Cambridge philosophy prof, Arif Ahmed, fills us in. It turns out that, at Cambridge, People Who Think had had quite enough of the smartphone barbarians — People Who Tweet, if you like. Briefly, Peterson got Canceled because he was photographed standing next to someone in a tee shirt judged Islamophobic. Can’t be too careful who you are photographed beside when a Twitter mob is on the rampage, right?
It was a tiny bit rich for Cambridge to pretend that endorsement-by-adjacency is a thing, when one of its own senior officials had recently been photographed shaking hands with functionaries of the Chinese state. No one could reasonably infer from the picture that Cambridge University subscribes to totalitarianism as a way of life. So why then should anyone have thought that Jordan Peterson has sympathy for ideas that are so blatantly at odds with much of what he has actually said? The idea that Peterson has any hostility towards religion is laughable.
The Peterson cancellation was one of several troubling events at that time which spurred some of us at Cambridge to fight back. Not only because we wanted Peterson to be able to visit Cambridge, but also because we wanted anyone whom any academic saw fit to invite to be able to visit. It should never have been up to the university authorities to dictate what academics can discuss or whom we can discuss it with.
Arif Ahmed, “How we uncancelled Jordan Peterson” at Spiked (November 26, 2021)
Get this: Ahmed and his peers got Cambridge to adopt, as of late 2020, a free speech policy enshrining those very principles. And Peterson did speak at Cambridge on November 23.
At his lecture on Tuesday night it became clear how much the tide has turned. In Cambridge’s largest lecture hall, before a sold-out audience, the first people to speak were the university proctors. The proctors hold an 800-year-old office whose principal duty is to uphold free speech in the university – as they reminded us in their speech. Their presence was the clearest possible signal that, this time around, the university fully supported Peterson’s invitation and his right to speak. The contrast with his cancellation just two years ago could hardly have been greater.
Arif Ahmed, “How we uncancelled Jordan Peterson” at Spiked (November 26, 2021)
If your alma mater isn’t following Cambridge’s lead, stop giving. We don’t need finishing schools for censorious ignoramuses and dunces, often on the verge of violence.
Here’s a review of Jordan Peterson’s 12 Rules for Life (2018) stitches hold? Jordan Peterson — Do the Stitches Hold?
And here’s an instance of the nastiness that the Righteous Woke have directed Peterson’s way: In Big Tech World: the journalist as censor, hit man, and snitch. Glenn Greenwald looks at a disturbing trend in media toward misrepresentation as well as censorship.
You may also wish to read: At Mind Matters News: Historian supports new anti-Cancel Culture university. At COSM 2021, he noted that proposed faculty had spent the last 48 hours dealing with a tidal wave of Twitter hate. So, he said, they are over the target…