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How could he believe, she went on, that his right to free speech trumped a #transgendered person's right not to be offended? "Because", he replied, "in order to be able to think, you have to risk being offensive. You are 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. More power to you!" At which "gotcha!" point she was rendered speechless.
The encounter was a notable demonstration of rationality versus #CognitiveDissonance, of an open mind versus one that was sealed shut. It cast #Channel4 's editorial standards in an extremely poor light.
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The issue, however, is not #Newman but what she represents: the culturally dominant dogma that certain ideological beliefs are indisputably true. When the evidence shows they are wrong it is therefore the evidence, not the beliefs, which must be knocked down.
For #Peterson, who reportedly holds many liberal views, the concern is not over transgender issues or pay gaps or any of today's causes. It is rather that truth and freedom are now under assault from neo-Marxism, which defines everything in terms of relativism and power and which has taken over the universities.
The threat Peterson perceives is not just to political but cognitive freedom. His own use of words is so precise because, as he believes, words are integral to our ability to think and thus our freedom to make sense of the world. That's the way we arrive at the truth as we see it, and for him truth trumps everything else.
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What terrifies them so much? The evidence that their beliefs are worthless. That's why they try to silence Peterson, as so many others. Which makes his message as ironic as it is overwhelmingly vital.
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