Staying Silent Versus Confronting Tyranny

Some inspiring thoughts from Jordan Peterson.

This Jordan Peterson video is eighteen months old (ancient and decrepit in Internet years) but I just came across it today while researching something else.

What’s amazing is that Jordan just riffs. I’ve heard him elsewhere comparing his speaking style to improvisational jazz. He’s not running a script. He has no set answer. If someone asks him a question, he thinks about it on the spot, and responds with what he’s genuinely thinking. This level of authenticity is rare in a public figure, which is probably why he connects with his audiences so well.

And the results are profound.

Here’s some quotes from the video (interspersed with a few thoughts of my own):

“If you’re being required to do things that make you weak and ashamed, then stop. Don’t do them.”

This makes me think of all the people who said: “It’s just a mask, what’s the big deal?”

The big deal is that it’s a psychological control mechanism. I don’t like being psychologically controlled. I think it does great harm to the psyche and spirit, which, of course, is the intent. For one, it functions as a symbol of sickness and death, which induces terror in others, and perpetuates the idea that we are all in constant mortal danger. It functions as a badge of compliance—displaying one’s allegiance to the brand, as it were. It functions as a tool for shaming if not worn. And it functions as a punitive for not complying with other things, like jabs.

So yeah, crushing my human psyche and spirit is a big fucking deal.

It’s not caring or “harmless” behavior. It’s the behavior of a victim caving to the demands of an abuser.

So I’m not doing it.

“You gotta ask yourself… is this making you stronger or is this making you weaker? And then ask yourself do you want to be weaker? Because the weaker you get the more you’re tyrannized. Worse than that—the weaker you get the more bitter you get.”

This point about bitterness is interesting. I’ve often wondered if at least a few of the people glaring at my smiling, unmasked face from behind their masks were not frightened covidians, but sensible people who knew it to be ridiculous and wrong, but went along with it anyway in order to play nice, and consequently, they felt ashamed and foolish. The human mind doesn’t like being reminded of its foolishness.

“The reason [tyranny] multiplies is because sensible people say nothing when they should say something. What’s so strange about that is that there are way more sensible people than there are people that aren’t sensible--they’re just not as noisy.”

 “Systems go terribly out of control when people don’t stop them when they’re going mildly out of control.”

Yep, like “Two weeks to stop the spread.” A few weeks after two weeks expired, some of us were starting to ask questions, like, “Hey, shouldn’t there be, I don’t know, rules for how long they can declare an “emergency crisis”? I mean, someone who really wanted to abuse this could keep this power forever.”

Of course, we were roundly shouted down. “Do you want people to die??”

Yet, here we still are. In Crisis-topia.

We should have objected sooner. And louder.

“Problems that aren’t solved multiply, and soon people fight. And you know, better to argue than to fight.”

The worldwide protest movements have been wonderful and inspiring. But, it also makes me think: this represents when people have let things get too far. When you have to gather your physical bodies and stand in a line (or a convoy) against the armed soldiery of your state, it represents arguments that you should have made sooner, but didn’t.

Still, we are where we are. And the courage of protestors has been inspiring. We’ve even seen some law enforcement remove helmets and take knees in solidarity with the protestors, and if that doesn’t bring a tear to the eye, you’re probably not human (or have broken tear ducts).

“You have things in you that are struggling to come to the light. That’s the truth you need to utter. And you need to utter it because without that truth you cannot live in the world. Because the world is real and you need truth to live in the world. If you stifle your truth how can that be anything except something that brings about Hell?”

And conversely, how could the attempt to stifle the speech of others be anything but the attempt to implement Hell?

“I say you have a duty. Maybe that’s why you stand up. It’s because you have a goddamned duty to stand up. And just say what you have to say.”

 “You have an ethical responsibility as a citizen to forthrightly confront creeping tyranny, no matter where it occurs.”

 “Why should you speak up? That’s easy, because the consequences of not speaking up, although delayed, are far worse. That’s the reason. If it can’t be courage, it could at least be prudence.”

I think I’m not alone amongst the many wonderful writers we’ve all encountered here on Substack in saying: we’re not writing about tyranny and censorship and bad science and disastrous public health policy because we really love these topics and they give us goosebumps of joy. (Though, at times, it can be fun.) We’re doing this because we feel compelled to not stay silent.

“If you get your words right, and you have something to say, there will be an impact of those words.”

God willing.

“If you’re genuinely aimed at the good, then take heart, because you’re a lot stronger than you think.”

Yes, and to that I would add: there are a lot more good people backing you than you think. If you are brave enough to stand up, others will stand behind you.

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(BTW, I anticipate at least someone is going to mention that Peterson got the jab, and for piss-poor reasons: because he fell for the “It’s the path back to normality and freedom” ruse. Again, with rare honesty, he has publicly expressed his regret about this, saying: “Well, stupid me!” We’ve seen some other really smart and valuable folks, like Malone and Kirsch, for example, express more or less the same thing. It takes courage to publicly admit when you were wrong, and that only serves to increase my admiration for them.)