Peterson, Harris, etc....
- Thread starter prath92
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For a man who likes to bang on about individual life choices, he sure does like to generalise.
I love Ben Shapiro. What a man.
I love Ben Shapiro. What a man.
That article pointed out how the underhand tactics he uses to appear to be a good "debater". And I think the whole idea of debate is overrated. It is only interesting if you have no stakes in the issue. I do not think people who are Trans are amused how impressive he debates against their entire existence. And the whole "both sides" stuff makes it seem like Anti-Arab and Transphobic viewpoints are not well represented in our discourse.
Have you watched him this season? He'd probably not score against Ben Shapiro keeping goal.
It seems weird to me that you can consider someone a great debater without agreeing with anything they say or mean. I can understand it from an oratory standpoint, but at the end of the day, the purpose of debate is to convince people your argument is correct, and if you’re not doing that, it can’t have been a particularly great argument.
Obviously you’re never going to agree with everything anyone says, but you’d surely have to agree with a sizeable majority of his guff to hold him in any high regard? Especially if the parts you do disagree with are so inconsistent and deliberately dog whistle (rather than merely ideologically objectionable) that defending him comes with an automatic, distancing caveat. Hitchens was a rampant mysoginist, but he never tried to debate it as an objective truth. And even his worst, hawkish tendencies were clearly convictions, rather than cynical plays to the gallery.
Shapiro’s main skill seems to be remaining detached and calm in the face of hysterical objection. Objections he’s deliberately fished for in order to look cool and rational opposite his low hanging prey of largely triggered students.
He’s a sheltered preppy Ivy League debate team Captain trying to make a career out of competitive arguing on a technical level. There’s no substance to him at all. He’s a lawyer trying to get his “client” off on any technicality he can. Anyone taken in by it is a mug, IMO.
Obviously you’re never going to agree with everything anyone says, but you’d surely have to agree with a sizeable majority of his guff to hold him in any high regard? Especially if the parts you do disagree with are so inconsistent and deliberately dog whistle (rather than merely ideologically objectionable) that defending him comes with an automatic, distancing caveat. Hitchens was a rampant mysoginist, but he never tried to debate it as an objective truth. And even his worst, hawkish tendencies were clearly convictions, rather than cynical plays to the gallery.
Shapiro’s main skill seems to be remaining detached and calm in the face of hysterical objection. Objections he’s deliberately fished for in order to look cool and rational opposite his low hanging prey of largely triggered students.
He’s a sheltered preppy Ivy League debate team Captain trying to make a career out of competitive arguing on a technical level. There’s no substance to him at all. He’s a lawyer trying to get his “client” off on any technicality he can. Anyone taken in by it is a mug, IMO.
Have you watched him this season? He'd probably not score against Ben Shapiro keeping goal.
No to be honest, I've heard he's on the decline though. Same as Ronaldo apparently?Well put.
He employs way too many cheap tricks to be considered great at debating. Fallacies abound whenever he opens his mouth. There's nothing impressive about anything he does, and he rarely dismantles or destroys anyone. He just spouts shit until they give up, then declares himself the victor.
Precisely. People seem to mistake the ability to reel off a thesaurus with intelligence or eloquence.
This is actually even more worrying than fecking meathead Nazis marching with tiki torches, that people would tolerate or even laud falsehoods and disgusting ideas delivered under a veneer of sagely calmness (read: trolling smugness).
Which is why it worries me that a couple of people I know (who don't know each other, so it's not like they've echochambered themselves into it), who call themselves centrists, really like watching videos of Shapiro and Peterson. Both used to be fairly left leaning, but have recently started drifting, while complaining more and more about PC, SJWs and feminists.
Sounds like the football forums.
Very well put, like several other posts here. Political talk is a kind of action too, one that is grounded in real life and has real-life consequences. All kinds of exclusion were justified by speech for ages, and it was always instrumental for paving the way for violence. There are tendencies to ignore that, especially by people who aren't subjected to the consequences. This kind of ignorance is also part of the reason the far right can conduct themselves as champions of free speech with some success.
Well put, you highlighted what so many deem as his best skill, and like I said earlier in the thread - he's able to remain so emotionally unavailable because the majority of his topics have no effect on him or his life.
I personally think a lot of people are just crying out for a literate individual who can provide an alternative view, because so many are useless or have an agenda.
This stems from a recent uprising in literacy & media surrounding liberalism and political correctness due largely I would say to the internet and social media, and I suppose for those individuals they feel as though their views aren't as valid because there's much less representation of it in the public discourse. Ironically, this is what it was like for minority groups before the internet.
The profile of the likes of Ben Shapiro or Milo are only heightened because nobody else wants to do the work to research themselves, usually out of laziness, but also possibly because they don't want to find out something that could alter their position on a topic.
These people almost serve as a physical confirmation bias, someone like Shaun King would be the Liberal equivalent.
Personally, I think it's a shame if people are relying on others to provide an alternative view - the world is literally at our fingertips, any information you want to find out, you can find out within a matter of seconds.
So if you lean towards Conservatism, and aren't able to come forth with your opinions that you've formed through your own research - but rather lean on others to convey the arguments for you - then you're quite simply a sheep and I would argue that your opinions aren't as valid because they have been formed with a bias, and that goes for everybody regardless of affiliation.
I don't see how you can truly believe something, or form an opinion on something without your own personal research being done on the topic.
This notion that “I don’t agree with his views but he is a great debater” is so lame. Most of his argument are just lies, blatantly racist and are overly simplified hot takes on complicated subjects.
Jaysus
i think this is my favorite ben shapiro quote
"the police are not going around arresting black people for the fun of it”
"the police are not going around arresting black people for the fun of it”
Hmm. I do wonder if making a very good living would see one move across the political spectrum in order to cash in.
i mean thats what david brock did
It is a pathetic argument. Akin to that stupid t shirt Kenny Daglish wore in support of Suarez.
He is not a good debater. Just look at the videos above, he indulges in name calling of left as soon as possible. He has built up his own straw-man of what he perceives leftists to be and keeps arguing against that.
I know Peterson also got stick on this thread but I think he is the one who qualifies as a good debater on the right. I don't agree with almost every thing he says and he has also disappointingly started to taylor some of his videos to cater to his alt-right following. He is definitely a conservative but I don't think he holds any 'vile' views or has said any outright racists stuff like Shapiro. He is basically the kind of right winger who talks about white privilege being an overstatement and attests to being 'colour blind' to minimise the role race plays in society. Leftie students in Canada throwing tantrums against him has helped him immensely and proven his point. His obsession with cultural marxism as a threat is borderline conspiracy theory non sense but he keeps thing civil even when discussing the same and does not brush over the opposition's argument. I actually agree with who ever posted in this thread some pages back that there is some benefit in engaging with such people rather than shutting down the debate all together.
See - I think this is why the likes of Shapiro, Peterson et al end up looking a lot better in debates than they really are. Most of the time they're basically engaging with people who they know they're going to get a reaction from and who they can look superior against as a result. I don't feel like it really makes them good debaters; they're essentially just picking their opponents wisely. It'd be like singing the praises of West Ham if they were to face and beat non-league sides comfortably every week; in such a situation West Ham would still be, for the level they're supposed to be at, quite shite, but simply by lowering the level of who they face off against they look much better than they really are as a result. If that analogy works.
Yes, I don't agree with the practice of no-platforming. I understand where it comes from but the inherent risk in it becoming a standard practice and being used for anything that offends anyone is too big. The same has happened in India, where any group mildly affected by any movie, book, event feels entitlement to ask for its ban or censorship.
I think it depends what's referred to as 'no-platforming'. I agree that universities should be encouraging people from across the political spectrum to speak and to express their views, and that people from all political persuasions shouldn't automatically shut off other sides of the debate.
But quite often what's referred to as 'no platforming' or censorship turns out to just be the independent decision who are well within their rights not to associate with someone if they don't wish to do so.
And, again, while I'm more than willing to see views across from the political spectrum, this should obviously be limited when it comes to outright Nazism. Which is obviously problematic in itself because people have very different definitions of where the line should be.
Notice how he never debates anyone worth a damn? Yeah, that kind of matters.
Jordan Peterson is better talking about the bible and psychology than about stuff like transgender people in my opinion. When he starts on about cultural Marxism so much i lose interest. I think he made interesting points about the lack of clarity in that gender pronoun bill from a legal point of view but his underlying theme seemed so angry.
In terms of interpreting the bible or psychology he's more interesting and impressive on that than anything Ben Shapiro talks about in my opinion.
On their debating skills: they both look better than they are probably when they go up against emotional college students. I've seen them both on news panels too though and I have to say I think Peterson is the better of the two, I think he does a better job of actually getting right to his opponent's point and will often draw it out of its shell for them (once didn't he insist on a co-panelist saying he-Peterson- was committing a hate crime?) whereas Shapiro will try to just ignore strong points of his opponent, or will demand very specific data while speaking in generaisations himself.
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Jordan Peterson is infinitely wiser than Shapiro, who is almost autistic in his pedantry and as others have said, now just panders to his followers and argues against strawmen for all those youtube views and retweets and all the rest of it. It's interesting, and kind of disappointing personally that Peterson is just being lumped in with him in this thread by a few and that he must be some kind of awful racist right wing bigot and that's the end of it. Kind of proves points that both of them make. I'd recommend listening to Peterson on some podcasts, which I think he shines on. He's extremely well read, highly educated and very interesting to listen to as a result.
I include him, not because he's necessarily as bad as Shapiro, but because they are loved by a lot of the same crowd. I assume Peterson has interesting things to say about psychology and religion. I have, however, never had anyone link me to one of those videos during the course of an online discussion, and rarely do I see people mention him in relation to those topics. He mostly comes up whenever you're having a discussion about politics, feminism or political correctness. And his opinions on those topics are really bad, because it almost always boils down to Cultural Marxism. That's why I worry about people getting their information from him.
I probably come down harder on him than he deserves, but that's because I mostly know him from the videos people keep linking instead of formulating their own arguments.
I find it ironic that Shapiro does the exact thing that he accuses the left of, only from a rightist point of view instead. Straw man arguments, constantly attacking(much more effective than defending your own stance), cherry-picking stats and only focusing on the most extreme opinions of his opposition. In his world-view, there no such thing as a "moderate left" or even a "regular left". Oh, and all feminists are 3rd wave Tumblr feminists.
If you can successfully make your supporters believe this as well, then yeah, you're gonna seem incredibly smart.
If you can successfully make your supporters believe this as well, then yeah, you're gonna seem incredibly smart.
Seems like a problem that's rooted everywhere these days. From the media, to social media, to activists, to political talking heads it's just a big game of outrage ping-pong. I wouldn't say any one group is worse than the other either.
I'm not gonna discuss which side is worse, but regardless: just because there are some idiots on the other side, it doesn't mean that Shapiro has to act like an idiot himself. It's a bad excuse, and frankly it's people like him that makes it difficult for outsiders to take American politics seriously. He's essentially just a well-spoken, sophisticated, high-pitched version of Trump. A polished turd is still a turd.
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While I believe that he was genuinly worried that the language wasn't clear enough, I got the feeling that stemmed from him not being clear on what changes were being made. As far as I can tell, the changes were just adding "gender identity and expression" to the Canadian Human Rights Act and the relevant parts of the criminal code, formalizing the protections they already had under the prohibition on discrimination based on sexual orientation. Basically, f it wasn't against the law before, it's not against the law now.
What’s so confusing?
I'm not sure how it's the same.