I’d like to thank Hellestal for their thoughtful post. I’d heard of Peterson, but I hadn’t closely followed what the deal was with him. I know the left hates him, but I find the modern identity politics left rather intolerant so to me that wasn’t necessarily a mark against him. From what I’d heard of his ideas, some of them seemed to make sense and some of them didn’t, but I couldn’t have said anything more than that. But I wasn’t aware that he played a role in helping deradicalize young men in hate groups, so that’s quite interesting, and definitely a positive thing about him.
But to follow on Bryan Ekers’s post, I will say that I get the impression that Peterson plays to right-wing American stereotypes of Canada being somehow unfree or not having free speech. From what I understand, he promoted the idea that this Canadian law protecting gender expression would somehow criminalize using the wrong pronoun, and like Bryan Ekers, I think this is ludicrous. He’s one of the very few people I’ve heard make this suggestion; I haven’t heard anything like that in the French-language press, for one, despite the fact that we do also have conservative/anti-social justice columnists who would certainly love to attack the current federal government if it actually tried to force people to use identity politics concepts. So I feel that Peterson is using this issue to whip his (mostly American) right-wing audience into a frenzy, and maybe somewhat dishonestly so.
For what it’s worth, I don’t personally think he’s dishonest.
I think he’s pathologically paranoid.
I’ve known people who were just furiously sincere about their crazy-ass beliefs. And because their beliefs are crazy, even while they maintain a high-functioning and successful life in every other way, they’re accused of making shit up. But that wasn’t the case at all. They weren’t trolling, weren’t trying to rile people up. It’s just that their craziness, combined with an otherwise stable/successful situation, stuck others as dishonest. “How could he actually believe that?” kind of thing. For Peterson, this effect gets magnified by the ideological gap between him and his critics, but the core is still deep paranoia and suspicion of everything he sees as “ideology”.
I can’t stand much YouTube, but I read his new book and have been flipping through his old book, a lot of it written at Harvard in the 1990s, and the structure for his ideas strikes me as already formed. He is what he used to be. He hasn’t changed. The zeitgeist changed, and he became an emergent property of the internet. The world changed around him and catapulted him to fame, with all his psychic foibles intact.
I hadn’t heard of him until very recently but I did watch theChannel 4 Cathy Newman interview and outside of Christopher Hitchens I’ve never seen an interviewer get so thoroughly thrashed.
Not knowing him outside of that I thought his points were perfectly reasonable and he came across as a liberal. There was certainly nothing particularly right-wing about what he said. However, as can be seen from this interview, many people seem ill-equipped these days to deal with nuanced positions. You either accept the stated position wholeheartedly and all the implications that stem from it or risk the ensuing backlash.
Newman was a shambles and an embarrassment on this occasion (and I normally quite like her). She seemed ill-prepared and unable to change her preconceived ideas about what he must believe. Her worst fault was her inability to formulate a coherent summary of what Peterson *actually *thinks. I thought Peterson was clear and exact, Newman was desperate to put words in his mouth and he pulled her up time after time. His explanation of the gender pay gap and criticism of “equality of outcome” was particularly clear I thought.
One part of the interview that sort of summed-up her approach was her saying (from 15:15 in that video)
“I’ve been listening very carefully and what I’m hearing is…” and then proceeded to show that she either hadn’t listened or hadn’t heard at all.
You wouldn’t have, unless you are alt-right, or have family who post his Youtube clips on Facebook.
He’s a professor of clinical psychology and may even be highly accomplished in his field, but he is best known for being a pop intellectual focusing on alt-right bugbears such as “safe spaces” and “cultural Marxists”.
Stir in plenty of snake oil until the mixture pours out easily
Half bake
Best eaten at Howdy Doody Time (‘Howdy Doody’ was the perceptive nickname given to Peterson by some Northern Cree Indians he worked with.)
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Peterson is a fantastic thinker and very articulate.
His contempt and outright hatred for both Nazis/Fascists and Communists is both visceral and well researched. His insights into the minds of such evil people is amazing.
Calling him “a self-help guru” is simplistic to a fault. I’m reading (actually listening) “12 Rules” and he’s constantly hitting you on the knees with a mallet, there’s very little “you’re great, you’re wonderful, you deserve happiness,” but rather “stop being pathetic and do something.” Fan-fucking-tastic.
He analyzes religious texts in a profound way and draws wide-ranging similarities.
The Cathy Newman interview shows how he never fell into traps. He’s not misogynistic, but he tells men not be ashamed of being men.
He know his psychology and biology.
Judging by his supercilious writing style, Nathan Robinson is also an absurd, pompous blowhard. Also, restating someone’s views in very simple language and then turning around and calling the views obvious is a trick you can pull on anyone.
Although, I will grant Robinson one thing; he, at least, has actually bothered to read Peterson’s work before criticising it, which is something many of his loudest critics evidently haven’t done.
Robinson quotes Peterson directly, at great length, including a transcript of a 17 minute speech which frankly comes off as rantings of a person you would move away from if you ran into them at a social event.
But perhaps Robinson is being unfair, picking out rare passages where the genius Peterson stumbles. Perhaps many other passages from Maps of Meaning are deep and insightful. Could any of his fans sum up those insights for me? You know, in the sense one could say “Darwin showed how random variation and natural selection could account for the vast variety of living things” or “Freud showed how the unconscious affects our behavior in a much more active sense than had been previously imagined.”
Right now, all I can see is some dad-like “buck up, boyo” type advice, which is good as far as it goes, but won’t really be of much help to someone who is suffering from, say, severe depression. Also a sort of confused re-hash of Jung and Campbell. But I could be wrong, so please enlighten me what insights he has that place him in the company of Aristotle or Kant?
You’re poisoning the well hard, man.
“12 rules” is an easier book, but, I won’t even try to tell you about him because your post is already setting him up to fail.
How am I poisoning the well? The man is being touted as a genius on a par with the great thinkers of the western canon. Based on what I’ve read this seems like bullshit, but I’ve never read the man himself, so I could be wrong. So I’m asking his fans to set me straight on his profound ideas.
If 12 rules is a better book, please explain to me how it differs from a million other self help books out there. What advice can you get from it that you can’t get from a father, coach, martial arts teacher, etc? Again, I don’t see anything besides “straighten your shit out, kid” which is probably necessary advice from time to time but hardly the stuff of genius. Again though I sincerely admit I could be missing something.
It’s telling to me that his fans in this thread haven’t touched on any actual ideas. They seem instead to admire how he maintains his cool in interviews, even when he’s shouted at or treated unfairly–which I don’t doubt he sometimes is. I suspect he’s popular not because he’s a deep thinker but because he’s a charismatic culture warrior in the interminable fight between conservatives and progressives. He opposes trans people and feminists and sticks up for an ideal of masculinity that many people feel is threatened by changing mores. He seems like a smarter, more polite version of Ben Shapiro or Milo.
In general, one should not rely on second-hand information when first-hand is available. Instead of asking other people what he says, why not read him yourself?
Check your local library if you don’t want to spend money.
If you are interested. If you’re not interested, it doesn’t seem fair to ask other people to explain it to you.
My reading list is very long and my life is short. Even if some billionaire were to pay me to do nothing but read I probably still wouldn’t finish all the books I’m genuinely interested in reading. I don’t see the profit in delving into massive tomes written by a man who gives every indication of being a charlatan. For all I know, Dianetics contains valuable insights, but I’ll never find out.
I don’t see why asking for a summation or a brief description is unreasonable. Nathan Robinson read both books, quotes Peterson at length, and I’m not seeing any there there. I find it telling that none of his fans are willing to actually say what his great insights are.
I’ve read Darwin and some books on evolution. I’m no biologist but I think I’ve got a basic grasp on the concept and if someone asked me to explain it, I’d give it a shot if I had the time. I think it’s telling that Peterson’s fans can’t do that and get defensive when you ask what he’s about, or what was so unfair about Robinson’s takedown.
But you’re right about one thing. I’m not that interested. Honestly I just joined the thread to post the Robinson article, which I thought was funny and informative. But I find myself repeating myself, so I’ll probably bow out, unless new new things come to light.
This week, finally, Cathy Newman spoke about this interview and acknowledged it “wasn’t my finest hour”. Which is about fair.
That was where I first came across Peterson. I thought it was a real moment - so many bullshit zeitgeist assumptions trashed in 30 minutes.
I follow him now on Twitter and look at some more of his interviews on Youtube. I find him intellectually honest, refreshing and absolutely mainstream.
I watched that interview and it was the first time I’ve heard of Jordan Peterson or Cathy Newman. I got the impression that Peterson is a genius and that Newman is an idiot.
My impressions of Peterson were based on his opinions that (1) people should not have to use manufactured words to refer to different gender identities. Outside academia, this does not seem to be an issue, and I agree, but how much of an issue is it really… and (2) Peterson’s low opinion of studying the humanities, which I do disagree with.
His book does not really touch either of these topics. He is a gifted writer and his advice seems practical. He is both learned and self-serving, very aware of the impression he wishes to make. He is no Aristotle. He is not Kant. He may be a genius, but David Frum describes conservative thought more succinctly. I’m enjoying his book. I am not going to seek out further Internet interviews.
