Jordan Peterson - The Intellectual We Deserve

[FIMN]

JP is the man. You can argue about a lot of what he said on various topics, but what got the man to the dance and he’s at his best when he’s tearing the SJW/commies/leftists/cucks/whateveryourehavingyourself apart.

I think you're proving the point of the article, namely that UP fandom encapsulates a myopic and shallow way of thinking about the world.

 

[FIMN]

Correct, if the content is worth reading. That statement alone displays where its heading.

I mean, it's an in depth critique of JP including his early written work. If you're not interested that's fair enough. It seems to be well researched from my point if view.

The fact you can't being yourself to read it because the words so deeply offend you is pretty much the height to snowflakism.

 

[FIMN]

That reads like a stock rebuttal that could be applied at leisure to any intellectual that any author happens to disagree with.

How is it a stock rebuttal when it is a completely original and well sourced critique? Stock implies it could be ascribed to anyone. If you take out all the JP specific stuff it would be an empty page.

I can only conclude you are saying that this is a critique... which it is. That's the entire point.

 

[m25105]

 

[Fronk]

How is it a stock rebuttal when it is a completely original and well sourced critique? Stock implies it could be ascribed to anyone. If you take out all the JP specific stuff it would be an empty page.

I can only conclude you are saying that this is a critique... which it is. That's the entire point.

It was actually a very thorough and entertaining takedown of Peterson. Well worth the read. If you haven't read the authors piece on Shapiro you should. Equally good.

 

[hiphopnazi]

I mean, it's an in depth critique of JP including his early written work. If you're not interested that's fair enough. It seems to be well researched from my point if view.

The fact you can't being yourself to read it because the words so deeply offend you is pretty much the height to snowflakism.

Snowflakism, honestly haven't heard of that one yet.

I wasn't offended from the sentence, it's introducing gender and race to something that's not related. The reason to include such a statement is beyond retarded.

 

[IDL]

Jordan Peterson is awesome and there are many reasons he's gained a lot of positive attention.

A positive force!

 

[eworden78]

I haven't read the whole thing, but I will.

My first impressions based on what I've read so far, is the author is kinda missing some points:

The "best intellectual" and the "most influential" intellectual will rarely be the same person. Peterson is highly influential because his philosophy has direct mass appeal, not because of the precision of ideas.
This can be a good thing. The guy who has the most thorough and precisely reasoned philosophy often works in a fairly myopic arena.
Peterson provides some actionable, practical advice that counters many popular ideas as well as connecting his concepts across art, fiction, history, and everyday life experiences. This makes him interesting. A philosopher who spends 500 pages elucidating the constraints of one brand of epistemology, even when done very well, is just not going to have mass appeal. Not now, not ever.

Let's use physics as an analogy. Hardly anyone knows who Paul Dirac is. He made the most amazing math formula that has ever existed, but he's not a guy who was great at communicating with the average person. Someone like Einstein is much more approachable, his accomplishments have value that is easy to understand.

Not comparing Peterson to Einstein by any means(God no!), but Peterson is a guy who can take pretty deep topics and make them universally interesting. That is a skill that shouldn't be dismissed.
I've made similar arguments for other "Pop Intellectuals" like Sam Harris, Neil Degrasse Tyson, Sagan, and Bill Nye.
There's a certain disdain for the dilettante raconteur that I never quite get. Most people are "the average person", communication is our most powerful tool, knowledge is our greatest asset. Why critique someone for communicating knowledge to largest group possible? Especially when it knowledge not normally directed at the greater population?

Feynman understood this, he seems to get a pass, because his accomplishments exceeded his popularity.

Ok, now I'll read the article and find out if I'm totally off base.

 

[MiniCraque]

For example, when he talks about it being difficult to deal with crazy women because there's no underlying threat of violence, that's exactly what he means. Not that he can't deal with them because he's not allowed to hit women, but because the interaction itself is consequence-free for the woman. And that as a man, he doesn't know how to handle that. That's the sort of thing that only standup comics have been successful tapping into, and of course his audience gets him completely wrong. The subtlety goes away and then young men start punching their girlfriends.

He did a remarkably terrible job at making that point though.

The bit about the threat of physical violence always being there in interactions between men is kinda forced too.

 

[MiniCraque]

It was actually a very thorough and entertaining takedown of Peterson. Well worth the read. If you haven't read the authors piece on Shapiro you should. Equally good.

I liked this part a lot:

But, having examined Peterson’s work closely, I think the “misinterpretation” of Peterson is only partially a result of leftists reading him through an ideological prism. A more important reason why Peterson is “misinterpreted” is that he is so consistently vague and vacillating that it’s impossible to tell what he is “actually saying.” People can have such angry arguments about Peterson, seeing him as everything from a fascist apologist to an Enlightenment liberal, because his vacuous words are a kind of Rorschach test onto which countless interpretations can be projected.

 

[FIMN]

Snowflakism, honestly haven't heard of that one yet.

I wasn't offended from the sentence, it's introducing gender and race to something that's not related. The reason to include such a statement is beyond retarded.

It's a debatable point that doesn't invalidate (or in fact reflect) the rest of the critique. Using it as an excuse not to read further seems pretty week.

 

[Deleted member 159002]

TLDR: Peterson is extremely verbose. When he's not dressing up Captain Obvious statements with flowery language he says controversial nonsense in ways so vague and obscure that he can always wiggle away from defending what he's obviously suggesting.

Good read. I applaud him for fighting the push to normalize transgenderism, but he and his cult followers are just about as annoying as the "SJWs".

 

[Fawlty]

He did a remarkably terrible job at making that point though.

The bit about the threat of physical violence always being there in interactions between men is kinda forced too.

It's a hard thing to describe in the first place. There has to be some part of the way men interact that is based on the potential for violence- even if the violence rarely comes into play, I expect that it's an important parameter that has shaped our interactions. And all men know the feeling of frustration that comes with those interactions with women.

If Peterson would have thought to say "And that's a good reason to have a shortcut called 'Never hit a woman'" then he wouldn't have put it into that frustrated, I'm-bad-with-women autistic edgelord context.

 

[luckyshot]

See sig.

OP needs to clean his room and respect the hierarchy of erectile lobster tissues or else he’ll never be affa.

 

[Social Distance Warrior]

Jordan Peterson is brilliant and accurately identifies so many inconsistencies and insane behavior of the new radical left.

 

[IDL]

I liked this part a lot:

I find that odd though because I don't have trouble understanding what he's saying (for the most part). I find him remarkably easy to understand considering the complex subject matter he often talks about (human nature, mythology, behavioral patterns, etc)

One of the most common things people say about him is that he is good at breaking down complex subject matter to make it easier to understand.

 

[Jack V Savage]

This was my take for a while too but the more I listened to the guy talk about subjects outside of his expertise the worse he gets. That can be said about literally everyone but he ranges between making obvious statements in an overly complicated way or just cringe worthy. Just listen to him talk about business leaders, he could not be more wrong.

Overall he is a smart enough guy and is a decent person as far as I can tell, but he is spreading some bullshit. When he talks about topics within his expertise he's very good and quite interesting.

I think that you have a lot of lonely, somewhat disturbed young dudes looking for a guru, and Peterson is good for them (and certainly better than people like Molyneux, Jones, Michael Savage, etc.). So I think you're right that he kind of embarrassingly missteps when he reaches too far, but I also really appreciate his presence.

 

[EL CORINTHIAN]

human nature

This is what is untranslatable to most of his critics. They short circuit when their world view is challenged and is connected more to human nature than some social/institutional construct.

 

[luckyshot]

Jordan Peterson is brilliant and accurately identifies so many inconsistencies and insane behavior of the new radical left.

If Jordan Peterson is brilliant, what is Joseph Campbell, who identified all the myhthic archetypes Peterson plays off... in 1949... and did it in fluid, beautiful, accessible prose... and did it without reeking if smugness half of the time?

Read this book and tell me again what the heck is special about JP? He adds some evolutionary biology into the mix. Good on him, but not exactly Nobel laureate material.

Also, from a therapeutic point of view, although Peterson claims to have great respect for Jung, his “self help” advice is overly rational to the EXTREME. I think Jung would have a field day working out his shadow integration issues vis a vis the postmodern bogey man he’s created.

Edit: I do think that Peterson's commentary on the basic dialectic of order vs. chaos behind the myths is interesting and fairly original as well. I actually do like Peterson's work when he stays in his lane.

But I think he has some real personal hang-ups that color his "self help" advice, and his "cult of personality" is just ridiculous.

 

[MiniCraque]

It's a hard thing to describe in the first place. There has to be some part of the way men interact that is based on the potential for violence- even if the violence rarely comes into play, I expect that it's an important parameter that has shaped our interactions.

If Peterson would have thought to say "And that's a good reason to have a shortcut called 'Never hit a woman'" then he wouldn't have put it into that frustrated, I'm-bad-with-women autistic edgelord context.

It's like I pointed out in another thread where his "red lipstick" diatribe was discussed: saying that the threat of physicality is always there might be technically true, even if said threat is 0.0000000001% of constitutes your interaction with another male, at which point it might as well not be there.

It's like saying emiting and receiving sexual signals is always there when interacting with women. Ok, sure it is. But when you're talking to your grandma, I think it's safe to say the degree to which both of you are reading each other's mating calls is as relevant as a grain of sand is relevant to the entire fucking universe.