Luminary Iconoclast Leaving Woke Canada

"The issue with the College [of psychologists of Ontario] ... is very annoying to say the least."

"And the new legislation that the [federal] Liberals are attempting to push through, Bill C-63 [Online Harms Act] -- we'd all be living in a totalitarian hellhole if it passes."

"The tax situation is out of  hand, the government in Canada at the federal level is incompetent beyond belief. And it's become uncomfortable for me in my neighbourhood in Toronto."

"[I lived in a] kind of champagne socialist neighbourhood [where I was] less popular in my own neihbourhood than I am anywhere else in the world, literally."

"[The Toronto District School Board is] probably the most woke institution in North America, which is really saying something."

"[Toronto is] run by the wife [Olivia Chow] of the last leader of the socialist party in Canada [Jack Layton], and so the goal in Toronto was to turn it into Portland or San Francisco. And that's happening."

"I didn't ever expect that to be something that happened in Canada. But under Justin [Trudeau] and the woke mob, that's definitely something that's happened."

Jordan Peterson, Canadian psychologist, author, iconoclast

That's it, he's had enough. His advice and outlook on life, how to make the most of it sensibly with the use of one's own commonsense in acknowledging opposing ideologies while selecting what comes naturally, trusting your own reaction to prevailing and ever-changing social mores with a little helpful  hints from a seasoned veteran from the academic world whose personal experience leavened with the insight of a professional  people-watcher, will no longer tolerate the bullying of woke academia, government and  readjusted social structures that stricture personal development.

His rise to prominence owed greatly to pushing back against that woke establishment, starting with his refusal to accede to the preferred pronoun use at University of Toronto where he was a professor emeritus. His instructional books on living a fulfilling life, taking advantage of all possibilities with a clear head untrammelled with the junk science of modern reversals of societal mores mandating that everyone fall into line or be named an outdated troglodyte of social stagnation became a sensation among the troubled minds that saw no value in DEI, Critical Race Theory and Wokeness.

Anonymous complaints of Professor Peterson's private conduct in the social media sphere brought the heavy hand of the College of Psychologists of Ontario down on the Professor's head. His posts characterizing a plus-size model as "not beautiful" hit a sour note with someone, and a single complaint was sufficient no doubt, to spur the College into action against a sinning son. Professor Peterson was ordered to present himself for a coaching program on professionalism in public statements. And when a panel of Superior Court justices ruled that to be reasonable, Professor Peterson prepared himself for the ordeal.

Did those coaching sessions result in correcting Professor Peterson's impulsive remarks that people found so denigrating when he was expressing his opinion of the absurdity of social interactions? Hardly; it appears that the College was unsuccessful in persuading anyone of even minimal standing in the field to take the coaching position, possibly intimidated by the thought of 'correcting' the vision and values of a man known to be very capable in the debating field of rational thought.

 

In any event, the man is fed up with everything he sees and hears around him, from the administration of the Toronto municipality, to the pathetic aura in academia at every level where it is left-wing 'progressive' politics that rule the day and ruin the educational opportunities owing to those whose aspiration it is to secure a sound education, not constant exposure to deranged social experiments in restructuring the social weal to accommodate the victimhood ideology that permeates society from marginal minority groups to imported terrorist heroization.

 

When Professor Peterson left his tenured position with University of Toronto, chief among the reasons he stated was the "appalling ideology currently demolishing the universities and, downstream, the general culture". At a public enquiry into foreign interference, when Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was testifying he seemed to refer to allegations out of the U.S. that RT, a media source linked to Moscow, had been bankrolling right-wing influencers, inferring that Professor Peterson was one of those. 

 

"I don't think it's reasonable for the prime minister of this country to basically label me a traitor and I don't find it amusing." 

Jordan Peterson has announced that he has moved to the U.S. from Canada. Attila KISBENEDEK / AFP/Getty Images

 

Social Platforms Manipulating the Social Contract

"Because this is a trans individual they are untouchable ... they are allowed to mock and taunt me about my biology, they can say whatever crude things they want. But when it comes to me wanting to take a shot back at that person and wanting to stand up for myself -- or for my womanhood so to speak -- I am permanently kicked off."
"The private corporation [Twitter] is allowed to censor speech, sure, but I think it's a matter of looking at what they are censoring."
"There's always these people who celebrate when someone is banned from a social media platform. Your instincts should not be to celebrate when someone you don't like is vaporized, because now  you're not challenging your own ideas, you're not facing any opposition, it just turns into an echo chamber."
Lindsay Shepherd, free speech activist

When Lindsay Shepherd was still part of the student body at Wilfred Laurier University, she was also a teaching assistant. She had been inspired, as a free-speech activist, to admire the resistance of University of Toronto Professor Jordan Peterson who had posted a number of YouTube videos arguing among other things the absurdity of a legislated set of pronouns to be used when addressing the lesbian and transgender population. During one of her lectures she had played a video of a TVO interview on a popular show, The Agenda interviewing Dr. Peterson.

This interview was post-reaction to adding gender identity to the Canadian Human Rights Act. At the height of the controversy two years ago, Dr. Peterson explained his aversion as a psychologist to political correctness in the issue of transgender and LGBTQ2 rights: non-gendered pronouns — especially ones that have been created like “ze” and “zir” — which he said "compel the use of a particular kind of ideological language ... For me, personally, that’s the sticking point. I think that’s dangerous language. I don’t trust the people who formulated it. And I’m not going to be their mouthpiece because I know what they’re like."

Lindsey Shepherd, subsequent to airing the video of the interview with Dr. Peterson, was called to a disciplinary meeting with three of the university's top administrators who belittled her, intimidated her and accused her of being 'transphobic' in introducing a class of first-year undergrads to Dr. Peterson's position as a way to pique their interest in examining issues from a total perspective. She had the presence of mind to record the entire event with her supervisor and two other faculty administrators and when she made it public a storm of controversy enveloped her just as it had Dr. Peterson.

People gathering for a rally in support of Lindsay Shepherd on the campus of Wilfrid Laurier University, November 24, 2017.  Photo: Cole Burston

She has made headlines again, two years later, as a free-speech advocate and activist for having been permanently banned from Twitter this week which has censored her sympathies and expressions in a dispute between herself and a transgender woman, Jessica Yaniv. Ms. Yaniv, who also considers him/herself an activist on the opposite spectrum to Lindsay Shepherd had rudely disparaged Lindsay who responded to a nasty provocation. The great minds at Twitter adjudicating the issue exiled Lindsay but not the transgendered person whose defamatory, disgusting comments warranted discipline.

"I heard @realDonaldTrump is building a wall inside of your uterus aka your 'reproductive abnormality' hopefully the wall works as intended", tweeted Yaniv, and Shepherd responded: "Of course, he thinks reproductive issues are something to be mocked. This is how men who don't have functional romantic relationships speak. But ... I guess that's kinda what you are!", she responded. "At least I have a uterus, you fat ugly man."

And it is this exchange, with the emphasis on the response, not the provocation, that motivated Twitter to ban Lindsay Shepherd from their platform. This kind of action by Twitter in response to opinions and sentiments posted by platform users that Twitter hierarchy considers on the right spectrum of the political and social arena, is all too common and increasingly dramatically emphasized by actions to eliminate the presence of those they consider to be 'right-wing'.

Yaniv describes herself on Twitter as an LGBTQ2SIA and human rights activist, and it was not evidently seen by the platform seen as necessarily proportional to banish the transgender 'activist', yet imperative that the 'right-wing' activist be neutralized. And nor is Lindsay Shepherd the only Twitter user that Yaniv has been instrumental in having banned from Twitter. Canadian feminist writer Meghan Murphy's account suffered a similar fate when she tweeted comments such as "men aren't women".

Jessica Yaniv‏ @trustednerd Jun 16

One proud lesbian. I'll never give up fighting for human rights equality. #LGBTQoftwitter

Perverting Psychology

"We all will come into close contact with mental illness during our lives. The diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of mental illness must reflect the very best science possible. Good intentions are not enough. History is replete with well-intentioned practitioners offering treatments of no proven scientific value, that were enthusiastically embraced by patients and their families but ultimately did absolutely no good and kept people from seeking truly effective treatments."
"The vast majority of clinical psychologists are now trained in programs in which science plays only a minor role. In the epistemology embraced by many of these programs, the primacy of scientific evidence is rejected, and students are trained to use methods of diagnosis, treatment, and prevention that have little or no scientific support."
Robert W. Levenson, former president, Association for Psychological Science

"The document produced by the American Psychological Association [APA] purporting to provide guidelines for the psychological treatment of boys and men is disingenuous, scientifically fraudulent and ethically reprehensible. I believe that the people who wrote it are ill-informed, ideologically possessed, morally weak, and malevolent in their unacknowledged and overweening resentment. I am embarrassed and ashamed to have them speak on behalf of my profession, and would like to apologize to the public for not having been sufficiently awake and outraged earlier to have done more to stop something like this from happening."
Jordan B. Peterson, professor of psychology, University of Toronto

Jordan Peterson is beside himself with anger. Indignation at stupidity and political correctness sits well on Jordan Peterson. He is a thorough professional, a man steeped in his profession and it irritates him to distraction to witness how degraded his own profession has become in its knee-jerk prostration toward the casual abandoning of scientifically-proven standards by which psychology made a respected name for itself, to clasping a more 'progressive' equivalency view of feminist theory in place of science.

His critique of the newly-released Guidelines for Psychological Practice with Boys and Men is one sizzling with indignation and fury. Dr. Peterson addresses the replacement of science by ideology in the complete and utter upheaval to compromise the science he practises. The language utilized in and of itself is more than sufficient to warn that The American Psychological Association has chosen to demean the profession by catering to the 'progressive' view of psychology through the lens of the LGBTQ2 community.

Words and phrases that set out the APA position in the document strain credulity, but they are there, large and opinionated: Gender, Cisgender, Gender Bias, Gender Role Strain, Masculinity Ideology, Gender Role Conflict, Oppression, Privilege, Psychological Practice, Gender Sensitive. Surely more than satisfactory to gain the sniffing approval of the aforesaid community and its legion of supporters. Just as well that Professor Peterson has his own legion of supporters who feel themselves oppressed and demeaned and sidelined.

According to the authors of the document, men socializing boys traditionally succeed in destroying their mental health. It is obviously, in their estimation, unhealthy to be masculine, to feel the emotions of a male, to consider oneself masculine in any way, shape or form. "Research suggests that socialization practices that teach boys from an early age to be self-reliant and strong, to minimize and manage their problems on their own yield adult men who are less willing to seek health treatment." If men encounter problems in their personal emotions they must perforce, immediately seek the guidance of a psychologist.

Who will steer them toward the feminine in their natures, persuading them that masculinity in any form is suicidal. Best of all, goes on the document: "Men are over-represented in prisons, are more likely than women to commit violent crimes, and are at greatest risk of being a victim of violent crime (homicide, aggravated assault)." That's their contention, and it's entirely skewed from reality. Aggression is inherent, not learned, and the recognition of that fact is that fathers and mothers teach boys inclined toward aggression to control it, as part of their socialization.

What is true, however, is that boys without fathers to pattern themselves on, and who will take their sons in hand and show by their own behaviour how to restrain impulses like aggression, are devoid of the opportunity to learn. Fatherless boys are more inclined to social deviance and that is fact. Boys without fathers to guide them become over-represented as alcoholics, drug addicts, gang members, prisoners, rapists, murderers. Dr. Peterson points out that the writers of the APA document he so deplores have a tendency to quote their own work as verification of what they state.

He also points out that the ideologues responsible for generating propagandist discourse point to Western culture as an oppressive patriarchy, male dominated, violent, racist, sexist, homo-, Islamo- and trans-phobic beyond redemption. From all of this it can be logically inferred that the progressives in social thought rejecting science in support of their profession have managed to pervert a once pre-eminent professional and scientific organization of U.S. psychologists.

The AMA's Boys and Men document is propagandistic to a degree that is almost incomprehensible.  Postmedia photo illustration