In which an Imbecilic Thought-Experiment is Laid to Rest.

            It is a thing of beauty to hear Vlad Vexler taking the piss out of Jordan Peterson. Though Peterson is so yesterday’s news – a washed-up alt-right has-been so thoroughly debunked and discredited as to have all the relevance of past-due-date mayonnaise or a physical copy of The Royal Teens’ Greatest Hits – it is a delight to hear Vexler take him down.

Vexler is possibly my favourite content creator at the moment, a political philosopher of deep insight, with a calm, almost ASMIR-like delivery (which is useful after even a second of Peterson’s slaughtered-pig voice). He starts every talk by greeting his “beautiful community”. A life-long sufferer of Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME), he has recently taken to presenting from his bed attached to an oxygen tank. His determination is inspiring.

            As for Peterson, he was harping on that old canard of the nazis being a left-wing project rather than a right-wing one. The idea stems from the Randian idea that any amount of state-interference (possibly even the existence of the state itself) is an intolerable intrusion on human liberty, and a slippery slope to atrocity. By this reasoning, even setting up a minor health care system is the first step to Bergen-Belsen. Heavily implied in this analysis is the assumption that deep down, this is what all leftists want.

            “Extract a random sample of nazi policies and strip them of markers of their origin, and present them to set of people with conservative or leftist beliefs and see who agreed [sic] with them more,” screeches Peterson, before blasting social scientists for not “doing their bloody job”. As if that was their bloody job.

             Which nazi policies, I wonder, would Peterson extract for this purpose? Does he really think depriving Jews of citizenship, or outlawing mixed-race marriages would go over well with leftist audiences? Or does he propose to only show them nazi policies on filling potholes?  Thing is, you can’t strip nazi policies of the “markers of their origin”, as they are inherently recognizable and indelibly reprehensible. Unless Peterson can demonstrate that self-identifying leftists approve of mass-slaughter, he hasn’t proven a thing.

            Vexler goes deeply into the cultural origins of ideology and the inevitable cross-contamination that occurs when they spring from the same cultural milieu. The idea that two ideologies are actually the same thing because they share certain traits, Vexler dismisses as ridiculous, “no less silly than arguing bruschetta is a margherita pizza because they both have basil and tomato in it.”

            My own objection is simpler. It removes intention and motivation. Never mind what the road to hell is paved with, intention matters. What is it people actually want? Extermination of the Jews, enslavement of the Untermensch, and domination of the world were the stated goals of naziism from the very beginning, not some unintended consequence of their economics. 

            Which side today is dehumanizing vast swaths of people? Calling for mass incarceration and eliminating habaeus corpus? Worshipping their Leader? Peterson ought to know.