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"Hi. What is the value of watching confounding word wizard Jordan Peterson debate 20 atheists? What can we learn from the intensely frustrating experience of watching one of these Jubilee 'Surrounded' videos? We actually have an answer."
Hmm, not sure if it's particularly timely for Some More News to put out yet another over-an-hour-long video about, specifically, Jordan Peterson, considering the overall trashfire state of the rest of the world right now. (Like, seriously, I probably would have never even heard of this assclown if it weren't for SMN.)
On the other hand, spending roughly 35 minutes and 36 seconds[1] watching Cody Johnston dunk on Jordan Peterson could be a "nice" "vacation" from all the other news in the world. So, I guess that's what I'll do. On to the video! Oh, wait, first let's drop that "middle-finger-worthy" tag down there, just to get it out of the way. This video is about Jordan Peterson, after all.
Yeah, right off the bat... no, I've never seen the appeal in those 20 "yabbos" vs 1 "hooha" style of videos. Which is probably why I've never watched one of them, including, especially, the one being discussed at length here. I'm just here for the shitting on Jordan Peterson (again).
And... as expected of anything to do with Jordan Peterson, the whole thing just immediately devolved into a tedious semantic "debate," with Jordan "winning" (and by that I mean losing) because he's defining things confidently and very poorly, while seeming offended that he is even being asked to do so in the first place. Or else, to completely flip things on their head, he is the one asking everyone else, constantly and incessantly, to define basic words, because he's not actually there to have a genuine debate. He just wants to look like the smartest person in the room, which is laughable because he's Jordan Peterson.
This reminds me of some shitty practice "debate" we had about something or other in one of my game classes at DigiPen. I don't even recall the actual topic of said "debate" at all, other than that it was some silly current-events-in-the-gaming-industry thing circa 2004 or 2005 or whenever. All I remember about that debate now is that, maybe three-quarters into the damn thing, when it was my turn to speak, I said something like "Well, I think one thing that hasn't been done yet is to attempt to establish and define the terms we're trying to debate here," and the teacher, immediately and with great exasperation, emphatically exclaimed "THANK YOU!" because, up to that point, nobody had even really attempted to do that. This video here, or rather that other video that this video is about, seems like the exact opposite of that, except way, way, way shittier, because it's kind of the reverse, i.e. it's nothing but trying to define terms, done incredibly poorly and disingenuously. (Man, I didn't have it on my bingo card going into this that I'd be talking about DigiPen, of all things, during this post about a SMN video about Jordan Peterson again.)
And... wow... the more I hear about the format of these 20 "goofs" vs 1 "doof" videos, the dumber they seem. Having to be the first to run to the chair to be the one (out of the 20) to next debate the one (out of the 1) is... kind of super dumb?
At 48:08 in the video, "we, thankfully, get to step away from this Jordan Peterson video," and tie all this bullshit into the greater commonalities between Jordan Peterson, specifically, and RWNJs (called "conservative debate types" by Mr. Johnston there), in general. Oh... and now, there's Charlie Kirk, who is most certainly a "conservative debate type." ("Oh, that smile is very creepy." Definitely "Babadook-ass," indeed.) And then we go right back to the Peterson bullshit. Hmm. But "after the break!" instead of talking about the video, Cody will talk about why he's talking about the video.
The entire gist of this video (the Some More News one, I mean, not that Surrounded bullshit) seems to be this: RWNJs lie, like all the time, and they take words that used to have specific meanings (examples given in the video are "woke," "DEI" [or its constituent words "diversity," "equity," and "inclusion"], "groomer," and "cuck") and redefine them to mean nothing more than "bad thing," or whatever.
"And, of course, Trump is the king of all of this. The word salads, the vagueness, everything Peterson does, Trump does better. The Mob-like, indirect way he speaks has made it so anyone can interpret him in any way they need."
Also, this is all very cultish, like in the literal sense of the word "cult."
"Less clarity, more emotion. A war of words in a war on words. Stretching them, twisting them, popping them, pulling them, swapping from ultra-literal to vague to metaphor. Finding weird logic loopholes to change the reality of the words themselves. You know... lying."
Also, this is all very fascist, like in the literal sense of the word "fascism."
"From a debate about religion all the way to the fucking Constitution, there need to be moments when you simply just say, 'Fuck off, you know what these words mean.' Because if you don't, if you get drawn into the faux-philosophical or linguistic or, quote-unquote, 'high-minded debates' and let them do these Mad Hatter word games, then eventually the words lose meaning. And as we're being reminded more and more, that matters. Because laws are also just words. Policy, just words. Our world is words. It's how we agree on reality. And it's not our job to accommodate everyone's incorrect or purposefully manipulative interpretation of that.
"Unless we're the Supreme Court. In that case, well, that's our only job now. Gotta get that private jet ride, after all. What are we gonna do, not go on a jet? You know how cool jets are? They go whoosh, guys. They fucking go whoosh."
So yeah, in the end, this video was indeed rather timely, after all.
[1] - Not counting the four or five times that that it took to create this post. (Actual time of hitting the "Post to" button: exactly 2:00pm EST.)
