I don't know about this. Did 'Western cultural heritage' give rise to woke ideology? I'm not so sure. I see woke ideology as more of a dangerous mutation on the body of Western culture, a psychopathic twisting of some very good Western values (tolerance, diversity, care for the environment, etc) that is currently trying to take over the entire system. You only gotta look as far as all the CIA funding to various progressive groups in the 60's to see that what we're witnessing is not a natural outgrowth.
Not to sound snarky or anything, but this argument brings to mind the oft repeated argument that the Communism of the Soviet Union, or any other Communist country wasn't real Communism. Well, that may be, but it was nonetheless a direct consquence of people taking Communist ideas on board and ordering society according to them.
People will do what they do and in the case of the West, they took the ideas of Darwin and all the other materialist scientists and with the help of dissatisfied European academics came up with postmodernism and hence wokeness.
The difference is religious/philosophical. What should be noted is that the western civilization that JP defends is the Anglo-Saxon vision. From what little I know of history, the classical liberal ideas are born from that vision (the same in France with Jean-Baptiste Say). Thomas Maltus and related to them, even Charles Darwin, with his theory of evolution. Here is where we see that in the liberal ideas is the germ of the dominant materialism.
I would only disagree on the point that it can be characterised as merely an Anglo-Saxon culture.
European culture at large has borne out concepts and ideologies such as Materialism which gave rise to Marxism and Communism, Atheism, Evolutionary theory, Fascism, and then Postmodernism and now wokeness. It also gave rise to vulture Capitalism, endless wars and American protectionism.
The foundations have evolved over time into a pretty complex body of concepts, and it's this that Peterson sees as the necessary precondition of existence for people in the West. I agree with him that in order to exist in the world, one must have a stable set of values and criteria by which to judge good from evil, and truth from lies
Pitting wokeness against liberal western culture in general is, I think, a way to force us into picking sides and falling into the trap described by Joe below.
This is, I think, an example of people (of which there are many) who have no real conception of the transcendent, other than some vague theoretical ideas. It's a function of the materialism that dominates in the world today. Peterson, like many others, sees this world as 'our only hope', and as such he fights for the set of values and social structures that he believes are the 'best of bad lot'.
It looks to me like this is exactly the objective of the social engineers. They've created wokeness as a threat to the very foundations of western culture and morality so that anyone who still holds relatively normal views on life in general is forced into protecting western culture at large, warts and all, and explaining away the disastrous shortcomings by listing the many benefits.
The problem is that if you want to criticise the West, then you're with the woke these days.
You lose either way. After all, much of the right that's fighting the woke these days was at least tacitly supporting the War on Terror and all that jazz.
It's funny when I find myself sitting on the same side of the fence with people I was fundamentally opposed to only 4 years ago.
I'm refusing to accept arguments that allow basically no room for criticism and that's what I feel JP's championing of all things Judeo-Christian amounts to.
Wokeness is such by definition, of course.
Yep, although based on what the Cs have said in a session (somewhere back in the mists of time), some will be able to make it through such a trial, although they will be like "lost lambs beying in the knight"
It breaks my heart, but this is what JP's been sounding like to me for awhile now.
He said that Peterson talked for 30 minutes and didn't say a single thing of substance. And then, after listening to that talk (I think it was one of his most recent), Ark said his whole thinking process was skewed for most of the rest of the day.
This is exactly what I found as well. Whereas in his earlier lectures and public appearances, he was very sharp, to the point, and utterly coherent, these days he's the exact opposite of those things. And the things he does manage to say are just reiterations of what he said hundreds of times before.
I didn't get the skewed thinking as bad as Ark, it seems, probably because I just couldn't listen to him for more than 5 mins at a time. But I can see his point. He makes such a mess of things that it tends to pull you in to try to untangle it, but there's no clarity in it.
That's the danger of listening to people who are deteriorating. Stuff they say can anchor in your brain and start to drive YOUR frequency if you are not fully aware of what is going on.
Well said, and I've felt this happen a few times when encountering new ideas from different personas.
If you just take it all in with a fully open mind, it definitely affects your psychological constitution, even morals and most certainly thinking patterns.
I think its key to keep an open mind when accessing new information but it's even more important to never forget the framework you'd been building yourself up until that point.
A lot of the talking points of this new anti-woke Right are simply anathema to much of what I've come to accept and what this network holds to be our best guess about the nature of things.
In one way, she may have been the reason JP survived, while she also helped herself and many others (dad included) navigate the world of psychoactive drugs and better diets. So will give her her dues. I'm sure there is certain public enamoring aspects that accompanies her world, so with time she may find her way.
She did probably save his life during the benzo withdrawal crisis, and did a lot of good for him and the public by promoting alternative approaches to diet and medicine, but I feel like she also pushed him into becoming this massive public persona.
Mikhaila has most definitely benefitted greatly off her father's fame and she's stated publicly that her goal is to make this into a more than $1 billion business.
JP should have kept himself out of the public eye for at least a year after he got out of hospital, and he should have worked on getting himself into better physical shape, but he just went right back into it and opened himself up to another attack which this time he didn't evade, at least for now, and that's the Daily Wire. The interview with Netanyahu is simply a disgrace. I can't bring myself to watch more than a few clips. It's a bloody train wreck.
I had the same experience. I didn't share the following before, because I wasn't sure if it was just me.
I went to one of his talks with my brother and some others back in September. The description was that it was going to be about his latest book (Beyond order: 12 more rules for life). Sadly, his book wasn't mentioned at all. It started with his wife coming onto stage and talking about their new plans and products (such as their plan for a university and their son's new writing app and their daughter's product or plan) for about 30 minutes. Then, Peterson started talking and mentioned how he found a nice church where he'll be finishing his next book and said a few other things, after which he went straight into Q&A. Shouldn't Q&A take place after a lecture? No mention of his latest book (12 more rules for life) which the talk was said to be about? A bit strange, but okay.
His wife then started to read the questions which the audience entered into an app out loud. He answered a simple question such as "what is the biggest/most important lesson of your life" in such a drawn-out way where you really had to have ultra super focus to get an idea of where he was going. He was all over the place.
The whole talk ('Q&A') was basically him trying to work out ideas for his next book, which were unrelated to the questions that were asked (he covered three questions in total if I remember correctly). To me it seemed he had a conversation with himself rather than with the audience. Something about helicopter parenting, Eve representing narcissistic compassion and how we can see that in the world. All in all, it was a pretty chaotic talk, and not really worth the money if I'm completely honest. A lot of talking, but nothing really of substance. I kind of feel like he's losing touch with his audience and losing order over his thoughts or something!
Also, at the end, he said that he doesn't see us as potential customers or along those lines and hoped we don't feel that way, but with all the advertising they did it did kind of feel that way. I do appreciate his earlier talks (on psychology and his motivational speeches) and find them inspiring. I went to an earlier talk by him a long time ago and it was much different than this latest one. FWIW.
This sounds awful. I think I'd demand my money back. But I can't say I'm surprised. Based on what I know about how his daughter runs his company, it's absolutely in line with her mission to become billionaires.
He seems to have more of a 'righteous' edge, and seems more 'rigid'.
Great way to put it. These are some of the things that are putting me off. One other is his propensity for crying lately. I think he's been, at the very least, teary eyed on every podcast he's appeared on for a year. Often he's really crying.
He's obviously emotionally unstable at the moment and he's therefore engaged in emotional thinking, which is probably why he sounds so chaotic and how he's been led down this path of allying with questionable forces.
I guess a combination of the benzo's, his wifes illness/cancer, his near death recovery, getting the vaccine (although he did reconsider his view, at least partially), and then joining The Daily Wire all seem to have moved him in a certain direction.
It's like it's all locked him into a particular position
I think it would be more fair to say that he's a nuanced human being, generally a good man who's got a very clear-eyed picture of the world on some topics, and some serious blind spots in others, like the rest of us - although his blind spots are magnified due to his location in the spotlight, such all this BS with Netenyahu and Shapiro.
He's definitely a good man with his head screwed on straight and he has been great positive influence on a vast number of people, and I think culture at large. That's why I think it's important to talk about this because we're seeing in real time how the Matrix works to bring a man like him down and into all sorts of dead ends and dark roads.
I wish him the strength to find his way out of this situation.
