintain their own relevancy as the world changes around them.

Thats the other important part of understanding wordcels and shape rotators. Look back at the Andreessen tweet that kicked off this fresh round of interest. Look at how roon described the formation of wordcel as a slur created in the heat of battle. This isnt just about categorizing people, its about war.

People love to sort everything into categories and then fight over the imagined differences. That is a driving factor in the use of shape rotator and wordcel. The Andreessen tweet imagined a conflict between the two factions and said the outcome was predetermined, calling the wordcels use of language asymmetric hybrid warfare.

This is an old beef, really. This is about science versus the humanities. Its about whether or not kids should focus on STEM or reading Shakespeare. Its an argument thats been playing out in academia for decades. The only difference is that its been upgraded with fancy new terms meant to appeal to the terminally online. Nerds invented a new way to measure their dicks online.

So who is winning the war, the wordcels or the shape rotators? First, culture wars arent meant to be won but to be fought continuously. But let me ask you this: Why are they shape rotators and not, say, mathcels or STEMcels? The shape rotators, going against type, have won a victory just by naming their opponents wordcels.

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OK, WTF Are Wordcels and Shape Rotators? - VICE

-- Jordan Peterson talks with Dr. Julie Ponesse about the connection between massive protests by truckers in Ottawa and the massive protests by members of the news media against Joe Rogan.

"Your observation that the truckers and the Joe Rogans are serving as redemptive agents is a reflection of the brilliance of the idea of individual sovereignty as the basis for political stability," Peterson thought.

"Who should you consult? Not just the people with the ideas. The people who drive the trucks. Well, why? They're navigating the roads. They're delivering the goods, in a real sense. So they know things."

"They are the people. They have families. Their life is real, it is not abstracted to the point where the abstractions themselves become a problem," he said.

And I thought: Just winging it, eh? You try just winging it in front of 11 million people for five years and see if you're still standing, buddy? Do you think just winging it is so easy?

Well, first of all, why aren't you doing it if it is so damn easy?

And second, isn't it something that with all your resources, you can only garner one-tenth of the audience of one man who has like zero production expertise in a studio. He just puts it out online, and all he does is have honest conversations.

Insofar as he is capable of that. Joe stumbles and he knows and admits that. Sometimes he gets too buttoned-down on a given point. But fundamentally he's just trying to do what we're doing here.

...

Keep at it, guys. Every time you attack him, it is a million more subscribers for Joe. If they kick him off Spotify, he would have a new platform in two days with twice as many listeners.

Joe has gotten to the point where, as long as he continues to be careful, and he is, I don't think he can be canceled. In fact, I think all the attempts to cancel him only redound to his credit and increase the rapidity with which he is destroying the entire legacy media.

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The only real rationale for opposing free speech, apart from ignorance... is the conclusion that you've already figured it all out. Or you're trying to hide something. Those two things go hand in hand quite frequently.

It is very often that people who are trying to hide something justify themselves with a kind of totalitarian certainty about their beliefs. They double down on them to hide their own moral iniquities.

You have to believe that people like Rogan shouldn't be allowed to just have a discussion with whoever they want and wing it --and you think that people you think you already know. If your life is perfect and you're already living in the Kingdom of God, more power to you. Maybe you're right and you can shut down discourse because the heavenly heights have already been scaled, but I haven't met anyone like that yet.

Most people I know think with not too much thought that there are some things they still have to learn and there are some ways their lives could be improved. How are we going to approach that?

If you want to find out how you're wrong, you should talk to people who don't agree with you. Maybe 90% of what they say is not worth attending to, could be, probably the same goes for you, but 10% might be just what saves you in the next crisis.

This is one of the things I loved about being a clinician. I talked to lots of people who were different from me. Like seriously different from me. And if I wasn't learning something from them it was because I wasn't conducting the discourse properly. They taught me invaluable things.

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You want to differentiate and assess your own beliefs. Why?

Your beliefs aren't a set of facts at your disposal. Your beliefs are tools that you use to navigate the world. And the more finely tuned those tools -- like, I have a shed at home with all sorts of power tools in it. One of the things I learned from renovating houses is that if the job is difficult, you don't have the right tool. And you can go down to Home Depot which has like 50,000 square feet of tools, which is phenomenal. And you can find a little gadget that someone spent half their lifetime devising and it makes that job easy. That's ideas. Ideas are tools. They're not facts.

DR. JULIE PONESSE: And you have to sharpen them. And take care of them. And keep them from getting rusty. And put them away with the right way. Your metaphor is beautiful.

So talking about both the trucker situation and the Joe Rogan situation. It seems in many respects like intellectuals, or elites, have gotten us into this mess. And it is the truckers and the Joe Rogans of the world who are getting us out of it, arguably. What does this say about education, academics, civil discourse, and democracy, moving forward?

JORDAN PETERSON: Well, it says that the highest and the lowest always have to be united. And what that means in some sense is that ---

Well, I learned that in part from watching Wagner's Die Meistersinger (The Master Singer), the opera. The libretto elaborates on that theme in an absolutely stellar manner. In his opera, it details out the actions of guilds of men. And each guild is made out of domain experts. One of the heroes is a cobbler, an expert shoemaker... and if you're a good enough cobbler, you get to sing. And if you're a good enough singer, you get to elect a Master Singer.

It is a lovely structured sequence of metaphors. And so one of the things Wagner did so well in that opera was to point out that true expertise means the differentiation of abstract knowledge all the way down to the point of behavioral implementation. This is one thing I really like about being trained as a behavioral psychologist. I'm very interested in psychoanalytic theory, but it is very abstract. Existential psychology is very abstract, the meaning of life stuff.

Like, yeah, but where does the rubber hit the road? Well, the truckers know that! They really know that because they are down there moving goods to people. They're doing the actual work in the most fine-grade manner. They might have a problem with higher-order articulation. And it is up to their leaders --

DR. JULIE PONESSE: I'm not so sure about that! I challenge every Canadian to get themselves there to have a conversation with all of these truckers. They'd be very surprised.

JORDAN PETERSON: I'm not so sure either. They don't have trouble with enunciating blunt truths.

But you were pointing to problems among the intellectuals. The intellectual chattering class is criticizing the truckers. There's a divorce between the intellectualized ethical framework and the practical reality that working-class people represent.

Your observation that the truckers and the Joe Rogans are serving as redemptive agents is a reflection of the brilliance of the idea of individual sovereignty as the basis for political stability.

It's like, well who should you consult? Not just the people with the ideas. The people who drive the trucks.

Well, why? They're navigating the roads. They're delivering the goods, in a real sense. So they know things.

DR. JULIE PONESSE: They're talking to the people.

JORDAN PETERSON: You bet. They are the people. They have families. Their life is real, it is not abstracted to the point where the abstractions themselves become a problem.

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You saw the same thing with the Yellow Jackets in France. Corrupt energy policies started to make energy too expensive for ordinary people "because we have to save the planet." Well, how about not on our backs there, guys?

We're going to see a lot more of that, I suspect. Especially if the elite-types with their Utopian schemes keep walling themselves up from the people they hypothetically represent.

This is why the U.K. voted for Brexit -- the common people thought, "Nope, [the E.U.] is too abstract. Too much of a Tower of Babel. The leaders have gotten too far away from the people they represent."

And I think they made the right decision, so, more power to Rogan and the truckers.

See more here:

Jordan Peterson: More Power To Joe Rogan And The Truckers - RealClearPolitics