Another Racially Insensitive MLK Day Weekend at "SeN"

[_kairos]

Could it be that DCP's self esteem is so low that even as a young adult, perhaps overweight and not of the alpha male type, he uses comic antics, eg rabbi peterson, bathroom jokes to become either the class clown known and enjoyed by all but not taken seriously, or just to show he is a funny guy and the life of the party( though probably laughed at) to try to build that self esteem.


I would loved for him to describe his dealings/temptations with the opposite sex in the Vienna Hotel.

All of the above indicates unanswered questions about the level of Dan Peterson's self esteem and his ability to meet the very low standards he has set for himself.

Dan -come clean, renounce Mo'ism as BS- you will become a hero to the exmos who find the truth and and leave the ship Zion. But if you do Woody would probably rationalize that you are mentally ill.

just musin
k

[_Kishkumen]

I think it is probably the case that Dr. P was in this regard a fairly normal, geeky American person of his day. Nothing especially derogatory about him could or should be read into these episodes.

[_Physics Guy]

My feeling is that if an ignorant young traveler does a bunch of crass things on a first trip to the Middle East then it would be helping that young person grow up to take them aside and explain why what they're doing is crass. If it all happened forty years in the past, though, then I'm not going to upbraid a middle-aged professor for those dumb old stunts. Instead I'm going to presume that this mature and well-traveled adult has already done that growing up by now without my help. I did dumb things as a young person, too, but by now I've done my own cringing for them and I would only ever mention them again as an embarrassing example of what not to do.

But what if the middle-aged professor is recounting some pretty dumb youthful stunts as fond memories, without cringing at all? This is different, to me. As the OP put it:

Look: there is a part of me that wants to dismiss this sort of thing as mere "infelicities of youth." But if DCP was acting like a spoiled, naïve and racially insensitive twerp as a youth, then why is he bringing it up now?

[_Kishkumen]

My feeling is that if an ignorant young traveler does a bunch of crass things on a first trip to the Middle East then it would be helping that young person grow up to take them aside and explain why what they're doing is crass. If it all happened forty years in the past, though, then I'm not going to upbraid a middle-aged professor for those dumb old stunts. Instead I'm going to presume that this mature and well-traveled adult has already done that growing up by now without my help. I did dumb things as a young person, too, but by now I've done my own cringing for them and I would only ever mention them again as an embarrassing example of what not to do.

But what if the middle-aged professor is recounting some pretty dumb youthful stunts as fond memories, without cringing at all? This is different, to me. As the OP put it:

Look: there is a part of me that wants to dismiss this sort of thing as mere "infelicities of youth." But if DCP was acting like a spoiled, naïve and racially insensitive twerp as a youth, then why is he bringing it up now?

So, I think it is important: a) not to conflate what DCP reports about himself with what others have reported about him; and b) not to look for the worst in what we are reading.

Look, DCP and we are not going to agree on what is culturally insensitive. True. No argument. But what is the point of rehashing that issue over and over again?

It seems like the envisioned outcome of this fixation on the peccadilloes of Peterson is to convince others that he is just an awful person. Now that I am seeing people of a lot more importance being awful, focusing on the gray area of the cultural insensitivity of DCP in the past or the present seems quaint, in the best estimation, or borderline offensive.

DCP is probably on the more culturally sensitive side of what one can expect of a garden-variety conservative. Truth is, these folks sometimes stick their big toes across the line fully expecting some liberal to become apoplectic and hectoring because "the conservative" proved yet again what louts all conservatives are.

At some point, the whole game has to become more boring to people.

Show me how I can be antiracist in my own life. Do not show me how I can feel self-righteous because I am not "the benighted conservative." The latter is a damned dodge and we all know it.