Unikum oktober 2019

KOMMENTAR
Bolshevism) used by the literal fucking nazis in nazi-fucking-Germany.
Again, he is either incompetent as
fuck or uncaring about the implications of his words.
3. Although JBP will happily rant away about the
evils of postmodernism at any opportunity, he does
not understand it at all and severely misrepresents
what the most influential postmodernists (Foucault,
Derrida, etc) actually thought, meant and wrote. This
is somewhat ironic considering that his own philosophy
can be argued to be postmodern in nature.
4. Although JBP will happily rant away about the evils
of Marxism at any opportunity, he does not understand
it at all and severely misrepresents Marxist theory.
Which is to be expected from someone who is on record
admitting to never having read any Marxist theory ever.
5. In a debate against Marxist philosopher, Slavoj
Žižek, he only read the Communist Manifesto in
preparation, which is little more than a call-to-action
pamphlet and contains no actual theory. In his
30 minutes opening remark, he laid out problems
he claimed to have found in this Communist “Pamphlet”
and allegedly thus in Marxism, which is akin to
debating a PHD-level subject after only having read
the course descriptions of university classes on the
issue without ever having attended any of them.
6. In his Magnum Opus, Maps of Meaning, a bunch of
his own sources directly contradicts the very claims he
uses them to make. He also deliberately or unwittingly
ignores the historical context of several the examples
he uses to argue for his universal archetypes, a context
that directly undercuts the point he is trying to make.
7. In a VICE interview, while discussing women in
the workplace, JBP equates wearing makeup (for
women) with sexual provocativeness and sexual
displays, claiming (amongst other things) that the reason
women wear red lipstick is because the lips turn red
during sexual arousal. While there is certainly a solid
anthropological argument here for the cultural origins
of makeup, this is insanely reductionistic and is completely
removed from the contemporary context, where it
is culturally expected of women to wear at least some
amount of makeup in public. Women even put on makeup
in all-female prisons, and there are reported cases of
female inmates exchanging sexual favours for beauty
products, the reverse of wearing makeup to get laid.
8. In the same interview, he expresses doubt about whether
men and women can coexist in the workplace at all.
9. JBP is sometimes derogatorily nicknamed the Lobster
King, because in his writing he sometimes uses the
natural hierarchy emergent in lobsters to argue in favour
of hierarchies in humans. In his infamous interview
with Cathy Newman, he explains “there is this idea that
hierarchical structures are a sociological construct of
the Western Patriarchy – and that is so untrue that it’s
almost unbelievable – and I use the lobster as an example.
Because we devolved from lobsters in evolutionary
history about 350 million years ago (common ancestor),
and lobsters exist in hierarchies and have a nervous system
attuned to hierarchies, [a nervous system that is very
similar to ours]. And it’s part of my attempt to demonstrate
that the idea of hierarchy has absolutely nothing to do
with socio-cultural construction.” This is such a massive
strawman that it is (almost) funny. No serious academic,
politician or intellectual has ever claimed that all hierarchies
are socio-cultural constructions. What feminists,
SJWs, and even anarchists are railing against aren’t all hierarchies
ever, but unjust hierarchies, specifically hierarchies
based on race, gender, economics, etc.. As YouTuber
ContraPoints points (heh) out in her video on JBP, you can
use his argument, “the same way he uses it, to justify literally
any hierarchy or authority, no matter how unjust.”
10. JBP’s is almost impossible to pin down on any political
subject. For all the criticism Cathy Newman got for
misrepresenting JBP’s beliefs and for putting words in his
mouth, I do feel sympathy with her. Because her interview
is a nice case study for JBP’s particular style of intellectually
dishonest rhetoric: he will often say something that is
uncontroversial and true, while also implying something
controversial. But when confronted on this he will retreat
or attack you for misrepresenting him. For example, some
people might feel I misrepresent his thoughts on women
in the workplace from reason 8, because he never explicitly
says that women and men cannot work together. But
that is what he heavily seems to imply: “we don’t know the
rules [for working together]”, “[the relationships between
men and women] are deteriorating rapidly”, “we don’t
know if men and women can work together successfully
in the workplace”. He frequently, heavily seems to imply
horrendous shit, and he is either dog-whistling as fuck or
to much of a coward to say what he honestly believes.
11. JBP uses his platform to actively laud and promote
his daughter’s ludicrous all-meat (yes, all-meat and
only meat) diet as having cured his depression and her
depression and arthritis. This claim that has no scientific
basis whatsoever, and there is plenty of research that
shows that this can lead to severe vitamin deficiencies,
such as scurvy. This is not just insanely irresponsible, but
very dangerous to boot. I mean, I am glad they feel betterand-all,
but keep that shit away from your humongous
and very influential public platform, for fuck’s sake!
12. There is a YouTube channel called PragerU, an
American far-right propaganda channel that lies about
and misrepresents everything from feminism, to economics,
to racial tensions. It has videos with literal white-fucking-nationalists,
and I generally use the channel and
their guest hosts to know who is not worth listening to.
JBP has no less than two videos on this channel. In one of
them, he calls universities propaganda tools that “indoctrinate
your children” into dangerous “far-left” ideologies,
and that you should let your children go there. Which
is ironic, because he himself is a university professor.
And with that, I thank you for your attention. I could
have gone on even longer, but this has been 12 reasons
for why no one should ever listen to JBP ever again.
TEKST: EMIL OLAI
OKTOBER 2019 UNIKUM NR 8 35