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Bad Apologetics: Jordan B. Peterson

I finally got through a 10 hour podcast of 3 people slowly disecting mr. Petersons' talking points. And I have to say it was extremely intresting to go beyond the clipped content from people whoes only goal is to make him look bad. Altough all the people on the panel agree that the man does have something to say, they also all agree there is an extreme problem with all his opinions that are not directly related to his field of expertise.

For those that want to take the time and are intrested, you can find it here:

[media=https://youtu.be/4juvCrKJ5uk?t=29903]

When it comes to certain toppics, I can't help to think that these are great examples for Albert O. Hirshmans' book called: "The Rhetoric of Reaction". Espescially Petersons' vieuws on climate change, where things are just too complex to solve and therefor it's futile to try, can be directly linked to the chapter on "Futility" that Hirschmans' described. Also how Peterson tackles a toppics like pornograhpy, can be a school example of the chapter on "Perversion".

For those people that it's not clear what the man is doing, this is a pretty intresting watch/listen. For those that already figured out that this person is insconsistent and ideologically driven on almost every toppic except some parts where he actually is an expert on, well... this 10 hour wild ride is a goldmine to understanding how weird it really is.
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Behind the Bastards also dos a good job exposing Peterson’s incoherence. The Nietzsche podcast occasionally brings up his inaccuracies.

Peterson combines basic observations that are obvious to anyone with misogyny and fascism.
chilloutab2 · 41-45, M
@LeopoldBloom I've watched some Peterson clips but maybe not enough, coz I seem to have missed those parts... could you point me to - or write out - a few of his misogynistic and fascist views?
@chilloutab2 He says women represent "chaos" and men represent "order." This is junior high level BS. He also says that the only reason women get married is to improve their living situation and reproductive options, which is why women engage in hypergamy. This is great news to incels who now have ammunition to explain why they can't get laid - all women are golddiggers.

I wouldn't say Peterson is fascist, more like fascist-adjacent. He's contributed several videos to PragerU, a far-right platform that also hosts several white supremacists. Despite being a university professor himself, Peterson has promoted the right-wing trope of universities being hotbeds of political correctness and left-wing propaganda. He's also fanatically anti-trans.
Kwek00 · 41-45, M
@LeopoldBloom Well... like I said before, I still think you use the word fascist a bit too quickly in a lot of your posts. 'Cause fascism is way more complex then a cherry picked principle here and there.

The only thing I agree with, is that Peterson deff. has ideas that belong in far right circles. As a whole though, it's really hard to make up what the man actually believes when it comes to his entire ideology. He also has some conservative liberal principles. His flirting with traditionalism though is really weird, but he doesn't appear to go full out on that, there are still enlightened ideas that are in his framework. I would just classify him as a conservative with classic-liberal-economic principles from what I heared so far.

I agree with the bullshit stuff..., a lot of his ideas in the social field seem to come from a gut feeling and he tends to argue from what he believes instead of proving what he believes to be correct. This gut feeling thing, is not something that only happens in Fascism, it happens in Conservatism in general. The idea that not everything can be explained by rationality but that we also feel what is right... is a big part of what makes conservatives conservative.

Just to give 1 example... :

[media=https://youtu.be/A5gIrlh8HSU]

Agree or disagree, isn't really the point of this clip. This is just something that someone with fascist tendencies would NEVER say. Also, most of his reasoning comes from the individual. He rarely talks about "the nation". When he talks about "we" it's ussually the human species that is living in our western paradigm. When he argues, he argues from the individual. BUT he also believes that the individual, is not just this individual entity. It's part of a society and a culture, and he believes that traditions have some kind of power. These are all things that you find in conservative-liberalism. He embraces the free market to an almost self-destructive level. I hardly ever hear him talking about turning back the clock, when it comes to rights that individuals have gained throughout the time. I never hear him talk about militairism in a way that he's proposing it for everyone. He detests totalitarianism and he has issues with authoritarianism. So yeah... Using Fascist here, just sounds like a strategy to kill a character.
chilloutab2 · 41-45, M
@LeopoldBloom Thanks.... I'll check the points out that you've mentioned.
The chaos and order are of course references to classical psychoanalysis... as well as the traditional and mythological literature of all civilisations and religions, either extant or extinct... and I for one put stock in old wisdom.
After all, what has been observed, recorded and corroborated over millennia should have some grain of truth in it. For example, Hindu philosophy, the oldest existing body of human thought right now, sees the male as the creative and destructive force and the female as the preserving force, with neither any less or more important than the other. And observations in casual life only serve to reinforce this - at least in the non-Western world, and, in my limited experience, in the Western world too.

So there may not be any inherent misogyny in particular representations or characterisations of the female or the male.

As for his reasons for marriage, I need to pay attention to those videos that show him saying that. I will also take a look at Prager U, as you have mentioned. I've not studied in a university in the Western world, so can't say how it is there... my experience pertains more to the East, where Universities are, in fact, distinctly and virulently left wing.

Will check up on Peterson's views on trans people, too. A lot of positions can be construed as anti-trans depending on how far in the spectrum one is placed. For example, I believe there should be a separate category for trans people in sports as there are for males and females... some might see me as anti-trans, but I see my stand as very pro-trans. And pro female. So nuance matters.

Fascism is often the absence of nuance... so I will need to study up more on Peterson's attitude on trans people and see if the nuanced context makes them extreme or not.

But thanks for the information... much appreciated. We live and learn, right?

So far my exposure to Peterson was more or less limited to him saying equality of opportunity is more desirable than equality of outcome, and if you have one it will necessarily be at the expense of the other. I agree totally with him on this. Maybe trawling more about him will reveal material that I don't agree with!
@Kwek00 Which is why I qualified him to fascist-adjacent. Peterson isn't a fascist, but actual fascists seem to like him.

It's like, Trump isn't a Nazi, but for some reason, the actual Nazis love him.
@chilloutab2 Peterson definitely thinks males are superior and women define themselves in terms of their relations to men, and any man who defines himself in terms of his relations to women is not to be respected. That's a far cry from the Yin-Yang complementarity or the Hindu system which is derived from that.

PragerU is a far-right propaganda outlet. Nothing on it should be taken seriously. Its premise is that the only civilization of merit is Western Europe, and all other civilizations are either poor copies or in opposition.

I qualified my fascist accusation to fascist-adjacent. Peterson isn't a fascist but he does appeal to actual fascists for some reason.
Kwek00 · 41-45, M
@LeopoldBloom Even Fascist-adjacent makes absolutely 0 sense here. Cause a lot of the key components of fascism, are just not there.

Oswald Spengler wasn't a fascist, but his intellectual work was recuperated by fascists.
Nietzsche was not a fascist, but his intelletucal work was recuperated by fascists.
Neither of these gentleman NOR Peterson, would ever affiliate themselves with fascism. And I'm pretty sure that Spengler had a more conservative vieuw on society then Peterson has, considering that a lot of Petersons stuff is rooted in Liberalism. The big ideological idea, that fascism wants to abort as a political project.
chilloutab2 · 41-45, M
@LeopoldBloom [i]Peterson definitely thinks males are superior and women define themselves in terms of their relations to men, and any man who defines himself in terms of his relations to women is not to be respected.
[/i]
Haven't yet encountered such a position in his videos that I have seen. Perhaps you could provide links of a few short clips of his where he says this?
What I've gathered from listening to him so far is that he opposes feminism in the current popular form it has shaped into - and I agree with him there, toxic femininity is increasingly a thing and the current wave of feminism, as opposed to the original one, is damaging to both sexes and to humanity as a whole. I've also heard him say that the world has been shaped by the joint endeavours of both men and women over the eons, though not in the same spheres of activity, that men and women compliment each other and are not the same - again a position I agree with. I don't find any misogyny or claim of male superiority in this.

Someone said "Biology is destiny"... I don't remember who. But I can see nothing to disprove this now or at any other point in time so far. In my estimation, Peterson's views on men and women adhere to this observation.


[i]That's a far cry from the Yin-Yang complementarity or the Hindu system which is derived from that.[/i]
I'm not sure the Hindu system derives from Yin-Yang, because the concept of "Ardhnarishwar" existed in India before the Chinese concretised Yin-Yang around 1300BC. But that's just a technical side-note.
Peterson's view of men and women complimenting each other without being the same is very much a Yin-Yang concept.


[i]PragerU is a far-right propaganda outlet. Nothing on it should be taken seriously. [/i]
Thanks for the heads-up. I will have to delve into some of their content and then decide.

[i]Its premise is that the only civilization of merit is Western Europe, and all other civilizations are either poor copies or in opposition.[/i]
If they believe and say that, then they are obviously deluded or chauvinistic - or both.


[i]I qualified my fascist accusation to fascist-adjacent. Peterson isn't a fascist but he does appeal to actual fascists for some reason.
[/i]
Who Peterson appeals to is not Peterson's business, but of those who like him. One can only say what one thinks and believes in... how it's received is not in the sayer's control and cannot be held against the sayer. (Unless it's a court of law, I suppose. But I am no judge and don't like those who are judgmental.)
@chilloutab2 What I see defined as "toxic feminism" is mostly coming from conservative men, who cherry-pick a few outlying examples as representative of the entire movement. It's basically a backlash against female equality. Even putting aside the pay gap, women are still not equally represented in leadership positions in government, business, or other societal power centers. Ruth Bader Ginsburg was once asked how many women should be on the Supreme Court before she'd be satisfied, and her answer was "nine." I suspect that Peterson would have a problem with that, but not if we went back to nine men.

I'm automatically suspicious of anyone who comes out with any defense of an earlier status quo. Obviously, men and women complemented each other historically, but in a postmodern, information-based society, most of those earlier paradigms no longer apply.
chilloutab2 · 41-45, M
@LeopoldBloom
[i]I'm automatically suspicious of anyone who comes out with any defense of an earlier status quo. [/i]
Conversely, I am automatically suspicious of anyone who tries to challenge or change the status quo simply for the sake of it, for no good reason. Personally, my motto is: "It is my duty to pass on to the future - in as intact a form as possible - any and every practice I inherit that has merit or is neutral in terms of merit. If I inherit any practice that is harmful in anyway, only then do I need to make sure that it stops with me."

I think there is nothing wrong with defending an earlier status quo per se. I do think that attacking or changing any status quo without due diligence -simply because it's the status quo - is harmful and impoverishing.


[i]Obviously, men and women complemented each other historically, but in a postmodern, information-based society, most of those earlier paradigms no longer apply.[/i]
It does not seem apparent that even in the postmodern, information-based society of today, historical continuity has been so lost or broken that time-tested paradigms do not apply any longer. The human being is fundamentally unaltered; every present is only a more acute extension of our inherent tendencies than the past before it. The intensity and mode of that extension is the only difference, not the tendency itself.

If you claim that historical paradigms no longer apply now, I would request you for evidence in support. To me it appears that the historical paradigms still apply.


[i]What I see defined as "toxic feminism" is mostly coming from conservative men, who cherry-pick a few outlying examples as representative of the entire movement. It's basically a backlash against female equality. [/i]
I don't think conservative men should be shamed or silenced for what they want to say - and neither should toxic feminists be silenced or shamed. Your sentence can also be turned around to express the opposite point of view: "What I see defined as "fascist (or fascist adjacent)" is mostly woke people (or third-wave feminists) who cherry-pick a few outlying examples as representative of the entire movement."

As for female equality, females are equal under the law in almost ever country that matters - and even receive preferential treatment under the law in several of them. What more equality could we want?
If the equality you're alluding to is attitudinal equality, then I'm afraid that cannot practically be achieved... except by thought policing - and we know that that is impossible. People will think what they think. Many men will think they are superior to women and many women will also think they are superior to men. The percentages may vary, probably. You cannot stop them thinking so. Their thoughts will inform their actions, and you can only make it illegal for them to act out their thoughts, not to think them.



[i]Even putting aside the pay gap[/i],
I see you do not trust the empirical evidence against this!


[i]women are still not equally represented in leadership positions in government, business, or other societal power centers. [/i]
True, there are fewer women in these places than men.
However, at the risk of sounding parochial, I must still point out that one must take the gold with the dross. Demanding equal representation in boardrooms for women without demanding equal representation for women among sanitation workers appears to be a grab for power and privilege, not equality. And therein lies the toxicity.

[i]Ruth Bader Ginsburg was once asked how many women should be on the Supreme Court before she'd be satisfied, and her answer was "nine." [/i]
That would be a classic case of an eye for an eye making the whole world blind. The vengefulness of that pronouncement makes it toxic.


[i]I suspect that Peterson would have a problem with that, but not if we went back to nine men.[/i]
I would not base my idea about Peterson on my suspicions about him, rather on what I have actually heard him say. Peterson has said he would not have a problem with any gender - or any number of any gender - in any position so long as they are the most qualified to hold that position. If the idea is to put women or men in a particular position - rather than the most competent human being, no matter their gender, orientation or whatever - then that idea needs to be countered because it does no one any good.
chilloutab2 · 41-45, M
@LeopoldBloom A footnote: I think it would be futile for us to discuss this any further... after going through your profile, posts and comments, I understood that we come from opposite ends of the spectrum. Seen from my viewpoint you seem "Woke" (or Woke adjacent). I am "Awake".
And never the twain shall meet!
I respect your views but do not agree with them... I'm sure it's likewise for you. We will have to politely agree to disagree.
@chilloutab2 "Woke" started in the 1960s in the Black community to refer to Black people who were aware of the forces oppressing them. The word has recently been co-opted by right-wingers to mean "silly liberals who get offended at everything."

I would consider you to be brainwashed by right-wing media. I'm reminded of Orwell's quote, "The more people chant about their freedom and how free they are, the more loudly I hear their chains rattling." You may think you're "awake," but all you've done is buy into a paradigm that reassures you of that while demonizing people you disagree with.