Went down a rabbit hole of learning about Cultural Marxism (literally called a conspiracy theory on Wikipedia). So what's the argument that Peterson isn't a conservative?
aka The Peterson's defense."He doesn't officially refer to himself a conservative, therefore he can't be one."
And the corollary, "If I claim I am something, I am unquestionably that thing." AKA Centristsaka The Peterson's defense.
"I can't be something if I don't claim that I am".
Calls for parents to take their kids out of schools that bring up diversity and white privilege and for cultural Marxists to be kicked out of academia would be pretty anti-intellectual, wouldn't you agree?What about Peterson allows you to say he's anti-intellectual, or furthers anti-intellectualism?
Went down a rabbit hole of learning about Cultural Marxism (literally called a conspiracy theory on Wikipedia). So what's the argument that Peterson isn't a conservative?
All of this discussion over whether or not he's a Christian or atheist proves that Peterson is vague and imprecise.I tried to say this a while back. I realize no one wants to claim him, but he really isn't a Christian. He likes to obfuscate any actual stances he has and he's making 80k a month on patreon pandering to conservatives - but he does not believe in anything we recognize as Christianity.
He is The Secret incarnateaka The Peterson's defense.
"I can't be something if I don't claim that I am".
When I lived in Colorado Springs, there was a very strong Christian conservative sentiment. As a teacher there, I had to sign a document agreeing not to teach evolution in the classroom, and I had to verbally agree that it was a "political movement", not a scientific theory. For that reason, I have planned on homeschooling my son for a long time - I don't want him indoctrinated into their perspective because I consider it dangerous. I don't think that makes me anti-intellectual. If someone is looking at other, more liberal schools and is concerned about their child being indoctrinated into a perspective they disagree with, then I don't see that as anti-intellectual. I do think it's fair to call Peterson anti-diversity if he is specifically using that kind of language. But every parent should be reflecting on what schools teach their children, and whether they are okay with that. These are government institutions that belong to the people they work for, and right now schools are in a tricky position where they want to teach values to kids because they need it (oh god, do they need it), but parents get upset so we try to be value-free. A major discussion about what schools should really be doing in this country is long overdue, and I hope that Peterson's offense at modern education leads to more conversations. This generation is waking up to a lot of things our parents slept on for some reason, and it's great to see. Assuming Trump is forcefully removed from office, I think him getting elected is for the best in this country.Calls for parents to take their kids out of schools that bring up diversity and white privilege and for cultural Marxists to be kicked out of academia would be pretty anti-intellectual, wouldn't you agree?
As someone that has spent a lot of time talking to christians, atheists, and deists... I would suggest not getting hung up on qualifiers like that when tackling somebody slippery like this. I know liberal christians that only support <5% of the Bible as fact, but they will defend their title as a "Christian" through the night. I've met atheists that agree with more of the Bible than those people, and they go to church regularly for their families. Ultimately, it's easier to look at their claims all lined up, and address each on the merits. Whatever JP is in actuality in his heart, he's a charlatan no matter what. None of his arguments hold water and are full of fallacy.
This is all too common behavior by contrarians of all stripes. Hide behind soft unassailable rhetoric (self help), then lace in the chum that gets you the attention you need to develop a serious following. Then just act attacked and aggrieved around the clock and try to draw a big enough spotlight to yourself to suit your ends. (Money, fame, power, respect)
This was essentially the creationist/ID movement for decades. They leverage any part of the education system they could against society similar to what the NRA gets away with these days. If you let them get their foot in the door, they'll use it to make themselves look legitimate. It's all about the thin sheen of legitimacy they crave from society. Because they don't ave the evidence on their side or popular opinion on their side, they have to pry it out of us with tricks.
Peterson rings all the alarm bells for me, he's caging his language in a way to be as inoffensive as possible while simultaneously not sounding PC. It's very calculated and tailored to his audience. His self help stuff is a classic snake oil tactic from waaaay back. His "just asking questions" routine is straight out of Scientology thugs, or flat earther conventions. And then the misogyny is just the cherry on top that always seems to underly the shitlord aesthetic.
Interesting equating schools teaching diversity, white privilege and other liberal topics to Christian conservative schools as if the liberal stuff is anti-intellectual with no factual evidence backing it. At least I see where you're coming from.When I lived in Colorado Springs, there was a very strong Christian conservative sentiment. As a teacher there, I had to sign a document agreeing not to teach evolution in the classroom, and I had to verbally agree that it was a "political movement", not a scientific theory. For that reason, I have planned on homeschooling my son for a long time - I don't want him indoctrinated into their perspective because I consider it dangerous. I don't think that makes me anti-intellectual. If someone is looking at other, more liberal schools and is concerned about their child being indoctrinated into a perspective they disagree with, then I don't see that as anti-intellectual.
Apparently Peterson announced he no longer believes in God this year.
When I lived in Colorado Springs, there was a very strong Christian conservative sentiment. As a teacher there, I had to sign a document agreeing not to teach evolution in the classroom, and I had to verbally agree that it was a "political movement", not a scientific theory. For that reason, I have planned on homeschooling my son for a long time - I don't want him indoctrinated into their perspective because I consider it dangerous. I don't think that makes me anti-intellectual. If someone is looking at other, more liberal schools and is concerned about their child being indoctrinated into a perspective they disagree with, then I don't see that as anti-intellectual. I do think it's fair to call Peterson anti-diversity if he is specifically using that kind of language. But every parent should be reflecting on what schools teach their children, and whether they are okay with that. These are government institutions that belong to the people they work for, and right now schools are in a tricky position where they want to teach values to kids because they need it (oh god, do they need it), but parents get upset so we try to be value-free. A major discussion about what schools should really be doing in this country is long overdue, and I hope that Peterson's offense at modern education leads to more conversations. This generation is waking up to a lot of things our parents slept on for some reason, and it's great to see. Assuming Trump is forcefully removed from office, I think him getting elected is for the best in this country.
The amount of victimhood is appalling.Oh cool, so Oversoul actually recognizes that Peteron's entire audience are angry white men.
I think we're making some progress
Not going by the lecture attendance, which is more varied. YT does seems to have a more male centric demographic, though.Oh cool, so Oversoul actually recognizes that Peteron's entire audience are angry white men.
I think we're making some progress
Not going by the lecture attendance, which is more varied. YT does seems to have a more male centric demographic, though.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-5RCmu-HuTg
This is why just analyzing Peterson's appeal as an angry young white guy thing seem to miss the mark. Krisoffer touched on this earlier.
That's not say that Peterson is harmless and beyond reproach obviously. Many have provided clear arguments against his worldview in this thread.
However, just handwaving his appeal to angry young white guys is rather superficial analysis.
Intellectual is a way of processing and relating to things. It's a question of how much you apply your intellect to any given situation. I would say that Peterson is very intellectual, and I don't see how that can be disagreed with.Interesting equating schools teaching diversity, white privilege and other liberal topics to Christian conservative schools as if the liberal stuff is anti-intellectual with no factual evidence backing it. At least I see where you're coming from.
The bolded is a valuation - if you apply your intellect with a different set of values, you will end up at a different conclusion. Obviously, that's what Peterson is doing here. I'm not saying that I agree with Peterson, obviously, but the label "anti-intellectual" isn't fitting. You can be a Christian conservative and intellectual.Pulling kids out of school if they talk about white privilege, diversity, and inclusiveness is anti-intellectual because those things exist or are sorely needed. Pulling your kid out of class because the school doesn't want to teach evolution is not anti-intellectual because evolution is real. It's not the act of pulling your kid out that is anti-intellectual, it's the reason for doing it.
I hope Peterson's offense at modern education doesn't lead to more conversations. I don't want his offense to be the jumping off point. I think poisons the well and starts off the conversation on a negative note that leads to inaction or worse.
Oh cool, so Oversoul actually recognizes that Peteron's entire audience are angry white men.
I think we're making some progress. Maybe now we can dig into the fact that Peterson is creating scapegoats for this specific group of people and talk about why this specific group of people all want social regression for those who don't fit their own mold.
I'm seeing women in the comment section. They could be fake accounts who knows.That lecture is loaded with the amount of "diversity" I would expect
And of course, if his appeal wasn't "angry white men", why would a supporter of his whip out that Salon collage as a way to excuse his... predominantly white male audience.
It's hardly superficial when you listen to what he says, how he says it, how he frames it, and why a very select group of people have been cheering him on and arguably funding his existence.
Then who exactly is crafting and creating the counter narrative you pointed out? Why wold you point that collection of Salon article headlines and counter it with Peterson?
I bolded entire for a reason. Be precise in your speech, was it not?
I do think white men are his prime demographic. But there will be all kinds of people who will start listening to Peterson as he becomes more well-known. According to Peterson himself at least, more women are showing up to his talks lately. I don't see why he would lie about this, since he has stated that his audience being predominately male is not a problem at all.
As Karsticles puts it, it's no wonder why this is happening. And it's not a bad thing.
I don't really see this in his message at all. Like I said earlier, he particularly is clear about telling young men to get their act together. He rarely if ever says the same thing to women. A good part of his appeal is being a surrogate stern father figure. It's why his invective to "Clean Your Room" have reached meme territory. And regarding snake oil salesmen, all his stuff is on YT for free.What exactly does that mean.
But yea, keep ignoring when he directly victim blames and tells young men they are born with direct disadvantages. It's not like he's doing that for a specific reason.
As long as you gobble up his extremely bland and generic self help that just so happens to be wrapped around social regression of women/minority rights, it's all groovy.
I've already seen how this game is played, it's so amazingly simple of deflection of specifics that Peterson has said and advocated for through "just asking questions", and the propping up his his beyond mundane "self help" that I would be better suited taking a chainsaw to my frontal lobe.
There is a reason he has a following, there is always a market for snake oil salesmen.
You can be Christian conserve and intellectual, yes, but if you support ideas such as pulling out your kids if they taught evolution, or diversity, or inclusiveness, or white privilege or any other such "progressive" ideas, you're an anti-intellectual. Peterson is an intellectual, but he espouses some anti-intellectual things such as calling women hypocrites, suggesting kids be pulled out of school because he doesn't want diversity, intentionally misinterpreting the bill that made him famous and is continuing to do so apparently, and so on.The bolded is a valuation - if you apply your intellect with a different set of values, you will end up at a different conclusion. Obviously, that's what Peterson is doing here. I'm not saying that I agree with Peterson, obviously, but the label "anti-intellectual" isn't fitting. You can be a Christian conservative and intellectual.
I see people talking about modern education and how all of it is funded all of the time. It's the divisive, ass-backwards shit like Peterson's suggestion that gets play.Peterson definitely wouldn't be my preferring jumping-off point for a discussion about values in modern education, but no one else is doing it, so I'm glad it might happen in some way. There's almost no discussion about how the Republican Party is using charter schools to indoctrinate children into conservative ideology, for example. Hell, my last school even had Ben Carson's Gifted Hands as one of the freshmen reading books, and it was preached as gospel. Terrifying.
I don't really see this in his message at all. Like I said earlier, he particularly is clear about telling young men to get their act together. He rarely if ever says the same thing to women. A good part of his appeal is being a surrogate stern father figure. It's why his invective to "Clean Your Room" have reached meme territory. And regarding snake oil salesmen, all his stuff is on YT for free.
He's not a Tony Robbin that gates his stuff behind expensive AF live events and sales funnels--executive level, platinum, etc.
What exactly does that mean.
But yea, keep ignoring when he directly victim blames and tells young men they are born with direct disadvantages. It's not like he's doing that for a specific reason.
As long as you gobble up his extremely bland and generic self help that just so happens to be wrapped around social regression of women/minority rights, it's all groovy.
Just a reminder, you're talking about the person who called Frozen feminist propaganda,
Said women who wear makeup and demand to not be sexually harassed are hypocrites
And said men are twice as likely to fail at life because they are a man
But yea, those young men really need to get their act together!
What disadvantages are males born with according to Peterson?
More importantly, his entire message (and a fair point of critique in this thread made multiple times!) is that no disadvantage is ever an excuse for not trying to be the best you can be. Bear your load, life is suffering, yada yada. So how is that victim blaming? Peterson puts the blame, in the end, always on the individual and how he/she/they choose to to play the afformentioned dealt hand.
Also Peterson is not promoting social regression for minorities/women etc. He's just not focussing on their specific issues (although he touches on some women specific one regarding career and motherhood).
But that's the cool thing about the marketplace of ideas. There are other people who can put their focus elsewhere and on different demographics or ideas.
You can't expect Peterson to adress every issue. He's not some omnipotent ubermensch who understands every issue. In my opinion he already adresses too much.
But as Korsticles and others have explained, he chooses to prioritizes certain topics and discussions because he feels they aren't being talked about enough.
I'm not defending what Peterson has said. All I'm saying that his appeal isn't as one dimensional as some are purporting.
Let me go through that list:Particulary white men who have been used as the one group you can always spit on, no questions asked, in certain "progressive" circles.
With this kind of rhetoric, is it any wonder a counter narrative has risen?
Now in stark contrast to the above, watch Peterson show some actual humanity:
The first two are fair criticisms. Yet, he's not constructing his entire message on those points. But I'll give you those. The third one is odd, though. He's speaking from a biological evolutionary perspective. Did you listen to it? He's not saying men are qualitative failures. I don't see how anyone can read that as victim blaming.You said,
I just gave you specific examples of him in three completely separate situations crafting narratives that young men are being targeted by society and him directly blaming women.
1) Frozen is feminist propaganda that women don't need men anymore.
2) Women are blaming men for sexual harassment when they are the ones enticing men with makeup
3) Women choose their partners, biology has men at a 2:1 disadvantage because of women.
Now, we've already been over this earlier in the thread. It doesn't take a fucking genius or someone who is capable of "asking questions" to piece together how amazingly stupid each one of these points he has made is.
The first two are fair criticisms. Yet, he's not constructing his entire message on those points. But I'll give you those. The third one is odd, though. He's speaking from a biological evolutionary perspective. Did you listen to it? He's not saying men are qualitative failures. I don't see how anyone can read that as victim blaming.
I'm going to stop replying to you considering you've spent this entire thread specifically ignoring people who give you links and exact examples of Peterson directly victim blaming. Go read up on my previous posts or the above posts for examples.
Did he though? He's explaining biological "success". Human have moved on from those notions of success--well mostly. We define our success. I don't see him saying it ought to be that way.He's taking an observation about biology and using it to say how things "ought" to be. That's not how it works
The first two are fair criticisms. Yet, he's not constructing his entire message on those points. But I'll give you those. The third one is odd, though. He's speaking from a biological evolutionary perspective. Did you listen to it? He's not saying men are qualitative failures. I don't see how anyone can read that as victim blaming.
I already said that Peterson obviously states factors that make "life" more difficult for men or explains factors that contributed to the current state of young men becoming aimless and prone to fall prey to nihilism.
But you seem unable to grasp that this doesn't diminish his lesson/message/whatever not even one bit. Because it's part of it. "Life IS hard, BUT..."
Well, we tried.
Tell me, what is the message he is crafting on these points? These three separate messages that all just happen to include women as the source of the issue?
His essential message is responsibility.He's telling a class of young men that they have 50% more chance of failure in life because they are men. Because women choose and rate men. He fucking loves using biology, because those who are unfamiliar with biology won't be able to tell him how much of an idiot he is being when using biology, and if you come back at him and don't know much about biology he will attack you for attacking "science". We already have examples of how fucking stupid his lobster biology example is, so we know he has a history of talking out of his ass to suit a narrative.
Funny how he's using the example of "biology". I wonder how his example would work out if we apply to the entire history of human society? You know, the actual use case of the biology he is talking about.
Tell me, what is the message he is crafting on these points? These three separate messages that all just happen to include women as the source of the issue?
My generation rarely hears this. It's not that we think we're perfect — though narcissism is on the rise. We're just rarely told to improve in such harsh terms. Instead, we're told we're special and that we should feel good about ourselves, no matter what. We get prizes for coming in last. We're the "self-esteem generation", so it's always somebody else's fault.
Dr Peterson's saying the exact opposite: You're not perfect, so stop blaming other people for your problems and take responsibility for yourself. Get your act together — you've got things to do. Aspire to a greater version of you.
"Why should you feel good about who you are? You should feel good about who you could be," he said. And we actually like that message. It allows us to take responsibility for ourselves and it gives us a goal to strive toward. It gives us direction.
Dr Peterson isn't in the "self-help" business, he's in the "self-improvement" business. Rule number one in his book is: "Stand up straight with your shoulders back." Rule six: "Set your house in perfect order before you criticise the world."
He writes: "Start with yourself. What good are you? Get yourself together so that when your father dies you're not whining away in a corner and you can help plan the funeral. And you can stand up solidly so people can rely on you. That's better. Don't be a damn victim."
His essential message is responsibility.
That's not to say that he hasn't said toxic and vile things. But that's not his main thesis.
Here's a good summary.
http://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/he...p/news-story/c1996c25c093450c7aad68000f9d0101
Again this is basic message.
However, this does not free him the criticism he's receiving. I have no problem with those attacking his problematic statements. it's fair game, but his message is easily distilled.
How about you stop fucking ignoring what he is saying instead of sucking down his worthless self help.
If you need some random shmuck on youtube to tell you life is hard and you need to soldier on, one of the most common and least insightful examples of self help, then what exactly are you even capable of doing by yourself?
No need to make this personal. You seem really, really intent on focussing on specific sentences Peterson uses to illustrate the first part of his selfhelp message "life is hard"
I choose to look at the second part, which also contains the call to action: "..but in the end, YOU must take responsibillity for it and try to make it better"
In my estimate, the latter is far more important and forms the core of his message. You seem to disagree. Well, then further discussion on our part seems to be fruitless.
I must admit, I do find some humor in how the tone in your posts seems to resemble Petersons twitter account on a bad day now.
Why yes, I'm really intent on citing specific examples to reenforce my argument, how kind of you to notice.
You just admitted to hand-washing away his specific examples of blaming others because you like the "take ownership" part of his message.
Even when that's literally contradicting his own actions when out giving lectures, writing or doing interviews.
No need to make this personal. You seem really, really intent on focussing on specific sentences Peterson uses to illustrate the first part of his selfhelp message "life is hard"
I choose to look at the second part, which also contains the call to action: "..but in the end, YOU must take responsibillity for it and try to make it better"
In my estimate, the latter is far more important and forms the core of his message. You seem to disagree. Well, then further discussion on our part seems to be fruitless.
I think if you follow Peterson for a little while it's actually quite clear wether he is Christian or not.
First is his most famous answer: "I act as if God exists."
In 12 Rules for Life, Peterson describes God as Being itself, as truth.
Finally there is his stance on the Bible and the creation myth. He clearly sees these stories as valuable for their lessons and insights, making them "true" in a sense but not in a LITERAL sense.
Everything put together, he's not what most people would consider a Christian.