Kareem's statements are provably false, which typically isn't the case with these vague allegations.
'Much of Peterson’s fame and infamy is the result of YouTube debates he does with other YouTubers, mostly with people that agree with him'
Actually no, Peterson was drawing interest specifically criticizing proposed laws in Canada and then he exploded when he partook in a contentious interview with Cathy Newman. This is easy to see in the Google search results for his name, https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=US&q=jordan%20peterson
Abdul-Jabbar's takedown of Peterson's and Shapiro's "debate tactics" seems awfully malleable.
name-drop famous writers and thinkers = incorporate the relevant wisdom of intellectual giants into your argument
keep changing the subject so he never has to fully defend his position = not allowing your debate opponent to mischaracterize your argument or defame you (e.g. "I'm not going to defend myself against baseless accusations of racism as my thesis clearly has nothing to do with race so let's just leave it at that")
throw out irrelevant facts and studies so he sounds smart = fortify your argument with objective data rather than rely solely on appeals to emotion
Well done, Kareem. Poor Plato himself would not survive such incisive criticism.
As regards Substack, it's interesting that despite all their talent and resources it is still taking them forever to come out with an app for Android (they have one for iOS). I wonder what that's all about. Almost certainly not technical, so maybe issues with making a deal with Google? Curious.
As for their approach via desktop and mobile web, it is kind of a disappointing and frustrating experience where there is obviously lots (too much) stuff going on in the background, and as far as I can tell, there isn't even an option to look at a page like a classic blog post with the original post and all comments fully expanded.
2 questions. (Not being snarky - truly curious.). 1. How much of Peterson’s work have you read? 2. While neither controversial or interesting, did you find anything useful? I ask these two as I have read very little of his work, and when I did, it was neither controversial nor incredibly interesting. It was however useful to do a sort of “book club” with my teenage son using the 12 rules for life. Not as a lecture, but a conversation starter on key topics around adulthood. It worked very well in that regard.
Not really very much. Whenever I do I get demotivated because it just seems so old school common sense. I guess it cold be useful for parent-child communication which is, I guess, just passing on old school common sense.
Depends what you mean by "common sense", which varies a lot by time and place.
But if you are talking about what was typically believed by the average person (though not necessarily elites or intellectuals) for most of Western civilization - going back to classical antiquity and more-or-less until the 20th Century - the short answer to this question is that this version of "common sense" is fundamentally at odds with several key tenets of the weltanschauung / model of how the world works that is the basis of contemporary progressive ideology.
For example, common sense for most people and for most of history was "Men and Women are very different on average along many dimensions, physical and mental, they are born that way, and this is normal. Of course, culture matters a lot, but only has so much impact, and inborn nature tends to dominate the influences of environment and nurture in this regard."
Contemporary progressives are not cool with that claim, at all. They characterize all disparities that would rank the female average for any dimension as having lower status than the male average as inequities that are blamed entirely on socially-constructed factors and unjust oppression. So, Peterson insisting on the validity of that claim makes him 'controversial' (i.e., an enemy) and his popularity and influence makes him a high value target to be neutralized.
Peterson gets points for not backing down when challenged by highly emotional complaints. He is very competent and informed. That said, I don't find him entertaining, meaning he is not enjoyable to read or watch. His message is good for some people and I generally support his message. But I don't go out of my way to consume his content.
I'll add that Kareem is less interesting. For example, Kareem writes of Peterson getting "dunked on" in debates but his description is superficial. So many words by Kareem to say what could be summed up in five: I don't like Jordan Peterson.
Re: Damodoran: All of his NYU lectures in corporate finance and business valuation are available for free onine, as are his exams. They are outstanding.
I'll never understand the pass/respect many other people I typically find agreement with still seem to afford Peterson.
For what few good points he's ever made about aspiring to a dignified life, whatever that is, he more often totally embarrasses himself and undermines his own credibility with the way he's consumed by the culture war, and is every bit as incendiary and deep in bad faith mud as his opponents.
I would say similar things about Shapiro, or someone like James Lindsay. Having points at times but so high on their own supply they have seemingly lost the plot entirely in regards to actually ever hoping to change a mind where they are right, or have their own changed where they are wrong.
I'd prefer way fewer of people like them and more like Arnold, who might hold that there is a better way to live (like be a grandparent) and feel no shortage of skepticism/concern toward much of the troubling dogmatism these days… but not be so militant and overtly disgusted/disrespectful such that they couldn't have a hope in the world of reaching anyone who might disagree.
I've read 12 Rules For Life and I have even given out copies to those whom I thought would appreciate and benefit from it, though personally I am by no means a Peterson fanboy and feel no need to defend him, his public persona, and his quirks on a personal level. Hey, we all have quirks, and living in that glass house I'm not inclined to throw stones.
I do, however, know several young men who really like his stuff and found his messages inspiring, and I think one would profit from reflecting on why that might be, and in a depersonalized way that takes Peterson's particular idiosyncrasies out of the picture, and which also rejects Jabbar's knee-jerk, dismissive parroting of the typical smear of over-entitled white males upset about losing their unjust privileges, or whatever.
My read of history is that there was a more-or-less continuous (albeit evolving and hybridized) tradition in Western Civilization as regards the teaching the aspiration and desirability (and social expectation and reward) of living an honorable, noble, responsible, virtuous life of high character in accordance with a fairly stable and generally socially accepted set of principles, in addition to achieving a high level of self-mastery which includes what in modern times we would call "psychological resilience" or "coping skills".
Yes, those virtues and values - or perhaps more precisely, the relative priority and emphasis - shifted somewhat over time and different sets were put in competition with each other to reflect the political dominance or upward or downward mobility of certain social classes (e.g., aristocratic, priestly, martial, bourgeois, etc.) But without getting too deep into the weeds, the general Western 'ethos' tended to orbit around principles which (with a few important exceptions) probably would not have surprised Xenophon, Aristotle, Cato, Cicero, or Marcus Aurelius, and even despite the major role and influence of Christianity.
The American version was flavored especially by enlightenment-era ideology and the inheritance of Weber's "Protestant Work Ethic", and result was an ethos focused on hard work, personal responsibility, independence, self-reliance, discipline, meritocratic fairness, and the pursuit of excellence. That list is not exhaustive by any means, but you get the gist.
Fast forward to modern times and all of that has been denigrated from 'inspiring dream' to 'evil myth' and supplanted by a completely different narrative which is mostly the progressive narrative, since that is the one that has been adopted and which is conspicuously and perpetually reinforced by almost all high status elites. The progressive narrative provides a very different explanation for success and failure, for all manner of disparities between different social groupings and classes, and for whether certain outcomes are impersonal and natural or the unjust 'fault' of culpably bad people who are to 'blame' for them. It thus implies a wholly different version of what it means to "live the good life / do the right thing". Who shall feel pride vs who shall feel shame? Who is glorified or excused vs who is disparaged and blamed?
In terms of comparative analysis of these narratives, there are core questions of which narrative is more consistent with objective reality, or which provides a more stable Nash equilibrium for the constant churn of moves in the sociological game, or which is more encouraging of human progress, flourishing, and innovation.
But, important as they are, one can put those questions to the side and ask about the degree and nature of the *appeal* of the narratives to different audiences, especially as political formulas. A crude but more-or-less accurate to look at it is in terms of which people the narrative labels (and, if implemented, turns into) winners and losers, and this determines the natural constituents or clients for a narrative as well as the class of opponents.
All that said, one should not make the mistake of there being some kind of general equivalence between the two narratives, only differing in the polarity of client and opposition groups. There is a qualitative distinction between the traditional narrative's attribution of failure or lower status outcomes to a combination of "bad luck, bad decisions, and bad behavior", and the progressive narrative's attribution to oppression.
The former is individualistic and impersonal. It's God's fault, Mother Nature's fault, or your own fault: don't yield to the all-too-human temptation to falsely blame other people for your own misfortune. Whether one believes this perspective to be accurate on the one hand or an indoctrinated 'false consciousness' on the other, one has to admit that it tends to have the effect of encouraging social peace by refusing to excuse envy or foment resentments and the licensing of abuse of innocent winners by a mob of spiteful losers who have been talked into the convenient 'righteousness' of their grabbing predations.
The latter narrative is social and personal. It's *their* fault, those bad people in the out-group, who did this to oppress you on purpose for their own unjust gain. This narrative is inescapably divisive and polarizing, pitting classes against each other, as they are perceived respectively as unjust and dangerous threats to their own interests. Furthermore, in ways too complicated to explain here, the progressive narrative encourages a lot of bad decision-making which makes a lot of people very unhappy but not knowing why, and in general feeling lost, adrift, dejected, atomized, and alienated - with no star to follow to guide them through life.
The progressive narrative has its natural clients and constituents (the top winners and mass of losers), but the very 'class consciousness', divisiveness, and agitation of polarization of the population which is an inextricable part of its very structure necessarily generates a class of clients and constituents for the rival narrative, which - perhaps with the exception of the most intensely Christian times and places - is the traditional Western narrative.
Peterson is a rare, common man's 'prophet' of a modernized (kinda) version of that traditional narrative, which that whole class is bound to find relief for their ego and self-esteem (in terms of negating what amount to socially-promoted blood libels against them), and inspiration and motivation in terms adopting a new outlook on life that emphasizes the need for striving for self-betterment, accepting that the range of action and domain over which they can exercise any actual control may be limited in ways they cannot change. But to repair and put one's whole life in order, one must start with the things one can change and put in order, e.g., "First, clean your room." Then, keep going from there.
I appreciate the detailed response, but I guess my point is more:
1. I agree that there is no shortage of things to defend about western values like family, hard work, especially merit, etc and the turn things have taken in regards to their perception is not good for society at all.
2. I don't think Peterson succeeds in advocating for them, in fact I think the way he comports himself publicly makes almost anything he says untouchable to a whole lot of people who might otherwise find some of these points in agreement or useful. Or worse, as I think, he actively sabotages those values by acting like such a loon most of the time.
Maybe it's similar to the way the GOP might find more success among young people (or women) if they could just relax on some of their own social extremism, rather than depending on the DNC to somehow get even more extreme themselves.
ex: "You might be right in a lot of ways economically, that might even be better for a lot of people, but I couldn't possibly think of voting for you because you deliberately make life total hell for people I really care about for effectively no reason at all" to point at the fact they are still somehow attempting to litigate gay marriage at this point.
At least this is how I view most of these people as a young nonpartisan person in a city who finds the world has seemingly gone bananas.
The erudite and impressive blogger who goes by the name Quintus Curtius is an attorney who is fluent in several living and dead languages and has been hard at work publishing a series of his translations of works from classical antiquity and collections of of historical and biographical stories which illustrate the importance of virtues and dangers of common vices from a mostly Stoic perspective consistent with the general thrust of the core of the ethos of the western tradition I described above.
I have bought all his excellent books both for myself and as gifts for my kids and friends, and I cannot recommend him highly enough. I consider his writing to be beyond reproach and unobjectionable to anyone who is being fair and considering it in good faith. So, in that way, he would be an ideal candidate for a Peterson replacement according to the criticisms you made above, and with which I have no serious disagreement.
Nevertheless, while he has a following of a sort, he is orders of magnitude behind Peterson in terms of popularity, influence, and ability to reach a large or underserved audience. Blame the masses and the market for bad taste and preferring quirky charismatic huckster types (something, something, Trump ... ) but it doesn't matter what you blame because it is what it is.
Peterson may turn a lot of people off, but he also turns millions on, and who else does or can?
The law has better definitions of what speech is illegal and what isn't. Under Kareem's definition, if I say "we should sell more rocket launchers to Ukraine to kill more Russians" or vice versa "we should end sanctions against Russia so that they can mop up the Ukrainians" those statements should be illegal per se as hate speech. Thankfully in the US such statements aren't illegal.
Threats and incitement can be illegal, but they have to be a bit more directed, immediate, and realistic to be actionable. "Every East Timorese must die" is not really incitement or a threat. "Every East Timorese must die, and I want you to join me tomorrow morning in killing my neighbor who is from East Timor; please bring your own gun" -- that's illegal and for good reason. "All Cops Are Bastards" is not illegal, but "All Cops are Bastards, we're burning down the precinct tomorrow, bring your own gas" is incitement.
The "hate speech" discourse is really more about figuring out a way to maintain peace in a society that tries to integrate everyone under conditions of equality with no limitations. Hate speech is any speech that threatens that idealized conception of harmony and respect across groups, irrespective of any tensions or real diversity which makes integration across those groups challenging. Hate speech can be true or it can be false, but what matters most to the prospective policers of hate speech is that it threatens the appearance of perfect harmony. It is any badthought which could be perceived as Anti-Party.
It's about coming up with a category that it can blame for the failures of that social model without admitting that it is failing to integrate everyone. It's "we would be integrating successfully, if not for the wicked haters, who are sabotaging our perfect society of magical equality, delaying the inevitable arrival of Sugar Candy Mountain on earth."
Kareem's statements are provably false, which typically isn't the case with these vague allegations.
'Much of Peterson’s fame and infamy is the result of YouTube debates he does with other YouTubers, mostly with people that agree with him'
Actually no, Peterson was drawing interest specifically criticizing proposed laws in Canada and then he exploded when he partook in a contentious interview with Cathy Newman. This is easy to see in the Google search results for his name, https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=US&q=jordan%20peterson
Abdul-Jabbar's takedown of Peterson's and Shapiro's "debate tactics" seems awfully malleable.
name-drop famous writers and thinkers = incorporate the relevant wisdom of intellectual giants into your argument
keep changing the subject so he never has to fully defend his position = not allowing your debate opponent to mischaracterize your argument or defame you (e.g. "I'm not going to defend myself against baseless accusations of racism as my thesis clearly has nothing to do with race so let's just leave it at that")
throw out irrelevant facts and studies so he sounds smart = fortify your argument with objective data rather than rely solely on appeals to emotion
Well done, Kareem. Poor Plato himself would not survive such incisive criticism.
As regards Substack, it's interesting that despite all their talent and resources it is still taking them forever to come out with an app for Android (they have one for iOS). I wonder what that's all about. Almost certainly not technical, so maybe issues with making a deal with Google? Curious.
As for their approach via desktop and mobile web, it is kind of a disappointing and frustrating experience where there is obviously lots (too much) stuff going on in the background, and as far as I can tell, there isn't even an option to look at a page like a classic blog post with the original post and all comments fully expanded.
I have never READ anything from Peterson that was controversial or interesting.
2 questions. (Not being snarky - truly curious.). 1. How much of Peterson’s work have you read? 2. While neither controversial or interesting, did you find anything useful? I ask these two as I have read very little of his work, and when I did, it was neither controversial nor incredibly interesting. It was however useful to do a sort of “book club” with my teenage son using the 12 rules for life. Not as a lecture, but a conversation starter on key topics around adulthood. It worked very well in that regard.
Not really very much. Whenever I do I get demotivated because it just seems so old school common sense. I guess it cold be useful for parent-child communication which is, I guess, just passing on old school common sense.
My question is, why is he controversial if his writings are just common sense? (I have read close to nothing of his.)
Depends what you mean by "common sense", which varies a lot by time and place.
But if you are talking about what was typically believed by the average person (though not necessarily elites or intellectuals) for most of Western civilization - going back to classical antiquity and more-or-less until the 20th Century - the short answer to this question is that this version of "common sense" is fundamentally at odds with several key tenets of the weltanschauung / model of how the world works that is the basis of contemporary progressive ideology.
For example, common sense for most people and for most of history was "Men and Women are very different on average along many dimensions, physical and mental, they are born that way, and this is normal. Of course, culture matters a lot, but only has so much impact, and inborn nature tends to dominate the influences of environment and nurture in this regard."
Contemporary progressives are not cool with that claim, at all. They characterize all disparities that would rank the female average for any dimension as having lower status than the male average as inequities that are blamed entirely on socially-constructed factors and unjust oppression. So, Peterson insisting on the validity of that claim makes him 'controversial' (i.e., an enemy) and his popularity and influence makes him a high value target to be neutralized.
Probably becasue of what he says on You Tube??? Plus, common sense is not so common in some quarters.
Peterson gets points for not backing down when challenged by highly emotional complaints. He is very competent and informed. That said, I don't find him entertaining, meaning he is not enjoyable to read or watch. His message is good for some people and I generally support his message. But I don't go out of my way to consume his content.
I'll add that Kareem is less interesting. For example, Kareem writes of Peterson getting "dunked on" in debates but his description is superficial. So many words by Kareem to say what could be summed up in five: I don't like Jordan Peterson.
Re: Damodoran: All of his NYU lectures in corporate finance and business valuation are available for free onine, as are his exams. They are outstanding.
I'll never understand the pass/respect many other people I typically find agreement with still seem to afford Peterson.
For what few good points he's ever made about aspiring to a dignified life, whatever that is, he more often totally embarrasses himself and undermines his own credibility with the way he's consumed by the culture war, and is every bit as incendiary and deep in bad faith mud as his opponents.
I would say similar things about Shapiro, or someone like James Lindsay. Having points at times but so high on their own supply they have seemingly lost the plot entirely in regards to actually ever hoping to change a mind where they are right, or have their own changed where they are wrong.
I'd prefer way fewer of people like them and more like Arnold, who might hold that there is a better way to live (like be a grandparent) and feel no shortage of skepticism/concern toward much of the troubling dogmatism these days… but not be so militant and overtly disgusted/disrespectful such that they couldn't have a hope in the world of reaching anyone who might disagree.
I've read 12 Rules For Life and I have even given out copies to those whom I thought would appreciate and benefit from it, though personally I am by no means a Peterson fanboy and feel no need to defend him, his public persona, and his quirks on a personal level. Hey, we all have quirks, and living in that glass house I'm not inclined to throw stones.
I do, however, know several young men who really like his stuff and found his messages inspiring, and I think one would profit from reflecting on why that might be, and in a depersonalized way that takes Peterson's particular idiosyncrasies out of the picture, and which also rejects Jabbar's knee-jerk, dismissive parroting of the typical smear of over-entitled white males upset about losing their unjust privileges, or whatever.
My read of history is that there was a more-or-less continuous (albeit evolving and hybridized) tradition in Western Civilization as regards the teaching the aspiration and desirability (and social expectation and reward) of living an honorable, noble, responsible, virtuous life of high character in accordance with a fairly stable and generally socially accepted set of principles, in addition to achieving a high level of self-mastery which includes what in modern times we would call "psychological resilience" or "coping skills".
Yes, those virtues and values - or perhaps more precisely, the relative priority and emphasis - shifted somewhat over time and different sets were put in competition with each other to reflect the political dominance or upward or downward mobility of certain social classes (e.g., aristocratic, priestly, martial, bourgeois, etc.) But without getting too deep into the weeds, the general Western 'ethos' tended to orbit around principles which (with a few important exceptions) probably would not have surprised Xenophon, Aristotle, Cato, Cicero, or Marcus Aurelius, and even despite the major role and influence of Christianity.
The American version was flavored especially by enlightenment-era ideology and the inheritance of Weber's "Protestant Work Ethic", and result was an ethos focused on hard work, personal responsibility, independence, self-reliance, discipline, meritocratic fairness, and the pursuit of excellence. That list is not exhaustive by any means, but you get the gist.
Fast forward to modern times and all of that has been denigrated from 'inspiring dream' to 'evil myth' and supplanted by a completely different narrative which is mostly the progressive narrative, since that is the one that has been adopted and which is conspicuously and perpetually reinforced by almost all high status elites. The progressive narrative provides a very different explanation for success and failure, for all manner of disparities between different social groupings and classes, and for whether certain outcomes are impersonal and natural or the unjust 'fault' of culpably bad people who are to 'blame' for them. It thus implies a wholly different version of what it means to "live the good life / do the right thing". Who shall feel pride vs who shall feel shame? Who is glorified or excused vs who is disparaged and blamed?
In terms of comparative analysis of these narratives, there are core questions of which narrative is more consistent with objective reality, or which provides a more stable Nash equilibrium for the constant churn of moves in the sociological game, or which is more encouraging of human progress, flourishing, and innovation.
But, important as they are, one can put those questions to the side and ask about the degree and nature of the *appeal* of the narratives to different audiences, especially as political formulas. A crude but more-or-less accurate to look at it is in terms of which people the narrative labels (and, if implemented, turns into) winners and losers, and this determines the natural constituents or clients for a narrative as well as the class of opponents.
All that said, one should not make the mistake of there being some kind of general equivalence between the two narratives, only differing in the polarity of client and opposition groups. There is a qualitative distinction between the traditional narrative's attribution of failure or lower status outcomes to a combination of "bad luck, bad decisions, and bad behavior", and the progressive narrative's attribution to oppression.
The former is individualistic and impersonal. It's God's fault, Mother Nature's fault, or your own fault: don't yield to the all-too-human temptation to falsely blame other people for your own misfortune. Whether one believes this perspective to be accurate on the one hand or an indoctrinated 'false consciousness' on the other, one has to admit that it tends to have the effect of encouraging social peace by refusing to excuse envy or foment resentments and the licensing of abuse of innocent winners by a mob of spiteful losers who have been talked into the convenient 'righteousness' of their grabbing predations.
The latter narrative is social and personal. It's *their* fault, those bad people in the out-group, who did this to oppress you on purpose for their own unjust gain. This narrative is inescapably divisive and polarizing, pitting classes against each other, as they are perceived respectively as unjust and dangerous threats to their own interests. Furthermore, in ways too complicated to explain here, the progressive narrative encourages a lot of bad decision-making which makes a lot of people very unhappy but not knowing why, and in general feeling lost, adrift, dejected, atomized, and alienated - with no star to follow to guide them through life.
The progressive narrative has its natural clients and constituents (the top winners and mass of losers), but the very 'class consciousness', divisiveness, and agitation of polarization of the population which is an inextricable part of its very structure necessarily generates a class of clients and constituents for the rival narrative, which - perhaps with the exception of the most intensely Christian times and places - is the traditional Western narrative.
Peterson is a rare, common man's 'prophet' of a modernized (kinda) version of that traditional narrative, which that whole class is bound to find relief for their ego and self-esteem (in terms of negating what amount to socially-promoted blood libels against them), and inspiration and motivation in terms adopting a new outlook on life that emphasizes the need for striving for self-betterment, accepting that the range of action and domain over which they can exercise any actual control may be limited in ways they cannot change. But to repair and put one's whole life in order, one must start with the things one can change and put in order, e.g., "First, clean your room." Then, keep going from there.
I appreciate the detailed response, but I guess my point is more:
1. I agree that there is no shortage of things to defend about western values like family, hard work, especially merit, etc and the turn things have taken in regards to their perception is not good for society at all.
2. I don't think Peterson succeeds in advocating for them, in fact I think the way he comports himself publicly makes almost anything he says untouchable to a whole lot of people who might otherwise find some of these points in agreement or useful. Or worse, as I think, he actively sabotages those values by acting like such a loon most of the time.
Maybe it's similar to the way the GOP might find more success among young people (or women) if they could just relax on some of their own social extremism, rather than depending on the DNC to somehow get even more extreme themselves.
ex: "You might be right in a lot of ways economically, that might even be better for a lot of people, but I couldn't possibly think of voting for you because you deliberately make life total hell for people I really care about for effectively no reason at all" to point at the fact they are still somehow attempting to litigate gay marriage at this point.
At least this is how I view most of these people as a young nonpartisan person in a city who finds the world has seemingly gone bananas.
The erudite and impressive blogger who goes by the name Quintus Curtius is an attorney who is fluent in several living and dead languages and has been hard at work publishing a series of his translations of works from classical antiquity and collections of of historical and biographical stories which illustrate the importance of virtues and dangers of common vices from a mostly Stoic perspective consistent with the general thrust of the core of the ethos of the western tradition I described above.
I have bought all his excellent books both for myself and as gifts for my kids and friends, and I cannot recommend him highly enough. I consider his writing to be beyond reproach and unobjectionable to anyone who is being fair and considering it in good faith. So, in that way, he would be an ideal candidate for a Peterson replacement according to the criticisms you made above, and with which I have no serious disagreement.
Nevertheless, while he has a following of a sort, he is orders of magnitude behind Peterson in terms of popularity, influence, and ability to reach a large or underserved audience. Blame the masses and the market for bad taste and preferring quirky charismatic huckster types (something, something, Trump ... ) but it doesn't matter what you blame because it is what it is.
Peterson may turn a lot of people off, but he also turns millions on, and who else does or can?
Jeff B and Handle nice exchange of ideas Thanks to both of you
The law has better definitions of what speech is illegal and what isn't. Under Kareem's definition, if I say "we should sell more rocket launchers to Ukraine to kill more Russians" or vice versa "we should end sanctions against Russia so that they can mop up the Ukrainians" those statements should be illegal per se as hate speech. Thankfully in the US such statements aren't illegal.
Threats and incitement can be illegal, but they have to be a bit more directed, immediate, and realistic to be actionable. "Every East Timorese must die" is not really incitement or a threat. "Every East Timorese must die, and I want you to join me tomorrow morning in killing my neighbor who is from East Timor; please bring your own gun" -- that's illegal and for good reason. "All Cops Are Bastards" is not illegal, but "All Cops are Bastards, we're burning down the precinct tomorrow, bring your own gas" is incitement.
The "hate speech" discourse is really more about figuring out a way to maintain peace in a society that tries to integrate everyone under conditions of equality with no limitations. Hate speech is any speech that threatens that idealized conception of harmony and respect across groups, irrespective of any tensions or real diversity which makes integration across those groups challenging. Hate speech can be true or it can be false, but what matters most to the prospective policers of hate speech is that it threatens the appearance of perfect harmony. It is any badthought which could be perceived as Anti-Party.
It's about coming up with a category that it can blame for the failures of that social model without admitting that it is failing to integrate everyone. It's "we would be integrating successfully, if not for the wicked haters, who are sabotaging our perfect society of magical equality, delaying the inevitable arrival of Sugar Candy Mountain on earth."