# Jordan Peterson **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [February 8, 2020, 11:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jordan-peterson/847650 "2020-02-08T23:12:08Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![QuickSilver](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quicksilver/32/7832_2.png) [@QuickSilver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/QuickSilver)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2020, 1:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jordan-peterson/847650/61 "2020-02-11T13:48:52Z")
> [@sisu](#): > > See this is lazy criticism, I barely see any point specific criticism of him and his ideas. > > Hey some of his thoughts I think are bit silly but on the whole he makes a lot of sense. Fine. - morality comes from deity/divine - Marxists and Post-Modernist hiding under your beds - LGBTQ ruining pronouns for everybody - Weird obsession with traditional gender roles Just some of the subjects JP enjoys to torture mercilessly with his deep, often wrong, pontification. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2020, 1:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jordan-peterson/847650/62 "2020-02-11T13:55:52Z")
> [@F.U.Shakespeare](#): > > WTF?! I was on the fence about the guy until this. One of these things is not like the others. Anywhere I could find more detail about his opinions on the Holocaust? [More details](https://forward.com/news/national/400597/is-jordan-peterson-enabling-jew-hatred/). Short answer is No, he is not a Holocaust denier. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![Tired\_and\_Cranky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a87d85/32.png) [@Tired\_and\_Cranky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tired_and_Cranky)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2020, 2:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jordan-peterson/847650/63 "2020-02-11T14:19:33Z")
I’d never heard of this guy before this thread and my life was better for it. > [@MrLee](#): > > I really don’t see what the alt-right see in him; he is far from a frothing-at-the-mouth white supremacist. Likewise, many on the left see JP as some kind of monstrous caricature of far-right neo-nazi ideology - there are far more disagreeable (and illogical) people out there in the public sphere than JP. He gives a pseudo-intellectual veneer to ideas held by deeply ignorant people. He sounds smart, and he convinces people on the right that he’s smart, and so ignoramuses on the right can convince themselves they are in good intellectual company when they espouse their misogyny and racism. What’s not to like about someone who makes your stupid ideas sound better than you ever could? ---
**Author:** ![TokyoBayer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tokyobayer/32/13989_2.png) [@TokyoBayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TokyoBayer)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2020, 2:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jordan-peterson/847650/64 "2020-02-11T14:19:39Z")
> [@F.U.Shakespeare](#): > > WTF?! I was on the fence about the guy until this. One of these things is not like the others. Anywhere I could find more detail about his opinions on the Holocaust? From [the Independent](https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/jordan-peterson-nazi-apologism-lindsey-graham-holocaust-migrant-caravan-mexican-border-tear-gas-a8659001.html) > [@](#): > > Footage emerged this week, from a podcast recorded last year, of the professor discussing the conditions that led to the Holocaust. There was the normal equating of fascist and Antifa, on account of the latter’s “proclivity to violence” (as if violence were a moral constant); there was discussion of Hitler’s bravery during the First World War, as well as the revelation that “[he] was very sensitive to disgust”. According to Peterson (and I’ve no reason to doubt him), Hitler used Zyklon, an easy version of the gas used in the gas chambers at Auschwitz, to clean rats from German factories – and this, along with the economic instability in post-Versailles Germany, to Peterson’s mind, is evidence that the Holocaust was a logical progression. > > That the Holocaust followed a series of logical progressions is, in a sense, true: if one were to reverse-engineer the Final Solution, each step would appear to follow rationally from the one before. > > But this – as if it even needs saying – is not proof that the Holocaust was logical (and so unavoidable, an objective response to some natural phenomenon, an earthquake or a weather front for example) but that it was the endpoint of a deliberate process that had started many years before; a process that was constantly testing its contributors by moving the conversation further and further towards what would once have been unthinkable. Here is the video in question, and it’s six minutes. He’s not an outright Holocaust denier, but like the Independent reports, it just seems like the Holocaust was a natural progression and if we were there in Germany then we would have done the same thing. Moving on, I first became aware of him when a member of an online group who is somewhat misogynistic posted a link to one of his videos. I saw enough to see that I wasn’t interested in what he had to offer. ---
**Author:** ![F.U.Shakespeare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/aca169/32.png) [@F.U.Shakespeare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/F.U.Shakespeare)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2020, 2:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jordan-peterson/847650/65 "2020-02-11T14:19:49Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > [More details](https://forward.com/news/national/400597/is-jordan-peterson-enabling-jew-hatred/). > > Short answer is No, he is not a Holocaust denier. > > Regards, > Shodan Thanks for this. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2020, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jordan-peterson/847650/66 "2020-02-11T15:59:47Z")
There is a famous interview of [Jordan Peterson by Cathy Newman](https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/01/putting-monsterpaint-onjordan-peterson/550859/) demonstrating some of the difficulty that people have nowadays in understanding people with whom they disagree. It applies particularly to Jordan Peterson IMO for various reasons. No doubt there’s any number of examples from the Left as well. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![DrCube](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a3d4f5/32.png) [@DrCube](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrCube)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2020, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jordan-peterson/847650/67 "2020-02-11T16:41:23Z")
> [@F.U.Shakespeare](#): > > WTF?! I was on the fence about the guy until this. One of these things is not like the others. Anywhere I could find more detail about his opinions on the Holocaust? It’s been a while since I watched [this video](https://youtu.be/G9vehIbDkNY) (JP Starts at about 6:30), but I think that’s where I got the idea he was a holocaust denier, or at least supportive of holocaust deniers. I’m not a close follower of Jordan Peterson, so I could be way off, but (and I’ll need to watch the video again to be sure) he says some pretty awful things, on video here. Maybe it’s all out of context, who knows. But it seems clear to me that this guy at least knows who his biggest fans are, and is playing to their biases, even if he doesn’t believe those things himself. ---
**Author:** ![F.U.Shakespeare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/aca169/32.png) [@F.U.Shakespeare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/F.U.Shakespeare)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2020, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jordan-peterson/847650/68 "2020-02-11T17:12:21Z")
He seems to be trying to dance on both sides of the issue of anti-semitic rhetoric. ---
**Author:** ![puddleglum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puddleglum/32/137_2.png) [@puddleglum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puddleglum)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2020, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jordan-peterson/847650/69 "2020-02-11T21:31:46Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > Do you think more people should have the wisdom and courage to switch to an ALL BEEF diet like JP? He is not a nutritionist so I would be as skeptical of his nutritional advice as I would of any layman’s. He is a Jungian, which wasn’t taught that much when I was in psych school. My impressions of it, is that Jungians sort of work the line between psychology and religion. They like metaphors, archetypes, and trying to access the unconscious. It is such a different type of thinking than the behaviorism that dominates modern psychology that it is hard to process. I think there is a large strain of gnosticism in Jungian psychology and Peterson is a popularizer which means he has a fine line to walk between coming off as simplistic and baffling everyone with just exactly how weird Jungianism really is. ---
**Author:** ![puddleglum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puddleglum/32/137_2.png) [@puddleglum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puddleglum)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2020, 9:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jordan-peterson/847650/70 "2020-02-11T21:39:37Z")
> [@JRDelirious](#): > > **DrCube,** > You have just described four qualities that do not necessarily convey each other. He _is_ smart and articulate, but much of what has been reported indicates questionable if not scant wisdom, and I could be very courageous too speaking from a long-standing tenured position to randos on YouTube. Courage is much scarcer than you know. There are thousands of tenured professors in the world but how many have the courage to insert themselves into the public debate with such unpopular ideas? Peterson was a wildly popular psych professor before becoming a public intellectual, they say he used to get standing ovations after his lectures. He decided to give up the safety of the campus to debate ideas and has attracted criticism from some of the most evil people in the world. For someone who suffers from anxiety as he does, that must have been very uncomfortable. ---
**Author:** ![puddleglum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puddleglum/32/137_2.png) [@puddleglum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puddleglum)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2020, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jordan-peterson/847650/71 "2020-02-11T21:40:38Z")
> [@DrCube](#): > > It’s been a while since I watched [this video](https://youtu.be/G9vehIbDkNY) (JP Starts at about 6:30), but I think that’s where I got the idea he was a holocaust denier, or at least supportive of holocaust deniers. > > I’m not a close follower of Jordan Peterson, so I could be way off, but (and I’ll need to watch the video again to be sure) he says some pretty awful things, on video here. > > Maybe it’s all out of context, who knows. But it seems clear to me that this guy at least knows who his biggest fans are, and is playing to their biases, even if he doesn’t believe those things himself. The person who made that video does not seem to know that much about history. What in particular did Peterson say that you think is awful? ---
**Author:** ![F.U.Shakespeare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/aca169/32.png) [@F.U.Shakespeare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/F.U.Shakespeare)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2020, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jordan-peterson/847650/72 "2020-02-11T22:01:10Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > Do you think more people should have the wisdom and courage to switch to an ALL BEEF diet like JP? I thought that sounded interesting, but that may be because I’m a [Ron Swanson](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ron_Swanson) fan. ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2020, 10:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jordan-peterson/847650/73 "2020-02-11T22:36:57Z")
> [@puddleglum](#): > > There are thousands of tenured professors in the world but how many have the courage to insert themselves into the public debate with such unpopular ideas? …with only the offer of huge speaking / appearance fees, how does he find the bravery? And in a country full of high-profile right-wing demagogues too…where the most popular news network is fox “news”. How does he find the courage to not disagree with them? > [@](#): > > He decided to give up the safety of the campus to debate ideas and has attracted criticism from some of the most evil people in the world. Earlier I mentioned that a big part of JP’s shtick is poisoning the well. Here you’ve managed some sort of inverse poisoning; his opponents are bad, bad people therefore JP is…something. ---
**Author:** ![F.U.Shakespeare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/aca169/32.png) [@F.U.Shakespeare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/F.U.Shakespeare)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2020, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jordan-peterson/847650/74 "2020-02-11T23:44:01Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > There is a famous interview of [Jordan Peterson by Cathy Newman](https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/01/putting-monsterpaint-onjordan-peterson/550859/) demonstrating some of the difficulty that people have nowadays in understanding people with whom they disagree. It applies particularly to Jordan Peterson IMO for various reasons. > > No doubt there’s any number of examples from the Left as well. > > Regards, > Shodan I agree, that interviewer was rude, and dishonest. Appreciate your noting that both sides do that. But at least Newman was in the presence of the person she was insulting and twisting the words of. Would that Rush Limbaugh ever granted that courtesy. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2020, 11:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jordan-peterson/847650/75 "2020-02-11T23:47:29Z")
> [@puddleglum](#): > > He is not a nutritionist so I would be as skeptical of his nutritional advice as I would of any layman’s. > > He is a Jungian, which wasn’t taught that much when I was in psych school. My impressions of it, is that Jungians sort of work the line between psychology and religion. They like metaphors, archetypes, and trying to access the unconscious. > It is such a different type of thinking than the behaviorism that dominates modern psychology that it is hard to process. > I think there is a large strain of gnosticism in Jungian psychology and Peterson is a popularizer which means he has a fine line to walk between coming off as simplistic and baffling everyone with just exactly how weird Jungianism really is. Considering all the other ignorant things he’s said, it seems more likely to me that he’s a whacko. ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Borgia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/larry_borgia/32/156_2.png) [@Larry\_Borgia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Borgia)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2020, 12:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jordan-peterson/847650/76 "2020-02-12T00:04:42Z")
> [@DrCube](#): > > It’s been a while since I watched [this video](https://youtu.be/G9vehIbDkNY) (JP Starts at about 6:30), but I think that’s where I got the idea he was a holocaust denier, or at least supportive of holocaust deniers. I’m no fan of JP, but how are you seeing holocaust denial there? He literally says that it happened. ---
**Author:** ![Razncain](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/9d8465/32.png) [@Razncain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Razncain)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2020, 1:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jordan-peterson/847650/77 "2020-02-12T01:39:11Z")
> [@orcenio](#): > > I still consider him a grifter. > > He was always a [wealthy tenured professor at UofT](https://www.ontariosunshinelist.com/people/bsfytg) but lying about Canada’s gender laws gave him a platform to sell his brand of self-help political conservatism to vulnerable youth who, in-turn, made him a pop intellectual rock star and **filthy rich**. Ever since, his [self-help grifting never stopped](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EXiV378ALDQ): NYT best sellers, daily interviews with international media, tens of thousands of dollars of speaking fees, millions in free money as a monthly allowance via patreon by enamored fans. > > Like a TV preacher all his failed business adventures and wealth generation enviably involves milking it from his flock. He might believe what he preaches only because grifters are too invested to honestly evaluate their predatory actions. Perhaps Canada should borrow Jim Jefferies. If you have about [40 seconds](https://youtu.be/QO9j1SLxEd0?t=277) to spare, that’s how long it took Jim to have Jordan Peterson admit that he maybe he was wrong. Even better, if you’ve got 6 minutes to spare, watch the whole video. In order to cope through the Trump era, I prefer comedians these days to catch up on the news and issues. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Melbourne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5e925/32.png) [@Melbourne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melbourne)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2020, 2:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jordan-peterson/847650/78 "2020-02-12T02:26:59Z")
> [@pool](#): > > The coma thing reminds me of something I only learned of recently. I’m sure most of you have heard of electroshock therapy. > > But it was only recently I heard and read about Insulin shock therapy where depressives and especially schizophrenics were given overdoses of insulin in order to be put in a coma with a goal of helping them, quite fascinating actually. > > There were positive results for some, not so much for others, mostly because of a lot of follow-up care but it’s amazing how far we have come from a lot of pseudoscience. > > [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insulin\_shock\_therapy](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insulin_shock_therapy) And, since people didn’t know if it was the seizures that were good, or the coma that was good or the memory loss that was good, or why electoshock therapy works at all, and because it’s what depressed people think they want anyway, there was also [Deep Sleep Therapy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_sleep_therapy), where the patient was just put in a medically induced coma for a while. Which isn’t done now because (a) it didn’t work as well as hoped, and (b) being bed-ridden in a coma is bad for you and killed too many people. ---
**Author:** ![pool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pool/32/4152_2.png) [@pool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pool)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2020, 4:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jordan-peterson/847650/79 "2020-02-12T04:25:39Z")
> [@Melbourne](#): > > And, since people didn’t know if it was the seizures that were good, or the coma that was good or the memory loss that was good, or why electoshock therapy works at all, and because it’s what depressed people think they want anyway, there was also [Deep Sleep Therapy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_sleep_therapy), where the patient was just put in a medically induced coma for a while. > > Which isn’t done now because (a) it didn’t work as well as hoped, and (b) being bed-ridden in a coma is bad for you and killed too many people. Wow that’s actually extremely terrifying. ---
**Author:** ![PitJ](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/e9bcb4/32.png) [@PitJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PitJ)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2020, 12:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jordan-peterson/847650/80 "2020-02-13T12:58:40Z")
> [@F.U.Shakespeare](#): > > I agree, that interviewer was rude, and dishonest. Appreciate your noting that both sides do that. > > But at least Newman was in the presence of the person she was insulting and twisting the words of. Would that Rush Limbaugh ever granted that courtesy. This interview was the first thing I heard/saw about Jordan Peterson, and I must admit I was thoroughly impressed about the calm and cool he maintained while Ms Newman tried to put things he didn’t say into his mouth, or twisting those he said into different meanings. I found his reaction really masterful as it kept the subject on a straight course, without any PC pandering, gender pronouns submission, or other points that were apparently the interviewer’s intention to be pushed onto him. Then I started to look for other things he said or authored. I am well aware of the danger of enclosing oneself within a confirmation bias bubble and always try to retain a meta level view, but I must say some of the things he said made sense to me. Being born in the 60s I was raised under the “pull-yourself-up” theme mentioned above, meaning “stop whining, don’t try to blame others for your own faults, start with yourself, work on it hard and you’ll get everything done”. Works fine for me, and hearing Peterson telling this to kids the age of my own ones was really encouraging because I still think that the method works. His criticism of the gender pronoun issue highlights one of my points above. He says “people feel oppressed if they feel they are not addressed with the right pronoun. So what if they are? Everybody is oppressed in some way. Stop whining and get over it! Plus, stop oppressing others with your need for your personal pronoun. There are more important things in life.” Pressuring people into some specific language because of someone else’s windchill oppression is a sort of language fascism which he detests. I wholeheartedly agree. Furthermore, the point that he said things (DNA and entwined snakes? Haven’t heard that but also didn’t look for it tbh) that seem strange doesn’t automatically convert everything else he says into BS. We all say things some of which are foolish, and some of which are wise. Does any of the dear readers of this want to be judged solely by the stupid things he did? I for my part wish him the best and a good recovery because I think that voices like his should be heard as they complete the picture. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jordan-peterson/847650.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jordan-peterson/847650.md?page=5)