Personal Experience Does Not Constitute Authority Over Others

Jordan B. Peterson Conversation/BlackLivesMatter 

"There are Limits to what even interested persons can ask of each other."

-- David Foster Wallace, 
Consider The Lobster

WILL 
So what's this? A Taster's Choice moment between guys? 
This is really nice. You got a thing for swans? 
Is this like a fetish? 
It's something, like, maybe we need to devote some time to?

 SEAN 
I thought about what you said to me the other day, about my painting.

 WILL 
eah?

 SEAN 
Stayed up half the night thinking about it. 
Something occurred to me, I fell into a deep peaceful sleep, and I haven't thought about you since. 
You know what occurred to me?

 WILL No.

 SEAN 
You're just a kid. 
You don't have the faintest idea what you're talking about.

 WILL 
Why Thank You.

 SEAN 
It's all right. 
You've never been out of Boston.

 WILL
Nope.

 SEAN
So, if I asked you about art, you'd probably give me the skinny on every art book ever written. 

Michelangelo. You know a lot about him. 
Life's work, political aspirations, him and the Pope, sexual orientation, the whole works, right? 

But I bet you can't tell me what it smells like in the Sistine Chapel. 
You've never actually stood there and looked up at that beautiful ceiling. Seen that....

If I ask you about women, you'd probably give me a syllabus of your personal favorites. 


You may have even been laid a few times. But you can't tell me what it feels like to wake up next to a woman and feel truly happy. You're a tough kid. I ask you about war, you'd probably uh...throw Shakespeare at me, right? "Once more into the breach, dear friends." But you've never been near one. You've never held your best friend's head in your lap, and watched him gasp his last breath looking to you for help. I ask you about love, y'probably quote me a sonnet. But you've never looked at a woman and been totally vulnerable...known someone that could level you with her eyes. Feeling like God put an angel on Earth just for you..who could rescue you from the depths of Hell. And you wouldn't know what it's like to be her angel, n to have that love for her be there forever. Through anything. Through cancer. And you wouldn't know about sleepin' sittin' up in a hospital room for two months, holding her hand because the doctors could see in your eyes that the terms visiting hours don't apply to you. You don't know about real loss, because that only occurs when you love something more than you love yourself. I doubt you've ever dared to love anybody that much. I look at you: I don't see an intelligent, confident man. I see a cocky, scared shitless kid. But you're a genius, Will. No one denies that. no one could possibly understand the depths of you. But you presume to know everything about me because you saw a painting of mine and ripped my fuckin' life apart. You're an orphan, right? Do you think I'd know the first thing about how hard your life has been, how you feel, who you are because I read Oliver Twist? Does that encapsulate you? Personally, I don't give a shit about that, because you know what? I can't learn anything from you I can't read in some fuckin' book. Unless you wanna talk about you, who you are. And I'm fascinated. I'm in. But you don't wanna do that, do you, sport? You're terrified of what you might say. >>> Your move, chief. > 

Carmine Falcone : 

You're taller than you look in the tabloids, Mr. Wayne.

No gun? I'm insulted! 

You could have just sent a thank-you note.

Bruce Wayne : I didn't come here to thank you. 

I came here to show you that not everyone in Gotham's afraid of you.

Carmine Falcone : Only those who know me, kid. 

Look around you: you'll see two councilmen, a union official, a couple off-duty cops, and a judge.

Now, I wouldn't have a second's hesitation of blowing your head off right HERE and right NOW in front of 'em. 

Now, that's power you CAN’T BUY — That's The Power of fear.

Bruce Wayne : I'm not afraid of you.

Carmine Falcone : Because you think you got nothing to lose. But you haven't thought it through. You haven't thought about your lady-friend down at the D.A.'s office. You haven't thought about your old butler. Bang!

Carmine Falcone : People from your world have so much to lose. Now, you think because your mommy and your daddy got shot, you know about the ugly side of life, but you don't. You've never tasted desperate. You're, uh, you're Bruce Wayne, the Prince of Gotham; you'd have to go a thousand miles to meet someone who didn't know your name. So, don't-don't come down here with your anger, trying to prove something to yourself. This is a world you'll never understand. And you always fear what you don't understand. Alright.

 

Carmine Falcone : Yeah, you got spirit, kid. I'll give you that. More than your old man, anyway. In the joint, Chill told me, uh, told me about the night he killed your parents. He said your father begged for mercy. Begged. Like a dog.