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The death of a public intellectual

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Re: The death of a public intellectual

#41

Post by RagnarD »

"You’re basis for truth often relies on authority of your source."

No. This is such a common logical error that it has an old name: Argumentum ad Verecundiam (often shortened to Verecundiam, or Appeal to Authority in English.) Saying "I know this because authority X said so" - you don't know it at all. It has the epistemological status of outright faith.

What counts is the connection of statements to reality and their logical integrated cohesion as a whole. And that's regardless of the source.

Experts/Authorities are neither automatically right or wrong. No honest expert or authority ever demands that their statements be taken on faith. If they actually know what they're talking about, their statements can be logically defended and tied to reality. This is the standard that everyone should be held to.

Re: The death of a public intellectual

#42

Post by [deleted] »

Jensson wrote: post #18
greendude29 wrote: post #6

> First it was Jordan Peterson, then it i was Eric Weinstein, then Chamath, the list goes on. Most recently, it’s been Peter Zeihan. These are not intellectuals, let alone public ones. They are all American and follow a 'clickbait' model to public discourse. Seems like you repeatedly fall for it and enjoy doing so. Nothing here reflects any form of intellect.

That is the point of this article though, read a bit further down: "Without fail, each one of comes to dissapoint. They’re either a one trick pony, and every development in the world is analyzed through the same tired lens whether its applicable or not."

[deleted]

Re: The death of a public intellectual

#43

Post by ahmedhosssam »

vintageplayer wrote: post #20

I'm not an expert, but I have an opinion, maybe some of you want to follow: ALWAYS SUPPORT THE UNDERDOGS. They are the ones experimenting with new ideas and hopefully sharing both what worked and what didn't. Unfollow all the players with a huge following. They stop producing quality. Start by supporting underdogs, people who have a following, but small and growing. Eventually they'll become bigger in terms of follow…

I think I don't have to "follow" or support anyone, or is that become a must in this new digital world? Like, if you don't follow anyone the system will ignore you or something, I don't know.

Re: The death of a public intellectual

#44

Post by chefandy »

Get into ideas, not the people who introduce you to them. It's probably still an interesting idea well after the person loses their novelty to you. Don't lose yourself so readily to our bizzare celebrity worship/parasocial culture.

Re: The death of a public intellectual

#45

Post by keiferski »

j7ake wrote: post #29
keiferski wrote: post #12

It’s unfortunate that there is not an “intellectual media network” that does all the hard public relations stuff for intellectuals and allows them to easily share their work with a public audience. Since this doesn’t exist, you end up with people that are willing to play — and are good at — the media game, which usually means making outrageous attention-grabbing claims that are far outside the person’s expertise.

Are you suggesting something like scientific journals like Nature? Where there is an extreme barrier to publish in and often takes years to get anything out? Maybe you’ve pointed out a positive for these scientific journals.

No, I’m suggesting something that is more like CSPAN’s old BookTV, combined with a kind of talent agency and marketing firm.

Re: The death of a public intellectual

#46

Post by andrewflnr »

RagnarD wrote: post #41

"You’re basis for truth often relies on authority of your source." No. This is such a common logical error that it has an old name: Argumentum ad Verecundiam (often shortened to Verecundiam, or Appeal to Authority in English.) Saying "I know this because authority X said so" - you don't know it at all. It has the epistemological status of outright faith. What counts is the connection of statements to reality and thei…

When you can personally verify all the facts about biology, physics, and distant places that you rely on to make decisions every day, then you can throw stones about arguments from authority. The rest of us use a little bit of faith.

Re: The death of a public intellectual

#47

Post by Jensson »

nerdponx wrote: post #28
Jensson wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is the point of this article though, read a bit further down: "Without fail, each one of comes to dissapoint. They’re either a one trick pony, and every development in the world is analyzed through the same tired lens whether its applicable or not."

Yeah but, one would think after spending even a couple of minutes with Jordan Peterson's corpus of output that maybe we shouldn't venerate people who happen to say one or two things that we find interesting.

Jordan Petersen talks a lot about life being a struggle and how to get through it and make the most of it. A lot of that resonates strongly in many people, it isn't something you would find faults in after watching a few minutes. And that is within his field of expertise so it makes sense that those points are pretty good.

The problem is when Jordan Petersen starts to talk about other things than that, like politics, gender roles etc. There he repeats similar talking points I've seen on online forums for 20 years now, nothing new or interesting.

Edit: Sometimes downvotes amazes me. Did someone downvote this because I said Jordan Peterson said something good, or because I said he did something bad? Will never know. But I've noticed that balanced takes tend to get more downvoted since both sides downvotes them.

Re: The death of a public intellectual

#48

Post by lacrimacida »

Jensson wrote: post #25
vintageplayer wrote: post #20

I'm not an expert, but I have an opinion, maybe some of you want to follow: ALWAYS SUPPORT THE UNDERDOGS. They are the ones experimenting with new ideas and hopefully sharing both what worked and what didn't. Unfollow all the players with a huge following. They stop producing quality. Start by supporting underdogs, people who have a following, but small and growing. Eventually they'll become bigger in terms of follow…

Many underdogs just copies the viewpoints of bigger channels, watching those is even worse than watching the original since at least the original had some thought behind it.

Choose wisely then.

Re: The death of a public intellectual

#49

Post by smnrchrds »

m463 wrote: post #15
greendude29 wrote: post #6

> First it was Jordan Peterson, then it i was Eric Weinstein, then Chamath, the list goes on. Most recently, it’s been Peter Zeihan. These are not intellectuals, let alone public ones. They are all American and follow a 'clickbait' model to public discourse. Seems like you repeatedly fall for it and enjoy doing so. Nothing here reflects any form of intellect.

Isn't Jordan Peterson a canadian university professor? I've only briefly heard him, but why is he so polarizing? He just seemed to say sort of "be a decent person and work hard".

Over the years, Jordan Peterson has gotten more and more aggressive and polarizing. I suspect that social media attention has been a huge influence, because the new Jordan Peterson (NJP) sounds like the old Jordan Peterson's (OJP's) loud aggressive clickbaity twin. Where OJP might have written an academic paper for other scientists, or delivered an hour-long carefully-thought-out lecture, NJP sends an angry tweet full of insults.

For example, after losing a court battle against the College of Psychologists of Ontario, he talked about it as such: "Don't bloody well lecture me ... some dimwit judge with a liberal bias did ... lecturing me about taking responsibility for what I say." I highly recommend watching the video. The tone is also part of the message: https://youtu.be/M5PESEbY_H0?t=74

Or when in December 2021, the Prime Minister of Canada tweeted this to encourage people to get a booster dose of the COVID-19 vaccine (keeping in mind that there were at no point any mandates for boosters, this was purely an attempt at advertising the fact that booster doses were available and recommended by the healthcare professionals):

> Justin Trudeau: "If you’re taking care of some last-minute Christmas shopping this week, here’s something else you can add to your list: a booster. If you’re eligible for one but haven’t gotten it yet, please, do so now. And if you don’t have your first or second dose, now’s the time to get it."

NJP replied to the tweet as such:

> NJP: "Up yours @JustinTrudeau. Seriously. You'd have to kill me first."

https://twitter.com/jordanbpeterson/status/14745955491774341...

I cannot imagine OJP saying any of these things with this tone and this level of imprudence. OJP was generally cerebral, intellectual, academic, deep, calm, polite. He was a well-respected academic through and through.

NJP, on the other hand, is irritable, imprudent, aggressive, abrasive, impulsive, rude. He is a sensationalist yelling pundit through and through.

Re: The death of a public intellectual

#50

Post by Dudelander »

m463 wrote: post #15
greendude29 wrote: post #6

> First it was Jordan Peterson, then it i was Eric Weinstein, then Chamath, the list goes on. Most recently, it’s been Peter Zeihan. These are not intellectuals, let alone public ones. They are all American and follow a 'clickbait' model to public discourse. Seems like you repeatedly fall for it and enjoy doing so. Nothing here reflects any form of intellect.

Isn't Jordan Peterson a canadian university professor? I've only briefly heard him, but why is he so polarizing? He just seemed to say sort of "be a decent person and work hard".

He has been widely criticized by legal scholars for misrepresenting the Canadian Bill C-16, which extends the human rights act to cover transgendered people. Peterson, a clinical psychologist, claimed that it would compel speech.

This is probably what the article is referring to. Before the incident Peterson was a respected academic psychologist, but was widely criticized for his amateur legal analysis of C-16. He has since continued to ruin his reputation by making transphobic tweets about Elliot Page, body shaming the plus sized model Yumi Nu, climate change denial, and generally expressing right wing views on a range of issues.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-37875695

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