Jordan Peterson returns with epic takedown of political correctness

Jordan Peterson has been out of the spotlight for many months now due to health concerns but has now released a post on his website concerning the dangerous impacts political correctness is having in universities and on valid, important research.

Peterson points out several examples of how Universities are putting education and research aside to focus on their own politics.

"I have observed the colleges and universities of the Western world devour themselves in a myriad of fatal errors over the last two decades, and take little pleasure in seeing what I knew was inevitably coming manifest itself in an increasingly comprehensive manner," Peterson writes.

"It is also necessary to note that the catastrophic failures of process and aim which I am about to relate were by no means hidden from the public view by the persons and institutions in question."

Peterson first talks about Brock University and the scientific journal Angewandte Chemie. He points out that chemistry professor Dr. Tomas Hudlicky, who holds a prestigious Canada Research Chair, became a target for an angry Twitter mob and even other professors for a paper on discipline of organic synthesis published in Angewandte Chemie. He faced the backlash due to a very small portion of the 4,000 word document where he talks about opportunity based on merit as opposed to personal identification.

"Each candidate should have an equal opportunity to secure a position, regardless of personal identification/ categorization," writes Peterson when paraphrasing the document.

Peterson also touches on the landing page for the Department of Physics at McGill University which seems to have larger focuses than just physics.

"The second-most visually evident active link is the ‘McGill Physics Community Statement Against Racism’—and, if this is not sufficient proof of the upstanding moral quality of that ‘community’ there is also an active link to an ‘Equity Diversity and Inclusion’ page in the center of the main menu bar of the page," writes Peterson.

"It is also perhaps not out of place (2) to voice a certain skepticism with regard to the timing of this oh-so-very-properly-moral statement and note that if it required the unfortunate death of one George Floyd to motivate its appearance it is either inexcusably opportunistic or a classic case of closing the barn door once the cattle had already made their disappearance."

Peterson points out additional, similar examples before touching on the impact of George Floyd’s death and  the danger that STEM fields are facing.

"The George Floyd incident has emboldened those who are shamelessly using crooked faux-moral means to stake a moral claim in the so-called patriarchal structure that makes up the academic world. They are certainly able and willing to use the unfortunate death of an individual who had enough of the attributes of a systemically oppressed person to serve as poster boy for the self-serving political claims that are now being made on his behalf," writes Peterson.

"This tendency, unchecked, poses a direct danger to the integrity of precisely those STEM fields that have so far remained essentially immune to the embarrassments and blandishments of the politically correct movement. But, make no mistake about it, scientists, technologists, engineers and mathematicians: your famous immunity to political concerns will not protect you against what is coming fast over the next five or so years: wake up, pay attention, or perish, along with your legacy."

"Whatever you might offer the broader culture in terms of general value will be swept aside with little caution by those who regard the very axioms of your field as intolerable truly because of the difficulty in comprehending them and considered publicly as unacceptably exclusionary, unitary and unconcerned with sociological ‘realities.’"