I always thought of Ozy Brennan as something of a pretentious intellectual lightweight, who only achieved the status she currently enjoys by bestowing romantic affection on a handful of socially awkward geniuses for whom this was a relatively new experience, and who were so pathetically grateful for the favour that they were only too eager to allow her to ride their coattails for years, despite having very little of meaning or substance to contribute.
However, the observation that, in trying to minimize the harm and offense you cause you're optimising for being a dead person, is a genuinely penetrating insight, and my respect for her has grown significantly. When people talk about her, that should be in her greatest hits, not her incoherent rambling about the trans experience and "cis by default".
I've heard the same argument from radical environmentalists who (optimistically) say that it's not enough to just reduce your harm, you need to be better than a corpse and actually help the environment. Pesimistically they use it as a dogwhistle to call for people to commit eco terrorism.
Why should your freedom of speech trump a trans person’s right not to be offended?” Newman asked. Peterson, ever the gentleman, answered the question without guffawing: “Because in order to be able to think, you have to risk being offensive. I mean, look at the conversation we’re having right now. You’re certainly willing to risk offending me in the pursuit of truth. Why should you have the right to do that? It’s been rather uncomfortable.”
Newman misdirected: “Well, I’m very glad I’ve put you on the spot.” But Peterson pursued: “Well, you get my point. You’re doing what you should do, which is digging a bit to see what the hell is going on. And that is what you should do. But you’re exercising your freedom of speech to certainly risk offending me, and that’s fine. More power to you, as far as I’m concerned.”
I can certainly see parallels, but I think the idea that by making yourself so small you're approximating being a dead person is a unique and surprising framing which is absent from the argument Peterson made here.
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Notes -
I always thought of Ozy Brennan as something of a pretentious intellectual lightweight, who only achieved the status she currently enjoys by bestowing romantic affection on a handful of socially awkward geniuses for whom this was a relatively new experience, and who were so pathetically grateful for the favour that they were only too eager to allow her to ride their coattails for years, despite having very little of meaning or substance to contribute.
However, the observation that, in trying to minimize the harm and offense you cause you're optimising for being a dead person, is a genuinely penetrating insight, and my respect for her has grown significantly. When people talk about her, that should be in her greatest hits, not her incoherent rambling about the trans experience and "cis by default".
I've heard the same argument from radical environmentalists who (optimistically) say that it's not enough to just reduce your harm, you need to be better than a corpse and actually help the environment. Pesimistically they use it as a dogwhistle to call for people to commit eco terrorism.
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Isn’t that what Peterson said in his infamous Ch 4 interview?
I have no idea, maybe? Do you have a timestamp?
From an NR interview summarizing the exchange:
I can certainly see parallels, but I think the idea that by making yourself so small you're approximating being a dead person is a unique and surprising framing which is absent from the argument Peterson made here.
Gough Whitlam had a similar (though more vulgar) formulation: "Only the impotent are pure".
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