I’ve studied totalitarianism. I’ve often wondered how societies slide into The Big Lie. And I know it has something to do with sins of omission.
Jordan Peterson, on the Mark Steyn Show. The full context of this quotation regards his fracas with the University of Toronto, where he teaches, regarding his refusal to abide by the proposed law to regulate speech regarding “gendered” pronouns, many of them recently invented:
I had an interesting example of that when the U of T wrote me the first letter, because they claimed that they had received a lot of letters stating that my comments about the pronouns had contributed to an unsafe environment at the U of T, that they had received letters from people who had been threatened — these were transsexual people, hypothetically — but they didn’t at all mention that they had received hundreds of letters from people supporting me, and also a petition with several thousand signatures.… I’ve studied totalitarianism. I’ve often wondered how societies slide into The Big Lie. And I know it has something to do with sins of omission. And that was a really good example. Because when they wrote me the letter they didn’t say, ‘You know, we’ve received opinions on both sides of this, and we’ve come to a judicious decision’ — omitting completely to note that far more people had written in support of me than had written to criticize me. That’s institutional corruption.