this contradicts itself. If it’s all in the mind and we’re all supposed to find our own meaning and pay tribute our own way, then the protests have no meaning. The protest only has meaning if you go against what the general public deams is true. Kneeling means nothing if we all have our own way to pay tribute. In society there are understood norms for respect and disrespect. You can’t have a protest if nobody cares.
it’s like Jordan Peterson says, you can’t have a discussion if you only are trying to not offend.
It's not contradictory it's true. The meaning of anything symbolic is subjective. People can disagree on the validity of a protest, understand its meaning, and still ignore it. Or they can be affected by it in ways other than being offended and taking up opposition. Or someone can simply find more meaning in what they're doing vs what they're expected to do, regardless of what others think.
If I'm sitting at home and some guy 500 miles away is kneeling for 3-4 minutes during a song, how has it REALLY affected my life other than how I perceive it? This is no different than a Muslim praying after a soccer goal. If I'm anti-Muslim maybe that offends me somehow, but does it do me any real harm? When the song is over or the celebration ends, what's really changed for me? My mind. That's it.
How EFFECTIVE a protest is depends on how well your message is conveyed, understood, and adopted....not necessarily how much it pisses people off and turns them off. For the people out there who don't see America the same way you or I do, the protest has a lot of meaning. We don't see the same things in it they do. Yet we can just as easily ignore it, or focus on the song and flag and our own interpretation. Or, we can TRY to see it their way, without being assholes about it.
Jordan Peterson cloaks conservativism and western religion in fake logic that goes from A to B to X. He's one of those guys who thinks he's smart enough to turn faith into scientific rigor. That statement about offensiveness being requisite to discussion, as written above, is so absurd it doesn't even merit debate, and anyone experienced in conflict resolution or hostage negotiation or just about ANY job other than phony intellectual will tell you the same.