Cloud Hosting

With each new day we are swamped with platitudes berating racism as an unjust subordination of any individual or group by another. The one standing out especially is the No to Racism routine adopted at the beginning of football matches across Europe.

But on closer look, one gets a sense of how contradictory this call for an anti-racism modus operandi really is!

Jordan Peterson, reputable but controversial clinical psychologist and professor at the University of Toronto, suggests in one of his interviews that the human animal, in trying to make sense of his existence, is in continuous pursuit of something which is of some value to him, be it good, bad or ugly; and he sees this effort as functioning within two frameworksone in which the sovereignty of the individual is paramount, and one in which the individual is loyal to the tribe.

To my mind, in theory both need not be mutually exclusive, for one can respect the rights and liberties of the individual even as you conform to the norms and values of the tribe.

In practice, however, this seems less so, for to allow someone his sovereignty is to accord him individual rights and liberties with accompanying respect and tolerance pointing to a world of peaceful co-existence between individuals; but in a tribally oriented world, such sovereignty is effectively neutralised, for in your loyalty to the tribe you must secure your own identity within it and preserve its status which means, inevitably, competing, not co-operating, with others, with all the attendant vices such as partisanship, intolerance, malice, lack of fair play and the like which such competition is likely to bring.

Which is why, in nature, this group/tribal culture is so dominant with the birds and the bees all in their own clusters with their own characteristics, each trying to preserve its own territory against the other.

In true Darwinian fashion, this is essentially a continuing power struggle from which the human condition is not exempt.

It seems the stuff of which we are made as a group, for how else can you explain the slow death of the multiculturalism of the 1950s and 1960s calling for cultural assimilation and integration and the peaceful cooperation of nations and an end to war, and the now aggressive nationalism of which Trumps America First ideology is the supreme manifestation?

China, the US and Russia seem all on a path for war in their quest for world domination and on the group level, the Shia/Sunni conflict continues to simmer and one wonders where the BLM/white supremacist dichotomy will all end.

If then, we seem to be constituted by nature to be group-oriented and to be constantly striving for our own survival, wont our natural drive be to outdo others, indeed to dominate them?

Sure, we can pay lip service to the idea of individual liberty with the rhetoric of true democracy and human rights, but does the Rohingya tragedy in Myanmar speak an entirely different language, and what of our own Andreas and Ashantis whose rights fell away at one fell swoop?

Finally, then, is the bending of the knee on the football fields of Europe saying No to Racism is an appeasement gesture far from the human reality?

Just something to think about in a world in which we seem to take everything at face value!

Dr Errol N Benjamin

via e-mail

Originally posted here:
It takes more than 'bending the knee' to fix racism - Trinidad & Tobago Express Newspapers

Breadcrumb Trail Links

He's one of the few academics who understands the absolute necessity for critical thinking and freedom of speech, and is willing to fight for them

Author of the article:

Publishing date:

A keen American observer of the human condition once described his rhetorical vocation as, Standing off on the sidelines, viewing the various public escapades political, cultural, social and calling out with some regularity, Bullst! Bullst! Bullst!

Although one could never describe Canadian academic and public intellectual Gad Saad as standing off on the sidelines Saad is a commanding presence in every polemical arena you can think of where political correctness is at issue I daresay the rest of the quotation would find favour with him as a synopsis of his role in the culture wars over the last two decades.

I will have the honour of introducing Saad next Wednesday for Montreals Jewish Public Library, where he will speak about his 2020 book, The Parasitic Mind: How infectious ideas are killing common sense. As is often the case with Saads public appearances, voices of protest were raised, this time by LGBTQ activists hoping to have him deplatformed for his alleged transphobia (next time it could be Muslims; he is tough on Islamism). They were, thankfully, unsuccessful.

This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below.

Saad, 57, is a professor of marketing at the John Molson School of Business at Montreals Concordia University. His domain is evolutionary psychology as applied to business a niche field, to be sure. Hes written such papers as Gender differences in information search strategies for a Christmas gift, and Menstrual cycle effects on prosocial orientation, gift giving and charitable giving, which provide valuable information to guide marketing strategies.

Youd be hard pressed to find any academic in Canada whos more deeply steeped in knowledge about the ineluctable differences between the sexes. (Speaking of the sexes, business schools may be the last places left in academia to use those words to designate men and women and acknowledge their differences. Perhaps because their students want to succeed in the real world.)

Saad also blogs regularly for Psychology Today, where his writing is more informal, infused with the edgy satirical humour he features in his SAAD TRUTH YouTube videos (216,000 followers), on Twitter (328,000-plus followers) and in his frequent appearances with alpha podcasters Joe Rogan, Jordan Peterson and Dave Rubin.

This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below.

As a self-described professor for the people, Saad loves the rough and tumble of social media. The arrogantly bruited ignorance on Twitter activates his inner honey badger (a small but fierce mammal that has an unusually strong immunity to venom.) Normally affable and courteous, Saad never attacks others gratuitously, but when imbeciles come after him, he delights in calling out their imbecility.

You can get a taste of Saads bullish comedy in his Psychology Today piece, The Narcissism and Grandiosity of Celebrities, and of his honey-badger discourse from a fiery Twitter exchange with Canadian-born Hollywood A-lister Seth Rogen. Nothing enrages Saad as much as a lack of epistemic humility, a sin he attaches to Rogen and his privileged ilk.

The Parasitic Mind is not the first book to rail against postmodernism and its negative cultural fallout, but the books animating metaphor is original and compelling. Saad argues that the ideological forces governing the progressive mindset that have undermined our Enlightenment-inspired attachment to empiricism, reason and the scientific method are idea pathogens. These cognitive pathogens mimic brain parasites in animals that, for example, can cause mice to stop fearing cats, or moose to turn in endless circles, robbing them of their survival instincts.

This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below.

Although Saad is not inherently conservative indeed, quite the opposite socially he focuses on the sins of the left because, in our era, however odious their ideas, the extreme right holds no institutional power. The pseudo-scientific idea pathogens that come from the left critical race theory, gender fluidity, cultural relativism tyrannize our institutions from top to bottom.

Saad, it should be noted, was part of a tiny prophetic vanguard that, in the face of general complacency around it, quickly grasped the inherent dangers of Bill C-16, which added gender identity or expression to the list of prohibited grounds of discrimination in the Canadian Human Rights Act.

In May 2017, he and Jordan Peterson testified before the Senate. Saad argued that his area of expertise, the application of evolutionary psychology to the behavioural sciences, could easily be construed as violating Bill C-16. Some senators laughed at him then. Nobody with eyes to see is laughing now.

The Parasitic Mind begins with Saads formative experiences. Born and raised in a Jewish home in Beirut, then the Paris of the Middle East, Saads first language was Arabic. Most of his friends were Muslim and Christian. But slowly, he came to understand what happens when society organizes itself according to tribal affiliations.

This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below.

In elementary school, Saad recalls, his teacher asked students to share their future ambitions. One boy said, When I grow up, I want to be a Jew killer, after which the class erupted in raucous laughter. Lingering until life became untenable for Jews there, Saads family dispersed to France, Israel and Canada. He recalls Lebanons 1975 civil war as the standard by which the butchery of all other civil wars is gauged.

Since then, Saad has understood the absolute necessity for critical thinking and freedom of speech. In the present, unhealthy climate, feelings rule, while critical thinkings value declines daily. Just as our immune systems are designed to cope with novel intruders or atrophy, if we live in an intellectual bubble as university students do now, rarely confronting opposing views our cognitive immune systems atrophy, Saad says.

The consequence is what Saad calls ostrich parasitic syndrome (OPS). This disorder, in his words, causes a person to deny realities that are otherwise as clear as the existence of gravity. Science, reason, infinite data, common sense all are rejected.

This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below.

Cognitively disarmed, OPS sufferers accept alternate realities: climate change is related to terrorism (Bill Nye, the science guy); it is gross and racist to suggest Islam is connected to Islamism (Ben Affleck); the Israeli military dehumanizes Palestinian women by choosing not to rape them (not a typo: this was the thrust of an award-winning thesis by a radically leftist Israeli sociologist); men can literally be women (nearly everyone says this now, for fear of being labelled transphobic).

It used to be that you could stand off on the sidelines when you called out postmodern BS. No longer. Theres no middle ground anymore. You call out the BS or you keep schtum. If you choose the former, as Saads writing and actions demonstrate, you need to cultivate your own inner honey badger. Nothing else works.

National Postkaybarb@gmail.comTwitter.com/BarbaraRKay

This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below.

This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below.

Sign up to receive the daily top stories from the National Post, a division of Postmedia Network Inc.

A welcome email is on its way. If you don't see it please check your junk folder.

The next issue of Posted Newsletter will soon be in your inbox.

We encountered an issue signing you up. Please try again

Postmedia is committed to maintaining a lively but civil forum for discussion and encourage all readers to share their views on our articles. Comments may take up to an hour for moderation before appearing on the site. We ask you to keep your comments relevant and respectful. We have enabled email notificationsyou will now receive an email if you receive a reply to your comment, there is an update to a comment thread you follow or if a user you follow comments. Visit our Community Guidelines for more information and details on how to adjust your email settings.

Read the original:
Barbara Kay: Gad Saad the man who's not afraid to call BS - National Post