It's important to conduct ourselves like grownups while defending what's good, right and true

I'd just read Conor Friedersdorf's account at The Atlantic of the interview between clinical psychologist Jordan Peterson and British journalist Cathy Newman - and you should too; his point that there's a trend, on both the left and the right, to reframe what a person has actually said is an important one - when I came upon Jonah Goldberg's take on it at NRO. Goldberg zeroes in on one particular aspect of the interview that is a particular obsession of mine: this utterly false notion that an increasing number of people have that there is some kind of right not to be offended:

Newman questioned Peterson on why he refused to go along with the trendy Leftist cause du jour: using pronouns chosen by individuals rather than pronouns that describe their biology. “Why should your freedom of speech trump a trans person’s right not to be offended?” Newman asked. Peterson, ever the gentleman, answered the question without guffawing: “Because in order to be able to think, you have to risk being offensive. I mean, look at the conversation we’re having right now. You’re certainly willing to risk offending me in the pursuit of truth. Why should you have the right to do that? It’s been rather uncomfortable.”

Newman misdirected: “Well, I’m very glad I’ve put you on the spot.” But Peterson pursued: “Well, you get my point. You’re doing what you should do, which is digging a bit to see what the hell is going on. And that is what you should do. But you’re exercising your freedom of speech to certainly risk offending me, and that’s fine. More power to you, as far as I’m concerned.”

Newman had no answer. Point to Peterson. But despite Peterson’s obvious logic, the Left refuses to concede this particular point. Any statement — any statement — must be gauged not only on the basis of its truth-value, according to the Left, but on the basis of whether such truth is likely to offend — or, at last, whether such truth is likely to offend groups the Left perceives as victimized.

According to the Left, any and all truth must take a back seat to “your truth,” so long as you claim minority status in any way.

Goldberg goes on to make the point that those on the right - excepting, of course, those dwelling in its fever swamps - tend to value decorum, courtesy, and calm discourse and get stomped on for it by the Left. It's at that point that a sane rightie might be tempted to go all bonehead in a polemical exchange, but that, with truth on his side, he can afford to maintain a dignified demeanor as he puts his points on the board.

He concludes quite eloquently:

This is the ground on which conservatives should fight, of course: acknowledgement that while manners matter, truth matters more. Unfortunately, too many conservatives have responded to Leftist censorship not with truth-above-manners politeness, but with theatrical displays of unconcern with manners themselves. Rudeness is now seen as a substitute for facts. If the Left uses manners as a weapon, the logic goes, let’s just discard manners altogether. But there’s no reason to do that.

We all ought to behave with decency and truth. Those are the twin pillars of conservatism, after all: virtue and reason. Discarding reason undermines virtue by replacing virtue with emotion-based reactivity; discarding virtue undermines the social fabric necessary to undergird the effectiveness of reason. Yes, let’s behave with manners. But let’s recognize that only a society that values truth can afford manners.

A good maxim to live by.