Jordan Peterson Thread.

[Prevenger17]

Despite what dholliday clearly believes, he doesn't speak for 'blokes' or half the worlds population, he has a horse in this race, so please do not interpret his appalling views as standard of the male gender

He speaks for all of us you beta male SJW bish

 

[ilikecheese]

He comes off as a scared little boy.

 

[verreauxi]

You don't have to be Jordan Peterson, with all his hyperbolic and weirdly anti-woman missives, to have an opinion about that.

 

[verreauxi]

Wow, does Peterson really think the only way you can keep a conversation civilized is the possibility of punching the other person?

The answer is, of course, here (from the Current Affairs article):

Now one could interpret this disturbing passage to mean that Peterson is upset that there’s a social taboo against him beating up the Toronto woman who calls him a Nazi. In fact, I don’t really see how to interpret it differently: he says that he’s “defenseless” against her “insanity” because the techniques he “would” use on a man are “forbidden.” (Why he has no other “defenses,” such as “ignoring her,” is unclear.) But Peterson would vigorously object to the idea that he’s in any way endorsing violence against women: no, I’m simply saying that all human interaction has an underlying threat of physicality. How could you so wilfully and unfairly misinterpret me? And of course, if we challenge Peterson’s contention that “when men are talking to each other in any serious manner” there is some underlying threat (I’ve just been talking to a fellow Current Affairs editor about Jordan Peterson, and I did not feel potential violence bubbling beneath the surface, except possibly toward my copy of Maps of Meaning), he will retreat to the proposition about how “you can’t respect a man who would never fight you under any circumstances.” After all, any circumstances means he wouldn’t even physically intervene to stop you from hurting someone, and how can you respect that? (That is a far cry from “there’s always an underlying threat,” though.) Peterson makes ominous-sounding (and seemingly false) generalizations and yet builds in caveats so that nobody can accuse him of endorsing the thing it sounds like he’s endorsing.

This is the same thing that happens with his discussions of nice guys and cruelty. He’ll say that people who are too nice will get taken advantage of, and talk about the importance of being capable of cruelty, which certainly sounds like it’s encouraging people to be sadistic dicks, but then he’ll insist that actually he’s not talking about being cruel he’s talking about being able to be cruel (you idiot, how could you not see the difference?) and he’s not against nice people, he’s just saying that the weak shall perish. And because you can “pick your Peterson,” those who watch his YouTube videos can take very different messages from the same set of words. A video about hitting women, in which Peterson never endorses hitting women, has the following among its most highly-upvoted comments:

• 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 probably think hard about why you’re attracting this kind of audience. It’s not that Peterson is endorsing violence, but because he’s a Rorschach test who can be interpreted many ways, his lectures about the chaotic female and the necessity of strength and the capacity for cruelty provide ready material to those seeking philosophical rationalizations for aggression.

 

[LostLegend]

He does make some interesting points, but seems to often over-intellectualise simple concepts.

Like his lengthy speils concerning "Assertive alpha males are more likely to enjoy career success and 'get the girl' than passive beta males"
Yeah, no s***, Sherlock...

 

[Prevenger17]

The answer is, of course, here (from the Current Affairs article):

Now one could interpret this disturbing passage to mean that Peterson is upset that there’s a social taboo against him beating up the Toronto woman who calls him a Nazi. In fact, I don’t really see how to interpret it differently: he says that he’s “defenseless” against her “insanity” because the techniques he “would” use on a man are “forbidden.” (Why he has no other “defenses,” such as “ignoring her,” is unclear.) But Peterson would vigorously object to the idea that he’s in any way endorsing violence against women: no, I’m simply saying that all human interaction has an underlying threat of physicality. How could you so wilfully and unfairly misinterpret me? And of course, if we challenge Peterson’s contention that “when men are talking to each other in any serious manner” there is some underlying threat (I’ve just been talking to a fellow Current Affairs editor about Jordan Peterson, and I did not feel potential violence bubbling beneath the surface, except possibly toward my copy of Maps of Meaning), he will retreat to the proposition about how “you can’t respect a man who would never fight you under any circumstances.” After all, any circumstances means he wouldn’t even physically intervene to stop you from hurting someone, and how can you respect that? (That is a far cry from “there’s always an underlying threat,” though.) Peterson makes ominous-sounding (and seemingly false) generalizations and yet builds in caveats so that nobody can accuse him of endorsing the thing it sounds like he’s endorsing.

This is the same thing that happens with his discussions of nice guys and cruelty. He’ll say that people who are too nice will get taken advantage of, and talk about the importance of being capable of cruelty, which certainly sounds like it’s encouraging people to be sadistic dicks, but then he’ll insist that actually he’s not talking about being cruel he’s talking about being able to be cruel (you idiot, how could you not see the difference?) and he’s not against nice people, he’s just saying that the weak shall perish. And because you can “pick your Peterson,” those who watch his YouTube videos can take very different messages from the same set of words. A video about hitting women, in which Peterson never endorses hitting women, has the following among its most highly-upvoted comments:

• 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 probably think hard about why you’re attracting this kind of audience. It’s not that Peterson is endorsing violence, but because he’s a Rorschach test who can be interpreted many ways, his lectures about the chaotic female and the necessity of strength and the capacity for cruelty provide ready material to those seeking philosophical rationalizations for aggression.

Equal rights, equal fights

 

[LinekersLegs]

Equal rights, equal fights

Perhaps that is why he seems so nervous of women wearing high heels - not only do they reduce the typical male height advantage but a stiletto can make an effective weapon

 

[Prevenger17]

Perhaps that is why he seems so nervous of women wearing high heels - not only do they reduce the typical male height advantage but a stiletto can make an effective weapon

Legs, I would never hit a woman because if I did, they'd beat me to a pulp. I only start fights I can win, so pretty much just underdeveloped kids

 

[dholliday]

I'm a big fan of Peterson, moreso of his general life pointers and advocacy of personal responsibility, but he is reaching saturation point in the media, and I'm not certain he realises it. I'm convinced he's consulting people with regards to branding and online analytics, and I think it will diminish him and his message over time.

The other thing is the brand of online scrote he's emboldening. A large contingent of his followers seem to be predominantly young males who are taking his conclusions (like the gender wage gap thing) and hawking them out on whatever Twitter, YouTube and Facebook feed they can start a fight in. This is usually done without any regard to the means with which he made those conclusions, or the intended application of what he says. Instead, they're just using his surface findings as intellectual validation for whatever weird views they already have on women or for attacking anyone they perceive to be slightly liberal, which ends up being everyone who disagrees with them.

You get this strange result where a lot of the people who are flocking to his banner, are lads who are still living with their parents, have messy rooms, and do things on a daily basis that diminish themselves as humans (like starting pointless misogynistic arguments on the internet), things Peterson has specifically railed against. He's visibly become increasingly reluctant to condemn these people outwardly and I can't help but feel he is starting to become a slave to his own cult. He's one personal scandal (and I believe he has one in him) away from the whole thing collapsing.

As much as he's been misinterpreted by the left, he gets far more misinterpreted by the right.

Good post, Prev...agree with all that.

Very much so.

The Guardian is testing at the moment - Owen Jones, Polly Toynbee, George Monbiot et al, it's a bit of a circus. Seen more vision and clarity of thought in our midfield.
You'd hope it could be written off as a phase but the uncertainty of print media means any editorial missteps can be costly.

Wonder what would happen if you read the Telegraph for a month - probably push you leftwards in rage. Might try that.

The Guardian is grand if you just stay away from the Opinion section imo. It's like they're catching every 2:1 English and Philosophy major in a net and paying them a tenner for their mind splurges

I think their news reporting is quite good. But their opinion section is usually ridiculous and has no coherence.

I've been a Graun man since 2001, been a regular online commenter since 2006 and even written for them above-the-line. I'm profoundly disappointed by the direction they've taken these last few years. They're obsessed by divisive identity politics, hate Corbyn & Russia, and are openly racist towards everyone: towards black writers for they will only commission them when they write about race where they must come across as victims, and towards white people by allowing terms like "stale pale white people" in articles, which is as racist a stereotype as "lazy black people".

And it's not just us who've realised how far they've fallen: 100% of all identity-politics articles (when comments are allowed) have the highest-recommended comments being critical of The Guardian's direction, often from fellow old-school liberals & longtime readers like ourselves. I bet these commenters have also been labelled "Putinbots" & "Nazis" too. As many critical posts are labelled abusive and get removed, it's probably only a matter of time until their below-the-line comment policy gets further amended.

Zooming further out to see the Big Picture, we see they're all at it: Der Spiegel & Die Zeit were as respected as Graun but these days they play the same game. Seems this type of regressive churnalism came (as most cultural things do) from USA. That they're all at it reminds me of Sinclair Broadcasting forcing use of the same script among hundreds of different local news stations.

Saying that, I do agree they're still capable of pulling off some real journalism. And still offer a wide variety of content. But they've done serious damage to their reputation only a new editor and a massive clear-out would fix. My vote last time out went to Emily Bell rather than Kath Viner, which would've meant more focus on investigative work rather than tribalism, but they went for Ms Viner as they probably saw more ad revenue that way.

Shame.

That genuinely surprises me - the concept that it reasonable that whenever you have a discussion with another man that gets slightly heated, irrespective of the circumstances such as if you are at a bar/a wedding/at work/the post office, your first instinct is to size him up to see if you can settle things with a punch.

I personally doubt that the only thing keeping all the Alpha males in boardrooms across the globe in reasonably civil conversation is that they are nervous they will get a bloody nose - imo a far more effective check on behaviour is both reputational damage and the risk of HR marching you out the door without collecting your belongings or annual bonus. What about situations where you can’t use any vague “threat of physicality”, it isn’t just conversations with women that would apply - how about in discussions with the elderly, young or disabled? Or any conversation on the phone or internet?

That isn’t to say that I don’t think some people use physical intimidation, Jurgen Klopp looming over refs is just one example, it is just that I don’t believe that a) in the long term it is particularly productive and b) that an effective response is to respond in kind.

I’m not clear in this public bar situation you are suggesting whether it is just a random weirdo or someone I know where the conversation has become inflamed but in the latter I’d probably choose option C) de-escalation and if that didn’t work or I didn’t know the guy I’d try D) disengage including E) getting the hell out of there as fast as my presumably high heels would let me - why would I try A or B which is likely to result in either myself or someone else involved in a physical fight, what does that solve? If he truly was that obnoxious I’d also expect the bar management to notice and throw him out as it seems unlikely I’d be the only one who would be uncomfortable with the situation.

Also good post, Legs. The thing about men is that we (many of us anyway) do still make instant primal judgements when weighing up a fellow male with whom we're at odds. 'Could I have him?' i.e. could I beat him in a fight? Is he a bit psycho in the eyes so better not do the King Kong thing with this one? That kind of thought process is an evolutionary leftover from ye olde hairy days before we even developed spoken language. It rarely means they'll be an actual fight, but they'll be the atmosphere of one looming. That's the point Peterson is making. It's intimidation. It's not right or wrong as it's dependent on the individual situation. It's merely a perspective and many men have experienced this too. Think of the tall physically-imposing senior manager figure who'll use such intimidation to foster an air of authority, which will often excuse whatever other incompetencies the man might have.

Trump is a good example of the less-than-gentemanly variety when he did the King Kong thing with Hilary Clinton, when he loomed behind her during one of those debates. Peterson I'm sure would have found that behaviour disagreeable at the very least as Hilary is female and can not, in this symbolic sense, fight back in the same way.

Despite what dholliday clearly believes, he doesn't speak for 'blokes' or half the worlds population, he has a horse in this race, so please do not interpret his appalling views as standard of the male gender

I enjoy listening to Peterson but I wouldn't say he's my horse. If I have a horse out there, it's Joe Rogan.

A video about hitting women, in which Peterson never endorses hitting women, has the following among its most highly-upvoted comments:

• 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)

Good example of what @Prevenger17 & @LinekersLegs were saying about Peterson attracting a more primitive macho (less intellectual) following than he perhaps intended.

Perhaps that is why he seems so nervous of women wearing high heels - not only do they reduce the typical male height advantage but a stiletto can make an effective weapon

I can't find it now but I agree with your point earlier about women wearing high heels not necessarily for sexual-attractiveness reasons (tho' some do, of course) but for reasons of appearing taller, and taller means more imposing. If short men could get away with it, they'd do it too lol

 

[Rob17896]

So what your saying is?

Dont behave like a Liverpool fan.

 

[SiEdmo]

Dont behave like a Liverpool fan.

huh?

apart from being 2 months late, did you miss the joke?

 

[Steve0]

Speechless. The only letter more cringey than that Balotelli one. Genuinely odd.

 

[dholliday]

Speechless. The only letter more cringey than that Balotelli one. Genuinely odd.

Why is it odd? He promised his Dad he'd explain a little about what his first book would be about. Then, as a young man in his early-20's, he did just that by way of this letter. This letter is from over 30 years ago.

Sure it's wordy and maybe you have a more colloquial relationship with your Dad, but I don't judge people by their relationships with their old man. Sounds like Peterson just wanted to make him proud, that's a positive thing in my book, especially considering what I know about other father-son relationships (a few of which are pretty bad to say the least).

 

[LinekersLegs]

I can't find it now but I agree with your point earlier about women wearing high heels not necessarily for sexual-attractiveness reasons (tho' some do, of course) but for reasons of appearing taller, and taller means more imposing. If short men could get away with it, they'd do it too lol

Forget even the dominance politics - for those of us who are vertically challenged there is also the entirely practical aspect of making sure you can be clearly seen over the laptop screen on a tall lectern if you are giving a formal talk lol

 

[Steve0]

Why is it odd? He promised his Dad he'd explain a little about what his first book would be about. Then, as a young man in his early-20's, he did just that by way of this letter. This letter is from over 30 years ago.

Sure it's wordy and maybe you have a more colloquial relationship with your Dad, but I don't judge people by their relationships with their old man. Sounds like Peterson just wanted to make him proud, that's a positive thing in my book, especially considering what I know about other father-son relationships (a few of which are pretty bad to say the least).

Re-reading it it's not quite as bad as i originally thought.

He's still a helmet.