> I'm saying he isn't insightful or original. He has nothing meaningful to say that everyone doesn't already know.
Forgive me if I suspect this is essentially an admission that you've only engaged with Peterson on a drive-by level.
Of the top of my head, were you already familiar with things like:
* Who Jakk Panksepp is, or have any outline of points from his work on affective neuroscience? (say, for example, the observation that if you deprive young rats of rough and tumble play they get hyperactive and their prefrontal cortexes don't develop very well and that can be treated with psychomotor stimulants)
* Anything about the narrative in the Enûma Eliš/Babylonian creation myth, or possible relevant interpretations for present day people?
* Questions of epistemology considering whether faculties of reason or attention are more valuable, and what the difference might be?
* Some neuroscientists/psychologists don't map the left and right brain to "logical" or "creative" but more as "explored territory" and "unexplored territory"?
* Anything about biological mechanisms that might underlying different systems for incentive/future rewards vs consumptive rewards?
* Much about Piaget's life or stages of cognitive development?
That's nothing like an exhaustive list of things I was introduced to following his lectures.
I don't have any desire to defend all of Peterson's statements, there's enough he's said that I disagree with. In some cases, I believe he's misrepresented things that I already do have some understanding of and so I certainly don't think he can be trusted without reservation. Perhaps he has even misrepresented some of the things I've mentioned above. There is plenty of room for criticism of him. And a good chunk of his oeuvre is synthesizing the works of others, so maybe the charges of unoriginality stick too.
But you'd have to be part of a considerably better educated crowd that's much smarter than I am to believe that the contents of that oeuvre are simply self-evident and empty.
> He just phrases it incomprehensibly and vaguely because he's trying to make a living selling books and giving self-help talks
Perceiving people's inner motivations is hard, and unless you're better at it than you are at accurately summarizing their work, there's no reason to believe your summary is particularly good. I think anyone who's actually payed attention to Peterson would say that whether or not he enjoys the money that's come with his attention, he is also on some kind of mission and is potentially more helpful or dangerous than someone who merely wants to augment their standard of living or financial power.
> You are apparently upset that everything turns into a team sport with the left on one side and conservatives on another. Well, you're the one doing that here.
You know, one of the things that Peterson said in his lectures that I'd suppose everybody might know is that when you argue with someone, one of the first things they're likely to do is try and turn the argument around on you. Perhaps it's inevitable. But did the parent really turn it into a team sports game? Seems to me they were criticizing a team they identified with.
> I was basing my opinion of him on his own words, written and spoken... a guy that writes self-help books.
The problem I'm having here is probably the same one the person you're responding to is having -- you're claiming to have engaged with his words, but the picture you're reflecting is very different than the one others who have engaged with his work have.
Is it possible they've engaged it on a level that you haven't?
Even if you think Peterson is trouble (and he is, in some ways) is it possible you can be more effective at responding to the trouble he presents if you have engaged at a deeper level?