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What’s So Dangerous About Jordan Peterson?

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Re: What’s So Dangerous About Jordan Peterson?

#151

Post by weberc2 »

api wrote: post #88
js8 wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> his most recent debate with Cathy Newman from three days ago God, that was a terrible interview. The interviewer refused to understand a single thing that JP was saying. I am no fan of Peterson (in particular, I am left liberal), but he makes quite a lot of good points.

I'm fairly socially liberal too and on the fence about him. He says a lot of interesting things and I've never been a fan of postmodernism which I regard as a form of "pseudo-profound bullshit," but I keep getting hung up by the fact that a whole lot of Peterson's followers are fascists and racists. Of course the same might have been said at one time about Nietzsche and Jung. Some Nazis loved Nietzche but it was not…

> I keep getting hung up by the fact that a whole lot of Peterson's followers are fascists and racists.

I forget if it was this article or the interview (the two of which constitute my entire familiarity with the man, so I'm not strongly for or against him), but he makes the point that he has had many letters from left and right extremists who have reported that Peterson's teachings have moved them to the center. So my inner optimist would like to believe that his far right (and left) fans are in flux, mwaning it's socially ideal for these people to be in the ranks of his "followers". Although the notion of a philosopher with followers does sort of creep me out, rightly or wrongly.

Re: What’s So Dangerous About Jordan Peterson?

#152

Post by js8 »

ravenstine wrote: post #142
js8 wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> his most recent debate with Cathy Newman from three days ago God, that was a terrible interview. The interviewer refused to understand a single thing that JP was saying. I am no fan of Peterson (in particular, I am left liberal), but he makes quite a lot of good points.

That's the thing... I'm not conservative by any stretch of the imagination, though I am often mistaken for one; I enjoy listening to people like Jordan Peterson and even Ben Shapiro because they are excellent debaters and can make solid arguments. I can't think of anyone on the other side of the political spectrum who can even come close in that regard, although I would love for someone to give me some examples.

What about Noam Chomsky, Christopher Hitchens, Yanis Varoufakis? They are all excellent debaters on the left. For example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jAYlXb6kBA0

It's interesting to note that Chomsky was at a point also targeted by the postmodern "left", when he defended free speech.

Re: What’s So Dangerous About Jordan Peterson?

#153

Post by qbaqbaqba »

mywittyname wrote: post #141
krick wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not as much "alt-right venerate him", as his ("alt-left", I guss?) opponents like to mark him "alt-right" for no reason other than he is not as "left" as they are.

Based on the recent YT comments on his videos (and the titles of clip compilations of his lectures), the alt-right definitely appear to hold him up as some figure head. I definitely get frustrated when I hear people on the left call him dangerous. I feel like these aren't even "alt" left people either, it sounds like they are largely plain old liberals who never heard of him, and blindly toss him in with the like of…

You may find some "alt-right" comments on some of Slavoj Žižek 's videos.

Re: What’s So Dangerous About Jordan Peterson?

#154

Post by microtherion »

FussyZeus wrote: post #29
tomsthumb wrote: post #8

It’s worth pointing out that Peterson is actually not against using a variety of gender pronouns per se. So many people get this wrong. He is against being compelled to use a variety of gender pronouns by legislation which is internally inconsistent, scientifically inaccurate, and additionally lacks clarity by punting process and standards to the Ontario human rights commission which can change their process and defi…

Exactly. I have no problem calling a genetic male "she" that's what she prefers. I take issue with being held to a standard of somehow needing to "know" that ahead of time, and respect it, with no effort on the part of the woman in question. I'm perfectly able to be understanding in these cases, but I'm not capable to be psychic.

> I take issue with being held to a standard of somehow needing to "know" that ahead of time

I agree that this would be an unreasonable standard. But I've yet to see that standard being applied to anyone (And I run in circles where I'm exposed to quite a bit of very outspoken trans/nonbinary rhetoric).

What I see, time and time again, is people who explicitly refuse to call someone by their preferred pronoun, whether it's on the grounds of pure petulance ("You can't make me!"), or of some biological essentialism ("HE, because Y chromosome").

So unless you have any examples of people being attacked for a single, innocent mistake, I'm inclined to see this as a strawman (straw-person?) argument.

Re: What’s So Dangerous About Jordan Peterson?

#155

Post by cholantesh »

majormajor wrote: post #149
cholantesh wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It's hard for public or mass communications with people who have rapidly-evolving preferences and sets of things that can cause offense. I'm not convinced of this. "Hi all" works as a salutation, in public speaking, you can substitute ladies and gentlemen with lots of far more engaging variants (eg: "Dear friends", "my fellow students" (a favourite of one of my best instructors in college), "distinguished guests", e…

The outrage is less, but you can still catch flak for little slips like referring to an unknown party as "he" or "she" instead of "they." (A perfectly cromulent third-person-singular pronoun with plenty of history, IMO, but some people dislike it, too.) But I'm thinking more of things like "creating a gender drop down box for a tool where demographic info was desired." Or do we just drop the idea of even having a mea…

It's been my experience that trans/genderqueer people indicate what their preferred pronouns are when goy meet them. The annoyance comes if someone repeatedly misgenders them afterwards. It seems to be me to be on par with calling them the wrong name a few times. It's not an especially huge transgression, but it's a bit oblivious. Not saying anything about Shapiro-caliber deliberate provocation here.

Re: What’s So Dangerous About Jordan Peterson?

#156

Post by beat »

stcredzero wrote: post #144
beat wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, undoubtedly. There's no small amount of tribalism and moral sadism among the SJWs, using these sudden shifts in vocabulary as an excuse to berate people they didn't like in the first place. Which in no way means intersectionality is a Bad Idea. Intersectionality is a major advance in the understanding of oppression. I hope Peterson can actually wake up some of his red-pill followers, and do more harm than good in…

I hope Peterson can actually wake up some of his red-pill followers, and do more harm than good in the long run. Freudian slip? As George Orwell noted in Road to Wiggan Pier, leftists often don't so much as love the poor, but hate the rich. But for now, he really needs to apply that intellect to dealing with something he wasn't ever prepared to deal with - being a symbol of intellectual authority to a movement that s…

You're making an awful lot of generalizations with very little substance here.

Re: What’s So Dangerous About Jordan Peterson?

#157

Post by beat »

lliamander wrote: post #98
beat wrote: post #24

Thinking to his issue over pronouns... He's arguing that he should not be coerced into using preferred pronouns. Ok, that's fine. But he should use preferred pronouns anyway, in order to not be an asshole . Because refusing to use preferred pronouns isn't standing up to oppressive postmodern SJWs. It's being an asshole. And this is the real headache with Jordan Peterson. He may be thoughtful and interesting. But for…

> Ok, that's fine. But he should use preferred pronouns anyway, in order to not be an asshole. Let me ask you, do you think requests for preferred pronouns are rooted in a correct understanding of human nature? Or are you merely accommodating something you believe to be mistaken so as to not hurt someone who likely be (on net) hurt by a more honest approach?

Let me give you a libertarian answer... it's up to individuals to decide what their own identity is. When an individual identifies as one thing, and society refuses to accept that identity and imposes labels they find offensive, then they are being oppressed. And that's a much more substantial form of oppression than "Please don't say that" is.

I'm utterly shocked (not really) how many people proudly wave a flag of liberty, but are quite content for society to denounce and punish harmless individual expression, if they aren't comfortable with that expression.

Re: What’s So Dangerous About Jordan Peterson?

#158

Post by DashRattlesnake »

beat wrote: post #157
lliamander wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Ok, that's fine. But he should use preferred pronouns anyway, in order to not be an asshole. Let me ask you, do you think requests for preferred pronouns are rooted in a correct understanding of human nature? Or are you merely accommodating something you believe to be mistaken so as to not hurt someone who likely be (on net) hurt by a more honest approach?

Let me give you a libertarian answer... it's up to individuals to decide what their own identity is. When an individual identifies as one thing, and society refuses to accept that identity and imposes labels they find offensive, then they are being oppressed . And that's a much more substantial form of oppression than "Please don't say that" is. I'm utterly shocked (not really) how many people proudly wave a flag of…

> it's up to individuals to decide what their own identity is. When an individual identifies as one thing...

That's actually not true and not workable. A very obvious example is a criminal who identifies as a good, upstanding person.

IMHO there are actually two kinds of identity (at least). They are separate things, but related and often confused.

1. Self-identity: the identity that someone applies to themselves based on their own thoughts and aspirations. This is very closely related to one's inner life. This is the identity that you're referring to above.

2. Applied-identity (for lack of a better term): the identity that each person applies to someone else based on their own thoughts, beliefs, and experiences with that person. Someone's reputation is an example.

If you try to force everyone's applied-identity of you to conform with your self-identity, that's also a form of oppression. What and how they think of you is their own business.

Re: What’s So Dangerous About Jordan Peterson?

#159

Post by ankushnarula »

empanadada wrote: post #87

As an interlocutor, Jordan Peterson seems like a reasonable person to debate with. But his followers are quite dangerous, much like many other political thinkers, whose suggestions were modest, but the followers took it to mean something else...

Which followers? And what did they take it to mean?

Re: What’s So Dangerous About Jordan Peterson?

#160

Post by andai »

lixtra wrote: post #127
hashberry wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand that cult leaders can be problematic. But do you think his followers are becoming a danger to society?

In total it’s a tiny rather peaceful group. I don’t see a danger for society. I’m sure he does help some of his followers. But I doubt that most of his followers profit long term from him. At some point they should move on for their own good.

In response to your last sentence, I am interpreting that as a judgment that the quality of his lectures is inferior to those to which people should move on to, is that right? Do you have any recommendations?
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