Jordan Peterson: Gender Pronouns and Free Speech War

[Alejo]

In that quote you posted Joe, perhaps personality is the right term if understood as Davrowski would describe it? Namely the result of positive disintegration?

 

[Approaching Infinity]

In that quote you posted Joe, perhaps personality is the right term if understood as Davrowski would describe it? Namely the result of positive disintegration?

Yep, Dabrowski used the word personality as the ultimate achievement: to become a true person. Modern psychologists just use the word to describe universal but normally distributed personality traits (i.e. the big 5 - everyone already has them).

 

[Joe]

In that quote you posted Joe, perhaps personality is the right term if understood as Davrowski would describe it? Namely the result of positive disintegration?

Yeah, if understood in that way. But when it comes to 'inner strength' I think we're talking about more than the personality, although the personality is obviously the medium through which that 'more' manifests.

 

[3DStudent]

In short, when the 'unknown' or anomaly comes your way, don't flee from it or deny it, embrace it and learn from it and, in that way, strengthen yourself.

It seems then that people who aren't high in openness should learn to accept unfamiliar or anomalous things more. And not being rigid and learning to act like a child when those experiences come.

 

[Approaching Infinity]

It seems then that people who aren't high in openness should learn to accept unfamiliar or anomalous things more. And not being rigid and learning to act like a child when those experiences come.

And he said: "Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven." Matthew 18:3

 

[whitecoast]

Yeah, if understood in that way. But when it comes to 'inner strength' I think we're talking about more than the personality, although the personality is obviously the medium through which that 'more' manifests.

I guess it comes down to definitions. Dabrowski’s notion of personality seems closer to what Gurdjieff would call a Master or essence than the common everyday use of the word in English.

And he said: "Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven." Matthew 18:3

In both this and Joe’s retelling of several Maps of Meaning passages there’s strong connections to the notion that how we engage in life experiences reflects our relationship with the divine.

 

[Breo]

Thank you, Joe, for this Maps of Meaning quote. I needed to read that now. It is such a helpful roadmap on how to walk through the terror of existance or personal fears. If I understood it, at least in parts, it is the Unknown that has to be contained to be explored. For each unknown challenge/anomaly to search for the appropriate way on how to deal with it. Is that so?

 

[Yas]

I think that it is very interesting to notice how some of these ideas seem to repeat themselves with other words throughout different fields of knowledge. I mean, the idea that "facing the unknown" is important in order to grow.

I was thinking about how this correlates to what Antonio Damasio writes about homeostasis driving evolution. At first this concept seemed amiss to me because I have this idea that it isn't equilibrium that moves everything forward but rather the opposite. But then he explains that his concept of homeostasis isn't about equilibrium, which would be stagnation, but rather a process that includes striving for a better outcome in the future. I think that makes a difference because it isn't necessarily to find comfort right here and now but rather what will be best to move forward towards improvement. I might have it wrong and still haven't finished the book, but I thought his way of understanding homeostasis was interesting. As I understand it, it is the striving for homeostasis when facing life's struggles (the more physical aspects of it, in Damasio's case) that the organisms (and us) move towards improvement.

Then I was reviewing some of Piaget ideas and he also says that the process of striving for "homeostasis" is what drives learning (or cognitive development). But he says this happens only when we get in touch with new data/information/experience that isn't properly managed by our previous cognitive schemes, so we need to reassemble those structures in order to accommodate and assimilate this new information, and turn it into knowledge. So again, facing the unknown is what brings about cognitive development.

And then, I remember Viktor Frankl, who also said something that for me was very well said:

...it can be seen that mental health is based on a certain degree of tension, the tension between what one has already achieved and what one still ought to accomplish, or the gap between what one is and what one should become. Such a tension is inherent in the human being and therefore is indispensable to mental wellbeing. We should not, then, be hesitant about challenging man with a potential meaning for him to fulfill. It is only thus that we evoke his will to meaning from its state of latency. I consider it a dangerous misconception of mental hygiene to assume that what man needs in the first place is equilibrium or, as it is called in biology, "homeostasis," i.e., a tensionless state.

What man actually needs is not a tensionless state but rather the striving and struggling for a worthwhile goal, a freely chosen task. What he needs is not the discharge of tension at any cost but the call of a potential meaning waiting to be fulfilled by him. What man needs is not homeostasis but what I call "nod-dynamics," i.e., the existential dynamics in a polar field of tension where one pole is represented by a meaning that is to be fulfilled and the other pole by the man who has to fulfill it.

It is again, the striving to what is a potential that provides to opportunity for meaning and growth. And I guess that also fits into some of Dabrowski's ideas.

I don't know if it makes a lot of sense, but these were just some things I've been thinking about lately. Apparently, most people who actually tried to understand human beings and their potentiality to growth and development, realised that yes, we need to be able to face life and try not "protect ourselves" too much against unknown experiences in order to grow and become better each day.

When put like this, it sounds so obvious, doesn't it? But well, yes, it it's harder to keep that attitude everyday... so I guess that's where applying the knowledge comes.

 

[seek10]

Another debate on Marxism.

 

[seek10]

It seems then that people who aren't high in openness should learn to accept unfamiliar or anomalous things more. And not being rigid and learning to act like a child when those experiences come.

The things we haven't learned it in childhood, we have to learn as a grown up which is not a easy thing. As C's put it, "Knowledge input on a constant basis" goes a long way. But,we live in a world of information war where narrations are constantly changing and can get overwhelmed by the information that needs a constant reference point. Some times, I wonder how far this growth of internet carried the battle to the intellectual space, if people are open enough. It is a really a War.

 

[Ca.]

Jordan Peterson, Douglas Murray blocked on Israeli YouTube ads
https://www.jpost.com//International/Jordan-Peterson-Douglas-Murray-blocked-on-Israeli-YouTube-ads-569530
October 16, 2018 14:43
Videos by the popular authors were deemed "dangerous and derogatory" after being published with Hebrew subtitles.

Videos of popular writers Jordan Peterson and Douglas Murray with Hebrew subtitles were blocked from being advertised on YouTube for being “dangerous and derogatory” this week, before being reinstated.

Books by both Peterson and Murray are due to be published in Hebrew in the coming months by Shibboleth, an imprint of the right-wing Sella Meir publishing house together with The Tikvah Fund, a conservative Jewish institution.

Peterson and Murray are members of the “Intellectual Dark Web,” a group of heterodox academics and writers, most of whom became known through non-traditional media like YouTube, and consider themselves to be outside of the usual right-left political discourse.

Murray is a British political commentator who published The Strange Death of Europe: Immigration, Identity Islam last year. He is a critic of Islam and migration, and is on the international advisory board of the Israeli research institute NGO Monitor.

Peterson, a psychology professor at the University of Toronto, gained notoriety after protesting a Canadian law that sought to enforce the use of preferred pronouns, and his filmed lectures, posted on YouTube are very popular. His 2018 book 12 Rules for Life, meant to guide readers to live more ethical and meaningful lives, was a major bestseller.

Peterson is an outspoken opponent of aggressive political correctness and post-modernism, and publicly criticized Google for firing an engineer who wrote a memo citing scientific studies on differences between men and women that some in the company found offensive.

Shibboleth co-publisher Rotem Sella pointed out that the Peterson video he posted with Hebrew subtitles did not deal with any of his controversial statements.

“There are apparently people living in an echo chamber who only hear a specific set of opinions and seem to think that other legitimate and important opinions are dangerous to society,” Sella said. “This only emphasizes the importance of an Israeli publishing house to deal with conservative literature out of the mainstream that will challenge the existing discourse.”

A source at Google said that blocking the videos from being promoted was a mistake by an automatic system, and that the lifting of the ban had nothing to do with being contacted by the media.

The Peterson and Murray videos did not violate any of Google’s policies, the source said.

 

[aragorn]

Yet another video, but this one was really profound, in my opinion:

Also, he is going to give a lecture at The University of Amsterdam on the 31st, and a group of 'academics' have written an insane 'missive' where they smear Peterson in every possible way. You can read Peterson's account of it here:

Trouble at the University of Amsterdam | Jordan Peterson

 

[Gwenllian]

Also, he is going to give a lecture at The University of Amsterdam on the 31st, and a group of 'academics' have written an insane 'missive' where they smear Peterson in every possible way. You can read Peterson's account of it here:

Trouble at the University of Amsterdam | Jordan Peterson

Yes, they have gone completely bonkers, but it's not surprising. In 2014 there were also a few 'intellectuals' from the same university who signed an open letter in a Dutch daily, asking the Supreme Court to not ban the pedophile party Martijn: 'Hoge Raad, verbied Vereniging Martijn niet'

 

[Voyageur]

Agreed, aragorn. His closing was most strong. Thanks.

This week had dinner with colleagues, and in particular one started asking me if I knew who Sam Harris was. Indeed, said that I had also watched him in debate with JP, not knowing where that would go. Quickly, his atheism was brought to the fore and I listened to him describe the debate and why Harris was right and JP wrong, which did not amount to anything beyond what most atheists will say. Thought about this and perhaps it comes down to their fear, and only something tangible that can be grasped can alleviate said fears. I don't know though. What also came out was that his arguments contained inconvenient paradoxes that he would skip over if it required him to think about them - and I did not probe deeply as it became obvious that he did not know he was making them and the conversation could only be one sided e.g. there was no room for anything else but a material construct to everything.

Having some form of skepticism has its merits, however, when it is worn as a Faraday cage to the exclusion of what thinking might try and penetrate it, there is pretty much nowhere to go.

 

[Voyageur]

Thought to mention a couple of JP related things. Peeps might remember him defending and supporting Lindsay Shepherd who was hauled up to a kangaroo hearing at the Uni for showing a 5 min. video featuring JP - see this SoTT Focus for background. Anyway, you may also remember back early on when JP was joined by Professor of law, Bruce Pardy (Faculty of Law at Queen’s) - this was focused around compelled speech, and later the Bar associations moves to manipulate legal language.

Recently back in September, Pardy came under fire from his colleagues for scheduling Conrad Black (who was a guest in the American jail system for a while and prior was media mogul), and Joe Martin (professor of Business History). The lecture was about the removal of statues/icons of Sir John A. Macdonald, whether you liked the guy or not. And we have seen this revisionist histroy all over the world from the American South to the Ukraine and Poland.

The lecture, officially titled “In Praise of Sir John A Macdonald: Historical icon meets the PC brigade,” will be held in Macdonald Hall at 5:30 p.m. on Monday.

In an email to all Law students, Professor Bruce Pardy explained his reasoning for the next talk in the controversial Liberty Lecture series, which was sponsored by Queen’s Law alum Greg Piasetzki.

Pardy referenced a motion brought forward to the Faculty Board that would remove Sir John A. Macdonald’s name from the Law building, if passed this fall.

He also referenced a bench located near the front doors of the building, which had “Macdonald Hall” carved in stone, but was removed in July. In September, Macdonald’s portrait, which hung on the fifth floor of the building, was also taken down.

In response to the announcement, Pardy faced criticism from his colleagues. Law Professor Kathleen Lahey responded to Pardy’s email with the subject line, “In praise of the Human Rights brigade.”

In her response, Lahey said she’s “deeply saddened” by the direction of the lecture series.

Lahey argued the event is “organized around delivering the message that unbranding Queen’s Law as Sir John A. Macdonald’s legacy school is somehow a violation of a historical icon for merely ‘politically correct’ reasons. It is not.”

“The unbranding is a small act in making real recognized human rights now protected to an improved degree in Canada’s progressive constitution,” she continued.

Lahey indicated the lecture comes on the heels of the formal unveiling of words that are lasting, an Indigenous art installation from Montreal visual artist, Hannah Clause.

After Lahey’s email, other faculty members defended her position and expressed opposition to Monday’s lecture.

In an email, Law Professor Nicholas Bala wrote he’s “deeply troubled” by the event, calling Black’s invitation an “especially provocative act.”

In Lindsay's case (see article) this type of response tells the story:

Before the protest, a flyer was released around Kingston that called the protest a “rally against white supremacist speakers in Kingston.”

Yeah, okay, Lindsey is now a white supremacist.

I did not see the talks available on video.