How is Jordan Peterson viewed among philosophers?
I'm a psychology student and I'm curious about the reason(s) why so many people on the right feel aligned with Peterson. I see people using incel language and the like (e.g. calling women as "females"). Now, it's not that I consider people on the "right" as incels but they do think of themselves as "rightists". Why is Peterson so attractive to the right? It seems to me that there are negative sentiments on him among leftists. So I'm just basically curious of the thoughts of him in here. By the way, I don't associate his viewership with incels but there are quite a "few".
Comments (206)
For example, I maintain organisms evolved, and human beings in particular, were imbued with a moral sense by evolution in a tribal context, and that religion is an expression of the innate moral sense.
Peterson describes Christian religion as logos - that one can interpret as the moral discourse of Western civilisation. Okay, but, in Christianity, Christ is logos, and this relates in turn to John 1:1 "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God."
Peterson claims that it is impossible to define values outside of this context, suggesting perhaps - he believes in God, and Christ, and that the logos he refers to is not merely the literary foundation of Western civilisation, but is actually a reference to the divine. When asked directly if he believes in God his answer was typically entertaining, but less than conclusive.
I maintain the basis of morality is evolutionary, and consequently, universal. Christian religion is the moral discourse of Western civilisation, and has enormous significance - no doubt. But religion is an expression of the innate moral sense, not the author of morality.
In short, I think Peterson has gotten hung up on reconciling the divine to his psychological, sociological, literary...etc, conception of reality - and consequently he fails to discover the deeper mechanics at play, the fundamental evolutionary basis of all morality, that is, the need of surviving organisms to be correct to a causal reality, or be rendered extinct.
[quote=Jules Evans] Even a well-meaning intellectual like Jordan Peterson can’t resist but profit off the culture wars. It's just too easy money. There’s the Jordan Peterson who writes earnest but mediocre books like 12 Rules for Living, and there’s the online Jordan Peterson, who goes into extraordinary paroxysms about post-modernism and social justice warriors. And it’s this latter Jordan Peterson who is truly raking it in.[/quote]
https://www.philosophyforlife.org/blog/culture-war-profiteering
JP makes his distaste for the extreme left very clear, he talks about the worth of traditional values and he talks about the value of old stories such as those in the bible. He talks about the importance of free speech, the importance of family and community, personal responsibility, the objective nature of morality. Even though JP is almost certainly left-wing (liberal), it's easy to see why the right-wing likes him. I have no idea why you're talking about incels, nor do I know why incels would like him.
For the leftwing, it's obvious why they would dislike JP and there are many things they dislike. Besides being openly ridiculed by him on a regular basis, he attacks intersectional feminism, communism and Marx, the gender pay gap, the laws on transgender language, activism culture, the degree to which the left is nurture orientated and so on. This forum is exceedingly leftwing and actually quite radically leftwing, JP is not going to be viewed favourably here.
Wrote on this here and here. I think the reasons he's popular and attractive to the right+centrists are detached from whatever his scholarly merits are.
I don't think "females" is incel language. I don't like the word myself (but I am not a native speaker, so what do I know); however, I think it is more commonly used as a politically correct, age- and social status-neutral way of referring to, well, females - as opposed to "girls" and "women." Same with "males," of course.
(Sorry, this is actually a deeper OP than I expected, but that was my initial reaction to just the title).
Why is Jordan Peterson this lightning rod to the leftists, that furiously denounce and ridicule him? Why are people even talking about this Canadian academic?
a) The simple fact is that Jordan Peterson came into the media focus and public discourse thanks to his opposition on a bill in Canada " Act to amend the Canadian Human Rights Act and the Criminal Code", which basically was a critique of political correctness and identity politics in legislation.
And of course critique of PC culture in an obscure bill in the neighboring country of the US still got a lot of attention in the highly polarized era of Trump. This made him something of a lightning rod, because conservative values from an academic person are more rare these days. Add one famous interview that became very popular in social media, and then "Jordan Peterson" became to be this "controversial" person on the right.
b) In an age where right-wing discourse was dominated by a populist simpleton like Trump and Fox News, there weren't many intellectually interesting commenters in the public debate. Hence Peterson filled that void. In a similar manner, a leftist biologist named Bret Weinstein came to the national attention (in the US) during the 2017 Evergreen State College protests, and afterwards was someone that was interviewed a lot as a critic of present PC culture and other modern leftist eccentrics.
c) Thirdly of course his actual work got interest and his books on self-help (like 12 Rules for Life) became best sellers and created a following, which curiously was portrayed to be "right-wing", which is a rather dubious portrayal.
What a fucking surprise.
-------------------------------------------------
I think everyone else got this covered. He wrote a self-help book but a bunch of alt-right losers bought instead a manifesto.
JP is probably responsible for a lot of the extremely low-quality political raving you see on here, e.g. the recently exiled Rafaela Leon.
The right like him because of a substitution error that they all seems to make now: criticising the left by criticising Marxism, then characterising the left well beyond Marxism. And they like him because his real target is not Marxists but decency. JP is famous because of his shortcomings as a professor of psychology, which led to a meltdown in front of his students which was seen instead as a call-to-arns by every misogynist, homophobe and transphobe in the world.
As a result, anyone who isn't a misogynist, homophobe or transphobe is now a Marxist whether that label makes any sense or not.
The other attraction to right-wing nutjobs is that JP presents conspiracy theory as philosophy. He takes old anti-Semitic myths and presents them anew with communists as the secret evil who are controlling everything: the media, academia, education, our minds. He has the special glasses, has awoken from the slumber that this underground power has kept everyone else in, and has an explanation for why you find yourself disagreeing with so much of the egalitarianism that you see: it's not that you're a backward asshole; it's not even political correctness gone mad... It's commies! And we know how evil commies are.
If logical fallacy and anti-Semitic conspiracy theory fucked and had a kid, it would be Jordan Peterson.
I think the relation with incel culture comes from an interview with JP where he showed sympathy with the demand (voiced by some incels) to be assigned a sexual partner by the government. As usual with JP, it's hard to say whether he was just doing some psychological analysis of the demand or expressing some kind of endorsement.
Quoting Judaka
It's odd that I very rarely see someone defending JPs philosophy in it's substance, I only ever see people claiming that he is viewed unfavourably because of his politics. As a result, I have no idea what people who consider JP an important or convincing philosopher actually believe.
Quoting ssu
What's dubious about the portrayal? Peterson styles himself as a culture warrior against the left.
When I went to University, Jung's name was strictly verboten in the psychology department. The only place he ever came up in the curriculum was in Comparative Religion. I personally place Jung in the milieu of gnosticism.
Quoting Echarmion
I suppose that makes sense.
Quoting Echarmion
JP really likes focusing on personal responsibility, that seems to me to be the central theme of his philosophy. He believes that by adopting personal responsibility, you give your life meaning. Mostly, his philosophies are very self-help orientated as far as I can tell. Sometimes it seems as though he is suggesting one should focus on personal responsibility to the exclusion of fixing any social issues.
When he's not talking about self-help, he can be extraordinarily difficult to follow. Whether it's the archetypes, religion, morality, politics or the psychoanalysis. I've listened to JP quite a lot but I would have a hard time accurately paraphrasing his views on any of these things, he talks self-help or anti-left or anti-identity politics most of the time. He gives little bits of wisdom but they're not necessarily part of a larger structure.
I would say most of his usefulness as a cultural commentator has been the self-help, anti-left and points which seem to come from his background in psychology. His philosophies outside of the self-help, he has them but I don't think they're well known or even totally understood by even the people who like him.
Sounds like an excellent department! Gnosticism seems right though.
Jordan Peterson rose to prominence among the right (including the anti-SJW center/left) partially due to a coincidence: as a professor he protested some type of mandate about invented pronouns during a time when "anti-wokeness" was at it's peak on social media. The anti-wokeness crowd instantly took a liking to Jordan Peterson because he was an academic authority that was preaching against invented pronouns (the anti-feminist/SJW crowd was desperate for an academic counter to intersectional feminist theory).
The alt-right didn't really exist when his first protest went viral; at the time the main driver of the movement was simply a rejection of progressivism gone wild. Peterson merely rejected the use of new/invented pronouns, but the narrative quickly escalated to the idea that he rejected using the pronouns that his transsexual students presented as (he/she, or they upon request). Because of this, Peterson instantly became popular both with the large and amorphous anti-SJW center, but especially popular with any anti-SJW element that was also transphobic (and by extension, the overlaps of transphobia).
With the momentum from his original viral exposure, he naturally started exporting his various ideas in conversations and interviews, many of which take the form of religious or conservative metaphors (as a talk-therapist, simple ideas to help troubled people focus/improve is his specific area of expertise). But this was also the time period where the alt-right was beginning to coalesce and solidify. It would take too long to recount all the bat-shit ideological developments of the alt-right movement (and it's not a pretty picture), so in short, Peterson was one of the original anti-SJW rallying-poles that conservative-leaning (and especially young and stupid) anti-SJW's gathered and grouped around.
While Peterson thought he was exporting his clinical talk-therapy ideas to a culture that needed them, his "followers" were actually festering in darkened internet-corners, fuelling and reinforcing their shared delusions. They parlayed their starting nest-egg of sexism/racism/transphobia/anti-semitism/xenoiphobia into full blown Nazi ideology. There is actually a specific moment that in my opinion marked the official beginning of the alt-right (but at the very least it marks the point when Peterson was confronted with the reality of his followers' agendas, and also the point when the alt-right movement abandoned him and started searching for actual white supremacists). It's captured on video:
The absurdity and specificity of the question shows some of the wacky conspiratorial depths that the proto alt-right was immersed in at the time, and Peterson's "failure to answer the question" was interpreted by them as a complete betrayal/sign that he is the enemy. He was abandoned by the now minted "alt-right" overnight. The clip itself was a kind of formative signal that in my opinion formally launched the alt-right as a movement and unified its direction. Them that bandwagon'd to abandon Peterson over the above clip became the definitive alt-right base. The rest is our horrendous recent history...
Peterson was so easily misunderstood that he even misunderstood himself. He suddenly found himself being asked to make extensive political commentary (low-hanging anti-marxist rhetoric was crowd pleasing, so he kept playing the hits) but he didn't actually have any political experience or understanding outside of his niche as a clinical therapist. Drawing on his idiosyncratic religious and conservative therapeutic metaphors was all he could do to be persuasive as a speaker (and it did earn him some basic wins against basic idiots), but it turned out that experience in talk-therapy does not a political scientist make. He was completely unaware how thoroughly he was being misunderstood by his followers and detractors alike, and he was therefore unable to navigate the landscape. (Ben Shapiro is an example of a similar early alt-right rally-point, but because he actually understood what was happening, he was able to successfully dissociate himself from it).
Being in over his head from the get-go, it was all he could do to make money from his notoriety (he likely couldn't resist not shutting-up even if he understood what was happening from the beginning, and that he was entirely in-over-his-head). The philosophers that have had conversations with Peterson tend to bump up against his arbitrary use of metaphor and religion (seldom or never being able to correctly categorize the therapy-centric nature of his concoctions). Peterson himself believes that his borderline spiritual ideas have some kind of real world truth merit outside of being emotionally useful to some of his patients, so he can't even himself correctly situate the "truth" component of his ideas and worldview. That is or was his cardinal error, but really it's all one big tragic-comedy of errors...
I'm not sure what he has been saying since his return from Russia (where as far as I know, he spent over a year detoxing from a "clonazepam" addiction which he was using it to treat his mounting anxiety), but that's how it all went down.
Do you always just pick a word and guess the argument rather than reading? I never said he was anti-Semitic.
Are you trying to suggest that a large percentage of JP's base was alt-right? If so, do you have any evidence for this and if not, why are you talking about the alt-right as though it plays a huge role in JP's success?
Quoting VagabondSpectre
He specifically rejected them on the basis of free speech, I can easily find him saying this more than once, I can also find him saying that he would call a transgender person by the pronouns they asked provided it was within reason. But you are making the claim that the reason Peterson became popular with the anti-SJW centre was that the narrative was that he refused to use he/she as asked to do so, so, can you show me anything to verify this?
I specifically explained how and why JP played a role in the emergence of the alt-right, which schism'd off from the anti-SJW crowd:
Quoting VagabondSpectre
Quoting Judaka
Free speech was included in his initial argument/protest, but what made him fervent was, as he explained, the fact that being forced to memorize a slew of new pronouns and to tip-toe around them was too much of a cognitive burden to expect anyone to endure. That was his argument as a psychologist (it's nested in the original viral video IIRC). I am also aware that he never refused to call people by their preferred pronouns within reason, but that nuance was lost on just about everyone who interviewed him (and it attracted some of the ideological ingredients of the alt-right toward him early on). He wasn't aware enough of what was happening to properly clarify even that. The subject of transexuality/transgender in general has been a singularity of controversy and noise for about a decade, so it's understandable why he could not control that aspect of his own narrative.
But what I'm pointing to is the overall stochastic effects that the rapidly warping and escalating narrative around Peterson had on some groups and individuals within the anti-SJW crowd. The video where some random idiot asks Peterson about the Holodomor is around the point when the escalating narrative boiled over completely, and it had already long been out of Peterson's hands...
Look at him: that characteristic earnest face, the tense body, never really smiling, a certain coldness and distance in his demeanor. It's what right-wingers, esp. those who are more far out on the right tend to have in common.
If you're a psychology student, you should be able to have access to many studies of the psychology of right-wingers, and specifically of right-wing authoritarians.
E.g.
The relationship between emotional abilities and right-wing and prejudiced attitudes.
Egocentric victimhood is linked to support for Trump, study finds
Quoting VagabondSpectre
It doesn't matter that you "specifically" explained your narrative, I asked for any evidence. If you don't have any, that's fine, I was just asking. Just realise that if you don't have any, your entire narrative is your word and since I disagree with pretty much everything you said, if you can't back up any of it, there's really nothing for me to do except "okay".
Quoting VagabondSpectre
He specifically, repeatedly and consistently said the major problem was that the law policed language by forcing people to speak in the mandated way as opposed to forbidding them from speaking in a certain way. The slew of new pronouns was not the main issue he had but what makes you think it was? Do you have any evidence to support your claim? I know I can find a lot to back up mine if I need to.
Quoting VagabondSpectre
I would consider myself anti-SJW though I think what people mean by SJW is generally intersectional feminism. I also actually know enough about the alt-right to say that their ideology is NOT based on anti-SJW ideas. I automatically assume anyone talking about the alt-right has no idea what the alt-right is, nothing personal but it's become a term for "something I don't like" for too many. We're talking about anti-immigration, anti-multiculturalism, white nationalism, white supremacy.
The alt-right is not exactly that new, it clearly parallels neo-nazi ideology. I don't know about the dark web but Reddit and 4chan are commonly cited to be the home of the alt-right and the alt-right had a presence there before 2016. People like Richard Spencer were already talking about the alt-right well before Peterson became famous. I think I'm borderline able to prove that your claims are just impossible to be correct but do you have literally any evidence to support what you're saying?
It is worth mentioning a phrase from him that applies a lot today:
"The historical education of most people is so inadequate that it is even a crime."
(Jordan B, Peterson)
JP's specific appeal to the alt-right has been boasted by none other than JP himself, who has rationalised that appeal as him actively reaching out to that audience in particular in an effort to make them less racist, misogynistic, etc. Utter bullshit, of course.
I don't like the alt-right, I really despise their ideology and reject it as strongly as you do. I feel similarly about intersectional feminism, at least as an ideological group, ironically, for mostly the same reasons. Militant identity politics, prejudicial, hateful, consumed by race and sex categories and the similarities go on. I will admit, I have no idea what JP is talking about with the post-modern Marxists and I don't know why he didn't just call out intersectional feminism and I don't agree with him on everything. However, his criticisms of the far left, and your ideology, seem spot on to me. It has nothing to do with the alt-right and if they also dislike the far left, that's about the only similarity they share with Peterson, they share it with me too but it means nothing.
The reasons why JP appeals to the alt-right are a little separable from JP's principles themselves. My fault with him is far less about his conclusions than his arguments. Nonetheless those arguments are identikit right-wing ones: 1) criticise X by criticising Y and associating X with Y, then proceed on the basis that X has been criticised; 2) insist that X is the public face of a more sinister Y conspiracy that has its tendrils everywhere.
If you think that pointing to anything you don't like and hissing "Marxism" is smart, he's the guy for you.
I don't think you know what my ideology is. Although you have good reason to know what it is not, which might be good enough for you. And Peterson. And the alt-right.
Ok so JBP's goal is actually to make everybody more racist and sexist, ok got it. Life must be so easy when the opposition are all Nazis and racists. Never any ambiguity.
Quoting Wayfarer
Heresy. Why can't kids listen to serious philosophers instead of this pop psychology/religion mumbo-jumbo? How dare a thinker's target audience be the general public and not the academic world. Anyway, just show those kids some Hegel or Kant to get them on the right track. Maybe go through Metaphysics of Morals with them. Hopefully Peterson hasn't poisoned their minds too much at this point.
Quoting BitconnectCarlos
Again, that isn't in anything I said.
Earlier, I wrote:
Quoting Kenosha Kid
Since then, one JP disciple has interpreted my statement that Peterson recycles anti-Semitic conspiracy theories as an accusation that he's anti-Semitic, and now you're interpreting my mention of the fact that JP himself said he is reaching out to white supremacists and misogynists as him trying to make people racist and misogynist.
It's very difficult for me not to say, 'I told you so.' Oh look, I said it.
If you want to see why JP is looked down on, it's because he argues like this and appeals to people who argue like this.
You asked for evidence of a claim that I didn't make. In my view, the alt-right was still coalescing, and really began to take off around the time of the video clip/Holodomor question (the boiling point). Given that they abandoned Peterson as a matter of course, I can't very well give you evidence that his base was "alt-right" before it really existed, nor did I aver anything about a "large percentage" of his base. I'm well aware that neo-nazis and white supremacists have existed for decades, including Spencer, but they were stuck far on the fringe until the alt-right got going (in recent American history).
Quoting Judaka
Skip to 32:00.
You can see throughout the video how reliant Peterson is on his views as a "personality psychologist". He talks about language use from that perspective, and likes to draw distinctions between singular pronouns and "linguistic control" he says is found in dictatorships like the Soviet Union.
Here's another, skip to 25:20
From Wiki:
Quoting wiki
It's not strictly the invented pronouns that he was objecting to, it was the compelled use of language to begin with (which he sees as a psychological intrusion). The singular pronouns were just at the center of it all. In two of the three sources I gave Peterson clarifies that he is not averse to using preferred standard pronouns, and in one he states that he normally uses the pronoun that people present as.
Quoting Judaka
You do realize that the alt-right is largely a reactionary movement against SJW/intersectional feminist woke-ism right? The right flank of the SJW crowd broke off and veered far right. Being opposed to intersectional feminism myself, I don't think I'm accusing the entire SJW crowd of habouring alt-right ideas. But how can you deny that the alt-right is a reactionary movement against their extreme portrayal of social justice movements?
Quoting Kenosha Kid
You, and your comments - are nasty and meaningless!
To hear such criticism of this argument format from you of all people... I assume you are just rephrasing the comments about Marxism. As I already indicated, that was unfortunate, because I really have no idea what he was on about. I thought saying that would be enough for you but no, you are just repeating the same thing I already gave you. Peterson did not just say that intersectional feminism is bad because "Marxism" but I do think it's fair to say that he did use Marxism as a boogeyman, however, I'm not going to say he has nothing of value to say just because he did.
That you're far left, I'm certain, that you're an ideologue following intersectional feminism, I mean, it wouldn't be too hard to make a case for it but it's rarely easy to ever know 100%. I don't disagree with intersectional feminism as a piece of truth, what I dislike its appropriation as a political ideology. Hearing you go on about fascism, homophobia, transphobia, sexism and racism, white privilege are red flags and they're near omnipresent with you. You support BLM, you appear to be mostly in agreement with other feminists here. You talk about ethnic histories, you commentate on social issues by breaking things down into social/political groups. I'm pretty much past the point of being unwilling to call you an intersectional feminist even if you won't say it yourself. I'm not calling you that because I think I no longer have to contend with anything you say by doing so but really, give me something else if you want, I won't persist in being wrong just for the sake of it.
You don't need to. Simply quote an example of my suspected intersectional feminism so that I and others understand what you're talking about.
As for the rest, this seems to conform to the "if you oppose the alt-right, you must be hard left" argumentation. I'll not bother to dissuade you of it; there are more thoughtful people here to have those conversations with.
Thanks for clarifying, anyway.
Quoting Judaka
Actually he did (e.g. "Radical feminism [is] Marxism in another guide"), but if you agree with the gist, there's probably not much point arguing the details.
Quoting VagabondSpectre
I don't know if I've been misunderstood or what but I felt that this was the point I was arguing, I agree with your conclusions.
Quoting VagabondSpectre
You just argued that what made him fervent was being forced to memorise new pronouns and this is what I disagreed with. I do agree that his main problem was the use of compelled language.
Quoting VagabondSpectre
I realise that's your view but let's return to what I said about proving that JP had a large alt-right basis. If you are not arguing that a large percentage of JP's base is alt-right then why does your "long take on JP" focus almost entirely on the alt-right?
Quoting VagabondSpectre
Quoting VagabondSpectre
Quoting VagabondSpectre
If JP had a relatively small and misguided alt-right following which has absolutely nothing to do with him then why is your entire "take on JP" focused on his relationship with them? Why did you give a history of the alt-right and label it as your take on JP? Combined with your other insults towards him, what is supposed to be made of this?
Quoting VagabondSpectre
As I said, the term alt-right existed before 2016, let alone 2018. It cannot be a reactionary movement to anything Peterson was involved in, at best, the anti-SJW movement pushed certain people towards the alt-right but I don't know anything about that. What I do know is that the alt-right were very much alive before Peterson, mainly because Milo Yianoppolis was accused of being alt-right well before 2018.
https://www.npr.org/2016/08/26/491452721/the-history-of-the-alt-right
This is an article talking about "the history of the alt-right"... in 2016! Can you clarify for me whether you dispute this?
Quoting Kenosha Kid
Quoting Judaka
Umm, are you kidding me? If I can't avoid this comment when I literally condemn the alt-right in the last comment, then it's a lost cause. You really are hopeless.
Quoting Kenosha Kid
I'm sure they can get the idea by what I listed.
Quoting Kenosha Kid
Here you heavily imply that he reaches out to the alt-right for nefarious reasons.
Quoting Kenosha Kid
So you're saying he's not reaching out to them from an intellectual/philosophical angle to make them less racist or misogynistic, so you are effectively calling him a racist or indifferent to racism.
Given that your entire appraisal is based not on any affirmation of my ideals but on what I stand against -- racism, fascism, etc. -- seems pretty on-the-nose to me.
Quoting Judaka
So you're making it up. Obviously I knew that, since I haven't posted on intersectional feminism once on this site. Just wanted you to be explicit that your proof that I have posted such comments is your assertion that I have done so.
Do you need clarity on what I meant, or is the point to wilfully misrepresent? I suspect the latter.
No, in my opinion JP rationalised his appeal to the alt-right post hoc. That is what I said. That is what I meant. No dishonest layer of interpretation needed.
You have repeatedly stated that you don't know about the relationship between Peterson and the alt-right, but are you at least aware that there is some sort of connection? (It's the answer to why Peterson is associated with the alt-right in the first place, while himself disavowing it).
My post chronicled the rise of the alt right as it intersected Peterson's claim and rise to fame. I thought I explained fairly clearly how once the proto alt-right elements of the SJW crowd (which was large and diverse) evolved toward ethnocentric ideology, before ultimately signalling their abandonment of Peterson.
Yes the alt-right as a term existed prior to Peterson's emergence on the scene, but he himself was an unwitting pivot point for the sudden rise of the alt-right in 2016-2017 and onward.
This is a stupid conversation so I'm going to drop it. Just try to be mindful of what you're implying when you write. I'm not the only poster on this thread who has commented on it.
Anyway.
Quoting Kenosha Kid
A lot of his points aren't actually about Marxism. His core philosophy is actually individualism and Christianity, but it's actually pretty deeply introspective. A main point of his is that one should try to fix themselves before and attain some degree of self-mastery before going out and trying to change the world. This is actually a pretty radical point that a lot of leftists hate and it has nothing to do with Marxism. Leftists only pay lip service to self-mastery or self-improvement; what's ultimately important to them is immediate socio-economic change. They don't see the link between the quality of change and the individuals behind it.
I am. I'm not responsible for disingenuous and unjustifiable interpretations of bad faith contributors. I am typically explicit and happy to clarify any point if you're interested, which you're not.
Quoting BitconnectCarlos
A lot of them are. At least, they are to him. Your example is not exempt. I would agree that a lot of the things he criticises as being covert Marxism are nothing to do with Marxism.
The aforementioned point about self-mastery can viewed as an attack or Marxism or not. I don't really care. It can be viewed on its own too, and I think it's good advice regardless of whether it's "really" an attack on Marxism or not. You have to admit there's a lot of extremely non-self reflective people out there pushing for vast social changes when they're essentially incapable of doing basic life tasks or establishing an inkling of self-mastery. This isn't me calling them poor; regardless of money some people are just complete messes and if they ever were in a position to make that change I think it would be insane to trust them to do a good job at it when everything else in their life is a complete mess. I don't care how well they understand Marx or various left-wing thinkers. That doesn't translate to performance/implementation.
As I said earlier, my issue with JP is less the targets of his criticism and more his argumentation. I agree, one can have self-mastery and not accuse those who wish to be sensitive to others of being commies. To my mind, being a self for one's self, a self for others, and an agent of change for others are part of the ongoing project of life. The idea that we have to focus on one is wrong. One can agree with self-improvement and still disagree with JP.
(To counter my accusation of intersectional feminism -- although I have no real problem with it as a project -- an analogy might be made with the feminism argument that society should not change to benefit a single man while a single woman is oppressed. There, I can't be a feminist and be a man who criticises feminism, and I know this because feminists keep telling me! :rofl: )
Quoting BitconnectCarlos
I'm a huge proponent of personal responsibility. However that includes a responsibility toward others and, as I said above, one can help others without having finished the unending project of helping oneself.
Quoting BitconnectCarlos
I'm not sure what you're getting at here. It seems like you're suggesting that Marxists are fuck-ups who can't sort themselves out so want to change the world for their benefit instead. I am sure there's people just like that but it's probably not generally true. I don't think Marxism would be very attractive to such people. Capitalism with a strong welfare system would be more beneficial.
Yes. I began watching a debate between him and Žižek, but I stopped because I couldn't stomach the way JP was misrepresenting Žižek's position. It was lame. If a student did that on a test, he wouldn't pass.
But then again, perhaps that's the whole point, and JP and right-wingers know that they are misrepresenting the other side, but they do so deliberately, as a debate tactic, a la Die Kunst, immer Recht zu behalten.
I'd go further and say it is partly because this is his MO that they find him so attractive.
Peterson is talking to young revolutionaries who have accomplished nothing notable and are yet intent on deconstructing the entire system and re-building in accordance with the vision of some author/authors that they like.
Quoting Kenosha Kid
Of course there's a responsibility to others. But how does it work, exactly? Are you responsible for a child in sub-saharan African? How about responsibility for the homeless in your town or region? Or are you more responsible for, say, a family member or a friend than a distant stranger? There's circles of responsibility, do you agree? Or are we equally responsible for everyone?
I stopped here, for the record. Whatever this paragraph is, it is propaganda, not discussion.
Quoting BitconnectCarlos
After a breakup of a long-term relationship, I was feeling sorry for myself and decided I needed to get out of my own head for a few months, so I went and volunteered in Tanzania. Pretty selfish reasons, you might say, and you'd be right. What seems less selfish is the sentiment expressed around the table of volunteers at our first meeting: "I want to make a difference." This is the romantic idea of volunteering: *I* can do something.
That motivation would lead to disillusionment. It isn't generally possible to do enough as one person to help so many who have so little. This is why communities like the volunteer community actually work: you help the community to help those who need it. You are a wheel in a bigger machine, nothing more, and while that dashes any romantic notions you might have, it works. It doesn't matter who you help, because you're part of a greater community that helps far more people than you ever could.
So the first part of my answer is that you don't need to do things alone, and that alleviates the need to choose to some extent.
The second part is that when you have systematic inequalities, oppression, injustice, etc. you have an opportunity to help not by focusing on individuals but by focusing on systems. This is why people seek reforms.
Closer to home, there are some great platforms to get involved with, such as putting people in touch with lonely elderly people (something my partner and I are looking into for after lockdown), or you can raise money for charity (I run marathons for Women's Aid which provides shelter and safety for women and their children fleeing domestic violence situations). There's tons to do. It doesn't matter so much what it is, so long as it helps. You're just a cog.
Or you can do nothing, that's valid too. Just focus on doing others no harm.
[Wheel in a cog? FFS KK!]
Thanks for the anecdote, and I don't mean that sarcastically, but I am actually curious to your answer here when it comes to responsibility. Do you consider yourself more responsible for people/problems in your own community as opposed to ones half way around the world? Do you owe more to your family or friends than complete strangers? I'm talking about Peter Singer's idea here of the "circle" or "expanding circle" of responsibility. I think if we take this to its logical beginning then responsibility starts or has its prime responsibility in the home.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7EaCVnw5n4
On the other hand, Peterson recognizes that what makes Trump great is the fact that he refrained from nuking Mexico (and hurricanes), his formidable business acumen, and the remarkable power of his intellect.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EebRtIK4o7c
I'm a global villager. I guess I base it first and foremost on the cause, maybe secondarily on proximity as a pragmatism. So yeah I'm planning on helping out elderly in my area, but not because I care about them more, rather under the assumption that other people in other areas will help there. From an organisation standpoint, that's what makes sense. But in terms of helping the poor, it makes sense to go to where the poorest are. And I wouldn't hold the loneliness of old people in my area above the poverty of children far away on the basis of proximity.
But what you're getting at is would I help kin first, friends second, neighbours third, etc. I'd say yes and no. Obviously I could help my family a bit: there's poor people with mental health issues in it, but I don't imagine I could do much long-term good. If you mean, would I help my father move a wardrobe even though there's starving Africans, obviously yes. But generally, no, I don't think that priority scales with proximity.
One message I can appreciate is when he speaks to young men and tells them that it is the taking of responsibility that gives meaning to adult life. This is an incredibly powerful message and runs counter to corporate and other nonsensical memes concerning the pursuit of self- (fill in the blank) as the end-all and be-all that predominate our culture.
Why is that relevant just to men, out of interest?
There seems to be an inordinate number of young men in their 20's doing little to nothing. Young women, OTOH, appear to have their act together more so, although (anecdotally) adolescence seems to be never-ending for many.
I know that whatever factors coalesced to retard the maturation of this last generation is of great interest to many of the social sciences.
The advice market for young(ish) women has been filled to the brim with self-help magazines and self-help books for a long time. But there is no similar parallel for young men.
Yes, young girls have been taught forever how to be pretty and submissive. It's past due time young boys be taught how to be machos.
I was talking about this subject under the pretense that the problems/causes are equal, so we're not talking scale of problem here. For instance, if there was the same problem of the same magnitude that needed solving both in your own community and also in a community halfway around the world, which should you attend to? Presumably the one in your own community. If all those problems in your community are solved, it makes sense to go to the other community to help them solve it.
What would not make sense would be if there were severe problems in one's own household and one goes halfway around the world to help another random family solve a similar problem. Do you see what I'm getting at?
I suggest you read some women's magazines, esp. those secular ones targeted for teenagers and younger women.
No trace of submissiveness there.
Lol. Yeah right, a culture warrior. You don't even notice how funny you sound.
Well a) that isn't how problems arrange themselves, and b) it isn't obvious what a community is. To me, the logical 21st century community is the global community, in which case there's no difference. If my neck of the woods is much the same as another, it makes sense logistically to focus my efforts here and not there, since there has its own contributors. But it doesn't seem to me that East Africa faces the same problems to the same degree in the same way, otherwise, sure, what would be the point of pitching in, or of foreign aid? Some causes lend themselves to local action, some don't. But either or both are good. And neither, as long as you do no harm, us fine too.
There's an awful lot of similarity between Peterson and Stephen Hicks. Does Canada only have twelve books or something?
That's great, but then they offer no good complement to Peterson's advice to boys; and no good parallel to his advice to girls. In his college lectures and media appearances, as well as in his writings, he often blames the despair of young men as resulting from the toxic influence of feminism that represses their natural tendency to flourish through striving to assert themselves in the human "hierarchy of dominance". At the same time, he warns women who would attempt to compete on the boy's own turf, in order to achieve professional careers, that they are bound to become very depressed or even suicidal in later life. He likes to provide examples from his clinical experience of career women who became very depressed because they lost their opportunity to flourish through raising children. In his lectures to young college students, he suggest to the girls how they should rejoice at the enviable role Darwinian nature has assigned to them, which is to actively select alpha males and pressure them into being loyal servants to them, and effective competitors against their male peers, or else dump them as the worthless losers that they are. Hurray for Girl Power!
If you want an example of what I mean, watch his interview with Steven Pinker. I'd guess you probably agree with Pinker's positive outlook on the achievements of capitalism, enlightenment philosophy and liberalism. So it should be very apparent how Peterson tries to shoe-horn cultural marxism into the discussion constantly to turn the Pinkers's generally more positive and optimistic outlook into some kind of attack on the "post-modern cultural marxists".
It's all about 'reading age'. My young nephews have curious minds and are open to ideas, but there's no way they would fathom Kant or Hegel, neither of them have a university education.
That's a contradiction! How can feminism repress "their natural tendency to flourish through striving to assert themselves in the human "hierarchy of dominance""? Shouldn't this natural tendency of young men naturally assert itself over feminism??
I mean -- should the world get out of the way so that young men can assert themselves in the human "hierarchy of dominance"?
"There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs."
[Kung Fu Monkey -- Ephemera, blog post, March 19, 2009]”
? John Rogers
source
You don't believe natural tendencies can be repressed? Whatever the case may be, you would have a beef with Peterson.
I was being sarcastic; obviously Kant or Hegel is not appropriate reading for children. I don't even know if Hegel is appropriate reading for anybody. I guess I should start putting /s tags on some of my posts if it's not clear.
It's like when Christians complain how they are not allowed to express their religosity and how they are victims etc. etc.
Well, if God is with them, who could possibly be against them?!
If someone truly is, by their nature, inherently, superior, dominant, surely then this will show on its own and nothing can stop it.
a) I'm not sure what you're talking about specifically here. It seems entirely plausible that there could be two communities which face essentially the same problem like bad roads or littering or something like that. Just imagine two theoretical communities which are basically good places but they just have a problem with the roads. You'd help out your own community first, and then it's fine to go off the help the other, right? And this is the right thing to do, right?
b) I feel we can be a little charitable here. I know 'community' isn't always straight-forward but just bear with me here. Of course East Africa has way different, more severe problems; I'm talking about two relatively comparable communities that face the same problems. Lets also leave transportation/logistics out of this. I'm trying to make a theoretical point and I think you're on board.
Lol.
At first Pinker sounded too optimist and that he forgot in one article to mention the First and Second Civil Wars of Congo (and the millions of dead in those conflicts) made me angry, but I've come to value Pinker very much (and he's not so optimist at the present as before).
I've not been a huge admirer of Peterson, however as he (Peterson) has been quite outspoken with his conservative views, this has caused the anger and the attacks on him, even politics (or philosophy) isn't his actual subject as I think it's clinical psychology. Yet his opposition to the Canadian bill made him part of the "culture war", an unholy thing to do. Still I don't think him as a "cultural warrior", someone eager to comment on everything and to take the role to be a defender / attack of one side. Holding conservative views now days makes you a rambling "cultural warrior", I guess.
Besides, the OP has it's obvious bias, as I don't think Peterson simply isn't a philosopher, even if he's interested in it. He's more like a commentator, who hasn't been anymore on the stage.
Still I think academic people ought to engage in political debate and not shun away from it, even if it's not their specific field. Many are far too timid to comment publicly the "hot potatoe" subjects. And perhaps they have a point with cancel culture and how hostile public discussion has become. Yet many of them are still smart and the those in academy should take part in public discussion. Good example from the left is the leftist-libertarian Noam Chomsky who named his first book aptly The Responsibility of Intellectuals. Still Chomsky is a linguist and that he doesn't see anything good in the US and especially it's foreign policy basically makes him an odd political historian. Yet naturally he isn't one. He is more an activist, just as his first books name refers.
It's been proven to work but it's also been widely misunderstood. Killing a caged animal in order to consume its meat instantly cures its depression.
You wish to label me alt-right even though I say I despise the alt-right because you think it sounds right. In the very same post that you criticise me for "making up" your connection with intersectional feminism. All you'd have to do is allow me your shitty standards for what I'm saying to be totally fine, what's your reason for not giving me just that?
I have no real interest in arguing about this with you, it is not important to me to give you a label, and I'm not interested in dealing with your many ridiculous labels, the names change nothing.
Quoting VagabondSpectre
I know that the alt-right was split on whether Peterson was an ally or not, I know that the media loved to bring up the alt-right connection. I don't know much about any connection besides that.
Quoting VagabondSpectre
You claimed that the video you posted marked the birth of the alt-right and I said it was wrong. You posted your comment in a thread about JP, you said it was your long take on JP and then you talked about the alt-right and how JP unwittingly led to its creation. You said he was completely unaware of this alt-right presence, which, he was aware and especially by 2018. You claimed he was making money off of his "notoriety" but then you don't even want to commit to saying that JP's base was largely alt-right or "proto alt-right".
Honestly, most of your first post is debunkable and it's just a matter of whether we bother to go through the whole thing. We're not even halfway through, I don't know though if I can be bothered since his reputation here can't get any worse probably.
You're leaving out some context and nuance from what was written. I stated that the clip marked a formal launch of the definitive alt-right, unifying its direction. It should be pretty clear that what I have been focusing on is not the decades long history of neo-nazism, but the so called "alt-right" movement that rapidly grew in the 2012-2018 era. I realize that you're vastly unfamiliar with the details of this neo-alt-right, but please understand that trivial issues like when terms first came into use does not address my observations. If you're not familiar with the (internet)cultural/ideological developments that occurred within the alt-right (and in what ways Peterson was used), on what basis are you even objecting?
Quoting Judaka
Philosophers have a hard time formulating sound views about Peterson if they can't disentangle his ideas from the polemic theatre that surrounds him. I had to go through it in order to clearly explain my views on Peterson without being misunderstood (and to also implicitly comment on the views of others). Yes, he is an unwitting player in that polemic theatre (he is/was in over his head, as I have said), but I never said he led to the alt-right's creation: he was just an arbitrary milestone along the way. As I have repeatedly clarified, his cardinal error was confusing his psychiatric metaphors for political science.
Quoting Judaka
I posted the exact moment that Peterson was forced to accept that early/proto alt-right ideologues were seriously within his orbit. He disavowed "fascism" from day one, but there was too much noise for that to matter. The video is also the exact moment he was abandoned by them. That event just so happened to function like a call to declare sides in the section of anti-SJW's that veered right; it was a catalyzing event.
Quoting Judaka
What does selling books about chaos dragons, room cleaning, and religion have to do with his followers being largely alt-right? I am saying that Peterson couldn't keep himself from shutting up, thus he persisted in making vague and easily abused political statements, many of which were legitimately malformed, so there's no reason for me to pull punches or mince words about this. Why do we need to expect Peterson to have insightful political beliefs? Can't we accept his views as having clinical psychological merit, but no necessary political merit?
Quoting Judaka
I spent a non-trivial amount of time digging up the exact evidence that you had previously asked for, but here we are at the rhetorical end, kneading the shit about whose hands stink the worst... I honestly felt that my long take on Peterson should help to raise the average opinion that people have of Peterson though, so I'm not sure where your objections really come from. He's not an alt-right ideologue, not an anti-semite, but he certainly did Mr. Magoo his way through an affair with them while they were rapidly growing and organizing. I think his ideas might have genuine merit for his patients, but philosophically they just don't have much going for them, and politically they're vague, average, and repetitive. Religion is a saturated topic, green-haired marxist feminists won't destroy civilization, and there might be more to life than the possibly increased chance of emotional stability that comes from leading a conservative lifestyle.
I was just kidding. I said killing animals cures depression: the animal's depression.
Quoting VagabondSpectre
The evidence you "dug up" refuted the very thing I was claiming you had spoken untruly about.
Quoting VagabondSpectre
Quoting VagabondSpectre
Why is this not a contradiction in your eyes? Every bit of evidence you gave just supported my initial assertion but then you act as though I ignored it, what do you want me to do with it?
Quoting VagabondSpectre
Is this supposed to mean something specific? A random youtube clip is not a "formal launch" by any reasonable definition of the word formal. The movement was already "launched" and so honestly, what do you want me to do? What deeper nuance am I missing? I don't know to what extent JP's base was recruited into the alt-right but I am not saying this didn't happen. I don't think your narrative is reasonable because your entire "take on' JP is a history of the alt-right.
Quoting VagabondSpectre
Sorry, when someone says "formal launch" I don't take that to mean "arbitrary milestone".
Quoting VagabondSpectre
You claimed alt-right didn't really exist by September 2016, they only had a formal launch in 2018, are you fucking kidding? What do you think I'm refuting? Then you complain about it. Should I just take everything you say to mean "around about that, somewhat, kind of"?
Quoting VagabondSpectre
I've given you every chance to give credibility to your statements. If Peterson's base is 0.01-0.05% alt-right then Peterson's "followers" not actually "festering in darkened internet corners". You show me a video with 40k views and tell me that Peterson, who has over 200million views on youtube and expect me to accept all of the conclusions that follow from this point of yours? All he could do was make money off his "notoriety"? He was "over his head from the start"? This is the story of how your "Long take on JP" "all went down"? You are so full of it, my god.
Quoting VagabondSpectre
What circles do you occupy where you think your story raises the average opinion of JP? Quite an astounding claim, lmao, what haven't we heard yet? How much worse can it get from what you've written?
I agree with @ssu, Peterson is not famous as a philosopher, he offered a critique of our culture which resonated with people. If you want to understand him then that's what you look at first, after, you look at the self-help stuff he's done, the advice he's given which is not deeply philosophical. After that, his philosophical stuff, that is the last thing he's known for and is honestly, brought up more by detractors than supporters.
Probably our main disagreement comes from the fact you think you're elevating the public perception of JP rather than slandering him horrifically. Who would want to listen to JP after reading your "take", I have no idea, but if you say in your opinion, you're helping to make him look good, what can I say, agree to disagree lol.
https://www.theguardian.com/food/2018/sep/10/my-carnivore-diet-jordan-peterson-beef
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/lifestyle/2018/12/i-followed-jordan-petersons-all-beef-diet-and-it-ruined-my-life.html
[tweet]https://twitter.com/jordanbpeterson/status/837733610157387779[/tweet]
1. Accuses people of being intersectional feminists based on no evidence.
2. Complains about being labelled alt-right.
You're a real hypocrite. I don't give a fuck what you label yourself, dude, if you walk like a duck...
Indeed. But problems don't arrange themselves around the world like that. The problems in Arusha are not the same as the problems in Manchester which aren't the same as the problems in Grand Rapids.
Quoting BitconnectCarlos
That's logistically optimal, since if the two communities are so similar, they'd both have volunteers. No point swapping volunteers. But if the second community had none, it would make perfect sense for those of the first to expand into the second, and not only once all the problems of the first are resolved, which would be a bit twattish.
Does that answer (b)? Essentially, the only reason to help your own town first is that logistically it's amenable to self-organisation. That aside, no, I see no reason to sort out my town's problems before someone else's, and it's not a very useful theoretical construct since the entire point of e.g. volunteering abroad is precisely that they face more difficult problems.
Maybe because "career women" can afford a shrink?
Perhaps it's telling of our times that Peterson is referred to being a philosopher.
Anyway, I have become extremely sceptical to anyone who today is a critic of some person. Now days there simply is no objectivity or any will to try to understand the other. As a Finnish saying goes: it's like "The Devil reading the Bible". It gets interest, clicks. The critic has either an agenda or simply promotes his views to his or her own tribe of similar thinking people. Perhaps it is far too confusing for people if you agree with one thing and disagree with another thing that some person has said. That seems lax, weak. Nope, tribalism has to dominate! You are either for or against and either with us or against us!
The solution? Listen to the people yourself and make up your mind without the people who have chewed the message for you before hand.
I think Nietzsche explains this perfectly:
Well, the placebo effect is real.
Someone who is eager to see themselves superior to others will reflect this in their eating habits as well.
Eating cows is somewhere at the top of the hierachy. Chicken, pigs, fish are lowlier, so there isn't much superiority in eating those.
Here's rooting he gets scurvy, at least that!
But they're happy ...
Did you just parrot back the very same thing I just said to you? Call me a fascist, alt-right, racist, I don't care. If anyone on this forum hasn't learned already how little these words mean when you use them, they will soon figure it out. My argument for why you're most likely an intersectional feminist or at a bare minimum, closely ideologically aligned is not unreasonable. And unlike for the alt-right, there are doubtless many proud feminists on this forum and intersectional feminism is not likely something they see as incorrect.
All intersectional feminism says is that people experience different levels of privilege and discrimination based on their various political and social identities. Through the lens of intersectional feminism, we see people as experiencing these different lives based on those identities and sometimes make assumptions about people. Some have taken it to extremes and used the idea of intersectional feminism to develop anger against "straight white men" because they inhabit multiple privileged identities. My problem with it is that we don't want to focus on seeing a person through these most visible identities, using our assumptions about their levels of privilege or discrimination to prejudice against them. The end result seems to be that rather than increasing awareness about discrimination and privilege, it instead leads to just more discrimination and prejudice.
When I call someone an intersectional feminist, in the negative sense, what I am saying is that their hypersensitivity to these identities is causing them to be more prejudicial and discriminatory. That is not necessarily something that they'll agree with but doesn't mean they need to argue against the term. Given the way that you talk on this forum, I think that my guess about your views is correct, whenever you start talking about "straight white men" and whenever your seen overusing the terms "racist", "sexist", "homophobic", "transphobic" or whatever. It shows that your worldview is centralised around discrimination and privilege, if you didn't learn it from self-identified feminists then perhaps you just learned it on the internet, it's quite possible.
This is the evidence that links you to intersectional feminism and unlike "racist" or "fascist" just being called an intersectional feminist, doesn't leave you without grounds to argue that you're in the right. I'm not trying to win arguments by giving people labels. But unlike say, Marxism, the ideology is simple enough that you can just figure it out by listening to people on Twitter, I don't need you to self-identify for what I said to be correct. That said, I will not persist beyond convincing that this description of you is correct if you still adamantly disagree then I'll reconsider.
I've seen you debate people you disagree with politically on this forum, it's not a pleasant sight. I don't belong to any political factions and I am really far off being alt-right. I expect when I talk to you, to be called racist, fascist, alt-right, a right-wing nutter or whatever else because I've seen you describe people as such in the most ridiculous ways. You aren't a piece of shit in my eyes if you admitted to being an intersectional feminist but I am definitely a piece of shit for being alt-right. Your labels to you, mean the total destruction of my credibility, the degradation of my morality, the proof of my low intelligence and an easy dismissal of whatever I might have to say. And you give them out, so easily, here it's because I called you far left. For Garth, it's that he critiqued Antifa, for carlos, he's pro-fascist because he refused to condemn fascist groups to your liking. These events simply don't meet the bar for the words and terms you're using, especially, when they're things you passionately hate.
So, do not compare my calling you an intersectional feminist, to you calling me alt-right, because both the justification and the consequences of the use of these labels are night and day.
Interesting. I wonder if it is the media, internet and social media which have created this environment or just the politicisation of everything? When you put it like that, I probably should have just avoided this thread altogether.
Women: if you usurp men they will rebel and fail and you will have to jail or enslave them.
Errr... what?
Or this stuff: "You can test a woman's preference in men. You can show them pictures of men and change the jaw width, and what you find is that women who aren't on the pill like wide-jawed men when they're ovulation, and they like narrow-jawed men when they're not, and the narrow-jawed men are less aggressive. Well, all women on the pill are as if they're not ovulating, so it's posibble that a lot of the antipathy that eixsts right now between women and men exists because of the birth control pill. The idea that women were discriminated against across the course of history is appalling."
I mean seriously? I don't even know where to start with this stuff and will just throw up my hands.
Kind of, but with respect to chronology. It helps if one of us can follow a conversation we're having.
Quoting Judaka
I didn't say you were alt-right, I said you seemed to be making the exact same kind of bullshit argument that I'd previously bemoaned wherein someone "left" can be described as anything you like as long as you consider it also "left". The example with JP being that anyone who is a feminist is automatically a Marxist. The example with you being that anyone who's anti-fascist and anti-racist is automatically an intersectional feminist.
You're obviously not going to justify your crap arguments. Up to you whether you want to debase yourself.
Quoting Judaka
You didn't make one.
Quoting Judaka
Incorrect. Intersectional feminism is somewhat more specific, clue's in the name.
Quoting Judaka
Given the context, it seems more like your problem is one of hypocrisy, in which privileged people should go unchallenged when saying that e.g. racism, misogyny, homophobia don't exist, that whatever conspiracy theories they're peddling to explain data to the contrary ought to be respected as facts, and that anyway those facts don't count.
Racism makes race an issue, not opposing or understanding racism. I'm getting kind of tired of the ridiculous argument that opposing racism is racist. It basically amounts to "I can bang on and on about it but you can't because you're supposed to be colour-blind". Yes, ideally we should be colour-blind. Alas racists make that a future goal not a present reality.
Quoting Judaka
It's pretty stupid. Basically exactly as I described above: criticise X, associate X to Y, proceed under the basis that Y has been criticised. For a man who despises the alt-right, you really talk like one. You may as well argue that a chocolate covered strawberry is a chocolate covered banana because it's covered in chocolate.
Quoting Judaka
I'm sorry that that's what displeases you rather than the racism I object to. Sorry, but not shocked.
:lol:
Studies support this, though, e.g. Oral contraceptive use in women changes preferences for malefacial masculinity and is associated with partner facial masculinity
As for the rest of what he says about women ... I think he's an example of a male martyr.
He is definitely a sexist bitter professor, or he was bitter, he's raking it in now. He recycles Nazi propaganda but that doesn't make him a Nazi, and I don't think he's a white supremacist. JP's beef is mostly with women and trans people afaik. His arguments on mandating correct rather than censoring incorrect terminology aren't without merit, but nothing you wouldn't hear from an opinionated cab driver.
Heh, maybe that's the scurvy talking out of his mouth!
Quite right, the prevalence of a narrower jaw did not arise after the invention of the contraceptive pill: it arose after the advent of agriculture. Once again, agriculture screwed us, this time with dentistry bills. :meh:
Wikipedia - Reception of the Peterson–Žižek debate
The most wisdom in a post on this thread yet. :up:
Quoting Kenosha Kid
You're such a hypocrite, you are the one poster who is most egregious in this area. You have on numerous occasions called people "right-wing" and accused people of using "right-wing" logic and in literal total absence of any argument and meant as an insult. I did not say anyone who is anti-fascist and anti-racist is automatically an intersectional feminist. I'm anti-fascist and anti-racist, most people are.
Quoting Kenosha Kid
The crap argument that you're an intersectional feminist? If I agreed with how you paraphrased my arguments, I'd agree that they're terrible. Or did I not make one? Whichever it is.
Quoting Kenosha Kid
I don't know how much I want to actually address your uncharitable and unflattering characterisations of me and my views. At this stage, I expect it and I don't think I can avoid it. No, you can challenge people on being racist or homophobic, you can challenge them if they say those things don't exist, you can fact-check people, lol.
Quoting Kenosha Kid
We're long past the days where feminism referred solely to fighting for women's rights.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ROwquxC_Gxc&ab_channel=LafayetteCollege
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yWa63FLEYsU&ab_channel=OmegaInstituteforHolisticStudies
Crenshaw discusses as I said, the impact of various kinds of discrimination and privilege, which intersect to create new classes of privilege and discrimination. That a black woman has to deal with both racism and sexism and is thus worse off than a black man who only deals with racism and a white woman who only deals with sexism. That includes homophobia, transphobia, ageism, ableism, classism and many kinds of discrimination besides sexism. In other words, the various social identities one embodies have individual privileges or disadvantages and people experience different levels of privilege and discrimination based on these identities. You're going to have to be more specific if you still have a
disagreement.
Quoting Kenosha Kid
You mislabel others, don't expect me to agree with you whenever see racism and in the cases that I agree, I'll criticise them too. I expressed a specific dislike for some of the ideologies surrounding intersectional feminism, I'm not playing a correlation game. All it took for you, is for me to call you hard left and I gotta deal with "you're using the logic of the alt-right" and whatever bs you can use to smear me.
Peterson and the study I linked to are talking about changed preferences about men in women who use hormonal contraceptives.
Social media plays a big role, its a fact that it creates tension. Its designed to. I recommend The Social Dilemma, eye opening.
Also, it wasnt a waste of time responding to whats his face the Kenosha wanker. You exposed him and other people here can see, you were speaking to them as much as to him so yes it was worth you bothering.
No, the point is that even the same woman can have different preferences in men, depending on whether she uses hormonal contraceptives or not.
Hormonal contraceptives don't only have physical side-effects, but also psychological ones.
Such as?
Humans have a mutation that weakens their jaw muscles as compared to other primates. This weakness may also explain our larger brains. The size of a chimp's brain is constrained by the powerful muscles required to chew raw vegetation.
Recent research has identified men’s facial width-to-height ratio (fWHR) as a reliable predictor of aggressive tendencies and behavior. Other research, however, has failed to replicate the fWHR-aggression relationship and has questioned whether previous findings are robust. In the current paper, we synthesize existing work by conducting a meta-analysis to estimate whether and how fWHR predicts aggression. Our results indicate a small, but significant, positive relationship between men’s fWHR and aggression.
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0122637
You really struggle with chronology.
Quoting Judaka
No we're not. You're conflating critical theory with intersectional feminism, which is precisely the faulty logic I was talking about. Intersectional feminism is concerned with the experiences of women in a way that acknowledges the fact that, statistically, black women have a qualitatively different experience to both black men and the white women who were historically represented by feminism, a difference that yielded black feminism. Likewise that the experiences of queer women are significantly different to those of queer men and the straight women that feminism historically represented, hence queer feminism, and that the experiences of working class women significantly differ from those of working class men and the middle- to upper-class women that feminism historically represented, hence socialist feminism.
It incorporates e.g. critical race theory and queer theory and, in some guises, Marxism; it did not author them, and it does so for the empowerment and liberation of gay, black and working class women respectively, not for gay, black, and working class people generally.
Quoting Judaka
That is precisely what your end of this argument is. Either that or you genuinely don't understand the terms you're employing.
I'm not bothered you think I'm an intersectional feminist btw. It's the dishonesty of how you got there that's of interest.
Is there an option to block threads akin to the one in which you can block members? @Baden @Michael @Benkei @StreetlightX @fdrake
Thanks, I'll check it out
Quoting Kenosha Kid
If I am wrong, that'd just be mislabeling, what logic is at play there? I don't study the terms, I just hear the terms being used, listen to people self-describe as feminists and in that context start to talk about issues regarding gender (more generally) and intersectional feminism (and talking about it more generally). If they speaking from the perspective from more than just feminism, I missed the nuance, nonetheless, my only error would be in a name.
Quoting Kenosha Kid
What's the honest way?
The one I've described several times. "This is X. X is like Y. Therefore this is Y."
Quoting Judaka
For instance, if I had posted any feminist content on the site ever and either at the same time or elsewhere championed critical theory. It would be a reasonable to assume I was an intersectional feminist in that case. Basing a conclusion that I'm any kind of feminist on a sample of zero feminism comments is just pointless.
For the record, I'd say I'm intersectional feminism adjacent, largely because they won't have me. People like you call me a feminist. Feminists call me a misogynist, largely for the same reason. I don't know where I am until I'm accused of being something :D But obviously I'd rather be a feminist than a misogynist, so... thanks, I guess.
When the issue is the empirical demonstration of a gender pay gap, our science guy is all about confounding variables. When it's about the empirical demonstration that women find their highest fulfillment in the kitchen, confounding variables aren't much of a concern anymore.
Does it make sense to endorse or promote for public consumption an outright lie because it gives people comfort or keeps them on the straight and narrow or the like? Isn't this paternalism?
What's wrong with intersectional feminism anyway? The new anti-woke warriors have a beef with identity politics, as crudely defined by them. But there are few social-intellectual movements that represent greater challenges to crude forms of identity politics than intersectional feminism does (although Marxism may come close!)
https://plan-international.org/girls-get-equal/intersectional-feminism
Of course, I think so too. (And not because JP said it, I figured that out on my own, living among Catholics.)
In my experience, many religious people know that religion is not about truth and they don't look for comfort in it. Such people don't take it seriously. But what they do take seriously with great effort is keeping up the appearance of taking it seriously. This is the taboo, the public secret.
Yes, it's paternalism -- but so what? If one believes that it's dog eat dog world and that life is a struggle for survival and that winning is all that matters, then most truths are trivial.
intersectional feminist adjacent...? I could identify an intersectional feminist or whatever term think is best based on what I've written, by the fact that they self-identify as such or post explicitly related material. Yet I can also gauge a person's ideologies by how they speak on related topics, even without providing me with concrete proof, with some accuracy. I see the same pattern, I associate it with an ideology, that ideology I see as being based on or inspired by intersectional feminism. There's an imprecision in the naming, there always is, even with terms like alt-right or fascism. Call me lazy or inaccurate, if you want, maybe those don't make me look bad enough for your aggressive personality? I don't know, dishonest though? Lol.
You write people off with your labels and maybe you're just projecting? I don't actually know what argument you're talking about. You said you don't like JP, I said JP is criticising something like ideologies based around intersectional feminism, which I see you as a part of. Since then, all I've been doing is defending my actions and criticising yours. What higher stakes are there here? What argument am I making?
Quoting Judaka
I was being flippant. I understand the ideas behind intersectional feminism and see worth in them for feminist theory, but since I'm not a feminist, it's largely irrelevant to me. I.F. seems to me largely to be feminism getting it's own house in order, reconstructing its theoretical foundations.
Quoting Judaka
I beg to differ.
Quoting Judaka
Thank you, but I don't believe that laziness is your problem. You put a lot of effort into an argument, just not useful things.
Quoting Judaka
What are we saying here, that if I criticise a racist it's really because I'm racist? Ha. Okay. Scraping the bottom of the barrel, there.
Quoting Judaka
It's sort of weird that you own up to the possibility that your terminology is misguided, but merrily stand by it nonetheless. Sure, whatever man, racist intersectional feminist, go with that.
What the hell happened to Jordan Peterson?
Pity, rather than admiration.
Probably.
The headline was a give away, but then sometimes (if rarely) someone can make a genuine inquiry. (I just pity the philosophy beginner who has read Ayn Rand and then comes to the forum and asks what people think of her. For some reason, the Rand rant isn't viewed as misogynist even if otherwise sex, gender and race are so dear to many these times.)
Good luck trying to avoid this disease. Because it's coming to be present everywhere. I guess the next in line will be the STEM-fields.
Why bother to argue in detail about what people say when you have the easy tool of character assassination? Not worth even talking about then.
No... What I meant was the "effort to dismiss you by giving you this label".
There is a serious difference between the average anti-prejudice/discrimination thinker and you. Peterson is many things, there's a long list of ideas he has, which I do not agree with and there are many issues people can bring up with him, including things I do agree with and I can get it. You call him a sexist transphobe recycling nazi propaganda. Of course, it's not just that, you have used such terms in horrendously inappropriate ways, to people who didn't deserve them. Think you can defend your comments about JP? Obviously, you do but I've listened to the guy enough for what you're saying to be serious red flags, we do not have the same standards for what is sexist and transphobic. We don't have the same standards for what is racist, fascist, or any of that. Thus when we "agree" these things are bad and that we have a personal and collective responsibility to stand up and criticise those things when we see it, we're not actually talking about the same thing.
The "agreement" we make when we say we critique racism together is flawed. What I generally chalk up your behaviour to is a far-left, intersectional ideology that sees and condemns privilege and discrimination in nearly every social interaction. Now you can not be that ideology, I don't care, not far-left, not intersectional, not a feminist, whatever. I'm not condemning you for that, just the way you use terms is bullshit, the way you talk about race is a problem. The way you accused Garth of using "the logic of right-wing nutjob shock jocks" for a fairly apolitical critique of Antifa, that's a better example of the logic you're talking about, no?
Quoting Kenosha Kid
Look at your otherwise non-existent argument, that's it besides some other equally bigoted snarky remarks.
Quoting Kenosha Kid
I will do my own research on that and decide whether my terminology is incorrect. It's intuitive that feminism doesn't include issues related to men but my experience led me to think that it did, at least when talking about issues to do with gender roles, discrimination, LGBT issues, that 4th wave feminism had taken on broader issues than just those to do with women alone. I've also never heard someone refer to themselves as an "intersectionalist" or really anything besides intersectional feminist when talking about intersectionality.
Plato would say yes emphatically.
Plato was wrong about most things.
Why is Plato wrong?
About "noble lies" in particular? Because a false reason to do something is a bad reason to do something. If the thing the noble lie gets people to do is actually good, then there is some true reason why it is good, which is the same as to say a true reason to do so. That true reason makes the noble lie unnecessary. If there is not known a true reason, then it is not known that the thing is good, and so the ends (the good thing) can't justify the means (the lie) even if ends could justify means in general, because the ends are not actually known to be good.
It's similar to the Euthyphro dilemma. If something is good only because the gods command it, then what is "good" is arbitrary and "good" doesn't really mean anything morally imperative. If on the other hand the gods command things because they are good, then there are independent reasons known to the gods for why those things are good, and those reasons should likewise suffice for human purposes; we don't need the gods to tell us to do things, the reasons the gods have for telling us to do them are good enough reasons for us to do them whether or not the gods command them.
Why do you think the ends don't justify the means?
Well in this particular case it's enough that the ends simply aren't known to be good. If you don't know the ends are good, then they can't justify the means, even if ends could justify means generally.
As for why ends don't justify means generally...
It's like how a sound argument cannot merely be a valid argument, and cannot merely have true conclusions, but it must be valid – every step of the argument must be a justified inference from previous ones – and it must have a true conclusion, which requires also that it begin from true premises.
If a valid argument leads to a false conclusion, that tells you that the premises of the argument must have been false, because by definition valid inferences from true premises must lead to true conclusions; that's what makes them valid. If the premises were true and the inferences in the argument still lead to a false conclusion, that tells you that the inferences were not valid. But likewise, if an invalid argument happens to have a true conclusion, that's no credit to the argument; the conclusion is true, sure, but the argument is still a bad one, invalid.
I hold that a similar relationship holds between means and ends: means are like inferences, the steps you take to reach an end, which is like a conclusion. Just means must be "good-preserving" in the same way that valid inferences are truth-preserving: just means exercised out of good prior circumstances definitionally must lead to good consequences; just means must introduce no badness, or as Hippocrates wrote in his famous physicians' oath, they must "first, do no harm".
If something bad happens as a consequence of some means, then that tells you either that something about those means were unjust, or that there was something already bad in the prior circumstances that those means simply have not alleviated (which failure to alleviate does not make them therefore unjust). But likewise, if something good happens as a consequence of unjust means, that's no credit to those means; the consequences are good, sure, but the means are still bad ones, unjust.
Moral action requires using just means to achieve good ends, and if either of those is neglected, morality has been failed; bad consequences of genuinely just actions means some preexisting badness has still yet to be addressed (or else is a sign that the actions were not genuinely just), and good consequences of unjust actions do not thereby justify those actions.
Consequentialist models of normative ethics concern themselves primarily with defining what is a good state of affairs, and then say that bringing about those states of affairs is what defines a good action. Deontological models of normative ethics concern themselves primarily with defining what makes an action itself intrinsically good, or just, regardless of further consequences of the action.
I think that these are both important questions, and they are the moral analogues to questions about ontology and epistemology.
I think that at least those religious people from cultures where their religion has been the majority religion for a long time are ambivalent toward him. On the one hand, they of course must be outraged at him for suggesting that truth is not that important in religion. On the other hand, they know that he's right and that he's just saying out loud what they themselves have known or suspected for a long time.
For example, I grew up in a Catholic country. The Catholics here go to great lenghts to publicly display a reverence for their religion, but in private, it's clear that they don't actually take it seriously. This duplicity is a public secret: everybody knows it but it's forbidden to talk about it and nobody will openly admit to it.
New religions and minority religions are different. In those, it seems that adherents do take them seriously and do in fact believe the religious tenets.
But that condescending attitude is nothing new, religious people are used to it. You will have noticed that religious people from different religions have a kind of victim/martyr mentality in regard to outsiders anyway -- "Others are out to destroy us, humiliate us". And religious people tend to be condescending to outsiders to begin with. So it's all just business as usual.
What isn't business as usual seems to be that some religious people, esp. Christians at first took JP as someone who might be working for their cause, but who are disappointed that he refused to take a clear position on the matter for so long.
I also know some Buddhists who were sort of fans of his. One of them is an avowed vegan; I wonder what he'll say about JP's unraveling.
Oy, vey iz him! Not to put too fine a point on schadenfreude, but I want to say "I told you so!"
I wonder how JP's unraveling will affect his fans. How will these people cope with this?
On the other hand if one is opposed to the claim that the ends justify the means one would be unwilling to commit an immoral act even if it the consequences of such an act were themselves moral.
The possibilities/choices in re means, ends and morality that are available to us are the following:
1. Means are moral, Ends are moral
2. Means are moral, Ends are immoral
3. Means are immoral, Ends are moral
4. Means are immoral, Ends are immoral
If the ends justify the means, 3 is allowed. If not the case that the ends justify the means only 1 is acceptable. 4 are outside the scope of this discussion. BUT 2 is a different story. It's key to understanding whether it's true or false that the ends justify the means. If, for example, I wanted to harm a person X but I do that employing only good deeds, the good deeds are usually not part of the formula that determines my moral standing; in other words, if my behavior towards X matches 2 above, I'm considered a bad person.
If so, for the sake of consistency if nothing else, 3 should be treated likewise i.e. the immoral means should be ignored just as we ignored the moral means in deciding that 2 is, at the end of the day, immoral. That means 3 too is moral and...the ends do justify the means
Like I already pointed out on another thread here:
Not all ad hominems are fallacious:
[i]/.../
Walton has argued that ad hominem reasoning is not always fallacious, and that in some instances, questions of personal conduct, character, motives, etc., are legitimate and relevant to the issue,[30] as when it directly involves hypocrisy, or actions contradicting the subject's words.
The philosopher Charles Taylor has argued that ad hominem reasoning (discussing facts about the speaker or author relative to the value of his statements) is essential to understanding certain moral issues due to the connection between individual persons and morality (or moral claims), and contrasts this sort of reasoning with the apodictic reasoning (involving facts beyond dispute or clearly established) of philosophical naturalism.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem#Criticism_as_a_fallacy[/i]
When it comes to people who promote particular theories of morality, ethics, it would be remiss not to look at their personal lives and whether they live up to what they preach.
If a mathematician was drunk when he developed a certain mathematical proof has no bearing on the validty of the proof, and it would be wrong to reject the proof based on the mathematician's intoxication.
But matters of morality, ethics are not like that.
If your actions cause harm to a person, then those are not good deeds, at least not on my account.
It is still possible that you do only good deeds and yet that something bad nevertheless happens to someone. That is, I think the real "case 2" in your quadrilemma.
I say that that's akin to making a valid argument that nevertheless has a false conclusion.
What you can infer from getting a false conclusion from a valid argument is that the premises you started from were false, and need to be corrected in order to get true conclusions from valid arguments.
Similarly, bad things happening despite you doing only good deeds indicates that there was something already bad in the prior circumstances that needs to be fixed in order to get good ends by good means.
The idea "the end justifies the means" and its opposite "the end doesn't justify the means" are too simplistic, that's why they are problematic.
Whose end? Whose means? What end? What means?
The idea that the end justifies the means is, for one, really just a thinly veiled justification for one-upmanship, whether done by one person or many. It's a way of saying "I want things to be the way I want them, cost what may, and others are merely puppets in the process and should see themselves as such".
Secondly, whether an end justifies the means depends on the value system of the person making the claim. For example, does completing a marathon justify ending up with permanent damage to one's joints or dying from a heart attack? For a person obsessed with completing a marathon, it probably does. For everyone else, not so much.
The idea that the end doesn't justify the means is simplistic insofar it doesn't take into account the above two considerations.
Can you give an example of where an immoral act has moral consequences?
Was the victory of the Allies in WWII "moral"? Was it "immoral" to kill the Nazis?
I can think of many examples where doing something immoral lead to some beneficial consequences for some people for some time (such as cheating on an exam), but I would not describe those consequences as either moral or immoral, but at most as beneficial, for a particular person for some time.
Quoting TheMadFool
So you, too, don't believe that the end justifies the means?
For a more advanced example of the end justifying the means in religion, look at Mahayana Buddhism and their concept of upaya, "skillful means".
Yes.
Quoting Judaka
Almost certainly. So what, I have to lower my standards to yours for the sake of your bad politics? No.
JP explicitly champions a sexist social structure, a patriarchy. I don't expect you to see anything wrong with that, that would be asking a lot, but the opinions of others are not constrained by your willful myopia.
Sexism is rife through his writings and teachings. His view of relationships is in terms of utility *for* men, such as his bizarre notions of enforced monogamy to make teenaged boys less likely to shoot up their own school. Don't fancy that socially awkward, aggressive, racist guy in your class? Tough shit, JP says women should arrange themselves to benefit men so that men don't have to control themselves.
(On which, I can't think of a worse indictment of JP than his willful misrepresentation of one of the Columbine shooters as some existential hero, cherry-picking from his diary to avoid the vast quantity of typical violent alt-right-esque racism.)
One of his psychotherapy patients was an alcoholic woman who, in part on account of her alcoholism, had been raped five times. JP quite proudly dismisses her testimony as unreliable. He wasn't saying that men didn't pick her up when she was blotto, just suggests that that doesn't constitute rape. (He also has nothing to say about domestic violence and marital rape in these monogamous relationships he wants to enforce.) This is what I expect from a 'lad', some bloke in a group of blokes whose culture reduces women to posh wanks you can scrape off the nightclub floor. From a psychologist this is awfully misogynistic. For all his anti-pomo objectivism, he embraces the idea when it comes to women saying they are victims of men. There seems to be no difference in his view between not being told and being told when the speaker is a woman.
As for the idea of equality between women and men, JP is not on board:
No, you shouldn't have a life, you should make do with a hobby, woman. Be thankful for your gilded cage.
JP supports the patriarchy on the basis of superior male competence and, as with everything JP says, this isn't based on data but on his personal prejudices. He is a Messiah to the sexist, the misogynist, the incel because he exemplifies their beliefs: men are superior, men should be in charge, women should prioritise the needs of men and shut the fuck up.
The problem isn't that I fling names around. The problem is that a huge number of men, like you, see nothing wrong with his sexism, therefore cannot see it as sexism since sexism is bad so can't be this. Likewise with the few racists on this site who I've tussled with who insist on spouting racial propaganda like "blacks are intrinsically more criminal" who nonetheless object to being called racist because they've at least learned that racism is supposed to be bad, therefore can't be this.
I appreciate you're not explicitly pushing sexist or racist sentiments yourself, but your rush to defend sexists and racists rather than their victims speaks ill of you. You did it earlier and had to apologise, claiming ignorance of the topic of the conversation, which I didn't believe. Here you're claiming to be very familiar with JP's words so no such out. It is reasonable to assume that you're familiar with the kind of stuff I've mentioned and you defend his patriarchal, non-egalitarian, rape-dismissive, incel-esque views as perfectly fine and not deserving of the label 'sexist'. I appreciate that you've been gunning for me for a bit, but I think it's appropriate that you take a turn at defending your own statements.
Quoting Kenosha Kid
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yn60-8Ql_44&ab_channel=DoseofTruth
Quoting Kenosha Kid
lol, okay. I'm not checking the reasonableness of characterisations you made but after you decided Carlos is pro-fascist for not critiquing the groups as you'd like, you'll understand if my expectations here are low. If you give a short link to what you're talking about, I'll check it out.
Quoting Kenosha Kid
A link or source would be nice, I can't find it. I don't want to comment on this with so little information.
Quoting Kenosha Kid
Okay...
Quoting Kenosha Kid
What? Listen, I just have no idea what's even being talked about here. Peterson has talked about how important it is to have equality of opportunity, over and over again. I don't know the specific context of this statement but Peterson is not arguing that women should be forced to be housewives.
https://youtu.be/aMcjxSThD54?t=852
He emphatically states the value of having women in the workforce, unimpeded, being able to do whatever they want to do. You are an incredibly untrustworthy narrator, if he's so bad, give me statements which show what you claimed about him to be true. Show me what convinced you rather than that you're convinced. If this was it, not good enough, this is far from good enough.
Quoting Kenosha Kid
You are just exhibiting more of the same behaviour I've been criticising.
Quoting Kenosha Kid
Nobody forced me to apologise.
Quoting Judaka
Bitcoin "black people are just more criminal" Carlos? Yeah, perfect case in point, thanks for raising it. [EDIT: Actually, I think that was "The KKK is a non-violent organisation"]
Quoting Judaka
I thought you were familiar enough with JP to know when I'm misrepresenting him? It's in his book. Read it, don't read it, just drop the claim to expertise.
Quoting Judaka
I just did. Are you claiming he didn't say:
Quoting Kenosha Kid
? Or is this compatible with his claim to be egalitarian? How? Don't confuse JP being a charlatan with me being unreliable. If you have good reason to refute the wording or the meaning of the evidence, go ahead. Pointing elsewhere is a major copout.
Quoting Judaka
Peterson is describing housewives in the 50s who complained of domestic imprisonment of "whining". That's a "shut up" in my book. As I said, I don't expect you to see this sentiment as sexist -- that would be asking too much -- but I'm not going to pretend it isn't to meet your low standards.
Quoting Judaka
Yes, and I'm becoming increasingly aware that the behaviour in question is calling prejudiced people out on their prejudices. There's a logical conclusion.
Quoting Judaka
This isn't the point. The point is that you're exhibiting a pattern of behaviour at losing your shit when a prejudiced person is called out on their prejudice then having to back down when you can't justify yourself. You're doing it again here, using your ignorance (or, more likely, blind eye) of JP's sexism as an excuse for defending it.
Quoting Kenosha Kid
I didn't claim to be an expert on Peterson, I just said I'm very familiar.
Quoting Kenosha Kid
I don't know the context, who are "these" suburban housewives, I imagine he's talking about a small number of people, perhaps even as small as 3-4, who he actually listened to. Not the entire demographic of suburban housewives across America. I don't know what they actually said, thus, cannot judge it. You can't give me a quote taken out of context, with ambiguous meaning, and demand I accept it as foolproof evidence. This quote seems to be from here:
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/18/style/jordan-peterson-12-rules-for-life.html
The same article which states your same misinterpretation of what enforced monogamy is, right?. Great article for demonstrating how bad Peterson is, too bad it's full of crap and written with malicious intent.
You said you could justify your comments about JP being sexist and what do you give me? Misinterpretations, a quote about the reliability of a rape accusation and an out of context quote that means shit all.
Quoting Kenosha Kid
As I said, nobody forced me to apologise and I did not "have" to back down. Just like you can be totally wrong here and not back down, never apologise, it's always an option, actually, it's what most people do.
Peterson is commenting on the book "The Feminine Mystique" by Betty Friedman.
I knew this but I really need the context on why Peterson made the various claims about "these housewives". Do you know anything about that?
Maybe you should ask Kenosha Kid, who, I agree, takes things out of context and puts his own spin on them:
Quoting Kenosha Kid
He was talking about a survey of university-educated women in the '50s, most of whom espoused that sentiment. JP believes, as counterpunch clearly believes, that these women had no right to complain: men say it is good enough for them, therefore they should too. That is oppression.
Quoting Judaka
I don't have access to that article. But JP has no qualms with restating his belief that female fertility should be put to use in assuaging male aggression here:
https://www.jordanbpeterson.com/media/on-the-new-york-times-and-enforced-monogamy/
The idea that female reproduction should be *for* men, to allow them to avoid responsibility for their actions, is an example of objectification of women.
Deciding my sources and dismissing them out of hand is not something I recognise as legitimate argumentation. Why do you?
Quoting Judaka
By his own admission, JP's response to his reaction was immediate, and amounts to gaslighting his own patient. I do not just think he is sexist; he should not have been practising psychology. Dismissing rape victims' claims immediately and out of hand has been a huge problem (not for you, obviously) for a long time.
As I said, I don't expect you to see sexism in any of this. If you are, as you say, familiar with JP's arguments, you'll already have come across his sexism and not observed it. But oppression, objectification, gaslighting, and disbelieving women out of hand are uncontroversially sexist behaviours. You asked me if I can defend my terminology: yes, much better than you, apparently. Can I therefore get you to observe and agree with it? Much harder ask. If we could do that, the world would be a much nicer place.
This might be a blow to your ego, but it's not incumbant upon me to defend my terminology to your standard, especially as your standard might be dual. It is incumbent upon me to defend it to reasonable standards and my own, and by any conventional, uncontroversial standard and my own, JP is evidently overtly sexist, i.e. a non-sexist person could not have said the things he said and meant them. I have no interest in trying to convince a person who believes that women should be satisfied with domestic servitude and no autonomy that they're wrong.
You are the most uncharitable, unreliable narrator, I have come across and I am in the middle of telling you as such. If you think that characterising peoples views in the worst possible way constitutes evidence, then we've found the problem and there's not much else to say. Hysterical and ridiculous, do you actually have more than you're giving me or is this it? Not impressed, this is worse than I imagined.
That article is the source for most of your argument, I don't care if you just read someone else reporting on the article instead, that's where two of your examples came from. The misunderstanding of enforced monogamy as an anthropological term which talks only of an already existing mainly social and cultural enforcement, as some kind of absurd incel idea where we take women and force them to be partnered with men. You were totally wrong about your statements, demonstrably wrong and what is the response? Did you back down, apologise, admit you're wrong - as I did? Nope, you're actually defending yourself! Do you expect me to think you'll back down on anything when you can't even back down on this one issue?
Quoting Kenosha Kid
How he meant them? What a horrible joke, you mean the hysterical performance of how you interpreted quotes with no context and a clear misunderstanding of what he meant by enforced monogamy? Okay, buddy. The reason I made it clear that nobody forced me to apologise is that I'm not going to have that be the measurement for who is right and who is wrong. You won't admit any weakness, even though, if you admitted you were at least wrong about enforced monogamy, I would not use it to discredit everything else, you just can't do it.
There's reasonable doubt in all of your examples, you did not isolate sexist motivations or meanings, you just asserted them. There is no pattern because you gave only three examples, one of them is just wildly wrong, the others, I can't really say but innocent until proven guilty, is how it works when dealing with such powerful condemnations. Insulting me doesn't help overcome that problem, if he's so bad, then you should be able to easily give me multiple, non-contentious examples. If I asked you for dirt on Trump, you'd be giving me non-contentious, unambiguous racism and sexism and it'd look obvious that you were right. You wouldn't need to all this conjecture in that case.
I hope that in the sober light of day you reread your post with the word "hysterical" in mind, both in terms of how often you use it, and in terms of the pitch of your post.
I understand exactly his argument for enforced monogamy and misrepresent nothing. That you are okay with his arguments just tells me what kind of person you are. You can scream about it til you're blue in the face; I'm quite satisfied with my conclusions and utterly dissatisfied with yours, and the fevered tone of your posts isn't helping. I will continue to call him what he is, til you vent a spleen if necessary.
Reusing my criticisms of you again? Okay, these three pieces of evidence are what you're sticking with, lmao.
Quoting Kenosha Kid
Yep, he is saying women should be forced to date socially awkward, aggressive and racist dudes against their will. Peterson, says women should arrange themselves to benefit men so that men don't have to control themselves.
Oh, calling that hysterical is way out of line, my apologies, highly reasonable.
This is you when you're trying: https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/9506/cosmology-and-determinism
And here's you when you're talking about politics.
Quoting Kenosha Kid
Quoting Kenosha Kid
Just three pieces of shoddy evidence, you write with such anger and indignation but where's the evidence? When I say it's not good enough, you say that just shows how lousy my character is. Whatever, I did not actually expect that your argument for Peterson's sexism would be this weak but I should have, considering what else I've seen from you. But I'll stop here, we're going in circles, each understands where the other stands.
Actually, yes. I think any decent person would question the morality a guy who says that women in the 50s should just get a hobby and stop whining.
But that's not the real point. Your arrogant and quite stupid assertion is that evidence to justify *my* conclusion has to meet your standard, which, given the above, is a standard that rejects damning evidence. But you're quite wrong about that. It's sufficient to satisfy myself, not some random right-winger with a history of standing by racists til a mod smacks him down. I'm surprised you can't get your head around this. Seems a perfectly simple point.
Jordan Peterson is a pseudo-intellectual and a waste of time. Look no further than the fact that he sells millions of books and garners lots of attention. Basic charlatanism. Why people choose Peterson as "their guy" is beyond me, but to each his own.
This article sums it all up rather nicely: https://www.currentaffairs.org/2018/03/the-intellectual-we-deserve
[quote=] If you want to appear very profound and convince people to take you seriously, but have nothing of value to say, there is a tried and tested method. First, take some extremely obvious platitude or truism. Make sure it actually does contain some insight, though it can be rather vague. Something like “if you’re too conciliatory, you will sometimes get taken advantage of” or “many moral values are similar across human societies.” Then, try to restate your platitude using as many words as possible, as unintelligibly as possible, while never repeating yourself exactly. Use highly technical language drawn from many different academic disciplines, so that no one person will ever have adequate training to fully evaluate your work. Construct elaborate theories with many parts. Draw diagrams. Use italics liberally to indicate that you are using words in a highly specific and idiosyncratic sense. Never say anything too specific, and if you do, qualify it heavily so that you can always insist you meant the opposite. Then evangelize: speak as confidently as possible, as if you are sharing God’s own truth. Accept no criticisms: insist that any skeptic has either misinterpreted you or has actually already admitted that you are correct. Talk as much as possible and listen as little as possible. Follow these steps, and your success will be assured. (It does help if you are male and Caucasian.) [/quote]
Or here:
https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/a-messiah-cum-surrogate-dad-for-gormless-dimwits-on-jordan-b-petersons-12-rules-for-life/
A Messiah-cum-Surrogate-Dad for Gormless Dimwits: On Jordan B. Peterson’s “12 Rules for Life”
Quoting Kenosha Kid
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Female_hysteria
Yes, you read aright, the cure of last resort for hysteria was hysterectomy.
[quote=wiki]What had been drapetomania became depression. ... Modern man runs away from a life that seems to him a kind of slavery.
Thomas Szasz, "The Sane Slave: Social Control and Legal Psychiatry," American Criminal Law Review, vol. 10 (1971), p. 346[/quote]
I could go on, but I already have elsewhere, and simply wanted to put this discussion in the context of the political history of psychology and psychiatry. Madness is necessarily social, and necessarily delegitimising.
Yeah right. Because the 34 murders, including 8 children and 266+ of suicides in just one year* directly linked with schizophrenia, even with a strong psychiatric profession, were just them expressing their legitimate difference of opinion about who was and was not a demon/devil/whatever. How repressive of us to try and convince them otherwise.
* Royal College of Psychiatrists, and National Schizophrenia Fellowship figures concurrent in two separate reports.
:rofl:
Or maybe you're just a right-wing nut job? Hmm...
Peterson came to public attention because he refused to use politically correct gender pronouns; and I think that is key to understanding who he is, and why he's so popular. He refused to be bullied by political correctness extremists.
Remember the Cathy Newman interview on Channel 4. I have no wish to demonise Cathy Newman, but in typical news media style, it was a gotcha interview, wherein Peterson was bombarded with gotcha questions, and he refused to be intimidated and answered those questions. I think they got into it over the supposed gender pay gap.
Then, far lefty keyboard warriors like Kenosha Kid - take those examples out of context and claim this typifies Peterson's message, but it doesn't. This quote:
"...it’s so whiny, it’s just enough to drive a modern person mad to listen to these suburban housewives from the late ’50s ensconced in their comfortable secure lives complaining about the fact that they’re bored because they don’t have enough opportunity. It’s like, Jesus get a hobby. For Christ’s sake."
....is so endlessly reproduced out of context by craven left wing bullies citing other craven left wing bullies, the original context doesn't appear in a google search.
Forced monogamy is not something Peterson advocates as government policy. Rather he identifies it as the response of nature and civilisation to the monopolization of sexual opportunity by alpha males, and a violent competition for hierarchy. It's nothing that Claude Levi Strauss hasn't said in discussing the kinship relations of hunter gather societies. This is from Peterson himself:
"My motivated critics couldn’t contain their joyful glee this week at discovering my hypothetical support for a Handmaid’s Tale-type patriarchal social structure as (let’s say) hinted at in Nellie Bowles’ New York Times article presenting her take on my ideas.
It’s been a truism among anthropologists and biologically-oriented psychologists for decades that all human societies face two primary tasks: regulation of female reproduction (so the babies don’t die, you see) and male aggression (so that everyone doesn’t die). The social enforcement of monogamy happens to be an effective means of addressing both issues, as most societies have come to realize (pair-bonded marriages constituting, as they do, a human universal (see the list of human universals here, derived from Donald Brown’s book by that name)."
https://www.jordanbpeterson.com/media/on-the-new-york-times-and-enforced-monogamy/
The problem with politically correct lefty keyboard warriors; apart from their overwhelming ignorance, is their overwhelming ignorance of the implications for society - of their supposed moral goods.
This is such a fascinating approach. Are you at all aware of alternative (equally scientific) positions to the ones you espouse, or do you genuinely live in a world where the (first?) scientist you read on a subject must automatically be right and everyone who disagrees is ideologically deluded. I don't know if it's just a really good act, but if so, well done. You really do come across as actually believing this bizarre world-view.
I haven't read everything, but I have read extensively. It's always open to you to cite your hypothetical:
Quoting Isaac
or, drop the act and just call me names!
Unexpected conclusion. It's pretty clear you started that whingefest with me misrepresenting JP entirely. Then it ended with me apparently representing him correctly and just being wrong for disagreeing. If you'd written any more, you might have ended up reprimanding me for not being sufficiently opposed to his misogynistic bullshit, who knows.
Is that what you got from that? No. I should clarify. I'm saying that left wing politically correct positions are adopted for the purposes of causing disruption; and if you think they're moral goods - you're ignorant and delusional, and engaged in some kind of proselytizing post rationalisation.
It wasn't covered at all.
Quoting counterpunch
So the former then. You really don't think there's even so much as an active debate among scientists about the positions you espouse as 'scientific'.
Could you be more specific? There are debates, about all sorts of things, but increasingly, the social sciences are being politicised by the left. The degree to which 'the humanities' are politicised was demonstrated by the Lindsay Sheppard affair - in which a faculty panel destroyed a teaching assistant for showing a lecture by Peterson.
Fortunately, she recorded the inquisition to which she was subjected - and one has to wonder, in that kind of stultifying atmosphere, what real science is possible? Just as the left have no respect for freedom of speech, they have no respect for freedom of thought, or conscience, or scientific objectivity. So please, be specific.
Ah. Yeah, I didn't get that at all from what you smoked, I mean wrote.
I'm not sure what your actual disagreement is. Is the argument that if I am critical of psychiatry, I must be in favour of murder and suicide? Cool! Really strong demonstration of the authoritarian response. I criticise psychiatry, I must be insane! Nice one Cyril! It used to be called "lack of insight|" but it probably has other names these days.
Yes, that's basically it. If you see madness as
Quoting unenlightened
...then you get an increase in murder and suicide.
If, however, you see some mental health diagnoses as a cover-up for a society's poor treatment of its citizens... then, you'd have a valid point to discuss.
Exactly. He's great at exploiting "outrage" manufactured by the media (mainly conservative media, in this case: Fox News, Breitbart, NY Post, talk radio, etc). Gives the right an "intellectual," like other talking-heads but with the distinction of being professorial, more nuanced (by his followers' standards), and with the extra credit of being from the very fields which those of a conservative political persuasion have come to largely dismiss or reject: academia and science (in this case, psychology).
Pretty easy to figure out, if one takes 30 seconds to step outside their media-created prejudices.
I agree.
Quoting Xtrix
I disagree. It's lefty media who are outraged by him. See Cathy Newman.
Quoting Xtrix
I disagree again. I don't believe Peterson set out to be a spokesman for the right. I think he set out to be a psychologist - and got drawn into the left's culture war. It's because the left's positions are scientifically incoherent, that Peterson is cast as right wing. Sure, he plays the game for his own benefit, and he makes a lot of money.
Quoting Xtrix
Again, no - I don't think so. Since the sixties there's been a "hippy vibe" - for want of a better term, in science and academia, pitched against the establishment viewpoint. The left wing used this as a platform to launch a culture war; a movement that has philosophically rejected the scientific fundamentals. Peterson's psychology is grounded in science, and draws conclusions without deference to the hippy vibe. He's beloved of the right because he's a good scientist - whereas, the left are not.
If you were interested, you might wonder what I mean by 'social' and 'delegitimising'. But as it is, I am suitably flattered that you consider my views as so very puissant.
This is predictable. Try to get beyond this thinking of "left" and "right." That's reducing things to the level of sports teams.
The right are programmed to be outraged by things like gender pronouns, unisex bathrooms, and whatever else is played up by their media. The same boring narratives: liberals are against free speech, especially in universities, political correctness is destroying the country, etc. That's just as much manufactured as the left. Jordan Peterson sees these manufactured controversies, and rather than analyzing them rationally, decides to exploit it to sell books and garner attention. Which clearly works, given that you and others are forcing it upon the rest of us, as if he's serious enough to be worthwhile. I'm not wasting another word on this man.
A polarised political landscape is not my doing, nor subject to my choice. I disagree with the PC line for whatever reason - statistics, developmental psychology, and I'm automatically branded a right wing hate monster. I'm not, but nor am I a craven, left wing, white guilt ridden sap - willing to have my opinions dictated to me. I think Peterson is much the same; only better at exploiting it.
Nah. If this were an isolated comment maybe, but as it is it comes off the back of (and even refers to) a long and persistent effort on your part to paint the whole of modern psychology as somehow complicit in the actions of some of it's past members where nothing short of ritual suicide would satisfy you. My previous attempt to give you the benefit of the doubt lead to a four page argument in which you insisted that we should change our practices without offering a single shred of evidence that we hadn't already done so, despite me posting rule after rule from organisations like the BPS showing exactly that we had.
So no. You've got a bone you want to gnaw and it's a waste of time pretending that you've the slightest interest in what is actually the case, your only interest is gnawing that bone and woe betide anyone who tries to take it from you.
The who what now? Contradiction in terms.
Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, the usual suspects.It has always been obvious to me that the political spectrum is spherical such that the extremes of left and right coincide like East and West do. Is this an unusual view? I think Orwell explained it in Animal Farm.
Or if you want a more modern version, the more dictatorial tendencies of the Green movement - see here for example.
Malthus was plain wrong. 200 years and 8 billion people, better fed than ever - prove him wrong. It's not a matter of how many people there are. Resources are a function of the energy available to create them.
For the past 200 years, that's been fossil fuel energy - and that's bad, because nature buries carbon to maintain a viable biosphere. We dug it up and burnt it; giving us the energy to develop land to feed 8bn people, at the cost of putting that carbon back into the atmosphere.
Carbon pollution isn't a necessary consequence of energy production. We can produce clean energy; but we need vastly more energy to secure the future, not less. In my view, wind and solar are not sufficient. The nearest large source of energy is the heat energy of the earth itself - magma power! There's a virtually limitless supply, and all we have to do is get at it!
I admire and am in awe of much of JPs ideas and the clarity of his elucidation.
But, this Christian obsession is annoying and plainly wrong - I can't believe that someone who usually is so determined to get to the bedrock of human understanding is stuck in this shallow paradigm. The Logos idea is not even Christian. It was certainly around in 5 century BC with Heraclitus and who knows how much earlier. The entire Christian creed is derivative.
He doesn't need it. I really believe it's stagnated his work.
What exactly do you mean by Christian obsession? The Biblical series on youtube?
"Viracocha rose from Lake Titicaca during the time of darkness to bring forth light. He made the sun, moon, and the stars. He made mankind by breathing into stones, but his first creation were brainless giants that displeased him. So he destroyed it with a flood and made a new, better one from smaller stones.
Viracocha eventually disappeared across the Pacific Ocean by walking on the water, and never returned. He wandered the earth disguised as a beggar, teaching his new creations the basics of civilization, as well as working numerous miracles. He wept when he saw the plight of the creatures he had created. It was thought that Viracocha would re-appear in times of trouble."
This is the religious legend of the people's of South America - people who built pyramids at the same time Egyptians were building pyramids, half way around the world. There's something terribly familiar about it all. The pyramid is a symbol of hierarchy in multitribal civilisation - the eye of Ra, or God, at the top as divine authority for the laws applying to the many below. These are universal symbols that follow as a consequence of the human experience of reality - and that's logos, or Jungian archetypes to use the psychological lexicon.
Maybe you know better than I do whether Peterson is a believer or not. I'm not a believer. I'm agnostic, and to my mind all this is the consequence of evolution. But it's really there, and it's something Christianity describes. So I'd disagree with the term 'shallow' - and argue instead, that there are deeper, evolutionary mechanisms at work. If Peterson's belief prevents him digging deeper, that's a shame, because like you say - he's a brilliant speaker.
Fascism is a specific ideology, or set of ideologies. It's not just any authoritarianism. Different visions of society can all have a similar drive towards being enforced by absolute authority, but that doesn't make the visions the same.
No, I take no issue with the biblical series - the lectures are great - imo.
I dispute his often cited claim that our Judeo-Christian heritage plays a central role in formulating the Western World's greatest ideal: the Individual.
I agree with his conclusion, that the individual is our Cultures central and greatest ideal. But it's an ideal that predates Christianity by at least half a millennia. It's an ideal that found its greatest expression in classical Greece - or more specifically Athens.
Of course, Peterson knows all this but insists on this Christian centrality nonsense - it's intellectually dishonest.
No matter how shallow a familiarity one may have with world history, it is an undeniable fact, that the unparalleled era of advancement and progress civilisation has experienced over the last half millennia has an uncanny inverse correlation with Christian hegemony. In short, claims that Christianity plays some central role in the advancement of the Western World is to put plainly unfounded and the evidence overwhelmingly points in the opposing direction: Christianity prevented progress.
Yet, Peterson repeatedly makes this judeo-chrisitian claim and the claim is never challenged. In fact even atheists like Harris have failed to call him out on it.
By elevating one religion/myhology over and above all others we embrace limitation, inviting institutional, cultural and political possession. Inevitably, it all becomes trite, losing its vitality it degrades and can no longer inspire.
This is my sole criticism of JP - but it is a fairly big one - because he must know better. It's difficult to avoid the conclusion that he is pandering to this Christian audience to maximise readers and lecture attendees or maybe it's something more noble I can't see. Whatever the motivation - it's wrong by his own standards of truth telling.
Thank you.
I think the “horseshoe theory” of political spectra can be better understood as that authority breeds hierarchy and hierarchy breeds authority, so whether you pursue equality at the cost of freedom (state socialism) or freedom at the cost of equality (anarcho capitalism) you end up losing both (state capitalism, i.e. fascism).
The problem with unenlightened’s post is that the axis of state socialism to anarcho capitalism is only “left-right” in a newer distorted sense. The original left was the direction toward freedom AND equality both, and the fascism that both state socialism and anarcho capitalism collapse to is squarely in the corner of the original right.
Continued philosophical reflection has got me to the point where I'm agnostic on epistemological grounds. I don't know if there's a God or not. In fact, no-one does. And I've come to realise the significance of religion to civilisation over thousands of years.
Rationally, I think religion is an expression of the innate moral sense - fostered in the human animal as a consequence of evolution in a tribal content. Moral behaviour was an advantage to the individual within the tribe, and to the tribe made up of moral individuals - in competition with other tribes.
Religion occurred when hunter-gatherer tribes joined together to form multi-tribal social groups. They needed an objective authority for law and order, that applied equally to everyone - and didn't depend upon the alpha male hierarchy of the hunter gatherer tribe. So they invented God, and derived authority for social law and order from God. Think Moses coming down the mountain with the tablets - and uniting the tribes of Israel.
This is the inversion of values Nietzsche identified, but misunderstood. He believed the strong, amoral, self-serving individual - was fooled by the weak, and chained with a Christian morality that had inverted values, and turned virtue into vice. But there never was a strong, amoral, self serving individual - because human evolution wasn't brute competition and survival of the fittest.
Chimpanzees have morality of sorts; they defend the tribe, share food and groom each other, and remember who reciprocates, and withhold such favours accordingly. Similarly, human beings couldn't have survived if they were purely violent monsters of the will. We are moral creatures - imbued with a moral sense by evolution in a tribal context. Then, this implicit moral sense was made explicit when hunter gatherer tribes joined together - and that's religion.
Thinking about it in these terms has allowed me to get past the anger I felt at being deceived, and the revulsion I felt toward anyone suggesting religion was meaningful in any way. Whether Peterson believes in the supernatural elements of religion or not I don't know. He was asked once, and his answer was longer than the age of the universe!
What was the original left? I'd suggest this rabble as setting the scene before the classification of left and right came into being. They were saved by complete failure from becoming like the bloodthirsty dictatorial fanatics of the French revolution. and the Russian revolution, and the Chinese revolution.
The individual is fundamental to Christianity, because without the individual, the whole prospect of the Judgment and of eternal heaven or eternal damnation fails. Christianity stands and falls with the prospect of the Judgment.
Because they all need it and rely on it:
The Christians and Peterson for the purpose of judging and condemning people, and the New Atheists to claim their special status (and also for the purpose of judging and condemning people).
Well, if his own actual standard of truth telling is duplicity, then he can be called neither a hypocrite nor wrong ...
The Luddites were a secret oath-based organization of English textile workers in the 19th century, a radical faction which destroyed textile machinery as a form of protest. The group are believed to have taken their name from Ned Ludd, a weaver from Anstey, near Leicester. They protested against manufacturers who used machines. Luddites feared that the time spent learning the skills of their craft would go to waste, as machines would replace their role in the industry. Over time, the term has come to mean one opposed to industrialisation, automation, computerisation, or new technologies in general. The Luddite movement began in Nottingham in England and culminated in a region-wide rebellion that lasted from 1811 to 1816. Mill and factory owners took to shooting protesters and eventually the movement was suppressed with legal and military force.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luddite
Indeed, the Luddites exemplify the conservative left, seeking to conserve the traditions of working practice from the tyranny of progress and mechanisation. The Diggers and Levellers though were much earlier.
The conservative nature of the working class is sadly neglected by left-wing politicians to their cost.
Do you mean Conservatives, but to the left of the Conservatives? Or do you mean lefties into conservation?
I know the Diggers and Levellers were earlier, but I like Luddites as a pejorative, because their practice of throwing sand into the machinery seems to typify a left, that likes to think itself progressive but has regressed into identity politics - to throw sand into the machinery of society.
I'm inclined to agree that the working class are conservative deep down; they have never 'cast off their chains' - which is a problem for the left. But then, Marx was always a middle class idea of the working class interest - just as political correctness is now, a champagne socialist's idea of fairness. In reality, it's a pernicious dogma that seeks to cause the divisions it purports to abhor. Luddites!
I'm trying to provoke a thought or two. I oppose 'conservative' to 'progressive'. Everyone (I assume) wants to conserve what is good and progress to what is better. So this kind of argument revolves around the judgement of what can be changed for the better and what should not be changed for the worse. If you are able to use machines to increase your productivity, you will probably support that change, whereas if I can do that and you cannot, and you lose your livelihood as a result, you might well think my machines a bad thing.
So working class conservatism typically seeks to maintain traditional jobs in mining and heavy industry, restrictive practices, job demarkation, union dominance, skill hierarchies, male and white dominance and so on. Whereas entrepreneurial conservatism would be more progressive about working practices.
There's been a lot of talk here in the UK about "saving the National Health System", which again is a project of conservation but a social conservation rather than an individualist one.
There's a couple of dimensions there within the single left right dimension; conservative/progressive, and individual/social. Add in the authoritarian/liberal dimension and you start to get something a bit more nuanced by which to understand the varieties of political commitment.
Everyone (I assume) purports to want to conserve what is good and progress to what is better - but it's as you imply, better for whom?
Quoting unenlightened
You're the one asking:
Quoting unenlightened
So how can you assume "everyone wants to conserve what is good and progress to what is better" - when the left wing, politically correct agenda is so clearly contrary to the interests of those the party was established to represent, and not assume dishonesty of purpose?
Quoting unenlightened
Racist - sexist bastards - thinking themselves deserving of political representation! Twitter mob them into bankruptcy!
Quoting unenlightened
Nuanced? Have you read the Communist Manifesto? They wanted the working man to rebel against his own livelihood, steal everything from those that built it, and give it to them along with absolute power! That didn't work, but now, they're really into racism!
I assume you want to conserve what is good, and progress to what needs improvement. I assume Marx did too. I assume you disagree with him and maybe with me about what to conserve and what to progress. Hurling insults about at hypothetical interest groups and power groups is rather what I want to get away from. But if you don't want to, that's your affair I suppose.
I am suggesting that everyone is conservative about some things and progressive about others, and authoritarian about some things and liberal about others, and so on with social/ individual. So it's a question of whether in matters sexual one leans to a liberal or authoritarian approach, and so on. One's attitude to economics will obviously depend on one's own and one's country's economic situation as well as education religion and so on. Try to separate out gay liberation, the abolition of slavery, and the communist manifesto. They are not one thing. One can be in favour of the public ownership of the road network without being a Maoist.
Quoting unenlightened
Do you think you're going about that in the right way?
The Christian story asks the timeless question and answers it with a sacrificial mythical exemplar: What should my response be to the injustices of the world I confront:- hypocrisy, poverty, betrayal, power, greed, lust, deception, envy, disease, deception, violence, brutality, torture...
What is portrayed in the gospels is as valid today as it was 2,000 or 4,000 years ago - or anytime in between. So, it has failed to change the world. The kingdom of god is unrealised. The individual exemplar has not only failed to inspire or transform the world, it has in practice remained captured and vacillated between empty ritual and self-mockery.
The timeless question is not sufficiently answered. The sacrificial exemplar embodied in the saviour to transform the world is far too simplistic, self-destructive, dysfunctional, pathetic and ultimately insufficient. After 2,000 years, this much is undeniable.
The christian message is fundamentally comforting but ultimately naive. It offers a profoundly impractical appeal to self-pity, divine intervention, and not least, a sublimation of revenge to another dimension. It's enduring quality is to offer eternal comfort to the defeated.
Instead of the victory of the individual, Christians celebrates the individuals impotence and defeat.
And for all that, I still accept the gospels as profound documents because they posit the question.
It's just that the answer is BS.