In this extended NBC interview, Peterson handles the lazy slur that he's alt-right with the observation that the progressive left is making the mistake of assuming that everyone against their dogma must be alt-right or extreme right.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lROo5nCNvgk
This is another once of those tactics that makes me wonder if the people who employ it are doing it out of cynicism, or naivete? Are they knaves or fools?
Ad hominem and presenting a false dilemma are time-honoured rhetorical weapons. I'd be surprised if Peterson's opponents didn't unsheathe them. But I'm starting to think naivete is the more common explanation for the belief that criticism of identity politics can only come from the alt-right. People live in such homogenous social bubbles these days that they're often way off base with how widely held their values are.
I'd identify the core identarian belief system as:
* Our primary social and political identities are our collective identities of race, gender, and sexual orientation.
* Any disparities in the outcomes of those groups is due to systemic oppression by the dominant European hetero capitalist patriarchy.
* It's incumbent on all people who value justice to press for a world where the outcomes of those people are equal.
My sense is maybe 15-20 per cent of Canadians subscribe to that belief system. However, that 20 per cent is highly concentrated in certain demographics and social environments. So highly concentrated that most of those people genuinely believe their values are shared by fully half of Canadians. And since people drawn to these sorts of dogmas tend to have a simplistic, binary outlook, they lump everyone who opposes them into their most prominent social media enemies, the alt-right. They really do think you're either a decent person (read: identarian), or alt-right. Never mind that 80+ per cent of people are neither of those things.