I Just Had A Horrific Encounter With a Famous Woke Comedian

Jordan Peterson, Cathy Newman & What You Can't Say To BBC Comedians

“Why does your right to freedom of speech trump a trans person’s right not to be offended?” asks Channel 4 presenter Cathy Newman.

“Because in order to be able to think,” replies Jordan Peterson, “you have to risk being offensive. 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 starts speaking - stops - and then says, “I’m sorry, I’m just trying to work that out.”

“Ha. Gotcha,” replies Peterson.

Newman says: “You have got me! I’m trying to work that through my head.”

Mainstream Media Turning Into Scientology

The 2018 interview is one of the most infamous moments in recent TV history: a rare example of air time for an alternative media figure, who - with logic and inquisitiveness - ran rings around an established mainstream media figure.

It’s no coincidence that the news stations tightened their grip around that time. Aside from the occasional appearance from Elon Musk or Konstantin Kisin, the next six years saw UK TV channels batten down the hatches to reinforce group-think magic and a new incarnation of postmodernism disseminated by academia and Hollywood.

Before turning to the culture wars (a reductive but helpful term for the fight between reality and woo-woo), I was an authority on cults, from Scientology and NXIVM to Heaven’s Gate and Jonestown. So it has been no surprise that Peterson’s destruction of Newman’s cult think has had no effect on its true believers.

Just as Scientology engages in ‘fair gaming’ and ‘no contact’ with so-called ‘suppressive persons’ on the outside, legacy media went about destroying reputations and closing the gates to wrong-thinkers such as Peterson.

Disgusting Interaction From Mainstream Comedian

To give you an idea of how far we have fallen, take the shocking response to my video with Dr. Emma Hilton last night on X from a member of the celebrity establishment, comedian Rufus Hound. The celebrity - who has close to one million followers - had claimed without evidence or reason that male boxer Imane Khelif is female.

A follower of mine who goes by Calamity Jane posted, quite reasonably:

Maybe you should watch @AndrewGold_ok interview the fabulous @FondOfBeetles instead of hurling insults at people in capital letters on X.

Witch Hunter: Comedian Rufus Hound

Here is his response:

This aggressive social media post lies firmly in the remit of Keir Starmer’s strict policy of arresting threatening social media posters. It’s incitement to violence. It is also a gender-based hate crime, deliberately conjuring up imagery of witches and women in servitude. He should be getting a visit from the police (although that in itself is ridiculous and authoritarian).

Where have I seen this kind of unwarranted vitriol before? Where do you find such outrageous elevation of language and tone to reasonable lines of enquiry?

Scientology.

Dr. Hilton had the good grace to reply with a scientific olive branch, the kind that I’ve seen offered countless times by those trying to de-radicalise Scientologists. My good friend, former Scientologist Aaron Smith-Levin, constantly tells me that nothing on the outside could have convinced him that the doctrine was bullshit. So it’s again no surprise that Hound ignored Dr. Hilton.

No debate with outsiders.

The Truth About Taboos

It’s frightening how we’ve gone from an interviewer in 2018 admitting she was schooled in the importance of free speech…to a mainstream comedian in 2024 screeching that a woman ‘boil her head’ for suggesting we look at the science.

This reeks of a legacy media class so used to getting their own way that they cannot even imagine that those on the outside of their nepotistic, incestuous cult could have anything sensible or intelligent to offer. Years of status quo and fear of offence has given celebrities - and their leftist audiences - carte blanche to tear apart science-backed dissenters with grave physical threats, while still feeling every inch The Good Guys TM.

The Mainstream Media Functions Just Like Tom Cruise’s Scientology

My good friend and fellow podcaster

Tangentially Speaking with Chris Ryan

recently sent me an excellent 2004 article by Paul Graham about the nature of taboo called What You Can’t Say. He argues that morality and offence are simply fashions sparked by universities and celebrities.

He writes:

It seems to be a constant throughout history: In every period, people believed things that were just ridiculous, and believed them so strongly that you would have gotten in terrible trouble for saying otherwise.

What’s interesting to me is the antidote.

Amanda Montell wrote in Cultish that the best way to handle the concern that you might be in a cult isn’t to leave the cult; but to join many. Similarly, when it comes to taboos, Graham suggests life experience and encountering other cultures:

Imagine a kind of latter-day Conrad character who has worked for a time as a mercenary in Africa, for a time as a doctor in Nepal, for a time as the manager of a nightclub in Miami. The specifics don't matter — just someone who has seen a lot.

Now imagine comparing what's inside this guy's head with what's inside the head of a well-behaved sixteen year old girl from the suburbs. What does he think that would shock her? He knows the world; she knows, or at least embodies, present taboos.

Subtract one from the other, and the result is what we can't say.

This is something I see in many of the so-called Far-Right, most of whom are moderates experienced enough for ‘taboo’ to hold less sway. When the BBC commentators celebrate a man beating up women in boxing, they see this for the ridiculous fashion that it is.

I spent 13 years living in France, Colombia, Argentina, Brazil and Germany, learning to speak five languages to ingratiate myself with their cultures. I can’t tell you how ridiculous it feels, after all that time abroad, to return to find Britain and the West have lost their understanding of biological reality.

My latest podcast guest, Alex Phillips, is controversial in how she talks about issues with Islam and mass immigration precisely because her tolerance for taboo has broadened by living in Africa. She told me on the podcast how she ingrained herself in several Muslim countries and made many friends in these distant lands.

Lies About The Manchester Terrorist Bombing

When I look at Rufus Hound, I see a person utterly…

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