Jordan Peterson - The Intellectual We Deserve

[KONG-D'SNT-TAP]

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.

And Peterson is now indulging in the cult of personality, getting the type of respect from his 'cultists' that Academia and leading intellectuals never gave him.

 

[Jack V Savage]

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.

There are no words to describe actual brilliance if your idea of "brilliance" is just someone articulately making points you (and most others) agree with.

 

[IDL]

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.

He most often cites carl jung, and says often that those ideas are very old, which is kinda the point of archetypes and mythological story. Certainly he is not taking credit for coming up with such archetypes or discovering them.

People probably respond well though to having them explained and made relevant to life I'd say he's pretty good at that. Tools to add in the toolbox for understanding the world.

 

[Jack V Savage]

And Peterson is now indulging in the cult of personality, getting the type of respect from his 'cultists' that Academia and leading intellectuals never gave him.

Yes, but again, it could be much worse. And he could be a kind of gateway drug to serious thought for a lot of people. I think the guy has had a positive impact.

 

[Fawlty]

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.

Let me try to be more clear, because I think that's only half of it. If it's true that the potential for male violence has strongly shaped how we communicate with other men (and I have trouble imagining that's not the case), then the interactions we have with men are, to that degree, a result of that potential for violence. And that would be true even if two men are getting along perfectly well and are not going to fight each other.

So Peterson comes along and says his really awkward version of "I would never hit a woman, but..."

That tells me that he's bad with women and trying to intellectualize it. He might be trying to be a bully there, too, and he seems too weak to fight a man. That stuff really appeals to these frog kids- they identify with it. But he has a point worth talking about, even if the conclusion is that he's full of shit.

 

[Prefect]

Some of that criticism is too harsh. I appreciate his careful use of language and his attempts to make his meaning clear.

I also think he's an intellectual for a new, dumb internet audience who have never had much of an intellect or interest in intellectual things. He's where people go when they graduate from Joe Rogan.

Why does anyone call him an intellectual?

 

[Fawlty]

Why does anyone call him an intellectual?

Because he is one, both professionally and in the colloquial sense...?

 

[Bald1]

Because he is one, both professionally and in the colloquial sense...?

Yet he says he doesn't see himself as one. He's mentioned it a few times. I'm not sure what to make of that.

As for the topic - I don't understand why JP gets some people so wound up.

 

[Limbo Pete]

Let me try to be more clear, because I think that's only half of it. If it's true that the potential for male violence has strongly shaped how we communicate with other men (and I have trouble imagining that's not the case), then the interactions we have with men are, to that degree, a result of that potential for violence. And that would be true even if two men are getting along perfectly well and are not going to fight each other.

So Peterson comes along and says his really awkward version of "I would never hit a woman, but..."

That tells me that he's bad with women and trying to intellectualize it. He might be trying to be a bully there, too, and he seems too weak to fight a man. That stuff really appeals to these frog kids- they identify with it. But he has a point worth talking about, even if the conclusion is that he's full of shit.

It's not just physical weakness. I'm a scrawny nerd and i've hit plenty of people. There's a lot of arrogant yet cowardly people that love to fantasize about fighting one sided fights, and my guess is this fellow falls into that group.

 

[MiniCraque]

Let me try to be more clear, because I think that's only half of it. If it's true that the potential for male violence has strongly shaped how we communicate with other men (and I have trouble imagining that's not the case), then the interactions we have with men are, to that degree, a result of that potential for violence. And that would be true even if two men are getting along perfectly well and are not going to fight each other.

So Peterson comes along and says his really awkward version of "I would never hit a woman, but..."

That tells me that he's bad with women and trying to intellectualize it. He might be trying to be a bully there, too, and he seems too weak to fight a man. That stuff really appeals to these frog kids- they identify with it. But he has a point worth talking about, even if the conclusion is that he's full of shit.

Isn't that precisely the kind of caveat that Peterson is criticized for littering his arguments with though? If the threat of physicality being there is actually said threat shaping male upbringing, that's what he should have said. When he says that it's always present when males interact with each other, that is (or should be, because words apparently work in a different way in Peterson-verse) the actual underlying threat dictating some of the parameters of that interaction, not it's ghost lingering on for every time you ever talk to another male again because some kid in the playground punched you when you were 8.

Also, the implication that respect between males is derived from their willingness to get into a scuffle is pure neanderthal logic.

 

[FierceRedBelt]

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.

Peterson's dismissal of Campbell for his interpretation of Jung is something that surprised me. Up to that very second I was very much convinced that Peterson was continuing Campbell's work in spirit. Campbell's interview with Bill Moyer echo's much of the same social psychology frame work Peterson presents today.

 

[The ScorpioN]

That's brilliant.

I read it in his voice.

 

[feelinCrisp]

Well, I'm not going to read all the posts here but I am going to read this article and discuss interesting points as I find them.

I guess I'll start by saying that, in general, I don't think that many people claim Jordan Peterson is discovering most of his ideas for the first time, but rather putting his own twist on old ideas that seem to have been forgotten in the modern day. In that spirit, I think he does a fantastic job in creating bridges between morality, biology and what is known about human psychology. He does it in a way that's interesting, engaging, and speaks to the modern person; and more specifically, younger people who have been brought up through the crazy technological advancements and were never necessarily raised on a specific set of moral guidelines.

With that being said, let's dig in.

Jordan Peterson appears very profound and has convinced many people to take him seriously. Yet he has almost nothing of value to say. This should be obvious to anyone who has spent even a few moments critically examining his writings and speeches, which are comically befuddled, pompous, and ignorant. They are half nonsense, half banality. In a reasonable world, Peterson would be seen as the kind of tedious crackpot that one hopes not to get seated next to on a train.

Well, a lot of people would disagree (on most of this) I've listened to several of his lectures, as well as podcasts, and he's never come across as pompous, that's for sure. As for ignorant, I can't speak to the entirety of his being as I'm not familiar with everything he's ever done, but I have, on several occasions either on podcasts or during the question period of his lectures, very easily state he doesn't know the answer or have enough information, and if citations could be provided he would like to research them and delve deeper before speaking on something that he isn't knowledgeable or has not thought out properly. As for befuddled, I can definitely see how someone would get that impression. Peterson definitely has a tendency to jump around topics and riff, so to speak, during his lectures. He also makes many comparisons, metaphors and will bring back ideas from earlier lectures at the drop of a time. For the record, before his media exposure a couple years ago, his psychology classes were some of the most well respected and sought after lectures at UoT because how easily he breaks down complex topics, and not only that but he is able to construct his ideas in a manner that validates them on multiple different planes. (Again, a lot of what he discusses are not HIS OWN FINDINGS, what he does is create a link between existing, respected theories, and add his own flavour)

In all reality, this isn't a good start. The author is taking a very accusatory and aggressive tone, provides some misleading information, and some that is plain wrong. Some of it is subjective, and depends on individual reception of material. Let's keep going.

But we do not live in a reasonable world.

Lol.

We are therefore presented with a puzzle: if Jordan Peterson has nothing to say, how has he attracted this much recognition? If it’s so “obvious” that he can be written off as a charlatan, why do so many people respect his intellect?

This is kind of interesting, the author is implying that Peterson has nothing to say and that he is obviously a charlatan. I guess he goes deeper into these ideas later.

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.

Impossible is the wrong word, aside from that I think this statement holds a lot of truth. I haven't read Maps of Meaning and I've only listened to some of the lectures on that work, and I'm still in the process of reading 12 Rules For Life, so I can't speak accurately on the entirety of his works. From what I've seen, 12 Rules For Life is significantly more condensed and "to the point" than a lot of his other work. His lectures, as previously mentioned, are very "freestyle" I'm sure he writes some form of script, but he easily flows into metaphors, comparisons, analogies (these branch-offs can, in some cases, last for 15-20 minutes) Not only that, but a lot of the time the actual meaning (or message he wishes to convey) of a lecture is so heavily encircled by his thought process, other works, biology, or the processes through which he got to an idea, that it can be difficult to track. Impossible is still the wrong word, difficult is a better word. Lots of people listen and are able to follow the ideas. I'm of the opinion that for him, it works. His ability to keep a topic interesting while dancing circles around the point, until he's explained enough that he is comfortable to articulate the main idea works well, and I think it serves to add a depth to the idea, rather than take away from it. But yes, it can certainly be seen as vague.

What’s important about this kind of writing is that it can easily appear to contain useful insight, because it says many things that either are true or “feel kind of true,” and does so in a way that makes the reader feel stupid for not really understanding. (Many of the book’s reviews on Amazon contain sentiments like: I am not sure I understood it, but it’s absolutely brilliant.) It’s not that it’s empty of content; in fact, it’s precisely because some of it does ring true that it is able to convince readers of its importance. It’s certainly right that some procedures work in one situation but not another. It’s right that good moral systems have to be able to think about the future in figuring out what to do in the present. But much of the rest is language so abstract that it cannot be proved or disproved. (The old expression “what’s new in it isn’t true, and what’s true isn’t new” applies here.)

I don't think the reader fully understands the paragraph he quoted. I read the entire thing twice over to ensure that I got it, and I got it. What Peterson was describing in that excerpt is essentially true, and functions on both a historical biological level and a psychological level. The highlighted bit, I really don't like that, it isn't a real argument or a statement of fact. I'm not sure if this is the author's personal feeling towards the work, or if it is his assumption that most people reading it can't comprehend it, but either way it has no place and the only purpose for a statement like this is to continue with original tone of hostility towards Peterson. I didn't find much abstract writing in this paragraph, however...

Again: it’s not that he’s wrong when he says that law has a disciplining function, or that too much law is stifling, while not enough is anarchy. But all this stuff about “intrapsychic spirits” and “the flow of spiritual water” is just said, never clearly explained, let alone proved. If you asked him to explain it, you would just get a long string of additional abstract terms. (Ironically, Maps of Meaning contains neither maps nor meaning.) Sociologist C. Wright Mills, in critically examining “grand theorists” in his field who used verbosity to cover for a lack of profundity, pointed out that people respond positively to this kind of writing because they see it as “a wondrous maze, fascinating precisely because of its often splendid lack of intelligibility.” But, Mills said, such writers are “so rigidly confined to such high levels of abstraction that the ‘typologies’ they make up—and the work they do to make them up—seem more often an arid game of Concepts than an effort to define systematically—which is to say, in a clear and orderly way, the problems at hand, and to guide our efforts to solve them.”

The excerpt he's quoting here, is a bit abstract. Peterson's aforementioned tendency to speak in metaphor causing confusion or vagueness is certainly the culprit here. I won't get into too much detail here, and if you aren't familiar with any of Peterson's there's a good reason why this paragraph is taken as abstract or not being concise enough. I'm about halfway through the Psychology of the Biblical Stories lecture series, so I'm familiar enough with Peterson's ideas that I can make sense of it, however I can't fault anyone for not making sense of it. I do fault him, however, for the highlighted bits. An assumption not based on fact, followed by quotation from a well known and respected sociologist, taken out of context, to further the accusatory tone.

Obscurantism is more than a desperate attempt to feign novelty, though. It’s also a tactic for badgering readers into deference to the writer’s authority. Nobody can be sure they are comprehending the author’s meaning, which has the effect of making the reader feel deeply inferior and in awe of the writer’s towering knowledge, knowledge that must exist on a level so much higher than that of ordinary mortals that we are incapable of even beginning to appreciate it. In fact, Peterson is quite open in insisting that he has achieved revelations beyond the comprehension of ordinary persons. The book’s epigraph is comically grandiose (“I will utter things which have been kept secret from the foundation of the world” — Matthew 13:35) and Peterson even includes in the book a letter to his father in which he tries to convey the gravity of his discovery:

Obscurity can stem from many places, in this specific instance, I believe the obscurity of Peteron's ideas comes from a lack of understanding on the part of the author. There's a lot of sentences an ideas of the nature highlighted through this article. I'm getting the impression that the reader is aware of what they themselves are lacking and it is projecting outward, rather than an attempt at increasing their understanding they are attempting to give less credibility to ideas they can't quite wrap their head around.

(It’s fun to read the letter for yourself and imagine being Peterson’s dad trying to figure out what his son is doing with his life.)

Again with the hostility. For shits in giggles, UoT / Harvard professor, best selling author, clinical psychologist... not bad son, maybe next year you'll get a raise to "Current Affairs blog author"

Needless to say, when someone is this convinced of their own brilliance, they can be unaware of just how far afield they have drifted from the world of sense and reason.

Fair enough, that letter is pretty bold. Can't really refute that, don't have much to say on it.

The diagrams and figures in Maps of Meaning are astonishing. They are masterpieces of unprovable gibberish

Not really, they are rather simple in their imagery, I'll grant that. But the core of the idea that Peterson lays out is that to be a GOOD HUMAN, one must voluntarily open themselves to their own failures, analyze them, have an HONEST conversation with oneself and make sense of their faults, failures, shortcomings, etc. This is what he means by the chaos, or the underworld, or the unknown. Not going to get to deep into it, this isn't the place.

These are pompous, biblical ways of saying: tell the truth, be true to yourself, see challenges as opportunities, set a good example, and, uh, give confident and long-winded lectures to your adoring crowd of fans. (Note the response to the “poor man’s plight,” which is not to actually help him but to show him what a better person you are so that he will have a model to emulate.) Peterson’s writing style constantly adds convolutions to disguise the simplicity of his mind; so he won’t say “the man’s cancer metastasized,” he will say the man “fell prey to the tendency of that dread condition to metastasize.” The harder people have to work to figure out what you’re saying, the more accomplished they’ll feel when they figure it out, and the more sophisticated you will appear. Everybody wins.

The first highlighted bit is a pretty dramatic oversimplification, but we'll let it slide. The second is another assumption, lots of these so far. I'm getting kind of tired of this article to be honest. I think the author summed his own work up quite well

(The old expression “what’s new in it isn’t true, and what’s true isn’t new” applies here.)

A lot of this is getting old, and I'm seeing similar patterns, so I'm going to skip to some juicy stuff.

• My great grandmother once told me “Never hit a women, but you can sure as hell hit her back”. (upvoted 660 times)
• shoudnt hit anyone but if someone attacks you you can defend your self, even if it is a woman (upvoted 745 times)
• I would never hit a lady. An aggressive bitch is another question. (upvoted 576 times)
• The original ethic was that a gentleman should never hit a lady. At the point that a woman threatens you or your own, she is definitely not a lady. Being a lady, like being a gentleman, requires civility, grace, respect, and a personal responsibility for one’s own behaviour.
• Peterson didn’t say that he would never hit a woman. He only implied that every woman he had ever hit is dead.
• I believe women deserve rights…. and lefts!!! (upvoted 550 times)

If people who follow you seem to say things like this a lot, you should

Now that is, I don't know if frightening is the right word, but at least worrisome. It's impossible to tell how many of those upvotes overlap, whether or not people think it's a joke or satire, or bots up voting, or whatever the case may be. But I think if this becomes, or is already a trend, Peterson should make a clear cut video condemning violent behaviour.

Peterson is at his murkiest when he is talking about nature. Half the time he seems to be committing the naturalistic fallacy: he’ll describe tendencies that exist, and imply that these things are therefore good.

He actually doesn't imply "these things are therefore good" as a matter of fact he speaks specifically about some natural tendencies to be bad, IMPLICITLY. But it's too much work to fact check shit, right Nathan?

Of course, the animal kingdom is also a place of mutual aid,

I guess you and Peterson agree on one thing at least!

Look for your inspiration to the victorious lobster.” Of course, the animal kingdom is also a place of mutual aid, and for a man to emulate a lobster is like a woman treating the existence of the praying mantis as a license to eat her husband.

I'm getting soooo fucking tired of these fallacies. Peterson's entire reason for comparing people to lobsters is because of the neurochemistry and the psychological response to hormones that are shared among all living creatures. He isn't telling young men to walk around clapping their hands at each other, why the fuck would he tell young woman to eat their husbands? God, this kind of stupidity really is annoying. There's a lot of this kind of shit in this article but this one takes the cake so far.

I've read through most of the rest of this article, but it's getting late here, I'm tired, and it seems like there's lots more of the same. Some valid points, with some character bashing, some misinformation, some things that are subjective, blah blah blah. All in all, not really impressed.

Cheers have a good night everyone.

 

[second sight]

Some of that criticism is too harsh. I appreciate his careful use of language and his attempts to make his meaning clear.

I also think he's an intellectual for a new, dumb internet audience who have never had much of an intellect or interest in intellectual things. He's where people go when they graduate from Joe Rogan.

He blows life size holes through liberalism, shocked you’re not a fan
How alinskyesc of you

 

[Gutter Chris]

Yet he says he doesn't see himself as one. He's mentioned it a few times. I'm not sure what to make of that.

As for the topic - I don't understand why JP gets some people so wound up.

We live in a culture where every public figure has to be dissected and torn down if perfection is not seen. I think Jp says a lot of basic shit but hes reaching a group that needs to hear it , he isnt wrong about the trans thing and that hes kind of amusing in his kermit way. i enjoy the dude I dont think im in the group that has cast him as the new jesus or newest fraud .

That's brilliant.

I read it in his voice.

Over the last few weeeks I been reading his book on the can and try as hard as i could I could not stop myself from reading it in his voice. i like Jp but whoever made that did a good job and its funny


Does seem like hes tired and cranky and could use a break as of lately

 

[RubberGuard5]

The author of the article is wasting his intellect. If you click on his name on that site, three or four articles are about criticizing other people. Why is a Harvard phd student wasting time talking about people instead of ideas?

 

[second sight]

Yet he says he doesn't see himself as one. He's mentioned it a few times. I'm not sure what to make of that.

As for the topic - I don't understand why JP gets some people so wound up.

Because he exposes the idiocy of liberals, these are the same people that looked at Jon Stewart as an intellectual powerhouse

 

[KONG-D'SNT-TAP]

Yes, but again, it could be much worse. And he could be a kind of gateway drug to serious thought for a lot of people. I think the guy has had a positive impact.

I don't dislike the guy personally but I'm not someone who hangs on his every word.

 

[hillelslovak87]

There are no words to describe actual brilliance if your idea of "brilliance" is just someone articulately making points you (and most others) agree with.

That's brilliant.

I read it in his voice.

And yet, he's a genius for rattling of exegesis at a rapid patter.....

Because he exposes the idiocy of liberals, these are the same people that looked at Jon Stewart as an intellectual powerhouse

Nobody but Tucker Carlson ever thought liberals considered Jon Stewart as an intellectual.

 

[Tycho- Taylor's Version]

Yes, but again, it could be much worse. And he could be a kind of gateway drug to serious thought for a lot of people. I think the guy has had a positive impact.

That's a fair position. The guys I work with who typically toss Shapiro and Molyneaux shit at me all day have also graduated to Peterson, and it's been nice not having to politely smile and put headphones in for the entire day anymore.

The other day one of them (with no post-secondary education) actually began a sentence with "In the literature on..." at which point I may have shed a single tear.