IpExh Cpntes

I love how Contrapoints destroys white nationalism here, debates and defeats the alt right here , and her other deradicalizations and commentary on the alt right and right wing extremists here, here, here, here, here and here.  I agree with her btw)

I don’t agree with Natalie on everything. The truth is that online social justice discourse tends to get very very idealistic and the brutal truth is that there are actual people who must be reached and I can’t expect them to climb a huge mountain when they don’t even know how to tie their climbing boots. We have to get engaged and get them going in the correct direction.

And between having someone hear discourse from Milo or Charlie Kirk or Natalie, hell to the fucking yes times infinity it’s best to have Natalie be that voice

Traps are gay: 

It's her spiel at the end of the video. because, god, treat people like humans, with feelings

Natalie is speaking to a very specific audience in that sequence. Particularly, the type of anti-PC edgelord men who would go to the library and find a book about this question or search on google about this question for fun.

This wasn't only a generic social shame that she slid into out of self-righteousness. This was carefully planned by Natalie.

What she is trying do in her videos is to study the spirit of the audience she's trying to convince, and then she attempts to speak to them using their own language. In this case, she was using the language of Toxic Masculinity on purpose to speak to the toxically masculine mindset.

If you just aren't into dating trans women because you've never met a trans woman that you're attracted to, that's cool, and she's not speaking to you. She exactly acknowledges later in the video that some men aren't attracted to trans women, and her message for them is basically this:

“If you aren't attracted to trans women, respect the people who are. If you can handle that then she's not calling you weak or pathetic”

“And I do want to shame men being for refusing to date us because they are not fucking strong enough to shoulder one hundredth of the burden that every transwoman carries every second of every day”

My thoughts before the Traps are gay video is that it doesn’t matter if a person is gay or not.

My thoughts after the Traps are gay video is that I learned a lot about the word trap that I wasn’t knowledgable about before.

Also, heterosexual/straight males getting a taste of what LGBTQ face when they admit to being alright with transgender women is a very powerful point.

What was also powerful about this is how heterosexual/straight men are socialized to be afraid of our own bodies. A lot of us are circumcised and we don’t even find out why until we are teens or older. There is more to unpack there.

In the end... life is short enjoy it f**k what other people think about your sex life

The West

Natalie’s ‘get rid of the concept of The West altogether’ idea sounds like a good  alternate strategy to defeat Westernism (like Western Imperialism) since erasing the concept of the West is easier to pull off than using the 4pt and non western leftism to defeat Westernism

Natalie acknowledges the fact that capitalist imperialism out of Europe is layered upon an inherently racially (white) supremacist foundation. The way I interpret that is she believes that it could have burst out of Africa as well, but with the foundation of black supremacy instead.

The final section about the Evil West. She says that Europeans are not inherently more evil than other people, and that had capitalist imperialism started elsewhere, it would've been just as brutal 

The early part where she calls out guys editing was good 

Fine that she directly talked about 45, something she understandably soooomewhat avoids. The 45 wrestling "philosopher kings" was base and perfect editing and lol

All the JP jokes were very good, I like how she basically views him as beneath her, whatever gets her through the day.

Great historical break down of why the use of "the west" by fascist and right wing extremists is basically just a vague empty word used to inspire the proles to be actively exploitable.

the "What if" section was perfect, each part was right on point especially how she cut them off

I LOVE Contra as much as the next person but I still feel a little iffy about this video.

I do agree that Western Culture is a retrospective narrative that is used to justify tons of b.s. I think there's an argument to be had that there IS a through-line connecting all of these disparate cultures, but I still don't think that "Western Culture" really means anything specific. I have no problems I know of with Contra's conclusions.

I think the video is a bit muddled, though. She jumps around from topic to topic very fast with no solid consistent message. The video lacks a strengthened thesis that connects all of the dot (almost like Western Culture itself...). Many of the skits felt like they took away from the main content of the video.

Her entire The West video should've been centered around the "SJW Reformation" narrative, because I feel like it's a super strong counterpoint to the right-wing tradition of claiming that every movement is the end of Western Culture.

The West is a certainly a real thing to colonized persons. A construct can be just as threatening as the real thing.

Spanish people putting-up an image of Western civilization came to the Americas. Who gives a hoot if the nords who came earlier, but didn't really settle, didn't and weren't grouped in with "The West". Some Scottish person used forced labour to build railroads on stolen land since they wanted to expand "The West". "The West" promoted the immigration of "Westerners" to that land.

While the video has some well intent, it turns a blind eye this reality basically ruins it.

And, like so many, it turns a blind eye to the reality that leftists like me literally want to destroy this western culture

Jordan Peterson

She rightfully argues that his notion of "postmodern neo-Marxism" is incoherent and that Jordan’s life advice, while respectable, is ultimately a front for dangerous reactionary politics. “ life, but as a replacement for progressive politics, which he characterizes as totalitarian and evil.”

Some snipets I agree with:

“ A lot of leftists who have responded to Peterson haven’t really engaged with his ideas very much, he’s often caricatured, avoided, or talked past, as in the infamous BBC interview where Cathy Newman keeps repeating back very uncharitable interpretations of everything he says:

Newman: "So you’re saying that by and large women are too agreeable to get the pay raises they deserve? 

Peterson: "No, I’m saying that’s one component"– 

Newman: "You’re saying that women aren’t intelligent enough to run these top companies?"

Peterson: "No"–

Newman: "You’re just saying these things though to provoke, aren’t you? I mean you are a provocateur. You’re like the Alt-Right that you hate to be compared to… You’re saying that we should organize our societies along the lines of the lobsters."

I think to people watching this it comes off as if leftists are like, afraid of his actual ideas. But I’m not afraid of his ideas. I’m not afraid of anything, I just smoked a bunch of fuckin PCP– “

“ I even made a video about that a long time ago when I was a different person, oh god the dysphoria please don’t watch it. But my worry is that you’re leading an international political backlash against what is a very localized problem, and I worry that some of our society’s most vulnerable people could be hurt by that backlash. Like fine, you hate postmodern intellectuals and overly-sensitive student activists, but if your backlash also targets gender equality, LGBT acceptance, and civil rights, that would be bad right?”

“ I also like that you tell people how to live their lives. I mean I personally hate taking orders outside of the bedroom but clearly the sheep need a shepherd, and you’ve really stepped up  with these twelve rules. You know on the left we don’t really tell people what to do, we tell them what not to do; don’t exploit the workers, do not do blackface. I guess we tell people what pronouns to use for trans people, but that’s a pretty small rule compared to some of your rules like how to raise your children or when it’s okay to criticize things.”

“ But once he draws you in with these inviting preludes, he leads you to a pretty weird place. His central political message is that leftist professors, student activists, campus diversity initiatives, and corporate HR departments are collectively following the philosophy of postmodern neo-Marxism to destroy Western civilization and sink us all into a totalitarian nightmare. Now there’s just no avoiding that this idea is actually pretty similar to the cultural Marxism or cultural Bolshevism theory. But I’m just going to ignore that because if I dwell on it I’ll sound like I’m saying Peterson is a fascist, and then everyone will think I’m crazy. Look I’m not afraid of psychologists… I don't– I have nothing to hide. “

“ So where does Peterson get off talking about “postmodern neo-Marxism”? Well, it’s true that a lot of postmodernists were in some way influenced by Marxism, so the phrase could just refer to that continuity. But that’s not what Peterson means. It’s clear from the way he uses the term that the concept is even more jumbled and nonsensical than it initially appears.”

“ Most often these accusations are correct, because everyone is problematic and I disown them all. And then there’s also the conflict between the identity politics activists and the postmodernists. Why does everyone think that identity politics is postmodern? There’s nothing postmodern about it. Identity politics advocates for rights, equality, and justice for particular groups such as women, people of color, and gay and trans people. This kind of activism presupposes that these group categories exist and are a useful basis for political organizing. 

Postmodernists do kind of the opposite; they want to show that these categories– race, gender, sexual orientation– are contingent social constructs and are themselves potentially oppressive. This is why conventional feminist activists often hate postmodern feminism. Because the postmodern feminists want to show that the whole concept of womanhood, for instance, is contingent and potentially oppressive, and they think we should be working to destabilize and undermine it. And then the conventional feminist activists say "the fuck? We need the concept of womanhood to organize around women’s political interests. How are we supposed to do that if we destabilize and undermine the concept of womanhood?" And in turn, the postmodern feminists say well, here’s a quotation from Judith Butler, the most famous postmodern feminist ever:”

“Is it not a sign of despair over public politics when identity becomes its own policy, bringing with it those who would ‘police’ it from various sides?

And this is not a call to return to silence or invisibility, but, rather, to make use of a category that can be called into question, made to account for what it excludes.”

If you take the first part of this quote out of context, it almost sounds like something .Jordan Peterson could have said. The difference is that JP actually does think we should return to silence and invisibility—or

It’s hard to tell what he thinks. More on that in a moment. I bring all of this up to show that 1, the idea of postmodern neo-Marxist identity politics as a unifying concept of the left is nonsensical, and 2, identity politics is not this dogma that must go unquestioned.

There are sophisticated debates about this going on within leftist academia but Jordan Peterson either doesn’t know that or doesn’t care.

He uses the term postmodern neo-Marxism to characterize the left as a unified philosophical force bent on destroying Western civilization, when in fact it’s a bunch of bumbling buffoons who can’t stop squabbling with each over every goddamn little issue.

The only reason I can think of that the Left would appear to be a unified philosophical force is if you’re so far to the right that literally everyone who supports the economic and social advancement of disadvantaged groups looks like one homogeneous enemy.

But is that what Jordan Peterson is saying, that he opposes all social progress for women, racial and sexual minorities? Well, it’s difficult to say, because while he spends much of his time comparing activists for these movements to 20th-century mass murderers, he resists being pinned down to any more specific position.

I was maybe too harsh on Cathy Newman earlier. She came out of that interview looking bad, but she had a tough job to do.

Peterson’s rhetorical strategy involves saying something that’s more or less uncontroversially true, while at the same time implying something controversial.

For instance, Jordan Peterson will make a claim like “there are biological differences between men and women,” which is obviously true.

But he’ll say it the context of a conversation about the underrepresentation of women in government, which implies what exactly?

So how do you respond to this? Well, either you fall into the trap of arguing against the obviously true statement, or you have to guess at what he’s implying, in response to which he can accuse you of misrepresenting him, which is exactly what happened with the Cathy Newman interview.

The most famous moment where Peterson does this is the notorious lobster argument. So he starts by saying:

There’s this idea that hierarchical structures are a sociological construct of the Western patriarchy. And then he goes on to say that lobsters exist in hierarchies, and lobsters predate Western patriarchy by millions of years, so, checkmate postmodern neo-Marxists.

You’re saying that we should organize our societies along the lines of the lobsters. I’m saying that it’s inevitable that there will be continuity in the way that animals and human beings organizae their structures.

The problem with that is that no one has ever said that every hierarchy is the product of “Western patriarchy.”

This is such a massive strawman that it overshadows any uncharitable interpretation of Peterson suggested by Cathy Newman in this interview. No one on the left denies that there are some natural hierarchies.

Even the anarchists, whose whole thing is abolishing hierarchies, limit themselves to the abolition of unjust hierarchies.

No one wants to abolish lobster hierarchies, the hierarchies we’re interested in are those of gender, race and economics within our own society, to which the lobster case is a complete non sequitur.

I mean you could use Peterson’s lobster argument in the same way he uses it to justify literally any hierarchy or authority, no matter how unjust.

You could be an 18th century republican arguing against the monarchy and the monarch could turn around and say, “Well hierarchies are inevitable. God save the lobster queen.”

[God Save the Queen] Oh dear god.

My lords, ladies, and those that lieth betwixt.

The present rumor of republican rumblings amongst the rabble has compelled us to summon you together.

Let us remind you that nature hath so made the lobster that some individuals be stronger than the others.

Therefore let not the power of our crustacean sovereignty be anywise impugned.

And as for parliamentarians, well, let them vote for cake. Very good.

Thank you. I need new roommates. So I’ve argued that Peterson is invoking the incoherent concept of “postmodern neo-Marxism” as the supervillain in a childishly simple worldview he’s promoting where these evil leftists are out to destroy “the West.”

Now it’s time to inspect the other side of this coin. What exactly is “the West”?

Well there’s an academic usage of the term “the West” that describes the intellectual tradition that runs from ancient Athens to modern day Europe and its colonies. Now a true postmodernist would want to deconstruct the whole concept of “the West” and show how the very idea is racist and exclusionary and supremacist and justifies imperialism and all that kind of thing but we don’t have time for that right now.

So I’m just going to grant that the West is thing, and look at how Jordan Peterson thinks about it. For Peterson the West seems to be equivalent to capitalism, individualism, the idea that each human has a spark of divinity, and he therefore equates it with “Judeo-Christian values,” a term more popular with conservative pundits than intellectuals historians.

Peterson contrasts Judeo-Christian values with postmodern neo-Marxism, which he describes as anti-Western, collectivist, relativist and totalitarian.

This framing of a conflict of ideas in terms of geographical chauvinism and external threat is inaccurate and scaremongering.

Marxism is Western philosophy. Postmodernism is Western philosophy.

If you’re really concerned about preserving the geographical boundaries of the intellectual tradition you should be ranting against the influence of Buddhism. Likewise there is no feature of “SJW ideology” that is meaningfully non-Western.

The very idea of people requesting different pronouns to suit their individual needs is exactly the kind of thing a person who values individual liberty over collective dogma should be on board with.

You could even argue that Marxism is an extension of Enlightenment philosophy, with its concern for human progress, science, and liberty.

I think a lot people like listening to Jordan Peterson talk about the Western tradition, but they don’t seem to like reading any of it themselves. If you did read it you’d find a surprising diversity of thought, that doesn’t reduce to “Judeo-Christian” values.

Much of Plato’s political dialogues are concerned with arguing against cultural relativism, suggesting that, far from being an invention of postmodernity, it was actually a pretty popular worldview among ancient Athenian pederasts.

Our favorite Enlightenment philosopher David Hume famously said that "Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions.” Literally feels over reals. And meanwhile his contemporary the Marquis de Sade was advocating the abolition of morality, filling the churches with scat porn, and ushering in a reign of untethered sexual perversion so decadent and depraved I’m not even allowed to talk about it on YouTube.

This is the Enlightenment, not postmodernism, and it’s is just as much a part of “the West” as Peterson’s soggy Bible-patting conservatism. But again, and I really can’t stress this enough, I don’t care either way. I make YouTube videos because I enjoy mood lighting and set design.

So… what do you people want from me? The lobster queen is dead, long live the queen. [♪ Zoë Blade ♪]

♪ God save our lobster queen ♪ Long live the lobster queen ♪ God save the queen ♪ Send our queen crustaceous ♪ From the late Cretaceous ♪ Long to reign over us ♪ God save the queen!

[Ominous music]

…and I think you would agree there’s a foundational erosion that, I think people of all sides, and I think there’s totally intellectually smart people on the far left that can help uh that are—

Where are these people? There’s a YouTuber that I’m actually quite interested in that I watch her—and I don’t mean to misgender her because I think she identifies as a her—ContraPoints, I don’t know if you’ve heard of this YouTuber who’s on the far left—

I’ve seen the name come up every now and again on Twitter. Totally disagree with everything this person says but I look at it and I’m like this seems very reasonable, educated, academic, and I’m seeing reasons to hope that— Hello Dave.

But here is a counterpoint to her Jordan Peterson video

Natalie is correct in her “Why White Nationalism is Wrong,” video.  Reverting multicultural societies to homogeneousness ones is infeasible, the concept of whiteness is artificial and unstable, and that so-called “white genocide” is a fiction. It is NOT stating the obvious or or unnecessary for me and Natalie to state this. Some people on the right need to hear this. We are trying to deradicalize these chuds after all

There is nothing wrong with Contrapoints having Buck Angel on her show. Natalie has a right to freedom of association, there is nothing wrong with talking to people who have differing views to you (see CNN Crossfire for example). Guilt by association is a logical fallacy. She is so great for having empathy for people who disagree with her instead of shaming them off the internet like Liberal 2.0 people usually do.

Kids today have to learn that it is ok to talk to people not in your political exclusionary clubs. It’s not like Buck spewed any of his terf or tran med rhetoric on Natalie’s show

She's appears to be a legitt charming and clever person (like Ronald Reagan), and unlike a lot of other 'left sjw' types, she is motivated by something other than ressentiment. That already makes her the exception among the twitter-‘left’.

But like all left-tube figures that got a patreon account, she's basically shackled to every neurotic hysteria that twitter-left work back themselves up into. So she has to walk a fine line between actually being entertaining, and triggering the neurotics.

This doesn’t mean I agree with everything she says, she's obviously decried/strawmanned the anti-moralism that I think is necessary for the left. But you gotta respect her game.

Incels video

First off, I liked the video. Beside it being just plain entertaining, it's one of the few videos that I think displays a authenic attempt at empathy for people in that position. I also think that digital self harm is a fine description of many of the behavior we see in incel communities.

My bigger issue is that I think that Natalie's position is reliant on an unjustified assumption about the societal reality that incels live in. No not everything they say about their lives is fully true, but rather that it wrong to think that the anxieties faced by incels are an example of the anxieties felt by all men when trying to have relationships. 

I don't merely mean that this as an issue of magnitude either. Why I feel that this is an issue is that it threatens the argument that incels are "Catastrophising", which as far as I could see was the main point of the video. The argument goes that we are extrapolating to far from mundane anxieties, but I ponder those mundane anxieties are incorrectly thought of.

I think that noone has talked of incels in the way that Natalie did. Noone did with while also having the empathy she has, describing so spot on what they think and at the same time not giving them an inch or condoning them. Her incels video was lauded from both 4chan to twoxchromosomes. Let that set in for a moment....

Many men feel sort of identified with the loneliness that is behind incel ideology while a lot of women have a big fear of incel terrorists. Santa Barbara masacre was one of the main jump off point of 4th feminist wave. At the same time, she just went directly ahead with some of the deepest fears of trans women.

In other words, Natalie was able to speak to absolutely everyone.

Men video future

fight hate w hate

Btw I agree with Contrapoints on her criticism of her non binary critics. Her views on non binary people are how the Queer Theory progresses