The new jordan peterson money spinner...

Discussion in 'Off Topic Area' started by Dead_pool, Aug 1, 2018.

  1. Ero-Sennin

    Ero-Sennin Well-Known Member Supporter

    @David Harrison , You better read every damned line of that post too because it was wrote on your request >: O.
     
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  2. David Harrison

    David Harrison MAPper without portfolio

    Meh, I'll wait till someone does a youtube hit piece on your post and base all my opinions on that :p

    I don't have a problem with Peterson when he's talking about personality questionnaires or clinical psychology. He's obviously qualified to talk about that (though in one of his recent Sam Harris debates he had a good go at MRI scans in psychology... of course he would, he's a questionnaire guy! They won't let him near medical equipment! :D).

    He does waffle on about a lot of stuff he isn't qualified in though. I listened to that BBC radio interview smitfire mentioned, and funnily enough Peterson got rather angry at the foolishness of people giving opinions on things they aren't qualified to. Which is rather hypocritical of him, especially as on BBC Hard Talk he described himself as an evolutionary biologist, which he simply is not, that's a flat-out lie, and when I've heard biologists mention him they are tearing their hair out at his ignorance of the subject.

    For reference:



    So, in the chapters I've heard (when I see the book in a charity shop I'll pick it up, but I don't want to add to his book sales), he fleetingly mentions two other religions and then talks about Christianity every time. He says that people without obedience to religion are like 2 year olds. That's hard to swallow even for an agnostic.

    It is his axiomatic errors that I have a problem with, far more than perceived sexism or anti-liberal agenda. If he gave compelling arguments then I would enjoy listening to him even if I disagreed with everything he said.

    For instance:

    He often says that individualism is the greatest achievement of Western culture (which he sees as having Christianity as its foundation, which I would disagree with - not to sound too patronising, but I think that's a rather New World attitude). He rails against group think and collectivism, and yet his supposed cure for these societal plagues is culturally enforced group think and collective action against the "radical left".

    He believes that atheism and nihilism lead to absolvement of responsibility, whereas religion leads to embracement of responsibility. I think this is entirely backwards. Nihilism not only requires one to take sole responsibility for oneself, but also to develop the entire moral framework by which your actions are given personal meaning. Whereas Christianity can only offer arbitrary duty, with a smattering of responsibility for avoiding sin. God already decided what the meaning of the entire universe, your life included, is, and Jesus already paid the price for your transgressions, so personal responsibility is eroded down to an insignificant nub. Fulfilling one's duties is not the same as taking personal responsibility.

    He speaks out against moral relativism, and yet he also justifies biblical child sacrifice, and such fundamental human behaviour as emotional attachment to one's offspring, with a cultural relativist argument. People had more kids then, and resources were more scarce, so they felt differently about their children.

    He's just all over the shop.

    I don't have any problem with his "it depends what you mean by God" stuff, or even his talk of Jungian archetypes or the whole chaos/order dichotomy. It is his contradictions, hypocrisy, misrepresentation and the way he complicates really quite simple things in order to appear intelligent that I don't like. His 50's dad demeanour and reds-under-the-bed paranoia don't help matters, either.

    I do love that he is such a 50's dad that in his mind anti-authoritarian toddlers say "daddy-O" though. He's like someone who went into their fallout shelter in 1954, with only Jung, the Bible and biographies of Hitler and Stalin to read over and over again, then stepped out into the 21st Century only to be horrified that the Bolsheviks have turned to gender-bending in order to destabilise Western civilisation.

    My grim fascination with him still hasn't diminished though. It's like trying not to look at a car crash.

    All I've really come to think of the Jordan Peterson phenomenon is that he's a big step down from the Hitchens worship we had a few years ago. I disagreed with a lot Hitchens said, but damn could he construct a good argument. This "pull your socks up", insipid small "c" conservatism is sickening to me. I want more chaos.

    Hail Eris!
     
  3. Dead_pool

    Dead_pool Spes mea in nihil Deus MAP 2017 Moi Award

    "On a final note, if you are:

    1.) Atheist
    2.) Extremely far left leaning (to the point where you don't separate group identity with individual identity and welfare)

    then I really don't think you wouldappreciate a single thing within the book.
    "

    I'll stick to the classics then!

     
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  4. Ero-Sennin

    Ero-Sennin Well-Known Member Supporter

    I mean bruh, clearly I like Chaos myself. My profile pic, while it is a Warhammer reference, is themed by the idea of chaos. It's also my profile pic. on other social media sites. If I ever get tattoos the symbol is going across the entire length of my upper back. I also like women and apparently chaos represents women mythologically and the theme of me trying to put things in order while a woman messes it up seems to be a recurring theme. The dishes in the kitchen are a great example! (this is a joke)

    I agree that his stating he was an evolutionary scientist on the Hard Talk show was a really bad move. I believe they were talking about ethics and morality and how they came to be, and that he was trying to state he believed it came more from our biological evolution rather than philosophy and thinking about it. This is one of my major problems with Peterson, but it is also one of the reasons I give him a lot of leeway and am willing to finagle with what he's saying and try to see how it applies: He is EXTREMELY eccentric. I've stated before in either this thread or the other that Peterson is somebody I enjoy listening to, but he's not somebody I would want to hang out regularly. His eccentric nature is why. Most of if not all the issues stem from how eccentric he is. These kinds of people make it very hard to understand them, and they often think of things and apply different things in ways that are not the norm and are sometimes so out of whack it's almost not worth the effort. This is also how I feel about Expressionist art. It is not my cup of tea, but I acknowledge the usefulness of it.

    I think when Peterson starts living the kind of life like Joel Olstein I'll agree that his intent has been or turned into being manipulative for profit. Currently he's not at that point.

    Peterson does reference Christianity a lot more than other religions through the book, but I would say it's more relevant as well due to the theme of western culture in its more recent history. I don't find fault with that. I also don't think you're wrong about your interpretation of Christianity but I do think you're only right when it comes to some kinds of interpretations of it. Personal responsibility from another perspective of Christianity is a very important theme, and the forgiveness aspect of it is meant to assist when things have become overwhelming in life. It's meant as a failsafe, and is more akin to Acceptance Therapy and not absolvent of person responsibility. It just depends on who you're listening to and their perspective. Overall I think your outlook on life tints your lenses to see things a certain way. I don't disagree, but I think a lot of other people's lenses see things an entirely different way so Peterson is a lot more relevant and helpful for others (and in a beneficial way) than he would others. A lot of his stuff isn't really isn't political but is made to be.

    On when it does get political, I think he talks from the perspective of what goes on with universities and how it spills over into the real world. I agree with a lot of it, but only in certain regions or with certain schools. I live in a very liberal town, one of the only blue counties in Florida, and while there are some kids who are a little touchy I definitely get the impression that the professors have the authority they need and policy isn't dictated by cultural sensitivies to an extreme. I think his issue might be something more of a problem in Canada than the U.S.? I couldn't say entirely. When it comes to this issue I'm more in the Jonathan Haidt interpretation, who is more grounded and systematic (and in his Heterodox Academy website the University of Florida is actually highly rated which is congruent with my opinion of universities in the area). Again, Peterson is extremely eccentric, and I have a hard time chewing it.

    "He's just all over the shop."

    Yes, he is, and it's a bit annoying. Sometimes he's completely wrong too. He's not what he's generally made out to be though, and the "that's not what he's saying" argument is often taken advantage of by him because of the massive amount of manipulation by different figures in the media. This is problematic because it causes the need for much more work to put in order what he's saying, and there's enough that you can make arguments against him without manipulation. The posts prior in this thread are a great example of this. "Here's my opinion on a book! I read what the titles were so my opinion is valid!" Give me a break. I'm willing to deal with eccentric people if they put in the work, even if they didn't put enough work into a certain area. I'm not willing to entertain strong opinions based off of nothing just because of the way it makes you feel.
     
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  5. Ero-Sennin

    Ero-Sennin Well-Known Member Supporter

    (P) <----------- The point traveling in a right to left direction on the screen.

    (Deadpool) <------ Your head remaining stationary

    If that post was a joke then it was funny, but I really can't tell.
     
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  6. Dead_pool

    Dead_pool Spes mea in nihil Deus MAP 2017 Moi Award

    It was a unserious way to Point out self improvement is easier them Following some arcane semi religious rules, but you can't make much money that way!

    Be nice, do stuff, look out for your fellow superhero, it's not rocket science.

    Also deadpool is an atheist, (apart from Lady D of course)...... So obviously I wouldn't be interested in his pseudo scientific god bothering.


    Side note: as a professional he seems to not realized his daughter has a massive psychosomatic issue around food.

    Is that bad parenting, or just bad professional standards?
     
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  7. David Harrison

    David Harrison MAPper without portfolio

    You know, I find it very odd that his followers think of him as a good communicator. Both himself and his followers are continually complaining that he is not understood, and I find his message to be really quite hard to disentangle from the unnecessarily complicated knots he ties himself in when he speaks. His more rabid followers can't seem to explain his meaning either, they have to rely on being snarky and patronising to his critics, saying, like he often does, that it is complicated without ever actually explaining the idea. I get the sense that many of them feel like they are being enlightened by letting his word salad wash over them, without really getting what he is saying.

    Yeah, I don't think that profit is his prime motivation. I do think that he is mindful that his celebrity status is now his main source of income though, and his demeanour and approach have changed since he gained public notoriety.

    No, I don't fault him for that either. It's what he knows, so it is what he should be talking about. I only mentioned it because you made the point that he mentions other religions. My point was that he only mentions them, he doesn't expound on how they fit into his wider point.

    If you believe, or act as if you believe, that a deity dictates ultimate morality, then moral actions are a result of arbitrary duty. You don't have to be a good person, you just have to be an obedient one. I don't see a way around that.

    Forgiveness and acceptance are fine, but I would argue that they only become virtuous when you have nothing to loose, or something to gain, by being unforgiving and unaccepting. The prying eyes of a judgmental god take away agency from your actions. God-given morality demeans human agency.

    A thought that has been cooking up for months has begun taking shape for me today. Peterson is frustratingly obtuse, but after months and god knows how many hours of listening to him speak I think my suspicions are close to being confirmed about what he means when he talks about absolutes, God and morality.

    It was cemented by listening to this while I was working today:



    First, I'd like to say that it is refreshing to see Peterson more at ease and in good humour. It's a stark contrast to the concerned, messianic figure he is today.

    His association between order and chaos and the Taoist yin-yang fits in well to my suspicion. I read a Taoist once who said that gods, demons, heaven and hell are stories for peasants. They are stories for children and people who don't have the time or capacity to ponder the mysteries of their inner selves or the world they find themselves in.

    As far as I understand, he believes these archetypal religious stories are in our biology, not just our culture. They are intrinsic to our nature, and we are not blank slates. Therefore believing in gods, or acting as if they exist, is not reliant on their objective existence. He also treads dangerously close to quantum woo when talking about the divinity of the self in creating the reality it perceives. In the video above he makes a huge error when describing part of the Copenhagen interpretation when he states that wave function collapses when a system is perceived. This is a gross mischaracterisation, because the interpretation only says that wave function collapses when a system is observed, and observation in this sense is not reliant on a conscious agent whatsoever. A measurement device in the lab collapses wave function, and indeed humans are incapable of perceiving individual particles, but I digress...

    His statements about primates in the above debate seem to confirm my thoughts. The roots of our behaviour patterns, and the development of biologically-imprinted morality alongside consciousness are older than religion, but religion is borne of these biological factors. This seems to be where he derives his ideas of moral absolutes - they are in our neural structures first and written down second, not vice-versa.

    I do think there is something to this, though I believe his conclusion about what this means in terms of an ethical system is flawed. What ruins what might be an interesting concept is, as someone who is quite familiar with the kind of religious syncretism and mysticism that was popular around Jung's time (Jung was interested in Aleister Crowley, and wrote about him), this really feels like a rehashing of an ideal that doesn't stand up to objective scrutiny. It also comes across as a rather occult-lite, wishy-washy kind of mysticism, no matter how deep, complicated and mysterious he claims it to be. Maybe he feels that the general public aren't ready for how mind-blowing his real thoughts on the matter are, or maybe that is the extent of them... I don't know.

    My suspicion is that he holds his audience in contempt. I think he feels that religion provides good rules to live by for those lacking the metal capacity to figure out the human condition to the degree he has.

    Speaking as someone who could once describe themselves as a secular mystic or occultist, I would say that he talks like a man who has stood on the edge of the abyss but never crossed it. He's read Jung's The Red Book but never written his own. In all great mystical traditions, chaos and order, synthesis and analysis, 1 and 2, fire and ice; these aren't the ultimate, absolute foundations of the universe; the void, the Tao of empty potential, nothing is.
     
    Last edited: Sep 8, 2018
  8. Ero-Sennin

    Ero-Sennin Well-Known Member Supporter

    Who do you be nice to? What type of stuff do you focus on doing? How do you determine who is a fellow super hero or a villain? Sure it's not rocket science, but there's a lot of grey area in there and a lot of people need help with it (apparently). #WhySelfHelpIsPopular. You can't just write that off for the sake of convenience to make your point. You might be fine, I might be fine, but a whole bunch of people aren't.

    I've watched a few things with her, and she does seem particularly obsessed with food. While I don't think it's healthy to be obsessed over things to such an extent, I would mention that people who suffer or have suffered significantly don't process things, react the same, or act the same as people who have not suffered significantly. This is impossible to explain to somebody who has not been crippled in the literal sense by their health. And to have it happen when she was so young without the skillset to deal with it . . . . I think it's ok to give her a little room. She's really not anything different to me than any other diet fad people. Also not my cup of tea.

    There seems to be a lot of resentment on the ability to make money based off of tuning into and manipulating (not always a negative context) people's nature. I don't have as much hostility towards that. You would have to hate every corporation and any person with any sort of influence to keep your integrity where generating money is concerned. I have enough hate, I don't need to waste it on something that will never change when nobody is being forced to comply.
     
  9. Ero-Sennin

    Ero-Sennin Well-Known Member Supporter

    There's so much to unpack in that post man, and so much of it is a The Big Lebowski, "that's like, your opinion man" meme. Different strokes for different folks. Some things work better than others; I don't think he's doing any sort of harm to anyone and the advice is generally sound so I have no real qualms with him yet. Most of my engagement where Peterson is involved tends to be around people saying stuff they clearly have no clue about, which I don't even think they know they are acknowledging in the very same post they're chastising him in.
     
  10. David Harrison

    David Harrison MAPper without portfolio

    Yeah, I was moving beyond the self-help thing and tackling his wider philosophy.

    I think I'd need to talk to him about it really.
     
  11. Adrastia

    Adrastia Valued Member

    David,
    I miss Hitch too, Greatly.

    Hail? Be watchful and prepare. Eris may be on her way;
    or worse. the kindly ones

    w/respect, A
     
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  12. David Harrison

    David Harrison MAPper without portfolio

    You know, I think there is a fascinating book waiting to be written about how many of the online "skeptic community" went from Hitchens and Dawkins to a Jungian who thinks the Bible is an emergent and consistent document, and claims that his wife has prophetic dreams.
     
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  13. David Harrison

    David Harrison MAPper without portfolio



    I get to slay dragons and be a hero!

    ...now I just have to break it to my partner that having children is enough of an adventure for her and she should show a bit of gratitude for it.

    Where are the archetypal myths of the adventure of motherhood?
     
    Last edited: Sep 9, 2018
  14. Smitfire

    Smitfire Cactus Schlong

  15. Dead_pool

    Dead_pool Spes mea in nihil Deus MAP 2017 Moi Award

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