I have a little confession to make. I censor myself all the time
here. This is very unfortunate and on principle it's "bad" for the
function I see this phlog having as an information channel to
whomever would use it as such.
See, most of what I talk about is somehow inspired by what I am
hearing on a bunch of podcasts. It would be nice if I could just
point to these podcasts, but out of a habit acquired in the wider
online space I usually cannot.
The reason is pretty straightforward. I don't like the "Reference
Game" and I have no interest in checking if the people I find to
make logical sense have also a good standing in the Twitter
community or where ever they are being judged. Also I don't trust
that this community is able to correctly evaluate someone's social
media brownie points, and I am sure they are not able to judge
the goodness of their heart or anything more fundamental than the
mere surface. What this means is, I will gladly listen to people
who've been "cancelled", if they only make sense on some logical
level.
Even if someone is in good standing (a situation which is getting
more difficult to imagine) there is the problem of "giving up"
part of my authority on the content. When I am the author, I am
able to explain my point of view to you, if you were interested
in asking for some clarification. If I have quoted someone, I may
not be perfectly aware of some plot behind the scenes or some
shift in perspective that makes the person less fit for explaining
that particular issue.
I have noticed (from all of these podcast I am not going to link
here) that the conservatives seem to have a lot less of this
reference censoring problem than the liberals, but I think
libertarians are the best in this sense. I think it must be all
that individualism. Also, I would say that the personality trait
of disagreeableness is important here.
I am, sadly, quite agreeable.
Well in any case, here's an example of a podcast I would not
usually put in my references out of a vague foreboding that
probably doesn't make any rational sense whatsoever. I listened
to the latest episode of Jordan Peterson's podcast with Paul
Rossi called "The Grace Church High School Controversy".
I have never bothered to find out exactly what people find
problematic with Peterson. I think it was something about some
legislation about the number of toilets in schools. So something
to do with gender, I suppose. But anyway, as I said, I don't go
out of my way to find out what people are accused of. I only
listen to if they make sense or not, case by case basis.
And the other guy, well, in short he is a teacher who was relieved
of his duties after he refused teaching a particular style of
anti-racism. You'll have to listen to the talk to find out, I am
trying to not give spoilers.
The reason I want to point out this particular conversation is
not necessarily to take sides in the topic per se. What makes this
talk special is the way it is done. It is sort of a masterpiece.
I haven't listened to Peterson more that a few months so I
don't know if he does this sort of stuff somewhere else, but
I can say that this is quite on a different level than the other
talks he has on his podcast.
He goes into the story of this teacher from a therapists' point of
view. He digs up a whole deep history of this person, apparently
without knowing about it from some other source. It's really an
exciting journey through this teacher's life and his struggles.
In fact, the story is so intimate that it made me question if
Peterson should be using the therapeutic techniques to conduct
an interview? Is there a moral dilemma here? Did Rossi agree to
this?
But I think if there is a moral dilemma, it doesn't matter. What
is left is an intimate deep dive into what sort of a personality
will go against a grand social change out of a commitment to some
sort of a principle, and how this highlights so many big questions
that even if Peterson squeezed the personal history out by sheer
force (I'm not saying he did, though), the result is a unique
perspective into a deeper level of a person's mind than what we
can usually glimpse in this media environment. It really is
quite amazing. It's like a movie, or something. One could say
that the way the story is told is so compelling that maybe it
would make sense for the listener to put it into "anecdotal"
category in their mind, just so it doesn't accidentally affect
whatever the listener thinks the political solution should be.
Although, to be fair, that would put a lot of the
opposing views to the anecdotal box as well.
I must point out though, that this compelling storytelling
doesn't make this account purely one-sided. There are actually
a huge number of facts about the teacher that could be used by
the other side of the argument as ad hominem attacks. This is why
I call it an intimate interview. Rossi doesn't come off as some
shining beacon of liberal values. He comes off as a person with
real problems and quite an ambiguous life, actually.
As for the question of reference censoring here on my phlog. I am
pretty sure I will keep doing it. The Rossi case is in some ways
easier than some other cases where the content is largely
political. The political content here is maybe 20% max. The main
content is the guy's life. I do think that the "lived experience"
has it's place and this interview is packed with it.
