Seeing folks I know saying that those who disagree with Peterson are attacking a strawman, despite stuff like the Current Affairs piece, the ContraPoints video, the Dillahunty discussion, the NYTimes literally just repeating his exact words in writing...
How are people THIS delusional about this guy? How do you break the glass so they can see that the criticisms are legitimate and not in "bad faith" at all?
Personally, I'd say it's because people largely don't care or don't even really know who he is and when they do hear about him it's from people who are strongly in opposition to him. SOME of that opposition is based on strawmen or misrepresentations or outright lies and some of it is based on truth. Being unable to separate the good stuff from the bad stuff just leaves people either shrugging and choosing to ignore it all OR puts them on Peterson's side.
Especially when Peterson supporters can hold up the bad stuff and say "see they are lying about him". Most normal folks will just say "yeah, they did lie, that's dumb" and then not think about JP again that day, or that week, or until the next time he is brought up. That's a win for Peterson.
Like even if ContraPoints completely demolishes him? Who would really care? Peterson has 1.4 million subscribers on Youtube and Contrapoints has around 115 thousand. Compare to the disastrous Cathy Newman interview which has 9.7 million views.
For the longest time, Jordan Peterson was just "a guy I've heard about". I've never read one of his books. Have seen him here and there on the odd Youtube clip but mostly recently he's just someone that people on ResetEra like to give out about.
Oftentimes what I find is that people will make claims about him that turn out to just be not true. So it's kind of an annoyance.
I don't care about or like this guy but I also don't like being lied to. I really really f*cking hate being lied to.
ResetEra has less than 40,000 members but still when a poster posts stuff about someone that isn't
entirely true and expects then entire forum to just believe it? It's insulting honestly. Like they think I'm too stupid to look stuff up and come to my own conclusions? Or they know I'd be too scared to speak up?
The Cathy Newman interview represents that. A lazy interviewer who thought they could demolish him publicly but was relying on the audience being too passive or too stupid to see what she was doing. Instead he completely owned her. In front of millions. That's a big win for him.
The Contrapoints video represents the sensible approach. Show where there are actual real problems and flaws in his ideology. Show where he is wrong. It's not really sensationalist and it can be taken at face value and you can walk away understanding that Peterson isn't THAT great. That's a loss for him.
Unfortunately it's a Peterson win broadcast to 9.7 million viewers vs Peterson losses (Contrapoints video and Dillahunty discussion) broadcast to less than 1 million total.
Now look back through the thread and ask how many posters are doing a Cathy Newman and how many are doing a Contrapoints. I say we've got too many Cathy Newmans and not enough Contrapoints.
Scale that up to audiences of millions and you can see the problem. The people who are lying about him or telling half truths or just getting outright hysterical are making the most noise and so a large number of neutral observers are siding with Peterson based on the fact that they don't like being lied to.