Category Archives: Jordan Peterson

In a new video released late Monday, renowned author, professor, and clinical psychologist Dr. Jordan Peterson announced his return home after months of touch and go treatment, and gave some hints as to what work he is planning next.

I wanted to tell you Im back in Toronto. Im in much better health, though I am still severely impaired, the professor said in the eight-minute video. With Gods grace and mercy, Ill be able to start generating original material again, and pick up where I left off.

The video discusses in personal terms the difficulties the professor has experienced over the last year. According to the video, and prior interviews with his family members, Peterson developed a physical dependence on a benzodiazepine prescribed to him in 2017 as an anti-anxiety medication. The issues worsened after his wife of 30 years, Tammy, was diagnosed with a severe case of cancer. While Tammy did recover, her husbands condition worsened.

Thats put me in and out of hospitals for much of the last year, in Connecticut in the United States, in Toronto in Canada, in Moscow in Russia, and in Belgrade, Serbia as my family searched for specialists who could aid me in the severe, post-use withdrawal and neurological-damage related consequences of both the benzodiazepines use and its cessation.

Peterson also spoke of the people who helped him through the ordeal.

Ive learned some things during that trying time, I suppose. I can tell you what kept me going, during what was certainly the worst period of my life: family, thats for sure. Friends. And the work that I was able to continue doing.

The psychologist went on to describe some of work he has been doing while recovering, and what hell be writing on in the coming months. This included discussion of a previously unmentioned book he has been creating, although he declined to give any details on the works subject matter yet.

Peterson also discussed two new video series he plans on releasing about the Bible, following up on his popular 2017 series of video essays on the the book of Genesis. The original series, which is more than 30 hours long, has accumulated around 30 million views on YouTube since publication.

Im going to start working on the next book, in the Old Testament, which is Exodus, which will take a while, but in the interim Im going to start producing vidoes on the Book of Proverbs, the book of wisdom, or a book of wisdom rather, he said. I think the analysis of those [proverbs], which can be done in a relatively short period of time, will prove of benefit to me and perhaps to those who are inclined to watch or listen to my analysis.

You can watch the Jordan Petersons full update here, and his previous lecture series here.

Jonah Gottschalk is an intern at the Federalist. He studies Modern History and International Relations at the University of St Andrews.

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Jordan Peterson Back Home, 'With God's Grace and Mercy' Resumes Life - The Federalist

By DAN FAGAN

Suzanne LaFrance sits on the Anchorage Assembly. She leans hard-left and enabled disgraced former Mayor Ethan Berkowitz and his unprecedented tyrannical assault on the citys private sector.

Berkowitz, LaFrance, and several other power-drunk Assembly members left behind a wake of economic destruction with their unreasonable and punitive lockdown mandates.

The pain and hardship they caused are so deep and wide, they are difficult to measure.

Now, LaFrance wants to take her dismal record as an Assembly member and move on up to the Alaska Legislature. Shes running as a Democrat challenging James Kaufman, who beat the incumbent Jennifer Johnson in the Republican primary for District 28.

LaFrance obviously cant run on her record of economic carnage as an Assembly member, so shes attempting to reinvent herself as a conservative. Big Labor is sending out a mailer featuring LaFrance sandwiched between Congressman Don Young and U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan. The goal of the flyer is to trick the voter into believing LaFrance is ideologically aligned to the conservative Young and Sullivan. Nothing could be more untrue.

The flyer is an obvious attempt to deceive voters. LaFrance is playing her constituents for the fool.

Some may argue, Thats politics. All politicians lie. But do they?

If one were to encapsulate the strength and formidability of President Donald Trump, it would be this: He tells the truth.

Trump may very well be the most straight-shooting man, next to honest Abe Lincoln and I cannot tell a lie George Washington, to ever hold the office of the presidency.

Its true the media consistently labels Trump a liar. But most of what the media says is the opposite of whats real and true.

LaFrance blatantly lying to voters about her political leanings may work in the short term, but its far from a solid play long term.

We know many Leftists like LaFrance dont believe in the concept of truth or absolutes. You often hear people of her persuasion say things like speak your truth. But there is no your truth or my truth. Theres only the truth and it does not bend to anyones opinion or perspective.

Renowned clinical psychologist Dr. Jordan Peterson writes a lot on the concept of telling the truth. In his book, 12 Rules for Life, the 8thrule is always tell the truth or at least never lie.

Peterson argues you have reality on your side when you tell the truth.

If reality is against you, youre not going to win, youre going to get flattened, writes Peterson.

Petersons philosophy can be summed up this way: Do what is meaningful, not what is expedient.

Telling the truth is hard because you have to know the truth, writes Peterson. But you can know when you are lying. Lying makes you weak. You can feel it. You put yourself in disharmony with reality. If you act in truth, then the order you produce is good.

Peterson points out no parent is ever pleased when they catch their children in a lie. He says when you go into a situation, if you tell the truth as carefully as you can, then, whatever happens, is the best that could have happened in that situation no matter how it looks.

Dont underestimate the power of truth. There is nothing more powerful, writes Peterson. Im going to state what I think as clearly as I can and Im going to live with the consequences no matter what they may be.

Weve learned a lot from Trump but nothing more important than freely and confidently speak your mind.

Unfortunately, for Leftists like LaFrance, telling the truth is not an option. LaFrance knows her radical ideology is not palatable with most voters. If she would run on what she wants to do as a legislator, she wouldnt stand a chance of getting elected.

Former Senate President Cathy Giessel understood this. Its why four years ago she lied when she promised to work with Gov. Mike Dunleavy to provide a full Permanent Fund dividend check. Instead, she did the opposite. The lie that got her elected is also what caused voters to reject her four years later.

LaFrances blatant attempt to fool voters may work for her in the short term and fool enough voters into believing shes a conservative. But when she runs again, shell have to bank on voters having a short memory.

In many ways, we should feel sorry for LaFrance and other lying politicians. Imagine knowing the only way to get where you want to go in life is to fool as many people as you can. Thats hardly a meaningful existence.

Truth is like surgery. It hurts but it cures. A lie is like a pain killer. It gives instant relief but has side effects. Unknown philosopher.

Dan Fagan hosts the number one rated morning drive radio show on Newsradio 650 KENI. He splits his time between Anchorage and New Orleans.

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Fagan: LaFrance weaves a tangled web; deception her only path to victory - Must Read Alaska

IN July I wrote about Jordan Petersons sudden disappearancefrom public life. Until then the controversial University of Toronto psychology professor and self-help guru had rarely been out of the news in his battlefor free speech and for reason over ideology.

The reason for his absence was that this foremostpublic intellectualhad been very ill. In a moving interview with his daughterMikhaila,which we showed,Peterson revealed that he was recovering from addiction to the prescription tranquilliser benzodiazepine, meant to be given only for the short-term relief of severe or disabling anxiety.*He developed a severe physical dependency when his dose was increased after his wifes terminal cancer diagnosis.

Now, ina video in which he speaks directly to camera for the first time in a year, he gives further details of what happened to him and his plans for the future. It is both moving and honest. He pays tribute to the help given to him, particularly by his family, but for whom he doubts he could have managed the brutal and painful process that is benzodiazepine recovery.

His honesty and humility this man is very hard on himself is painful to watch. Bowed but not broken,I would say.This episode will have made him no less extraordinary a man, but more.

Commentingon the new video, Douglas Murray notes the failure of Petersons criticsto contend with his points and arguments:You would have thought that if any Canadian professor who had previously been obscure rose to prominence across the world, with audiences of thousands rising to their feet to welcome him every night, then whatever their ideological stance people including critics would try to work out what it was that he was on to.Yet Petersons critics, from Cathy Newman to theNew York Timesand the BBC, consistently failed to see any interest in the bigger story.

Indeed so. The idea of a prophet is one that the Left are unable to get to grips with. It is outside their radar. And a prophet is what Peterson is, of ourmodern times. I do not think the description is out of place.

It is hard not to believe that some discoveryof Christian faith has helped him. He signs off the video saying that with Gods grace and mercy he hopes to complete some of the tasks which he lays out in it.

In 2017, Peterson released a set of online videos about the Old Testament Book of Genesis, and it had long been his hope that he would find the time to prepare another set of lectures on Exodus. For now, though, he hopes to devotehimself to Proverbs, which he calls the Book of Wisdom. In this age of Covid hysteria, when were we more in want of wisdom?

I for one cant wait. As Douglas Murray says, the world needs Jordan Peterson more than ever.

* Update

The Benzodiazepine Information Coalition have questioned my use of the term addiction in this context. They say, I quote, Jordan Peterson is struggling with physical dependence not addiction . . . Mikhaila Peterson says that its not an addiction, and even posted an update on her twitter to make this clear . . . but physical dependence. These terms arent interchangeable.

They point to the FDA Guidance for Industry on page 9 which states:

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Welcome back, Jordan Peterson we need you more than ever - The Conservative Woman

WHAT the Meteorettes managed to do on the road at the weekend cannot be overstated.

To even the basketball layman, the numbers paint a compelling picture.

Those are 22 and 28 - the margins of victory over rivals Bundaberg and Gladstone.

Also 623 and 186 - kilometres covered in a bus, just to be there.

It amounted to two wins, from 120 gruelling minutes played, all inside 24 hours.

With just seven players to choose from.

In this era of competition, what Scott McKenzie's team achieved at the weekend should not have been possible.

While their rivals welcomed some temporary imports from the Sunshine Coast and Brisbane to bolster their ranks, the Meteorettes were forced to make do with a skeleton crew.

Their young guns travelled in the opposition direction, to Townsville, for U18 representative duties.

It left the senior Meteorettes with just two on the bench for their toughest road trip on the ConocoPhillips CQ Cup calendar.

And yet somehow, the Meteorettes got through unscathed. Not only that, but they dominated once again.

They defied the odds and expectation to again prove Mackay deserves to be considered one of the best female basketball programs in Queensland.

Jordan Peterson overcame an ankle injury to play a key role in the Meteorettes win over Gladstone on Sunday. Photo: Callum Dick

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"I was extremely nervous. I thought it was going to be a tough weekend for us," McKenzie admitted.

"We knew Bundaberg had brought in a player and Gladstone another couple. We only had seven."

Then Jordan Peterson went over on her ankle on Saturday night and the Meteorettes faced the very real prospect of rotating just one off the bench on Sunday.

"I asked on Sunday 'are you any good?' and she said 'I've strapped it up tight - I'm ready to go'," McKenzie recalled.

"When we were in a bit of a run on Sunday, she came in and made a difference for us.

"I was really proud of her effort this weekend."

Peterson's selfless act was one of a long line of gutsy performances from the seven-strong squad which flew the flag for Mackay at the weekend.

Not only will the winning road double be a big boost to the team's confidence, it should also strike fear in their rivals.

With the deck stacked against them, the Meteorettes proved too good.

It has the group well poised to continue toward its "ultimate goal", which is an inaugural CQ Cup crown and confirmation as the best.

"That's obviously the ultimate goal and we've put ourselves in a position now to do that," McKenzie said.

"Realistically if we come out next week and win at home, we'll sew up top spot. That gives us a home semi - win that, and it's a home grand final. That's always been the goal."

The Meteors and Meteorettes will enjoy a well-deserved bye this weekend, before returning to The Crater on November 7.

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The numbers that prove Meteorettes are something special - Daily Mercury

HPMS 7A 46

Boerne South 19

Peterson 7As Colin Rose ran for touchdowns of 20, 30 and 40 yards, and the Spikes ran their unbeaten season record to 7-0 by blasting Boerne South, 46-19, Tuesday in middle school action at Antler Stadium.

Petersons Davis Caraway added a 40-yard TD run, Anthony Falcon scored on a 45-yard jaunt, and George Eastland reached the end zone on a 10-yard run.

Jake Zirkel booted five 2-point kicks for the Spikes.

Falcon led Petersons defensive effort with an interception, Mikkel Pieper had a fumble recovery and Guy Flores a sack, and Lawrence Sanchez logged a tackle for a loss.

Boerne South 25

HPMS 7B 0

Boerne South snapped Peterson 7Bs four-game win streak by topping the Spikes, 25-0, in more middle school action Tuesday at Antler Stadium.

Petersons Kaeden Rodriguez intercepted a Boerne South pass, and Samuel Baker, Zair Zapata and Braedon Thibodeaux all recorded a tackle for a loss.

On the offensive side of the ball, Tait Sonnenberg logged runs of 35, 27, 16 and 19 yards for the Spikes, and Samuel Baker had a run of 17 yards.

The Spikes 7B team is now 4-2-1 for the season.

HPMS 8A 46

Boerne South 0

Peterson 8As Cade Jones ran for two touchdowns and passed for a third, and the Spikes blew past Boerne South, 46-0, Tuesday in Boerne.

Jones scored on runs of 31 and 40 yards and threw a 45-yard touchdown pass to Dominyk Vasquez, all in the first half. Wiley Landrum booted three 2-point kicks to put Peterson ahead 24-0 at the break.

Vasquez raced 72 yards for a score in the third quarter, and Myles Jordans 15-yard TD run, plus two more Landrum PAT kicks, upped the Spikes edge to 40-0 going into the fourth quarter.

Petersons Aiden Irvin capped the night with a 3-yard scoring run in the fourth quarter, but the PAT failed.

Helping out the Spikes offense with a pass reception was Irvin hauling in a 17-yard pass from Jordan.

On the defensive side of the ball, tackles for losses were made by Irvin, Jaykwon Benson and Cole Dendy. A fumble was forced by Caleb Lopez, and fumble recoveries were made by Jones, Andrew Valderez and Rocky Deleon.

Mikey Nelson blocked punt for Petersons special teams.

HPMS 8B 18

Boerne South 6

Peterson 8Bs James Montrose ran for touchdowns of 9 and 3 yards to lead the Spikes past host Boerne South, 18-6, in more middle school action Tuesday.

Peyton Middleton added a 10-yard touchdown run for Peterson.

Turnovers on defense were produced by DJ Rodarte and Jakob Clark with interceptions, and Jesse Montrose with a fumble recovery. Mason Gore and Daniel Rodriguez both recorded sacks, and James Montrose logged a tackle for lost yardage.

Running and catching the ball to help out Petersons offense were Jesse Montrose, Diego Benevidez and Peyton Bailey.

Eli Dent starred on special teams with a big hit on a kickoff.

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Peterson takes three games from Boerne South | Other Sports - Community journal

Whatever Clara Kraebbe may do with the rest of her life, the 20-year-old Rice University student wont outdo the publicity shes received since her recent arrest by the NYPD for felony vandalism. Reading in the New York Post about young Clara, who lives with her father, a child psychiatrist, and her mother, an architect, in a $1.8 million Upper East Side luxury condo and a pre-Revolutionary War Connecticut mansion, I asked myself: Whom does this girl remind me of?

And then it came to me. Of course: shes a modern-day Jane Fonda.

While Clara is a Manhattan princess, Jane was Hollywood royalty, daughter of one of the great actors of the movies golden age. While Jane was a poster girl for the hordes of well-off kids who protested the Vietnam War and looked down their noses at hardhats, Clara is the face of BLM/Antifa rioters who sneer at cops and other inferiors.

Raised in privilege, the beneficiaries of capitalist success, both these young women turned against the system that had given them so much. Clara trashed downtown Manhattan businesses and, according to reports, wanted to commandeer upper-class New York apartments of the sort she lives in and hand them over to the poor. Its not quite up there with climbing on a North Vietnamese anti-aircraft gun, as Jane did back in 1972, but itll do for these days of diminished expectations.

What motivates such extreme acts of rebellion? To ask the question is, at once, to challenge it. For neither Clara nor Jane is a real rebel. Clara might want to play Robin Hood with other peoples properties, but not, I suspect, with her familys. The same goes for Jane, who, while singing the praises of Communism in North Vietnam, had no intention of staying there and living under the system; she had, after all, just won an Oscar for Klute and had a career in pictures to get back to.

Not that either Clara or Jane was entirely play-acting. A charitable interpretation of their conduct would be that both womenraised in wealth but innocent of the laws of economics, and perhaps insufficiently conscious of just how exceptional their own lives weresimply found it unfair that everybody couldnt live the way they did. Having, presumably, been pampered since infancy, moreover, perhaps neither possessed sufficient humility to recognize that her efforts to undermine the American system of government might be immodest, if not ill-advised. (As Jordan Peterson would say, learn to make your bed before you try to change the world.)

The parallel with Fonda occurred to me in part because she has been in the news a lot latelynot for acting, but for activism. Jane has not given up the fight. Indeed, you cant really call Clara the young Jane Fonda because the old Jane Fondashes 82 nowis still, in heart and mind, the young Jane Fonda. Which is to say that she hasnt learned a damn thing.

This has come through clearly in the interviews shes done to promote her new book, What Can I Do? My Path from Climate Despair to Action. Uniformly, she has been treated like an oracle. Timothy Noah told her: Youve been causing . . . good trouble for the better part of fifty years. Howard Stern praised her level of commitment.

But for first-class superstar slathering, you had to turn to Maureen Dowds 4,500-word puff piece in the New York Times Magazine. Though Dowd is a purportedly serious political columnist for what was once considered the nations Paper of Record, she, like Noah and Stern and others, refused to engage seriously with Fondas lifetime of politically themed performance art.

On the contrary, Dowd piled on the superlatives, describing Fonda, in her opening sentences, as a glam Forrest Gump who has popped up on the front lines of culture, fitness, politics and Hollywood for more than half a century. Dowd held out to readers the tantalizing prospect of a full-bore profile of Fonda, from bad vibes over Hanoi Jane to good vibrators.

The North Vietnam episode, in this formulation, is simply a matter of bad vibes and is, in some way, of a piece with the octogenarians current battery-fueled sex life. Unlike Henry Fondawho, we learn here, told Jane, to his credit, If I ever find out youre a Communist, Ill be the first to turn you inDowd gives every impression of viewing even the most appalling chapters of Fondas life, from her gushing praise of Ho Chi Minh to her calumnies against U.S. troops, from her involvement with the Black Panthers to her friendship with Angela Davis (the judge-killing conspirator and Lenin Prize winner), as a series of colorful escapades in the life of this ever-fascinating intergalactic sexpot.

Living in a cultural bubble in which screaming about climate change is a mark of virtue, Fonda considered herself an environmentalist before this year, but she hadnt, in her own words, really put my body on the line for it. Then she heard Greta Thunberg speak and read a book by Naomi Kleinand devised a stratagem. Shed stride into the Oval Office with Pam Anderson, Sharon Stone, and a few other beautiful, sexy, smart, climate-interested women, and kneel and . . . plead and beg Donald Trump to change his environmental policies. Hed be so popeyed by the sight of these luscious dames on their knees that hed rewrite the laws right then and there.

She even proposed the idea to Ivanka Trump, who laughed.

So instead of leading a cougar assault on the White House, Fonda started taking part in Fire Drill Fridays, a weekly climate protest at the Capitol. She racked up five arrests. (Think of it: two Oscars, two BAFTAs, and now five arrests!)

Jane detects a feeling of love in the BLM protests. At this late date, is she really so obtuse? How does she square this view with the vandalism, arson, beatings, and killings committed by BLM rioters? Did she learn nothing from her enthusiasm for a Communist regime whose victory eventuated in genocide? Dowd doesnt ask.

Now an environmental heroine, Fonda boasts that these days she has only two closets full of clothes, including clothes that I wore 30 years ago. This, she notes, is a far cry from life during her 1990s marriage to CNN mogul Ted Turner, when they had 23 homes, with clothes at each place. This state of affairs obliged her to buy in bulk, so that very often at Saks Fifth Avenue, the sales girl would say Are these gifts? And Id say, No, theyre all for me.

What was she thinking back then? How did she manage to reconcile that life of cartoonish luxury with her professed radical convictions? Did it ever occur to her, as she took private jets from one Turner spread to another, that she was living a life of greater waste and self-indulgence than pretty much anyone else on the planet? Does it occur to her now, given her personal history, to be even slightly embarrassed to be preaching to anyone about consumption?

Or could it be that todays Jane Fonda, the newly minted climate queen, is, quite consciously, doing penance for her previous behavior? It doesnt seem so. Theres not a word here that even hints at such. Throughout the Dowd interview and others that shes done for her book, Fonda presents herself as a woman who, throughout her life, has been a selfless crusader for the greater good. The problem is always elsewhere.

Maureen Dowd doesnt ask about any of this, either. You dont ask Jane Fonda about such things. Nor do you hold a mirror up to the hypocrisies of Al Gore or Laurie David (Larry Davids fanatically eco-conscious ex) or any of the other rich climate scolds whose carbon footprints exceed that of a small town. To be a certain kind of child of privilege, like Jane Fonda or Clara Kraebbethat is, to be less than gifted with self-knowledge and the capacity for shameis to be above such petty calculations.

Bruce Bawer is the author of several books, including The Victims Revolution, While Europe Slept, and the novel The Alhambra.

Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images

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Heiresses on the Barricades - City Journal

Pain will come, he is saying, and when it does, nobody wants to hear about it. Why should your pain be any more deserving of our attention than anybody elses? Bear your pain, he says in one lecture, so when your father dies you are not whining away in the corner and you can help plan the funeral.

At my fathers funeral, I sat in the front row with my hands folded on my lap. Later, at the burial site, I watched them lower the coffin into the ground. On the trip home, I sat with my head against the car window, just the way you used to do on long trips. After a few days, I went back to school and pretended that nothing had happened. I got through it. I didnt whine.

Having tried Petersons method for most of my life, I can tell you it works only as a tourniquet. You may get through the moment, the day, the week. Eventually, though, the blood stops flowing altogether, and something in you falls away.

For years, I cultivated an entire comedic persona based on withdrawal. If you ever want to see what that looks like, go watch me on one of those VH1 I Love the shows, in which talking heads reminisce about decades gone by. My segments are all totally deadpan, unsmiling, sarcastic. They were funny (if I do say so myself), but sarcasm is a form of withdrawal. I was good at it because by that point in my life, I had invested years in learning how to act as if I didnt care about anything. What you see on TV is an exaggeration of the way I lived my life, but only a little. Back then, I had so much anger that I didnt know what to do with, so I clamped down. My release was jokes. They escaped like occasional steam puffs, shaking the lid from a boiling pot.

The more successful I became doing that, the less satisfied I felt, because I knew there was something fundamentally dishonest about it. That stone-faced person wasnt me anymore. I was recently married. I had a newborn son. Within a couple of years, I would have a daughter. The person I saw on-screen, the one who never cracked a smile, didnt seem like he was ready to be a husband and a father. Maybe he wasnt ready. I began feeling a conflict between the person I found myself portraying on television and the man I was trying to become in real life. Maybe that shouldnt have mattered; after all, actors and comedians pretend. Thats the job. But it mattered to me.

I wanted to be more open and honest in my life and in my work, which meant I had to change. Which meant I had to start asking myself some hard questions about who I was and what I valued. I had to pry apart the careful persona Id constructed. I wanted to be a better husband and father. I wanted to be a better man.

I cannot recall the number of times I wiped tears from your face when you were little. I can remember the feeling of your pudgy arms around my neck as I knelt down to you, listening to you stammer out the reasons for your pain, holding you until you felt better, wiping your snot off my shirt. Coming to me for comfort was one of the greatest gifts you ever gave to me, because it allowed me to be your dad. A dad instructs and reprimands and plays. Ive done all those things too, but comforting you felt special, the gift of extending empathy. You sharing your pain with me relieved my own terror of fathering a son. In allowing me to comfort you, you comforted me.

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To My Son: Men Have to Allow Ourselves to Be Loved - The Atlantic

Cultural Marxism is a term favoured by those on the right who argue the humanities are hopelessly out of touch with ordinary Australia.

The criticism is that radical voices have captured the humanities, stifling free speech on campuses.

The term has been used widely over the past decade. Most infamously, in former senator Fraser Annings 2018 final solution speech to parliament he denounced cultural Marxism as not a throwaway line, but a literal truth.

But is cultural Marxism actually taking over our universities and academic thinking? Using a leading academic database, I crunched some numbers to find out.

The term cultural Marxism moved into the media mainstream around 2016, when psychologist Jordan Peterson was protesting a Canadian bill prohibiting discrimination based on gender. Peterson blamed cultural Marxism for phenomena like the movement to respect gender-neutral pronouns which, in his view, undermines freedom of speech.

But the term is much older. It seems first to have been used by writer Michael Minnicino in his 1992 essay The New Dark Age, published by the Schiller Institute, a group associated with the fringe right wing figure Lyndon LaRouche.

Around the turn of the century, the phrase was adopted by influential American conservatives. Commentator and three time presidential candidate Pat Buchanan targeted cultural Marxism for many perceived ills facing America, from womens rights and gay activism to the decline of traditional education.

The term has since gone global, sadly making its way into Norwegian terrorist Anders Breviks justificatory screed. Andrew Bolt used it as early as 2002. In 2013, Cory Bernardi was warning against cultural Marxism as one of the most corrosive influences on society.

By 2016, the year the Peterson affair unfolded, Nick Cater and Chris Uhlmann were blaming it for undermining free speech in The Australian. The idea has since been adopted by Mark Latham and Malcolm Roberts.

Insofar as it goes beyond a fairly broad term of enmity, the accusers of cultural Marxism point to two main protagonists behind this ideology.

The first is Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci. Writing under imprisonment by the fascists in the 1920s, Gramsci argued the left needed to capture the bureaucracy, universities and media-cultural institutions if it wished to hold power.

The second alleged culprits are neo-Marxist theorists associated with the Frankfurt School of Social Research. These critical theorists drew on psychoanalysis, social theory, aesthetics and political economy to understand modern societies. They became especially concerned with how fascism could win the allegiance of ordinary people, despite its appeals to aversive prejudice, hatred and militarism.

When Hitler came to power, the Frankfurt School was quickly shut down, and its key members forced into exile. Then, as Uhlmann has narrated, Frankfurt School academics [] transmitted the intellectual virus to the US and set about systematically destroying the culture of the society that gave them sanctuary.

While Soviet communism faltered, the story continues, the cultural Marxist campaign to commandeer our culture was marching triumphantly through the humanities departments of Western universities and outwards into wider society.

Today, critics argue it shapes the political correctness that promotes minority causes and polices public debate on issues like the environment, gender and immigration posing a grave threat to liberal values.

If the conservative anxieties about cultural Marxism reflected reality, we would expect to see academic publications on Marx, Gramsci and critical theorists crowding out libertarian, liberal and conservative voices.

To test this, I conducted quantitative research on the academic database JStor, tracking the frequency of names and key ideas in all academic article and chapter titles published globally between 1980 and 2019.

In 1987, Karl Marx himself ceded the laurel as the most written about thinker in academic humanities, replaced by Friedrich Nietzsche revered by many fascists including Benito Mussolini and Martin Heidegger, another figure whose far-right politics were hardly progressive.

Over the past 40 years, the alleged mastermind of cultural Marxism, Gramsci, attracted 480 articles. This compares with the 407 publications on Friedrich Hayek, arguably the leading influence on the neoliberal free market reforms of the last decades.

The Frankfurt School featured in less than 200 titles, and critical theorist Herbert Marcuse (identified by Uhlmann as a key transmitter of the cultural Marxist virus in the US) was the subject of just over 220.

Over the last decade, the most written about thinker was the neo-Nietzschean theorist, Giles Deleuze, featuring in 770 titles over 2010-19.

But the notoriously esoteric ideas of Deleuze and his language of machinic assemblages, strata, flows and intensities are hardly Marxist. His ideas have been a significant influence on the right-wing Neoreactionary or dark enlightenment movement.

The last four decades have seen a relative decline of Marxist thought in academia. Its influence has been superseded by post-structuralist (or postmodernist) thinkers like Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, Judith Butler and Deleuze.

Post-structuralism is primarily indebted to thinkers of the European conservative revolution led by Nietzsche and Heidegger.

Where Marxism is built on hopes for reason, revolution and social progress, post-structuralist thinkers roundly reject such optimistic grand narratives.

Post-structuralists are as preoccupied with culture as our conservative news columnists. But their analyses of identity and difference challenge the primacy Marxism affords to economics as much as they oppose liberal or conservative ideas.

Quantitative research bears out the idea that cultural Marxism is indeed a post-factual dog whistle and an intellectual confusion masquerading as higher insight.

A spectre of Marxism has survived the cold war. It now haunts the culture wars.

Matthew Sharpe is an Associate Professor in Philosophy at the Deakin University.

This article first appeared on The Conversation.

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What is cultural Marxism and is it really taking over universities everywhere? - Scroll.in

Although eating is a fundamental aspect of life, dietary preferences are often complicated and polarizing. From plant-based to paleo to keto, the optimal human diet has been a long-contested topic. In the past few years, the carnivore diet has garnered mainstream attention and despite rigorous scientific studies showing the negative effects of this diet, anecdotal claims have inspired more people to try out carnivorism.

Proponents of the carnivore diet claim that this lifestyle is revolutionaryand contradicts conventional conceptions of nutrition science. Many advocates of carnivorism claim that this diet has drastically changed their lives the reported benefits range from stabilizing energy levels to curing autoimmune diseases. But how do these claims measure up to scientific scrutiny? Read on to learn about five celebrities who tried the carnivore diet and the impact that eating so much meat had on their health.

James Blunt was recently in the news for developing scurvy after two months on an all-meat diet. This ailment was the result of a petty vow to spite his vegan and vegetarian friends. His decision to eat only chicken and mince backfired as Blunt admitted he quickly became very unhealthy and was diagnosed with scurvy. As Azmina Govindji, the spokesperson for the British Dietetic Association pointed out, eliminating plant-based foods such as fruits, vegetables, and legumes can result in low levels of vitamin C, fiber, and potassium. Govindji explained how crucial these nutrients are stating, not having enough vitamin C can leave you feeling tired and lethargic, while fiber from oats and barley can reduce your blood cholesterol levels; and potassium helps your heart muscle to work properly.

Its safe to say that if a particular diet results in a disease historically associated with malnourished sailorsyou should probably try other options.

Mikhaila Peterson, the daughter of the controversial psychologist and professor Jordan Peterson, has been advocating her self-titled Lion Diet since claiming that exclusively eating ruminant meat (cows and lambs) has cured her physical and mental illnesses. A couple of years ago she garnered mainstream attention when, despite having no educational background or training in nutrition, dietetics, or biology, she began to sell her expertise for $599 per year. Aside from her lack of formal education, Petersons branding for her Lion Diet has a few red flags alerting to the pseudoscientific nature of her claims. For example, all of her evidence for the success of this diet is based on anecdotal claims (most of which are personal) rather than scientific evidence. Similarly, she claims that this simple diet is a cure-all for ailments ranging from auto-immune diseases to mental illness. Many fad diets, such as Petersons, rely on pseudoscience rather than rigorous scientific research, so familiarizing yourself with the telltale signs of pseudoscience is essential.

When Mikhaila Peterson began her Lion Diet, her father Jordan and mother Tammy joined her. While Mikhaila made lofty claims that this new diet cured her and her parents illnesses, news stories of her familys health undermined these claims. In 2019, her mother was diagnosed with kidney cancer and her father attended rehab for antidepressants. So while Mikhaila kept claiming on social media that her Lion Diet cured her and her fathers health, she willfully omitted her mothers severe health struggles. Furthermore, kidney cancer specifically is linked to meat consumption, so omitting her mothers health is not only dishonest but also potentially dangerous to the people who are following her carnivorous lifestyle. Secondly, in a now deleted video, she made claims on her youtube channel that she had completely turned her fathers health around and gotten rid of his mood disorder (video can be found here at 3:44) However in February of 2020, she contradicted these claims by revealing that her father had been constantly taking medication and was now in rehab dealing with addiction to that medication. While Mikhaila might claim her Lion Diet has cured all of her health problems, the health of her parents demonstrates how misinformed she really is. In an interview with The Atlantic,Jack Gilbert, the faculty director at the University of Chicagos Microbiome Center, claimed the Lion Diet is a terribly, terribly bad idea, adding, if [Mikhaila] does not die of colon cancer or some other severe cardiometabolic disease, the life I cant imagine.

Joe Rogan is a popular podcast host who has routinely commented on veganism and in 2019, he even admitted that the lifestyle is perfectly healthy. His favorable comments came after hosting a debate between James Wilks, the producer ofThe Game Changers, and Chris Kresser, an advocate of the paleo diet. Despite claiming on Instagram that Wilks knocked it out of the park in defending veganism and his film, Rogan began a carnivore diet in January of 2020. While he claims that this month-long experiment caused rapid weight loss, he also vividly details his issues with diarrhea caused by this diet (he compares it to a rainforest mudslideyeah). Rogan fails to consider that his weight loss might not be caused directly by his diet, but rather indirectly through his excessive diarrhea. This problem could be caused by a number of things. For one, meat is known to cause a host of ailments sometimes resulting from salmonella or E. coli contamination. Furthermore, the lack of fiber in the carnivore diet could result in malnourished good gut bacteria which could lead to issues like diarrhea. Aside from these gastrointestinal issues, eating two servings of red or processed meat a week is linked to an increased risk of cardiovascular disease and death. While Rogan only stuck to this diet for a month, the health problems could be long-lasting.

Shawn Baker is a prominent advocate of the carnivore diet and former M.D. who had his medical license revoked in 2017 due to incompetence. Despite his lack of qualifications, Baker continues to push his beliefs about the carnivore diet and, much like Mikhaila Peterson, claims that this diet is a cure-all. However, his health has been called into question several times, specifically regarding his cholesterol levels. In 2018, after 15 months on a carnivore diet, he discussed his bloodwork on Robb Wolfs podcast. Youtuber Mic the Vegan discussed Bakers blood test results in his own video. Mic points out that in the podcast Wolf concedes that Bakers total cholesterol is high (205 mg/dl), however, he conveniently neglects to mention Bakers LDL or bad cholesterol. Using a simple equation, Mic discovered that Bakers LDL cholesterol was incredibly high (149.2 mg/dl), in fact, his LDL cholesterol was about twice as high as the optimal level. Such high LDL cholesterol puts Baker at extreme risk for atherosclerosis. Not only that, but Mic points out that his blood glucose levels put him in the diabetic range and his testosterone levels were off the charts low.

While these individuals maintained an all-meat diet for the health benefits, scientific evidence demonstrates how detrimental the carnivore diet truly is. Dr. Lawrence Cheskin, who dubbed the carnivore diet the heart attack diet, has an explanation for the short term health benefits some carnivore dieters experience. In an interview for Inverse, Cheskin explains that sometimes the perceived health benefits are not from the diet itself, but simply the result of losing weight. He goes on to say that sometimes it looks like having all meat lowered your cholesterol when in fact if you had the same amount of calories but they were all red meat, then youd be raising your cholesterol.

Marion Nestle, Ph.D. and professor emeritus of food studies at NYU, believes that these carnivore dieters can think and eat whatever they want and thats fine. She is quoted at the end of the Inversearticle matter of factly, sayingIs [this diet] going to be good for them? No. But thats their choice. While technically Nestle is right that ones diet is ultimatelytheir choice, the unsustainable and unethical nature of the carnivore diet extends beyond the individual making the action.

Reducing meat from your diet is not only scientifically demonstrated to be beneficial to your health, but a meat-free diet has the lowest environmental impact. It is one of the best actions you can take as an individual to limit suffering and destruction in this world.

While the carnivore diet is extreme, even less restrictive meat-heavy diets pose a serious threat to ones health. As mentioned, just two servings of red or processed meat a week is linked to an increased risk of cardiovascular disease and death (for reference, the average American eats five servings of red or processed meats a week). Take the Atkins diet popular for allegedly helping with weight loss, this diet restricts carbohydrates while increasing the consumption of proteins and fats. Research suggests that consuming large amounts of protein and fat derived from animal sources can increase ones risk for heart disease and some cancers. Similarly, the Paleo diet typically includes large servings of red meat and has been linked to increased risk of cardiovascular problems, diabetes, and certain cancers.

By contrast, research has shown vegan diets to be protective against ischemic heart disease and cancer. Similarly, individuals following a vegan diet are at the lowest risk for developing type 2 diabetes. Following a plant-based diet not only has a myriad of health benefits, but you can also feel good knowing that your choices are better for the animals and the environment!

Check out these recipes for ideas on how to obtain vital nutrients from a plant-based diet!

Read more about the health benefits of a plant-based diet!

For more Animal, Earth, Life, Vegan Food, Health, and Recipe content published daily, subscribe to the One Green Planet Newsletter! Lastly, being publicly-funded gives us a greater chance to continue providing you with high-quality content. Please consider supporting us by donating!

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5 Celebrities Who Got Really Sick After Going on an All-Meat Diet - One Green Planet

Michael Jordanis arguably the greatest basketball player in thehistory of the NBA. He also has a famous shoe brand that is worth a lot of money. Jordanwore his shoe brand, and now you see players and people walking around in his shoes.

There was one time during his playing career where he did not wear his shoe and ended up wearing another players shoe. Lets find out who that player was.

Before the shoes were created for the world, the Air Jordan sneakerswere made exclusively for Jordan. The shoes were designed for Nike by Peter Moore, Tinker Hatfield, and Bruce Kilgore. During his rookie season, Jordan had the chance to sport his new shoes that no one has seen before. The Air Jordan I was the first shoe of his collection. The shoe featured a red and black colorway, and the shoes ended up being outlawed by NBA Commissioner David Stern because the shoes did not have enough white in them. There was a rule in the NBA where shoes had to have a certain percentage of white featured. After the shoe was banned, Jordan and Nike released the Jordan I in colorways with more white featured in the shoe.

After that shoe was created, more and more of the Air Jordans came out. Nike expected to sell $3 million worth of Air Jordans after four years, and they sold $126 million after one year. That tells you how much people wanted to wear his shoes. The demand for Air Jordans was very high. During the late 1980s and mid-1990s, not only was Jordan, a top player in the league, but he also had the top shoe in the league. Movie actors, rappers, and other professional athletes who played different sports wanted a pair. Jordan changed the game with his shoe brand.

The Hall of Famers shoe has been released in hundreds of colorways in high, low, and mid-top versions. Air Jordans arent just popular basketball shoes, and the shoes are among the most popular shoes on the market. No other professional athlete will be able to top what Michael Jordan did with his shoes.

In 1995 during the Eastern Conference semifinals, the Chicago Bulls took on the Orlando Magic. In Game 3, Jordan did not wear his shoes. Instead, he wore Penny Hardaways Nike Air Flight One shoes. That was the first and only time Jordan wore another players shoes. So why did he wear them? When Hardaway first came into the league, Jordan admired his game. In an article from The Undefeated, Hardaway talked about how Jordan saw him as the next star in the NBA.

Hardaway was signed to Nikeas a rookie, and he wanted to see if the brand could make him a custom pair of the Air Jordan 9s. Jordan agreed to have it done, and that made Hardaway one of the first players outside of Jordan to wear player-exclusive Air Jordans. When the Bulls were playing the Magic in the 1995 playoffs, Jordan was fined $5,000 for wearing shoes that were too white. Jordan had to find another shoe to wear. Instead of wearing one of his other shoes, he decided to wear Hardaways Nike Air Flight Ones.

No other NBA player can say that Michael Jordan wore their shoe except for Hardaway. Jordan did not have to wear Hardaways shoes, but he did it out of respect, and they had a good relationship. In Game 3 of the 1995 Eastern Conference semifinals, Jordan went to work wearing Hardaways shoes. He scored a series-high 40 points, but the Magic won the game and went on to win the series and advance to the NBA Finals.

But Hardaway will never forget the time when Jordan wore his shoes. We all know that Michael Jordan is one of the fiercest competitors ever. Hes not gonna wear just anybodys shoe, he wouldnt do that for a lot of people, Hardaway said. For him to do that for me, it was the ultimate level of respect.

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The One Time Michael Jordan Wore Another Player's Shoes in an NBA Game - Sportscasting