Jordan Peterson - The Intellectual We Deserve

[MiniCraque]

Hard to celebrate exposing a hypocrite when you yourself are a hypocrite. If "You're just as bad as me!" is the "victory" that you get to "celebrate," then it's a Pyrrhic victory at best. And that's assuming, of course, that you actually think that anything in that article warrants celebration as any kind of victory.

So, just to be clear, you're not contesting the validity of that claim?

Because nobody is celebrating any "victory", just pointing out that he's correct in his assessment, regardless of any hipocrisy (perceived or true) on his own part.

 

[Bullitt68]

So, just to be clear, you're not contesting the validity of that claim?

I only contest the validity of legitimate claims. All the moronic author of that piece did was cite the one negative piece of feedback in the overwhelmingly positive pile of student feedback reports - in which the student didn't actually cite specific ideas or arguments with which he took issue or the grounds on which he was taking issue with those ideas or arguments (or else, if he did, then the author left them out in his citation) - and then piggyback on that claim without himself actually citing specific ideas or arguments with which he took issue or the grounds on which he was taking issue with those ideas or arguments.

Once again, he opted for the lazy man strategy of putting the onus on the defense to prove that something that hasn't actually been established is false. If he would've actually cited something specific - like, say, the idea that the divinity of the individual as exemplified in the Biblical character of Jesus is the moral foundation of Western civilization - and then explained how exactly Peterson's argument in that direction was shot through with his own subjective, unsupported/unsupportable opinions, which he was aggressively/dogmatically/demagogically shoving down the students' throats as if the absolute truth/Word of God which he the Prophet Peterson alone knows is right, then I'd likely take issue with that claim (I say "likely" because, given the hours upon hours of lecture content that Peterson has posted for all to see, if there was something worth taking issue with, surely someone - like this moronic author - would've relished at the opportunity to bring it to light, no?).

As it stands, though, there isn't a legitimate claim for me to contest - which is why what I contested was the disingenuous position from which the author chose to spout his vague nonsense.

 

[MiniCraque]

I only contest the validity of legitimate claims. All the moronic author of that piece did was cite the one negative piece of feedback in the overwhelmingly positive pile of student feedback reports - in which the student didn't actually cite specific ideas or arguments with which he took issue or the grounds on which he was taking issue with those ideas or arguments (or else, if he did, then the author left them out in his citation) - and then piggyback on that claim without himself actually citing specific ideas or arguments with which he took issue or the grounds on which he was taking issue with those ideas or arguments.

Is the student's complaint invalid because he's in the minority? That's to be expected of any college course, including the oh-so-dreaded women studies. Students seek out classes they're more likely to enjoy.

Once again, he opted for the lazy man strategy of putting the onus on the defense to prove that something that hasn't actually been established is false. If he would've actually cited something specific - like, say, the idea that the divinity of the individual as exemplified in the Biblical character of Jesus is the moral foundation of Western civilization - and then explained how exactly Peterson's argument in that direction was shot through with his own subjective, unsupported/unsupportable opinions, which he was aggressively/dogmatically/demagogically shoving down the students' throats as if the absolute truth/Word of God which he the Prophet Peterson alone knows is right, then I'd likely take issue with that claim (I say "likely" because, given the hours upon hours of lecture content that Peterson has posted for all to see, if there was something worth taking issue with, surely someone - like this moronic author - would've relished at the opportunity to bring it to light, no?).

As it stands, though, there isn't a legitimate claim for me to contest - which is why what I contested was the disingenuous position from which the author chose to spout his vague nonsense.

I think he merely pointed out that Peterson does that exact thing. The article was vague only in the sense that it offered the author's perspective on Peterson (which should carry some credibility right off the bat seeing as how he's worked with Peterson for a while). It was an opinion piece, not a hit. That's why he didn't shovel his way through hours of Youtube videos complete with timestamps and everything.

It rings true with what a lot of people dislike about him though, which is why some found it interesting. He sure sounds that way when he's babbling about the (((postmodern neo-Marxist))) conspiracy.

 

[Bullitt68]

Is the student's complaint invalid because he's in the minority?

It's certainly not automatically valid because of its existence. And it's not a sign in his favor that he's alone in not liking an overwhelmingly loved professor. But no, the student's complaint isn't invalid because he's in the minority; his complaint is empty because it's vague.

I think he merely pointed out that Peterson does that exact thing.

I didn't get a "merely" vibe from anything in that piece. I did, however, get a lot of "look at how bad this guy really is/look at how awesome I am" from it. Hence my point about a hypocrite trying to "checkmate" an alleged hypocrite with accusations of hypocrisy.

It was an opinion piece

And, IMO, a stupid one - an opinion of mine that I actually took the time to back up.

That's why he didn't shovel his way through hours of Youtube videos complete with timestamps and everything.

This is why I called his operating procedure lazy. This is literally the definition of lazy. How a guy can look himself in the mirror and like what he sees when he vomits up paragraph on top of paragraph on someone he considers to have a questionable relationship to truth and intellectual integrity all while offering empty assertions with the implicit protection of "it's an opinion so I don't have to substantiate it but I still obviously want you to take everything that I say seriously and agree with me that Peterson is a dangerous and evil person" is something that I will never understand. Nor will I understand the person who thinks that that's actually protection, or who feels the need for such "protection."

It rings true

I don't care how things ring; I care what things are. It's too bad so many people are so invested in what things appear to be, in how things sound, in the way things look, and care so little about what things are and about understanding why/how they are/came to be what they are.

He sure sounds that way when he's babbling about the (((postmodern neo-Marxist))) conspiracy.

If you think it's "babbling," then there probably isn't much point in having a conversation about his ideas and arguments. As for your invocation of "conspiracy" as a way to avoid having to actually counter his ideas and arguments and instead tar and feather them with derogatory epithets, I'll just leave this here:

The problem with speaking of cultural Marxism or postmodern neo-Marxism as a conspiracy theory is that that presupposes intent - and nefarious intent, at that. That's not Peterson's position [...] For Peterson, it's not so much that what he's identifying in academia, which has seeped into ordinary life at an alarmingly rapid rate and in alarming fashion, is a perfect, unbroken line of thinking engineered by evil villains. It's more about the persistence of certain arguments and positions, which are taken up by all sorts of people from all sorts of backgrounds for all sorts of purposes.

 

[PolishHeadlock]

A lot of his answers got downvoted to oblivion, specially when he tried to repel someone who objected to his economically illiterate claims on women joining the workforce and the "golden era" of households being supported by one individual.

His answers in that regard were pretty bad and he didn't say where he was getting his information on the downward pressure on wages.

 

[Jack V Savage]

His answers in that regard were pretty bad and he didn't say where he was getting his information on the downward pressure on wages.

Lump of Labor Fallacy, probably. Or some variation.

 

[MiniCraque]

stuff

Not going to quote you sentence by sentence. That is not only tiresome but also very prone to breaking up the flow of one's argument in order to produce individual soundbites, to hell with context. Not saying that is necessarily your intent, but heh. Then again it is precisely what you did with the article so...

Anyway, I thought the article was very well constructed, from the way he lays out how he knew Peterson, his claims to victimhood when he didn't get his grant and had to seek out funding from a far right group, his private conversations with him, to how he's been tugging at the heartstrings of a very particular demographic, how he lashes out angrily at the face of scrutiny... your critique is laden with too much outrage and claims to "lazy, vomit, douchebag", etc etc.

I will quote one particular part of your post though:

The problem with speaking of cultural Marxism or postmodern neo-Marxism as a conspiracy theory is that that presupposes intent - and nefarious intent, at that. That's not Peterson's position [...] For Peterson, it's not so much that what he's identifying in academia, which has seeped into ordinary life at an alarmingly rapid rate and in alarming fashion, is a perfect, unbroken line of thinking engineered by evil villains. It's more about the persistence of certain arguments and positions, which are taken up by all sorts of people from all sorts of backgrounds for all sorts of purposes.

Straight from the horse's mouth. Yeah, it very much is a line of thinking enginereed by people he hates. Linking feminist claims to oppression, modern minority activism and all sorts of ideals behind VERY different (yet all equally reviled by the people who support him) social movements. It's all coming from a game of "sleight of hand" (word for word here) by Marxist authors in the 70s (he means the Frankfurt school).

 

[MiniCraque]

His answers in that regard were pretty bad and he didn't say where he was getting his information on the downward pressure on wages.

Lump of Labor Fallacy, probably. Or some variation.

Pretty bad doesn't even begin to cover it. It's one thing when extremist anti-immigration advocates use this fallacy because they're supposedly worried about mantaining the wages and the standard of living of the population (not the worst goal to have in mind, even if what follows after is retarded), it's another entirely to prop it up and weave together a narrative that puts women joining the workforce (plus the birth control thing, don't forget that!) as a motor of social unrest and the end of times.

If I didn't hear it straight from him I'd swear it was coming from a character in The Handmaid's Tale. We lived in a golden age of one-income nuclear families (a phenomenom that was VERY short lived in history but this is a separate discussion), but then women could fuck without getting pregnant, got out of the kitchen and it was all downhill from there. It's fucking absurd.

 

[Bullitt68]

Not going to quote you sentence by sentence. That is not only tiresome but also very prone to breaking up the flow of one's argument in order to produce individual soundbites, to hell with context. Not saying that is necessarily your intent, but heh. Then again it is precisely what you did with the article so...

First, saying "not saying" before saying something - and then tacking on another sentence saying the same thing that you put "not saying" in front of the first time again for emphasis - doesn't magically make it unsaid. It just makes your disingenuous rhetorical strategy all the more transparent. For the record, it also makes conversations with you very unappealing, which is why after this post I'm going to leave things to others.

Second, I agree that it's very tiresome. Hence the appeal of lazy rhetorical devices such as those used by the author of that piece.

Third, your "flow break" excuse is incredibly weak. You can't break up the flow of an argument that already exists with no breaks. Quoting portions of someone's original post in a subsequent post doesn't erase the original post and its original flow from existence. Likewise, in the case of my post with my list of idiot talking points from that stupid piece, if anything that I said strikes someone as questionable sans context, the piece is out there in its original context and with its original flow. Have at it and me.

your critique is laden with too much outrage

Seriously, dude, taking a day off from grading student papers and using some of my free time to point out where an idiot sounded like an idiot in a jocular fashion on an MMA forum is not outrage. Nice try, though.

Straight from the horse's mouth.

That's not a conspiracy theory. That's an explanation of how and why academics who were sympathetic to Marxism hitched their wagons to postmodernism in the 1970s. As I said, to characterize Peterson as a conspiracy theorist is to impute to him the belief that there's a secret network of people pulling everybody's strings. That's not Peterson's position, and if you think that that video is evidence to the contrary, then I'll leave it to others to judge that evidence for themselves.

It's all coming from a game of "sleight of hand" (word for word here) by Marxist authors in the 70s (he means the Frankfurt school).

I'm starting to get the distinct sense that you have no idea what Peterson is talking about, and therefore have no idea what you're talking about. For starters, the sleight of hand to which he's referring is the linguistic gymnastics that people like Lyotard and Derrida indulge in, which, again, isn't evidence of Peterson's belief in a conspiracy theory. Second, he most certainly doesn't mean the Frankfurt School because the Frankfurt School wasn't a movement of 1970s Marxist thinkers (FYI it was a movement of WWII era Marxist thinkers). What he meant was postmodernism (specifically people like Lyotard) and poststructuralism (specifically people like Foucault and Derrida), which differed considerably from the original Frankfurt School positions as held by the likes of Adorno and Horkheimer and was literally antithetical to the "second generation" represented by Habermas.

But I'd rather spend the rest of my off day today continuing to rewatch old Michael Jordan Bulls games on Youtube than go down that rabbit hole again, especially since I've already posted enough on this stuff in the many other Peterson threads in here (including posting links to one of my own essays and even one of my own lectures where I've talked about this crap in considerable detail) and probably even earlier in this very thread. If you're genuinely interested in these ideas and in the issues that Peterson is raising, then look up previous posts of mine and spend some time on Wikipedia reading up on what the Frankfurt School, postmodernism, and poststructuralism actually are and what people like Lyotard, Foucault, and Derrida actually said.

Or, if that's too tiresome, just keep thinking what you already think.

 

[BangersAndSmash]

(a phenomenon that was VERY short lived in history but this is a separate discussion)

This statement is very true and very often overlooked. For the vast (and I mean VAST) majority of history, in households that weren't upper class, women worked same as the men.

Farmer's wife always worked on the farm, so did all the kids, not just the male ones.

Woman worked all the way through the industrial revolution. Hell even small children worked. Because of the unregulated shift length and shitty working conditions, babies were leashed to furniture all day while one of the family members would try and check on them when they could.

 

[MiniCraque]

more stuff

Fine, I won't just imply you're doing something. You're very deliberate at it, and this post is just a continuation of it. See how you even omit parts of sentences when doing it? Doesn't matter if the original post is intact, that way of quoting frames what was previously said by a string of non-related sentences. I get that it makes you look meticulous and point by point and that's very empowering, but don't bow out simply because I called you out on it.

And I get your explanation. It certainly isn't a conspiracy theory. It's just conjecturing that people conspired to do something. But not a conspiracy theory. Tehehe.

btw, clumping in Lyotard and Derrida with Marxists is missing Lyotard, Derrida AND Marxists by a country mile. Jesus, Lyotard's work is pretty much all about rejecting grand narratives PRECISELY LIKE MARXISM. That's the kind of bullshit that Peterson is indoctrinating people with and it makes my skin crawl.

Also, the Frankfurt school is certainly a group of WWII-era thinkers. What you seem to be oblivious to is the fact that they didn't disappear into thin air once "WWII era" ended. That's not how history works. Most of those thinkers emigrated to the US (the 1960s and 1970s being when various groups were inspired by them) and their teaching is what pretty much everyone (Peterson included) means when they talk about neo-Marxism. It's just him that goes that extra mile and conflates them with postmodernism and the end of times.

 

[MiniCraque]

This statement is very true and very often overlooked. For the vast (and I mean VAST) majority of history, in households that weren't upper class, women worked same as the men.

Farmer's wife always worked on the farm, so did all the kids, not just the male ones.

Woman worked all the way through the industrial revolution. Hell even small children worked. Because of the unregulated shift length and shitty working conditions, babies were leashed to furniture all day while one of the family members would try and check on them when they could.

I certainly hope that once baby boomers are gone for good all that garbage will disappear from the public mind and be where it belongs, history books (free from nostalgia glasses) and ocasionally old sitcom reruns. This notion that the nuclear family is this god-given timeless tradition and not just a post-WWII America invention is ridiculous.

You don't even need to go all the way back to the industrial revolution even though it's amusing to, as a thought experiment, turn up the "old times were better" engine and arrive at "screw one-income families from the 1950s, people could live just fine as NO income families in the 1750s!" As recently as the Great Depression era you had a ton of women working, multiple generations living under the same roof (even multiple families living that way)... that particular family unit was just one in a string of several permutations but somehow working mothers, single parents or *GASP* homossexuals adopting kids will lead to a decline in the greatness of western civilization.

 

[RubberGuard5]

Fine, I won't just imply you're doing something. You're very deliberate at it, and this post is just a continuation of it. See how you even omit parts of sentences when doing it? Doesn't matter if the original post is intact, that way of quoting frames what was previously said by a string of non-related sentences. I get that it makes you look meticulous and point by point and that's very empowering, but don't bow out simply because I called you out on it.

And I get your explanation. It certainly isn't a conspiracy theory. It's just conjecturing that people conspired to do something. But not a conspiracy theory. Tehehe.

btw, clumping in Lyotard and Derrida with Marxists is missing Lyotard, Derrida AND Marxists by a country mile. Jesus, Lyotard's work is pretty much all about rejecting grand narratives PRECISELY LIKE MARXISM. That's the kind of bullshit that Peterson is indoctrinating people with and it makes my skin crawl.

Also, the Frankfurt school is certainly a group of WWII-era thinkers. What you seem to be oblivious to is the fact that they didn't disappear into thin air once "WWII era" ended. That's not how history works. Most of those thinkers emigrated to the US (the 1960s and 1970s being when various groups were inspired by them) and their teaching is what pretty much everyone (Peterson included) means when they talk about neo-Marxism. It's just him that goes that extra mile and conflates them with postmodernism and the end of times.

I don't get why it is a conapiracy theory?

 

[K1levelgrappler]

lmao this is a terrible response even by WR standards

 

[MiniCraque]

I don't get why it is a conapiracy theory?

It claims a group of thinkers whose ultimate goal is to tear down the system we live in disguised their theory and THAT was what originated studies about X oppression (patriarchal, white, colonial, whatever). By that rationale the people who study those theories (as nutty as some of them can get at times) are unwilling, unknowing pawns engaged in intellectual warfare to "flip the table", a term Peterson frequently uses. All perpetrated by a shadowy cabal of (((Marxists))).

It might not have chemtrails levels of complexity, but it is what is.

 

[RubberGuard5]

It claims a group of thinkers whose ultimate goal is to tear down the system we live in disguised their theory and THAT was what originated studies about X oppression (patriarchal, white, colonial, whatever). By that rationale the people who study those theories (as nutty as some of them can get at times) are unwilling, unknowing pawns engaged in intellectual warfare to "flip the table", a term Peterson frequently uses. All perpetrated by a shadowy cabal of (((Marxists))).

It might not have chemtrails levels of complexity, but it is what is.

Or you can look it this way. There are academics that are marxists. Marx' predictions turn out to be wrong. Marxist academics modify their theory.

Doesn't sound that crazy to me.

 

[ObamaPhoneLady]

Petersen might actually trigger leftists more than Trump...

It is interesting though to see how lefties complain about how Trump expresses himself and cry 'he's just an idiot wolf whistling for Nazis!'

Then Petersen basically lays out his beliefs the complete opposite way from how Trump does it and the left still goes 'He's just an idiot wolf whistling for Nazis!'

So even if Trump was a soft spoken, polite, humble guy who carried himself the exact way lefties say they wish he did, they'd still have the exact same response to him...

It's almost like they just hate anything vaguely right wing and make up the reasons afterwards...

 

[MiniCraque]

Or you can look it this way. There are academics that are marxists. Marx' predictions turn out to be wrong. Marxist academics modify their theory.

Doesn't sound that crazy to me.

Peterson isn't talking about Marxist theory changing, evolving or merging with other ideas. That sort of thing has happened, sure. The "postmodern neo-Marxist" (again, a term that is self-contradicting) bullshit is about Marxists concealing (employing sleight of hand, in his own words) their ideals and presenting the same underlying message with new clothing. It is about intellectual manipulation by a shadowy cabal (or, in his words, "very intelligent individuals") with nefarious intent.

 

[RubberGuard5]

Peterson isn't talking about Marxist theory changing, evolving or merging with other ideas. That sort of thing has happened, sure. The "postmodern neo-Marxist" (again, a term that is self-contradicting) bullshit is about Marxists concealing (employing sleight of hand, in his own words) their ideals and presenting the same underlying message with new clothing. It is about intellectual manipulation by a shadowy cabal (or, in his words, "very intelligent individuals") with nefarious intent.

I'm not sure why are you interpeting it like that. He's not describing some secret society gathering in a creepy castle. Simply marxist academics, in a time when both marxist theory and practice turned out disasterous, faced with a challenge to either admit everything they believed was wrong, or modify their theory to better fit the reality.

 

[MiniCraque]

I'm not sure why are you interpeting it like that. He's not describing some secret society gathering in a creepy castle. Simply marxist academics, in a time when both marxist theory and practice turned out disasterous, faced with a challenge to either admit everything they believed was wrong, or modify their theory to better fit the reality.

Because it's exactly what he says. He didn't say Marxists had to admit they were wrong or change their theory. His statements are about their intent. Playing a game of sleight of hand (again, again and again: his words) to manipulate others. Because they wanted to subdue, I don't know, whatever Peterson and his lobsters think is threatened right now.

Oppression theories are a product of Marxists secretly infiltrating themselves among other groups. That is a conspiracy theory. And it is retarded.