Jordan Peterson - The Intellectual We Deserve

[Juventud]

Peterson/Shapiro = heroes for scared white virgin males with autism.

 

[21 Savage]

Peterson/Shapiro = heroes for scared white virgin males with autism.

peterson >>> shitpiro

 

[21 Savage]

The only reason I've seen to dislike Peterson is because of his pateron activity and he gets wishy-washy about religion.

if it makes u feel better hes now a self-admitted religious apologist

 

[Bullitt68]

That's the sort of thing that only standup comics have been successful tapping into

And that Bill Burr has tapped into better than anyone else, at least with respect to discussions of gender relations. There have been times when Peterson was for all intents and purposes working from Burr's stand-up material. I even saw an interview with him once where he actually referenced Burr's stand-up but he incorrectly attributed one of his bits to the massively overrated and unfunny Louis CK (I realize that, given your AV, I may have just made an enemy out of you, but, if you're wondering: Yes, I hated Louis CK's stand-up even before MeToo).



That bit from Burr is what Peterson's been trying to get at. It's just easier for people to hear it in a comedic context where they can comfortably avoid taking it seriously than in a serious context where they actually have to uncomfortably work through the social and psychological implications whatever they might be.

The subtlety goes away and then young men start punching their girlfriends.

I think that Burr himself would probably reject this line of thinking.

Read this book and tell me again what the heck is special about JP?

As someone who loves both Peterson and Campbell, I'm going to side-step the polemical thrust there and respond sincerely by saying that what's special about Peterson's mythological exegeses is not only his scientific perspective but the way that he's able to "update" the material. The closest Campbell got to doing that was occasionally referencing Kubrick's 2001. Peterson, by contrast, is able to go just as deep into the annals of mythology but then at the same time is able to connect that with perceptive and resonant analyses of shit like Pinocchio and Harry Potter.

Personally, I've always seen Peterson as Campbell 2.0. And I can't see any reason to pit them against one another. Hell, someone could make the exact same post that you made about Peterson to Campbell about Campbell to Jung. Jung did the same shit Campbell did. But that's not what's important. What's important is that Campbell continued on and amplified what Jung was doing. And now Peterson is continuing on and amplifying what both Jung and Campbell were doing.

In short: Don't pit players on the same team against one another. Why pit Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen against one another when the point is that together they're fucking awesome?

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 actually think he's basically in-step with Jungian ideas. In particular, so much of Jung's The Undiscovered Self has found its way into both Peterson's clinical practice and his critical practice. What exactly do you find so frustrating?

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.

I've always been surprised by his antipathy towards Campbell, as well. Then I realized that it's because he had long been operating on a misguided assessment of Campbell's relationship to Jungian thought. Peterson (existentialist that he is) never liked what he perceived to be Campbell's overly-positive, pie-in-the-sky type of optimistic reading of Jung, epitomized in his view by what he always hated as Campbell's pseudo-Jungian injunction to "find your bliss." Funny enough, it was Russell Brand of all people who clued Peterson in to the fact that his was a faulty and reductive reading of Campbell.



Obviously, if you haven't seen that conversation, the whole thing is worthwhile. But I time-stamped it at the relevant part. It's also worth mentioning that that's a rather recent encounter of Peterson's, so the potential for him to cast Campbell in a different light has yet to manifest in his work (at least it hasn't as far as I know). But it's encouraging for me as a huge fan of both Campbell and Peterson to know that Peterson is no longer (or, at least, should no longer be) operating on the same prior assessment of Campbell.

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.

Great breakdown. Thanks for saving me the time and energy having to do it myself.

Seemingly "basic" things need elaborate explaining in these times.

QFT. To quote an apt line from A.J. Ayer (in his classic The Problem of Knowledge) which may serve to corroborate this sentiment (a sentiment that was also expressed by @n...not crazy) and which may also serve as a rebuttal to all those who complain that Peterson isn't "groundbreaking" enough:

"Here, as so often in philosophy, the important work consists not in the formulation of an answer, which often turns out to be almost platitudinous, but in making the way clear for its acceptance."

But he seriously missteps when he hops on the "Cultural Marxists are out to shake the foundation of civilization" thing. That's internet forum dumbass territory right there. At worst, it's right-wing terrorist talk.

That's actually a longstanding objection that's been voiced in academic circles for decades, by people Left, Right, and Center and from any number of academic disciplines. Aside from Peterson, you can check out Alan Sokal and Jean Bricmont's Intellectual Impostures and Sir Roger Scruton's Fools, Frauds, and Firebrands. People like Noam Chomsky and Daniel Dennett also like to take shots at that nonsense in talks and interviews.

And then, of course, there's Stephen R.C. Hicks' Explaining Postmodernism, in which he convincingly argues in support of the following thesis:



So no, Peterson hasn't taken any serious missteps regarding the "unholy alliance" between Marxism and postmodernism. He's just joining the chorus of those who have long been saying - quite rightly - that this silly emperor not only has no clothes but is actually dangerous despite being bare ass naked.

I don't know what you mean by "if applied."

There are a million examples to pick from. I picked that one because it just happened this week.

But you paranoids take a broad current in philosophy that exists mainly in lit departments in college and treat it as a modern Mein Kampf.

It's not paranoia if it's true. And, for the record, if it's anything, it's the modern Das Kapital, not the modern Mein Kampf.

The author does a great job in pointing out the irony of Peterson always rallying against postmodernism and modern academia while falling in the same traps they often do; the way of hiding, often simpler, concepts behind grandiose language heavy on terminology.

It must be stated, though, that there's a HUGE difference between what I would call, to borrow from Ayn Rand, the readable versus the unreadable. Writing like Peterson's, which is at times heavy on the technical terminology, is, despite any initial difficulty, not only as easy to read as any other kind of writing once you get a handle on the terminology, but, even at its most difficult, eminently readable. Unreadable writing, by contrast, is not only initially difficult; it is forever difficult. It is designed specifically to confound readers. The purpose of the jargony gobbledygook isn't to enhance understanding but to prevent it. Hence, such writing is obnoxiously unreadable.

As Rand herself put it with specific reference to academia:

"Within a few years [of the publication of an unreadable book or essay], commentators will begin to fill libraries with works analyzing, 'clarifying,' and interpreting its mysteries. Their notions will spread all over the academic map, ranging from the appeasers, who will try to soften [its] meaning—to the glamorizers, who will ascribe to it nothing worse than their own pet inanities—to the compromisers, who will try to reconcile its theory with its exact opposite—to the avant-garde, who will spell out and demand the acceptance of its logical consequences. The contradictory, antithetical nature of such interpretations will be ascribed to [its] profundity—particularly by those who function on the motto: 'If I don’t understand it, it’s deep.' The students will believe that the professors know the proof of [its] theory, the professors will believe that the commentators know it, the commentators will believe that the author knows it—and the author will be alone to know that no proof exists and that none was offered. Within a generation, the number of commentaries will have grown to such proportions that the original [unreadable book or essay] will be accepted as a subject of philosophical specialization, requiring a lifetime of study—and any refutation of [its] theory will be ignored or rejected if unaccompanied by a full discussion of the theories of all the commentators, a task which no one will be able to undertake."

Anyone who would accuse Peterson of what Rand is indicting there is just plain wrong. In support of that claim, compare the following two passages and see if you don't agree that there's a world of difference between the readable and the unreadable (to say nothing of the fact that Peterson's writing is eminently readable).

First, a passage from Peterson's Maps of Meaning (page 134 for anyone who thinks I'm cheating):

"This development might also be regarded as an illustration of the increasing psychologization, abstraction, and internalization of religious ideation: In the earliest stages of representation, deities are viewed as pluralistic, and as individualistic and fractious members of a supracelestial (that is, transpersonal and immortal) community. Later, they are integrated into a hierarchy, as the culture becomes more integrated, more sure about relative valuation and moral virtue – and a single god, with a multitude of related features, comes to dominate. Development of monotheism thus parallels intrapsychic and intracultural moral integration. As the average citizen identifies more and more clearly with this monotheistic, integrated pattern, its external nature, as an attribute of the gods, recedes. It becomes more clearly an attribute of the individual human being."

Second, a passage from Jacques Derrida's Of Grammatology (page 9 of the Johns Hopkins "corrected edition" of 1997 for anyone who thinks I'm cheating):

"For some time now, as a matter of fact, here and there, by a gesture and for motives that are profoundly necessary, whose degradation is easier to denounce than it is to disclose their origin, one says 'language' for action, movement, thought, reflection, consciousness, unconsciousness, experience, affectivity, etc. Now we tend to say 'writing' for all that and more: to designate not only the physical gestures of literal pictographic or ideographic inscription, but also the totality of what makes it possible; and also, beyond the signifying face, the signified face itself. And thus we say 'writing' for all that gives rise to an inscription in general, whether it is literal or not and even if what it distributes in space is alien to the order of the voice: cinematography, choreography, of course, but also pictorial, musical, sculptural 'writing.' One might also speak of athletic writing, and with even greater certainty of military or political writing in view of the techniques that govern those domains today. All this to describe not only the system of notation secondarily connected with these activities but the essence and the content of these activities themselves. It is also in this sense that the contemporary biologist speaks of writing and pro-gram in relation to the most elementary processes of information within the living cell. And, finally, whether it has essential limits or not, the entire field covered by the cybernetic program will be the field of writing. If the theory of cybernetics is by itself to oust all metaphysical concepts - including the concepts of soul, of life, of value, of choice, of memory - which until recently served to separate the machine from man, it must conserve the notion of writing, trace, gramme, or grapheme, until its own historico-metaphysical character is also exposed. Even before being determined as human (with all the distinctive characteristics that have always been attributed to man and the entire system of significations that they imply) or nonhuman, the gramme - or the grapheme - would thus name the element. An element without simplicity. An element, whether it is understood as the medium or as the irreducible atom, of the arche-synthesis in general, of what one must forbid oneself to define within the system of oppositions of metaphysics, of what consequently one should not even call experience in general, that is to say the origin of meaning in general."

Now, if you were to compare the passage from Peterson's Maps of Meaning with a passage from 12 Rules for Life, I'd imagine that the passage from the latter would not be anywhere near as technical as the passage from the former. But the key point to be made is that even the technical passage from Maps of Meaning, in which Peterson refers to more abstract concepts like "supracelestial" - which he significantly defines immediately in parentheses, indicating his desire to communicate rather than to confound - and "intrapsychic," he's still very clear and direct with the intention of being (relatively) easily understood.

Does anyone honestly think that the same can be said of the passage from Of Grammatology? Is there anyone who can look at those two passages side-by-side and say that they're on the same level and written with the same intent? Are people really comfortable equating someone like Peterson with someone like Derrida?

 

[ultramanhyata]

You can actually see the fire in his eyes whenever marxism is brought up as a topic. His whole demenour changes. It's both hilarious and jarring.

It's another great Petersonism.

Spending one's time, energy and resources trying to tear down "Marxism" and expose its evils to the world is commendable. Even heroic.

Yet he intones elsewhere that, if you're someone making protestations against capitalism, you're wasting your life and missing the root of the societal problem.

You need to, instead, start focusing solely on self-improvement in school and career and relationships - get your own house in "perfect order".

And the rest then just takes care of itself.

 

[TheGreatA]

Who are the ''economic progressives'' in the US who are ''basically socialist''?

Bernie Sanders etc.

In European terms he would be a social democrat. Although a conservative-ish kind, still clinging onto outdated concepts such as national borders.

 

[Bullitt68]

Spending one's time, energy and resources trying to tear down "Marxism" and expose its evils to the world is commendable. Even heroic.

Yet he intones elsewhere that, if you're someone making protestations against capitalism, you're wasting your life and missing the root of the societal problem.

Two things:

1) You seem to think that there's a performative contradiction there - i.e. you seem to think that, because Peterson is against people trying to "tear down" capitalism, he should also be against people trying to "tear down" Marxism. The presupposition there is that there's nothing fundamentally different between capitalism and Marxism (and, by extension, between those who fundamentally oppose capitalism versus those who fundamentally oppose Marxism, and between the reasons for such fundamental oppositions, etc.). But that's not true. So I don't think that there's actually a performative contradiction there.

2) In any event, Peterson isn't trying to "tear down" Marxism. Marxism collapsed long before Peterson started talking about lobsters and cleaning your room. If anything, Peterson is trying to keep the Marxist barbarians at the gates at bay.

You need to, instead, start focusing solely on self-improvement in school and career and relationships - get your own house in "perfect order".

And the rest then just takes care of itself.

This seems like you're intentionally building a straw man here. It's not that if you focus on self-improvement that "the rest then just takes care of itself." It's that if you focus on self-improvement then you'll be in the only position from which you'll possibly be able to take care of whatever needs taking care of in your life.

Not only is that a very important difference, it's clearly the case that Peterson's view is absolutely antithetical to the sunshine and rainbow shrouded easy street that you're imagining the straw man Peterson skipping down along with his brainwashed virgin Nazi lobster acolytes.

Wrong though that view may be, I do have to say that the imagery that it conjures up is very amusing

 

[ultramanhyata]

Two things:

1) You seem to think that there's a performative contradiction there - i.e. you seem to think that, because Peterson is against people trying to "tear down" capitalism, he should also be against people trying to "tear down" Marxism. The presupposition there is that there's nothing fundamentally different between capitalism and Marxism (and, by extension, between those who fundamentally oppose capitalism versus those who fundamentally oppose Marxism, and between the reasons for such fundamental oppositions, etc.). But that's not true. So I don't think that there's actually a performative contradiction there.

2) In any event, Peterson isn't trying to "tear down" Marxism. Marxism collapsed long before Peterson started talking about lobsters and cleaning your room. If anything, Peterson is trying to keep the Marxist barbarians at the gates at bay.



This seems like you're intentionally building a straw man here. It's not that if you focus on self-improvement that "the rest then just takes care of itself." It's that if you focus on self-improvement then you'll be in the only position from which you'll possibly be able to take care of whatever needs taking care of in your life.

Not only is that a very important difference, it's clearly the case that Peterson's view is absolutely antithetical to the sunshine and rainbow shrouded easy street that you're imagining the straw man Peterson skipping down along with his brainwashed virgin Nazi lobster acolytes.

Wrong though that view may be, I do have to say that the imagery that it conjures up is very amusing

Peterson's criticism of system reform has nothing to do with the qualitative value of the systems themselves. He simply believes in "self-improvement" as the key to all social or collective improvement.

And believes those who seek to lay blame at the feet of institutions for perceived injustices are just making excuses for their own, personal failings. Jordan's take is like the simpleton's rendition of Gandhi's "you must be the change you wish to see in the world".

Unless, of course, the systems in question are aggressively advocating post-modernist or "cultural Marxist" tenets. Then it's bloody well time to get yourself a Patreon page and start a campaign to save civilization with some videos!

Did you read the link in the OP? The author gives a decent, condensed overview of JP's perspective on a variety of topics. I've listened to enough Peterson to not really find anything mind-blowingly new in the article. But it's great for those with limited familiarity.

 

[sleepwalk]

My favorite part of that article was the advertisement toward the end that says, "Do like the books that Jordan Petersen writes and the author if this article is taking a shit on? If you do, you'll love the author's book of similar content!"

 

[luckyshot]

As someone who loves both Peterson and Campbell, I'm going to side-step the polemical thrust there and respond sincerely by saying that what's special about Peterson's mythological exegeses is not only his scientific perspective but the way that he's able to "update" the material. The closest Campbell got to doing that was occasionally referencing Kubrick's 2001. Peterson, by contrast, is able to go just as deep into the annals of mythology but then at the same time is able to connect that with perceptive and resonant analyses of shit like Pinocchio and Harry Potter.

Campbell basically invented the wheel and you're implying that he couldn't figure out how a wagon works.

The famous PBS series where Bill Moyer interviewed Campbell was shot at George Lucas' freaking Skywalker Ranch! George Lucas let them use the property for the series because he explicitly named Hero with a Thousand Faces as the main influence that inspired Star Wars.

Campbell correctly identified and described the Quest archetype-- the genetic code of basically every hero story ever written. You really think he'd be unable to apply his own work to The Hunger Games or some other Disney movie?Go to Youtube right now and you will see dozen's of high school freshmen English projects doing as much...

Campbell could have sat there for the rest of his life writing articles about how every movie that came since 1950 related to his ideas. The fact that he didn't do that shows he was: 1) not annoying as fuck 2) interested in more genuine intellectual pursuits, such as discovering archeological and anthropological evidence to corroborate his theoretical work.

The Jung stuff I will reply to later. That's further in the weeds.

 

[Possum Jenkins]

That's actually a longstanding objection that's been voiced in academic circles for decades, by people Left, Right, and Center and from any number of academic disciplines. Aside from Peterson, you can check out Alan Sokal and Jean Bricmont's Intellectual Impostures and Sir Roger Scruton's Fools, Frauds, and Firebrands. People like Noam Chomsky and Daniel Dennett also like to take shots at that nonsense in talks and interviews.

And then, of course, there's Stephen R.C. Hicks' Explaining Postmodernism, in which he convincingly argues in support of the following thesis:



So no, Peterson hasn't taken any serious missteps regarding the "unholy alliance" between Marxism and postmodernism. He's just joining the chorus of those who have long been saying - quite rightly - that this silly emperor not only has no clothes but is actually dangerous despite being bare ass naked.

I'm familiar with Chomsky and Sokal's criticism of postmodernism, not Cultural Marxism. In fact, I'd be pretty surprised if these two even use this last term at all except to include it as part of the dangerous paranoia on the right. Chomsky himself has said that while postmodernism's mumbo jumbo is worthless, the idea power and institutions work in particular ways is not just valid, but truisms-

"It's perfectly true that institutional factors determines how science proceeds that reflect power structures" And this is coming from an avowed rationalist and Enlightenment fan.

2:10




Peterson isn't the only one to condemn postmodernism but he has terrible company in combining two things: 1) using postmodernism and Marxism interchangeably, and extending these two to all progressive ideas, and 2) considering these grave dangers to civilization.

The only ones doing these things are the most fascist, vulgar right-wingers.

There are a million examples to pick from. I picked that one because it just happened this week.

"Identity politics" is postmodernism?? This why it's so hard to take any of this seriously. Terms and ideas that you don't like are just jumbled together. How in the world is an attempt at diversifying a curriculum postmodernist?

If that's the case then JFK was the biggest postmodernist in history because he's the one first introduced affirmative action.

It's not paranoia of it's true. And, for the record, if it's anything, it's the modern Das Kapital, not the modern Mein Kampf.

More conflating of all things you don't like. You don't see the folly of narrowing an entire field down to a book, you just don't agree with what book it should be. But I get it, Das Kapital was written by a guy on the side that you don't like.

(You picked the wrong Marx text anyway. Kapital is a complex analysis of capitalism, not exactly a call for political and social rearrangement. Communist Manifesto was a layup)

 

[Bullitt68]

He simply believes in "self-improvement" as the key to all social or collective improvement.

Peterson's beliefs aren't "simple," first of all; second, it'd be more accurate to say that, rather than self-improvement being the key, Peterson considers it the first and most important step towards what you call "social or collective improvement." Now, that's not to deny that it's difficult for Peterson to actually articulate clear, effective steps towards something as large and complex as social or collective improvement. And it's no wonder: That's really fucking hard. But to lampoon his position as just a simple hand wave followed by quick fix fortune cookie advice doesn't help the conversation.

For a serious example of the difficulties inherent in trying to establish the necessary links between individual and collective evolution/betterment, you should check out Peterson's and Shapiro's exchange on Rubin's show if you haven't already seen it.



I didn't time-stamp it because I don't remember where exactly the individualism/collectivism conversation starts, but the whole thing is worthwhile anyway, so, if you're interested, just dig in for yourself.

And believes those who seek to lay blame at the feet of institutions for perceived injustices are just making excuses for their own, personal failings.

Like before, these are subtle distinctions, but they are distinctions with differences: He doesn't believe those who seek to lay blame at the feet of institutions are just making excuses. There may be legit reasons for having problems with a particular institution. But so what? What does that mean for how you conduct yourself in life (hence the importance of the notion of "maps of meaning" in his philosophical outlook)? Does it mean you just whine and do nothing because you think it's impossible for you to overcome whatever obstacles are in your path courtesy of whoever/whatever institution put them there? That's the type of shit that Peterson encourages people to transcend with reference to a commitment to self-improvement and self-reliance.

Campbell basically invented the wheel and you're implying that he couldn't figure out how a wagon works.

I'm genuinely curious as to what you could've possibly read to have thought that what you posted at all captures what I was explicitly or implicitly saying.

The famous PBS series where Bill Moyer interviewed Campbell was shot at George Lucas' freaking Skywalker Ranch! George Lucas let them use the property for the series because he explicitly named Hero with a Thousand Faces as the main influence that inspired Star Wars.

What does George Lucas being inspired by Campbell have to do with Campbell largely sticking in his writings and lectures to ancient myths and rarely discussing contemporary storytelling?

Campbell correctly identified and described the Quest archetype-- the genetic code of basically every hero story ever written. You really think he'd be unable to apply his own work to The Hunger Games or some other Disney movie?

I didn't say he couldn't. I said he didn't. And I said that because he didn't.

I'm familiar with Chomsky and Sokal's criticism of postmodernism, not Cultural Marxism. In fact, I'd be pretty surprised if these two even use this last term at all except to include it as part of the dangerous paranoia on the right.

Not trying to be a dick or be dismissive of your points, but in all honesty, it's too late and I'm too tired to quibble over labels. Postmodernism, poststructuralism, post-Marxism, neo-Marxism, cultural Marxism, Frankfurt School, critical theory. Whatever. It's all nonsense. Just different brands of it. More importantly, with specific reference to the paranoia and conspiracy theory rhetoric that you're bringing in to discredit critiques, here's a previous post of mine on why that's a red herring:

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 (nor, for the record, is it my 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.

For Peterson, he has been trying to identify tendencies and trends, not conspiracy theory plots to rule the world.

Chomsky himself has said that while postmodernism's mumbo jumbo is worthless, the idea power and institutions work in particular ways is not just valid, but truisms

Nobody - including Peterson - is denying (and no sane, intelligent person ever would deny) that "power and institutions work in particular ways." What a lot of people - including Peterson - are denying is that power is the sole and express purpose of institutions. Following from this, those same people - including Peterson - also reject the idea that, because all institutions and all structures (hence poststructuralism) are allegedly power games, all structures and institutions must be destroyed. That's what postmodernism and all the rest of this shit comes to if taken to its logical conclusion.

On this point, here's Sir Roger Scruton:

"The liberation advocated by left-wing movements today does not mean simply freedom from political oppression or the right to go about one’s business undisturbed. It means emancipation from the ‘structures’: From the institutions, customs and conventions that shaped the ‘bourgeois’ order and which established a shared system of norms and values at the heart of Western society. Even those left-wingers who eschew the libertarianism of the 1960s regard liberty as a form of release from social constraints. Much of their literature is devoted to deconstructing such institutions as the family, the school, the law and the nation state through which the inheritance of Western civilization has been passed down to us. This literature, seen at its most fertile in the writings of Foucault, represents as ‘structures of domination’ what others see merely as the instruments of civil order."

Peterson isn't the only one to condemn postmodernism but he has terrible company in combining two things: 1) using postmodernism and Marxism interchangeably, and extending these two to all progressive ideas, and 2) considering these grave dangers to civilization.

On point #1, here's more from a post that I made previously:

Another thing that I think is worth mentioning, and something that I think I've mentioned in here before (helltoupee, this might speak to some of your concerns, as well), is that it's a mistake to impute to the people Peterson talks about as postmodern neo-Marxists a concern with internal logical consistency. In a lot of important ways, the Frankfurt School and postmodernism are very different. However, that hasn't stopped people from mashing them together in total disregard of the messy contradictions that result.

This is something that Peterson talks about constantly with the bizarre marriage between postmodernism and Marxism. Logically speaking, those two things are not compatible; a "postmodern Marxist" is a contradiction in terms. And yet, I could randomly go down the list of professors at my university and blindly circle ten names and at least nine of them would consider themselves postmodern Marxists.

For a quick and concise example of Peterson discussing this painfully oblivious position:

On point #2:

The only ones doing these things are the most fascist, vulgar right-wingers.

If you think that Jordan Peterson is a vulgar fascist, then you are going to melt where you stand if you ever have the misfortune of running across an actual fascist.

"Identity politics" is postmodernism??

Contemporary identity politics is rooted in postmodernist philosophy. If you want to dispute that, I'm all ears.

Terms and ideas that you don't like are just jumbled together.

Don't blame me for the jumbling. I'm identifying it and critiquing it. I didn't start the fire.

How in the world is an attempt at diversifying a curriculum postmodernist?

For the short version: It's a hallmark of postmodernism that all history is just an ideologically pernicious "narrative" "constructed" by the "oppressors" who have the "power" to "determine" what "counts" as a "fact" and what is "instituted" as the "truth." So, the historical sense of philosophy as being the province of great thinkers like Aristotle, Descartes, and Wittgenstein - all of whom happened to have penises - isn't actually the "truth." It's just a "narrative" that has been "constructed" to "oppress" women and ensure that men get to have and keep the "power." Hence, the "progressive" thing to do is to demolish this historical "structure" of "oppression" and assert a new narrative (which for some reason we're supposed to accept as the truth despite the fact that the concept of "truth" is anathema) on the basis of which women have contributed equally for the most part to the history of philosophy.

That's the game that academics are playing, and the amount of people and institutions starting to play that game beyond the confines of academia is growing at a rate that is - or, at least, should be - cause for alarm. And not just for vulgar fascists or people with a fondness for tin foil hats.

Das Kapital was written by a guy on the side that you don't like.

I'm not political enough to care about sides. I just care about ideas. And Marx had a lot of bad ideas that inspired followers to come up with even worse ideas.

(You picked the wrong Marx text anyway. Kapital is a complex analysis of capitalism, not exactly a call for political and social rearrangement. Communist Manifesto was a layup)

The Communist Manifesto is "up with our awesome system." Das Kapital is "down with their shitty system." Postmodernism has no "up" to it. It's all "down." So Das Kapital is what justifies the postmodernist brand of nihilism.

Plus, one of my favorite film scholars, Robin Wood, has a great piece where he juxtaposes Das Kapital and Mein Kampf, and that piece was the first thing I thought of, so I went with Das Kapital for the homage that only I'd even be aware of to amuse myself

 

[luckyshot]

@Bullitt68

Re: How Peterson misses the mark on Jung- quick and simple tablet version.

The heart of Jungian therapy is shadow integration.

In mythological terms, slaying the dragon is the immature paradigm; individuation requires befriending the dragon— the knight recognizing that the dragon IS himself.

This is why Peterson’s obsession with slaying the “dark creeping forces of post modernism” is so fundamentally wrong for someone who is supposed to be a Jungian.

When working with such an intense antipathy, a Jungian therapist would be concerned with understanding and integrating the disowned projections of the self.

Peterson seems to miss that completely.

As you said, Peterson’s critique of Campbell is just really a feeling that Campbell is too optomistic. Well, Peterson’s worldview is a worldview of fear. It is capable of imposing order, but never of generating meaning.

His therapeutic advice, at least what he’s put out for public consumption, bears this out absolutely.

There’s a lot more to say. I have a bunch of Jungian quotes for the purpose, but I’m on a tablet for the rest of the night, alas.

 

[Bullitt68]

Peterson’s worldview is a worldview of fear. It is capable of imposing order, but never of generating meaning.

I'd push on this a little bit. Peterson has stated very explicitly - in one video he claimed that he rooted his perspective in his study of rat behavior, IIRC - that he thinks that fear is fundamental. But, for him, the fact that fear is fundamental is why life is - or should be - a response to and overcoming of fear. To say simply that his worldview is one of fear makes it seem like his worldview encourages an acquiescence to fear. And that couldn't be farther from the truth.

Additionally, I'm not even going to bother pressing you on the assertion that, in Peterson's world, the generation of meaning is an impossibility. That's such an enormous claim - one that literally contradicts his reason for being a thinker - that I'm going to need you to elaborate on that one (when you're not on your tablet, of course ).

There’s a lot more to say. I have a bunch of Jungian quotes that contradict Peterson, but I’m on a tablet for the rest of the night, alas.

I've always loved Jung, and I had a blast going through The Undiscovered Self a few months ago, which I'd never read before, but I'm no expert. So, if you want to take the time, I'd love to hear your case for how/why/where Peterson strays from the Jungian path.

 

[Prokofievian]

When you're in a Jordan Peterson thread and the ~2000 word responses start flying.

 

[Trotsky]

He's a thought provoking dude, as indicated by that TL/DR dissertation.

I could give you a long diatribe about how Ted Nugent is a moron: that doesn't make him thought provoking.

I rather enjoy the way he remains calm during debate. I don't understand the dislike. He's a psychologist, and he has opinions that he dissects from within and carefully puts forth. What's the problem with that? Agree or disagree, fine. But he's no dummy, no Steven Crowder.

Because he's not an intellectual and he's preaching to a choir that is captivated by the mere illusion that they confronting powerful ideas that just happen to confirm their laymen perspectives.

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

That's not true at all. For instance, I think Frank Easterbrook makes a lot of short-sighted conclusions, and I think he is considerably outshone by contemporaries like Robert Lucas, Robert Cooter, Gary Becker, and Ronald Coase. However, I still think he makes valuable observations that, to the vast majority of the population, raise significant issues of perspective and normative values.

 

[Bullitt68]

When you're in a Jordan Peterson thread and the ~2000 word responses start flying.

 

[luckyshot]

I'd push on this a little bit. Peterson has stated very explicitly - in one video he claimed that he rooted his perspective in his study of rat behavior, IIRC - that he thinks that fear is fundamental. But, for him, the fact that fear is fundamental is why life is - or should be - a response to and overcoming of fear. To say simply that his worldview is one of fear makes it seem like his worldview encourages an acquiescence to fear. And that couldn't be farther from the truth.

Additionally, I'm not even going to bother pressing you on the assertion that, in Peterson's world, the generation of meaning is an impossibility. That's such an enormous claim - one that literally contradicts his reason for being a thinker - that I'm going to need you to elaborate on that one (when you're not on your tablet, of course ).



I've always loved Jung, and I had a blast going through The Undiscovered Self a few months ago, which I'd never read before, but I'm no expert. So, if you want to take the time, I'd love to hear your case for how/why/where Peterson strays from the Jungian path.

Yeah, I’m sorry to throw out claims without being prepared to do a lot of typing tonight. These damn kids needs food and baths and shit, and I’m pecking away with one finger.

Jung is, well, big. And I’m no expert either. I’m sure Peterson has spent many more hours reading Jung than I have, but the things that I do understand about Jung just don’t seem to square up to Peterson. I’ll get back to you when I’m able to elaborate.

 

[splendica]

Looks at thread-starter and the names that liked the OP. Typical lunatics.

 

[splendica]

Most people in here can't differentiate between the carefully penned and edited arguments in a book, and a man speaking on his feet (often responding to aggressive opponents).