Peterson is by temperament exactly the sort of person born to be a
target for digi-journalists and social-media mobs. He has an absolutist
commitment to speaking his own truth at all times regardless of the
consequences. He has opinions that cut against the grain of some of our
most ferociously policed orthodoxies. He often speaks in a rather
involuted private jargon with little concern for general
intelligibility, and lacks awareness of how he comes across. There is
something laughably sophomoric about the unbounded scope of his
19th-century intellectual ambition. He speaks to journalists, even those
who plainly have it in for him, in exactly the same forthright manner as
he does anyone else—as if he is free to indulge any thought experiment
or rhetorical gambit he likes with a willing and sympathetic
interlocutor in pursuit of the truth. He has behaved abominably at times
and refuses contrition or regret on principle. He is stubborn as
hell.
So he’s a difficult and inflexible communicator whose intellectual
reach exceeds his grasp? An iconoclast with deep skepticism for
conventional wisdom who doesn’t seem to be aware that others might
approach his positions with the same skepticism?
I agree that such an individual provides a rich target for
“digi-journalists”, I just don’t understand why this is a bad thing.
How is Peterson unconventional, though? He's just a dressed-up version of every cultural Christian with an axe to grind against women and LGBT+ people.
“Mostly widely disseminated lecturer in the history of the world???”
I wonder what they’re basing that on. I’m pretty sure Richard Feynman
would still beat him by a lot.
Oh really? Well how many views did Feynman's YouTube channel get?
But seriously, this may well be true for the same reason that there's a new movie claiming the title of "highest grossing box office ever" every year or two. "Biggest X of all time" records that don't control for inflation and population size have an extreme recency bias.
You can't argue with the objectivity of box office sales. Let's face it, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen and Power Rangers Dino Force CXVIII in 4-D: 2076 Tricentennial Edition will be remembered for ages to come while rubbish like The Godfather or Citizen Kane will be forgotten as pedestrian bullshit. The invisible hand has spoken.
Why is it that every single defense of Peterson I’ve read is of the
form “no, he didn’t actually say what he said! He meant this
totally different thing that isn’t anywhere in his actual words”. You’d
think if he was such a brilliant intellectual he wouldn’t need everyone
to completely rephrase him. (And why is it that the SSC crowd, who is
always quick to point out motte-and-bailey tactics when the outgroup
uses them, never realizes that motte-and-baileying Peterson is the only
way he makes any fucking sense)
Oh wait, it’s because he hates the ess jay dubs, so he must be
incredibly wise. So we’ll just take his every stupid, nonsensical
utterance and completely rewrite it into something else that we already
believe. And then pretend the media has a vendetta against him for their
dastardly gotcha tactics of “reporting what he says” and “quoting him
verbatim”, which has the added bonus of letting us feel like we’re the
oppressed victims.
Blegh. Fuck this guy and every dingus claiming he’s a misunderstood
genius.
This is [the Sam Harris Defense](https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2015/09/16/the-saga-of-slippery-sam/).
*"You're offended because you haven't given my words the obsessive Rabbinical parsing that their complexity demands."*
Weirdly, it *only* works for right-wing writers.
>Peterson is virtually always more nuanced than the straw target his detractors have built out of his ideas. He uses the fact that the moods of both lobsters and humans are regulated by serotonin, a neurotransmitter that waxes and wanes in accordance with both creatures’ place in a dominance hierarchy to illustrate the point that the “problem of hierarchy is much deeper” than capitalism or any other set of human institutions
Good writing by a complete and utter dumbass
This comment is a direct copy of [this](https://np.reddit.com/r/JordanPeterson/comments/8mxpyf/the_shocking_truth_about_jordan_peterson/dzrb33g/) comment by /u/PaidShill841 from when this link was posted on /r/JordanPeterson. This probably means that the person i am replying to is a karma-farming bot.
*^^I ^^am ^^a ^^bot ^^and ^^this ^^action ^^was ^^performed ^^automatically. ^^Downvote ^^to ^^remove. ^^Contact ^^if ^^bot ^^isn't ^^behaving: ^^/u/_tonlage_
He is a messenger whose immoderate personal conduct has worked at
cross purposes to the essential moderation of his message.
I think this line gets at the core of the issue with JP. You guys
might not agree, but I think the author is right that his essential
message is, if you’re being charitable, not that extreme. I watched his
old 3 hour conversation with Russell Brand, he came off as a (mostly)
reasonable and articulate center-right to right guy. I skimmed Maps
of Meaning a long time ago, while a lot of it was word salad
masquerading as insight porn, I didn’t think some of the ideas were that
bad. Some of our shared cultural myths have value? Sure! I like to think
that when my Mom sends me bible verses I can respect the wisdom
contained therein even if I don’t believe in God. His 12 rules are
mostly unobjectionable, and I know at least one person IRL who has
really taken to them and improved his life as a result (this guy also
coincidentally doesn’t go on the internet much, limiting his exposure to
JP-adjacent elements that are much worse).
The problem is that when you look at his public engagement at large,
he shares a lot of intellectual tics with far-right elements. His
obsession with cultural marxism/SJWs is ridiculous (the fact that he
even uses the phrase “SJW”…), and when I said he came off as
mostly reasonable and articulate above, what I was talking
about was his willingness to start off on a tangent about how
postmodernist indoctrination was such a huge problem in universities. He
has a severe problem with allowing (sometimes purposefully) his moderate
ideas to be co-opted into far-right conspiracy narratives, where social
justice is not just a welling meaning political movement but actually a
marxist conspiracy that will lead to the downfall of the west! Oh No!
His twitter is a never ending stream of him being unwilling to show
people the same charity he expects them to show him, just “gotcha!”s and
examples of how he must have been right all along. The most vocal
segments of his online fan base aren’t the IRL guy I mentioned above,
but Sargon/MRA type people who only see his ideas as a launching pad to
get theirs into the mainstream (and to an extent are successfully doing
so). His public persona leaves a lot to be desired, to say the
least.
I honestly don’t really know what to do about it. I would agree with
/u/vec and say that digi-journalists should shoot their shots
and pillory him at every opportunity. I would also say they should do a
better job, in that they should watch these videos and offer a competing
narrative in the same language. I really think a lot of his fan base is
not as radical as the most vocal segments, and they are the ones who are
both most at danger for falling for all the “cutural marxist are evil!”
shit, and the ones who are most willing to listen to “hey this guy
sounds good and some stuff does make sense, but here’s where he goes
wrong”.
edit: as an addendum, i just wanted to say this is my first post here
and i hope it comes across okay. i got sick of having to skim past (or
argue against) blatant racism/fascism on /r/ssc and unsubbed
there/subbed here. i guess i still believe in some of the ideas that SSC
supposedly was for, like being charitable towards ideas that i might not
immediately agree with. i still like reading the occasional insight
porn, if it’s good. i’m not sure what everyone here thinks about that. i
just know that axioms like “all people have equal moral worth” don’t
seem to be up for debate here, which is a good thing.
No. The good stuff is not original and the original stuff is not good, and is not worth the unoriginal good stuff.
"These right wing "self help" gurus are pretty surreal. They are like: 1. Exercise regularly. 2. Focus on concrete goals. 3. Find supportive friends. 4. Women are serpentine creatures that undermine society and must be tamed by a dominant will. 5. Stay hydrated." - [existentialcomics](https://twitter.com/existentialcoms/status/1000443678723260416)
Dude, Jordan Peterson says things like "white privilege is a Marxist lie." He's about as conservative as an American Republican, which is, to be clear, _really racist._ There are plenty of people saying things like, "clean your room," and "fix your posture," who are not racist. Like your mom, hopefully. I'd bet an ice cream that a lot of his followers would be completely unwilling to take that exact same helpful, wholesome advice if it came from an SJW.
> I'd bet an ice cream that a lot of his followers would be completely unwilling to take that exact same helpful, wholesome advice if it came from an SJW.
They don't even want to hear it from their own mothers, they want to hear it from the "dark professor" that gives them social permission to be obnoxious racists.
It's funny you mention my mom again because I'm pretty sure literally I hear her voice in the back of my head every time my apartment gets too dirty. I'm sure a lot of his fans did not have that kind of experience growing up. There is a part of me not entirely convinced it's all about SJWs and anti-PC sentiment for a silent majority of viewers. I guess I'd like to think they see the focus on individual responsibility in a positive, reinforcing manner, rather than purely as a knee-jerk reaction to identity/intersectional politics.
When I started following him on twitter I was actually a little sickened/surprised by the amount of vitriol in his mentions. I know twitter is not a good representative sample, but it leaves me wondering how many of his YT views are purely by people mainlining online politics. It's possible I'm just naive, or biased by the fact the only other person I know who follows this stuff in person is a relatively mild mannered guy with broadly liberal politics. It makes me want to talk to him and see what else YT has been recommending him to watch, and what effect that's had.
I don't know how left-wing you are, but I have a feeling most people on this sub are more leftist than you are. What appears to be "broadly liberal" to you might look like "provides cover to structural racism" to other people on this sub.
I mean I would describe myself as left of center, I was a pretty big chapo trap house listener until a little while ago. I actively campaigned for bernie in my city. You can probably stereotype me from there. I'm not going to pretend I find every strain of online leftist thought palatable but i'm on board with the values.
Nothing specific I just feel like the show isn't the same. I started listening in 2016 in the leadup to the election and at this point I've gotten tired of the same bits and their (relatively) reduced appetite for risky jokes and stuff.
So he’s a difficult and inflexible communicator whose intellectual reach exceeds his grasp? An iconoclast with deep skepticism for conventional wisdom who doesn’t seem to be aware that others might approach his positions with the same skepticism?
I agree that such an individual provides a rich target for “digi-journalists”, I just don’t understand why this is a bad thing.
Ah Wesley. First-rate writer, second-rate thinker.
“Mostly widely disseminated lecturer in the history of the world???” I wonder what they’re basing that on. I’m pretty sure Richard Feynman would still beat him by a lot.
Don’t trust The Media. Trust YouTube celebrities.
Why is it that every single defense of Peterson I’ve read is of the form “no, he didn’t actually say what he said! He meant this totally different thing that isn’t anywhere in his actual words”. You’d think if he was such a brilliant intellectual he wouldn’t need everyone to completely rephrase him. (And why is it that the SSC crowd, who is always quick to point out motte-and-bailey tactics when the outgroup uses them, never realizes that motte-and-baileying Peterson is the only way he makes any fucking sense)
Oh wait, it’s because he hates the ess jay dubs, so he must be incredibly wise. So we’ll just take his every stupid, nonsensical utterance and completely rewrite it into something else that we already believe. And then pretend the media has a vendetta against him for their dastardly gotcha tactics of “reporting what he says” and “quoting him verbatim”, which has the added bonus of letting us feel like we’re the oppressed victims.
Blegh. Fuck this guy and every dingus claiming he’s a misunderstood genius.
[removed]
I think this line gets at the core of the issue with JP. You guys might not agree, but I think the author is right that his essential message is, if you’re being charitable, not that extreme. I watched his old 3 hour conversation with Russell Brand, he came off as a (mostly) reasonable and articulate center-right to right guy. I skimmed Maps of Meaning a long time ago, while a lot of it was word salad masquerading as insight porn, I didn’t think some of the ideas were that bad. Some of our shared cultural myths have value? Sure! I like to think that when my Mom sends me bible verses I can respect the wisdom contained therein even if I don’t believe in God. His 12 rules are mostly unobjectionable, and I know at least one person IRL who has really taken to them and improved his life as a result (this guy also coincidentally doesn’t go on the internet much, limiting his exposure to JP-adjacent elements that are much worse).
The problem is that when you look at his public engagement at large, he shares a lot of intellectual tics with far-right elements. His obsession with cultural marxism/SJWs is ridiculous (the fact that he even uses the phrase “SJW”…), and when I said he came off as mostly reasonable and articulate above, what I was talking about was his willingness to start off on a tangent about how postmodernist indoctrination was such a huge problem in universities. He has a severe problem with allowing (sometimes purposefully) his moderate ideas to be co-opted into far-right conspiracy narratives, where social justice is not just a welling meaning political movement but actually a marxist conspiracy that will lead to the downfall of the west! Oh No! His twitter is a never ending stream of him being unwilling to show people the same charity he expects them to show him, just “gotcha!”s and examples of how he must have been right all along. The most vocal segments of his online fan base aren’t the IRL guy I mentioned above, but Sargon/MRA type people who only see his ideas as a launching pad to get theirs into the mainstream (and to an extent are successfully doing so). His public persona leaves a lot to be desired, to say the least.
I honestly don’t really know what to do about it. I would agree with /u/vec and say that digi-journalists should shoot their shots and pillory him at every opportunity. I would also say they should do a better job, in that they should watch these videos and offer a competing narrative in the same language. I really think a lot of his fan base is not as radical as the most vocal segments, and they are the ones who are both most at danger for falling for all the “cutural marxist are evil!” shit, and the ones who are most willing to listen to “hey this guy sounds good and some stuff does make sense, but here’s where he goes wrong”.
edit: as an addendum, i just wanted to say this is my first post here and i hope it comes across okay. i got sick of having to skim past (or argue against) blatant racism/fascism on /r/ssc and unsubbed there/subbed here. i guess i still believe in some of the ideas that SSC supposedly was for, like being charitable towards ideas that i might not immediately agree with. i still like reading the occasional insight porn, if it’s good. i’m not sure what everyone here thinks about that. i just know that axioms like “all people have equal moral worth” don’t seem to be up for debate here, which is a good thing.