Jordan Peterson

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Vēritās
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Re: Jordan Peterson

Post by Vēritās »

drumdude wrote:
Sun Mar 19, 2023 7:17 am
In so many interviews, he claims that it is immensely stressful for him to choose his words carefully in order to avoid misinterpretation and attack. You can understand why when you see his interview with Cathy Newman.

Peterson’s big problem is that he has become self deluded into thinking that what he says is monumentally important. Like the weight of the world is carried upon his shoulders. He thinks this because he hears from thousands of young men who worship him and tell him that he turned their lives around.

But at the end of the day, he’s just another talking head. He needs to come back down to reality and stop taking himself so seriously. Dude constantly looks like he needs to have a drink and unwind.
I think you nailed it.
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Gadianton
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Re: Jordan Peterson

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He's an idiot. He thinks he's the master of all subjects. If he were posting here, nobody would see him as even average on any topic.

I've watched a few podcasts or debates, and I can last for about 10 minutes before exiting. Can't remember what podcast, but the last one I saw he worried about Putin's isolation; a concern that it doesn't take a phd in psychology to produce, and then talked about this "men's" boating trip he had which a bunch of other public figures, I think. So it seems like his solution to Ukraine was for the elite and educated men of the world to invite Vladimir Putin on a boating trip. Can you imagine how excited Ajax would be if Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, Jordan Peterson and whoever else went on a men's boating and water skiing trip together?

I'd include DeSantis but he and Trump hate each other so he wouldn't go. But if only Hitler were alive; he was isolated; invite him too!
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Re: Jordan Peterson

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from a rather level headed article in the New Yorker,
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018 ... asculinity

"Peterson seems to view Trump, by contrast, as a symptom of modern problems, rather than a cause of them. He suggests that Trump’s rise was unfortunate but inevitable—“part of the same process,” he writes, as the rise of “far-right” politicians in Europe. “If men are pushed too hard to feminize,” he warns, “they will become more and more interested in harsh, fascist political ideology.” Peterson sometimes asks audiences to view him as an alternative to political excesses on both sides. During an interview on BBC Radio 5, he said, “I’ve had thousands of letters from people who were tempted by the blandishments of the radical right, who’ve moved towards the reasonable center as a consequence of watching my videos.” But he typically sees liberals, or leftists, or “postmodernists,” as aggressors—which leads him, rather ironically, to frame some of those on the “radical right” as victims. Many of his political stances are built on this type of inversion. Postmodernists, he says, are obsessed with the idea of oppression, and, by waging war on oppressors real and imagined, they become oppressors themselves. Liberals, he says, are always talking about the importance of compassion—and yet "
/////
I note that this is a few years ago when I last followed him. I found some of his ideas interesting. I also agree with his free speech view. I did not continue following him not finding further development to keep my interest. I am put off by a sense of a tendency to paranoia and grandiosity which some folks like drumdude noted as well. As Honorentheos noted there are other reasons he may have lost his edge and clarity.
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Re: Jordan Peterson

Post by honorentheos »

I think most people couldn't say what Jordan Peterson's field of expertise is without looking it up. And that's telling.
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Re: Jordan Peterson

Post by honorentheos »

in my opinion, Peterson ended up on the public stage for being at odds with his university and laws regarding gender pronouns. He put his views out there via YouTube rather than being pushed in to public view, saying something about his personality and intentions. His field likely influenced his views on the role of religion in society, but it's not really clear why he holds such strongly patriarchal beliefs. I suspect that, whatever their initial state, he became more entrenched in them as he debated publicly over gender identity, the role of free speech in society, and as his celebrity increased.

I don't think I've read or heard anything he's ever said that I found to be novel or of personal value. I think it says something more about his audience that they are often males who found a father figure in him who expects them to make their beds every morning and cusses.
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Re: Jordan Peterson

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My guess is that most of us are not his target audience anyway. He is a cultural critic. If he were a Marxist cultural critic, no one here would even know who he is. It is because he dared to oppose publicly the illiberalism of leftists these days, and was kind of a prick about it, that makes him an easy person to object to. A fair number of young people respond positively to his advice, and it may be that he is fairly innocuous in the final analysis. The lefty outrage about him is even dumber than his critics believe him to be.
“If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don’t have to worry about the answers.”~Thomas Pynchon, Gravity’s Rainbow
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Re: Jordan Peterson

Post by Gadianton »

Kishkumen wrote:
Sun Mar 19, 2023 11:02 pm
My guess is that most of us are not his target audience anyway. He is a cultural critic. If he were a Marxist cultural critic, no one here would even know who he is. It is because he dared to oppose publicly the illiberalism of leftists these days, and was kind of a prick about it, that makes him an easy person to object to. A fair number of young people respond positively to his advice, and it may be that he is fairly innocuous in the final analysis. The lefty outrage about him is even dumber than his critics believe him to be.
Well look at it this way, If you're a young right-winger brought up on Fox News, Trump and DeSantis (DeSantis is hardly dumb, by the way; he's much smarter than Trump, he's just a raging opportunist), and you hear Jordan Peterson for the first time, then it must be like being led from Plato's cave, because Peterson does actually discuss ideas and he does have the ability to follow a logical train of thought, it's just all so sophomoric. But if he's the first intellectual you've encountered, I imagine you could really learn something. Nibley was the first real intellectual author I ever read and I'm sure it was similar.

Speaking of Marxism, I watched a debate (for a short time) between Peterson and Slavoj Žižek, who is an unhinged Marxist. They were to debate Marxism vs. Capitalism. The dumbest thing about the debate was thinking the two live enough within the same universe that they could even have a discussion. Peterson obviously has no idea what contemporary Marxism is. I'm not sure I do, to be honest. The smartest thing about the dabate, from wiki:
the event had more tickets scalped than the Toronto Maple Leafs–Boston Bruins playoff on the same day, and tickets sold on eBay for over $300
It was pointless. Peterson's preparation was to read Das Kapital and then explain why he thinks Marxism won't work and Capitalism is better. His insights weren't terrible if he were presenting for a Freshman economics course, or even High School. It's probably the best introduction to economics any student of Prager U. is going to get. But, it was pointless for engaging a premiere postmodernist.

Now, in contrast, I also watched a discussion between Žižek and Kotkin. Žižek seemed pretty damn interested in what Kotkin had to say -- if you wanted to see the practical limits of Marxism, that would be a much better place to start.
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Re: Jordan Peterson

Post by drumdude »

Kishkumen wrote:
Sun Mar 19, 2023 11:02 pm
My guess is that most of us are not his target audience anyway. He is a cultural critic. If he were a Marxist cultural critic, no one here would even know who he is. It is because he dared to oppose publicly the illiberalism of leftists these days, and was kind of a prick about it, that makes him an easy person to object to. A fair number of young people respond positively to his advice, and it may be that he is fairly innocuous in the final analysis. The lefty outrage about him is even dumber than his critics believe him to be.
I noticed him in the mid-2010s when he was vocal against the Canadian push to make misgendering someone a crime. I think he made some very good points that in order to have free speech, you have to be able to risk offending someone.

The far left wing kids that protested against him really warped his worldview and gave him a persecution complex.

This is that protest video that gave rise to his popularity:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HAlPjMiaKdw
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Re: Jordan Peterson

Post by honorentheos »

Kishkumen wrote:
Sun Mar 19, 2023 11:02 pm
My guess is that most of us are not his target audience anyway. He is a cultural critic. If he were a Marxist cultural critic, no one here would even know who he is. It is because he dared to oppose publicly the illiberalism of leftists these days, and was kind of a prick about it, that makes him an easy person to object to. A fair number of young people respond positively to his advice, and it may be that he is fairly innocuous in the final analysis. The lefty outrage about him is even dumber than his critics believe him to be.
The challenge here is the issues he is engaged in aren't binary. I don't disagree with him over free speech issues on college campuses or elsewhere in society in a categorical way, nor do I think he lacked an argument when it came to his early positions on the gender pronoun issues. His views on gender roles and social order are incredibly backwards in my opinion. His attempts to assert the relevance of traditional.beliefs, values, and structure? Well. His forward to the 50th anniversary edition of The Gulag Archipelago is really what caught my attention as he framed it as very relevant in a post-Soviet world due to Solzhenitsyn being equally critical of post-modernism. But it was also what left me thinking he might be an intellectual Don Quixote which, for better or worse, remains my impression. I don't use that literary reference casually here. His causes seem akin to the Man of La Mancha seeking to return the world to a time of knightly chivalry and romanticism. Peterson as romantic at war with post-modernism seems fairly accurate.
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Re: Jordan Peterson

Post by huckelberry »

drumdude wrote:
Mon Mar 20, 2023 1:27 am
Kishkumen wrote:
Sun Mar 19, 2023 11:02 pm
My guess is that most of us are not his target audience anyway. He is a cultural critic. If he were a Marxist cultural critic, no one here would even know who he is. It is because he dared to oppose publicly the illiberalism of leftists these days, and was kind of a prick about it, that makes him an easy person to object to. A fair number of young people respond positively to his advice, and it may be that he is fairly innocuous in the final analysis. The lefty outrage about him is even dumber than his critics believe him to be.
I noticed him in the mid-2010s when he was vocal against the Canadian push to make misgendering someone a crime. I think he made some very good points that in order to have free speech, you have to be able to risk offending someone.

The far left wing kids that protested against him really warped his worldview and gave him a persecution complex.

This is that protest video that gave rise to his popularity:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HAlPjMiaKdw
this from the time I when I followed Peterson a bit. There was a cluster of protest videos. Students invaded his classroom shouting and banging on cow bells. I was completely horrified. Protestors acting like they had s... for brains. I could see some sense in Peterson's explanation, they were ideologically possessed.I have participated in protests while in college and have some memory of how passions can get worked up but I was still horrified by the sh..for brains self righteous abuse Peterson endured. Well he became famous as a result.

I find some agreement with honoretheos observation that Peterson's best ideas are actually fairly ordinary. He presents with passion however.

With Kishkumen I remain surprised and puzzled over the negative passion he generates. People on the left passionately exaggerate every Peterson sin. I read some Atlantic article today saying Peterson supports the Putin idea that western cultural decay is good reason for Russia to fight Ukraine.(Peterson holds the west cultural decay is most important doesn't he? ) I then listened to Peterson's actual interview being referenced. He said he thought Putin could convince Russians of the idea of west cultural decay despite Russian corruption. He was not signing himself up in support of Putin's propaganda.
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