Letter to the Vice Chancellor of the University of Cambridge – re Jordan Peterson

Mar 27, 2019 by Jill

by David Robertson, theweeflea:

Dear Vice Chancellor,

I am writing to you in regard to your letter explaining why Cambridge University withdrew its invitation of a fellowship to Jordan Peterson. Many thanks for setting out your thinking so clearly.

[…] As indicated I find the students statements profoundly irrational, totalitarian and disturbingly anti-education. But I cannot look upon this as some kind of student aberration. It appears this attitude comes from the top. This is what they are being taught. You wrote this astonishing statement:

“For a university, anything that detracts from the free expression of ideas is just not acceptable. Robust debate can scarcely occur, for example, when some members of the community are made to feel personally attacked, not for their ideas but for their very identity.”

This is single-handedly the worst statement I have ever heard from any academic. It almost seems like a Private Eye parody. You affirm that anything that detracts from the free expression of ideas is just not acceptable – and then use that statement to justify banning Dr Peterson from freely expressing his ideas. You condemn yourself in your own self-contradictory statement. In that one sentence you have made a mockery of the English language, defied logic and fulfilled the prophecy of George Orwell concerning Newspeak. You have made the University of Cambridge a laughing stock.

You argue that robust debate cannot occur when some members of the community are made to feel personally attacked – thus making feelings the arbiter of truth. This would curtail all debate because almost anyone could state that their feelings and personal identity were being attacked. But of course that won’t happen because you do not really mean it. You only think this applies to selective groups. For example I feel that much of what the faculty of Divinity does is an attack upon me as a bible believing Christian, attacking my very identity. But you won’t ban liberal theology will you? Nor will you ban on behalf of other ‘identities’ that feel attacked. No – you are highly selective and discriminatory in whose identities you feel should be protected.

Your statement is also fundamentally dishonest. You imply that Dr Peterson attacks Muslims for their personal identity. Could you provide any evidence of that accusation? Or are you saying that any criticism of Islam is de facto Islamaphobic because it makes some Muslims feel uncomfortable and personally attacked? And again let me point out the inconsistency – you will apply that criteria to Islam but do you apply it to Christians? I have spoken at your University and been subjected to considerable criticism and even abuse – but I regard that all as part of the free exchange of ideas – I am not demanding that the atheist society be banned!

Read here

On Peterson’s Revoked Fellowship to Cambridge Divinity School by Scott Ventureyra, Crisis Magazine