sting_lve_dis_vessel

Hi Matt,

You met me a little over a year ago in a book signing in Brighton right after you signed a magazine for three giggling teenage girls. I'm in that bearded leftist demographic. My question is: You are a regular critic of the entire system of finance, of wars, of lobbyists, and of stuff like Iraq war contracts, but you have never translated that criticism into one of capitalism generally. Indeed, you defend capitalism and assert that these kinds of things are perversions. Why?

Will you be taking any inspiration from Larry Krasner and his campaign to reduce the prison population?

uhh yeah i'm going to go ahead and trust my lyin' eyes on this one instead of...squinting...Hamas

Dr. Peterson, in your recent book you wrote:

"I remember taking my daughter to the playground once when she was about two. She was playing on the monkey bars, hanging in mid-air. A particularly provocative little monster of about the same age was standing above her on the same bar she was gripping. I watched him move towards her. Our eyes locked. He slowly and deliberately stepped on her hands, with increasing force, over and over, as he stared me down. He knew exactly what he was doing. Up yours, Daddy-O — that was his philosophy. He had already concluded that adults were contemptible, and that he could safely defy them. (Too bad, then, that he was destined to become one.) That was the hopeless future his parents had saddled him with. To his great and salutary shock, I picked him bodily off the playground structure, and threw him thirty feet down the field.

"No, I didn’t. I just took my daughter somewhere else. But it would have been better for him if I had."

Four questions:

1. While I don't blame you for being angry, why as an academic do you believe that it was a smart idea to publish a fantasy of violently assaulting a toddler in a bestselling book?
2. As a psychologist who interacted with the child for 30 seconds, what made you so sure that this two year old has a strong philosophical outlook of blind rebellion that will be immutable over the course of his hopeless future, rather that this was the standard behavior of a bratty child?
3. Why do you think it would have been "better for him" if he was violently attacked by a stranger at the age of 2?
4. Wasn't the bratty child following your own advice of establishing himself as dominant in his surroundings over those who are weaker? Wasn't he being the Lobster?

Has the normalization of the left over the last few years made you less likely to refrain from criticizing capitalism as such?