Thanks so much for posting this. When I read about his tweet, it didn’t sound at all like Peterson because of his adage:
“don’t apologize if you haven’t done anything wrong.”
He was posed with a question indicating that either result was bad and was seeking a middle ground, a 3rd alternative.
I agree that it was more problematic, and the correct response would probably have been not to accept the premise that being confirmed and assuming the post was unacceptable. That is one of the straw men that leftists always use, to assume a false premise and ask one to defend it. But it was a 3rd alternative and that is what was requested of him. He is also right that twitter was the wrong place for a thought experiment.
I’m not sure that Dr. Peterson is fully aware of the whole Alinski strategy employed by the left. Any meager compromise, blink or flinch is taken as an invitation for more violence, vitriol, deceit and outright criminality.
When considering the left, he is much more inclined to consider them as “classical liberals”, which very accurately describes our founding fathers. That is not what we are dealing with. He is aware of the destructive malice of leftists in academia, but does not seem to realize that the political leftists make the academic leftists look like pussy cats.
I have to agree with your observation here. This probably would have been a better discussion between emails than rather twitter. Where, Jordan right or wrong, could expand upon this thoughts beyond the 140 or is it 280 character limitation. I will buy his “thought experiment” clarification, but ding him for having the conversation on twitter.
I also think some of his observations were wrong about Kavanaugh, but then again, he sees more young men in his environment than I do. Those were his clinical observations over a period of time regarding young men and sex. Whether they actually apply to Kavanaugh is obviously very debatable.
In the end, I think Peterson was wrong to hold this discussion in the public world of twiiter. If it was a discussion between academics, then it probably should have remained as such. Peterson is aware that he can screw things up and that is the last thing he wants to do...but I think he screwed up just a bit here.
Peterson is not a conservative, he bills himself a Classical Liberal. He is a Canadian, not an American. While he is in the states much...some of the nuances might escape him. Maybe...maybe not, eh?
But, Peterson’s war against Political Correctness and the SJW’s is a just war against the insanity of the totalitarian state. Do we throughout one of the better warriors because of a verbal, or rather written miscue? I guess you all will decide.