Jordan Peterson: Gender Pronouns and Free Speech War
- Thread starter Laura
- Start date
Oxajil said:
12 Rules of Life was one of those books that completely blew me away. It is a powerful message worth listening from several perspectives and contexts. He really has a gift in articulating concepts that might be hard to grasp in a very clear and explicit way.
Glad you had the opportunity to check it out, Alejo.
Divide by Zero
The Living Force
I also enjoyed the 12 rules book which I finished today.
I liked the book much more than watching his videos. In writing, there's more flexibility for him to dig deep into issues and ideas.
I liked the book much more than watching his videos. In writing, there's more flexibility for him to dig deep into issues and ideas.
I just spent an hour crafting a thought for the comment section of one of the front page articles,
https://www.sott.net/article/381218-Jordan-Petersons-critics-are-resorting-to-desperate-attacks
-Which means it will effectively vanish in about 24 hours. I'm fine with that in most cases, but this one represents a bit of an "Ahah!" moment which I wanted to file somewhere a little more permanent. -So I've copy/pasted it here...
~~~~~
Something I’ve noticed pop up frequently with Peterson’s critics...
From Cathy Newman’s repeated, “So you’re saying women should...” or “So what you’re saying is we should all just...”
And from the Robinson essay...
Why this obsession with Moral Advice? Does the Left think this is what Peterson is trying to transmit when he describes biological functions?
I’ve noticed this feature often enough that I find myself wondering, “Is this repeated insistence/fear that Jordan Peterson is actually TELLING people to be horrible.., is that a significant differentiator between people who are inclined versus disinclined to take issue with him?”
When Peterson talks about Lobsters, for instance, my impulse is to think, “Ah. So that helps explain some of the differences we see manifesting in society. There is a biological component which expresses in behavior.”
I do not think, “Oh, because this Lobster argument makes sense, I must set aside my personal agency and conduct myself like a Lobster because that is Good and Right; because it is moral.”
Those are not the same. It is a subtle, but vital difference. I do not crave authoritarian rules to tell me how to behave. The Radical Left, however, seem to actually think that Peterson wants people to punch women!
Wow.
And we see it: Radical Leftists are obsessed with rules. Enormous energy has been spent trying to work out the most moral and fair stance in any given area of life, from statues to gender pronouns, they exhibit a desperate desire to establish and enforce rules not just of conduct, but of belief and expression, across entire populations.
If you are wired to seek and adopt top-down rules which govern your personal behavior at the level of your cognition and beliefs, then I can reasonably see why there would be alarm at the contention that Humans and Lobsters share certain biological traits which govern social hierarchy behavior. To an authoritarian, rules of behavior once established, are meant to be followed uniformly, without any space allowed for personal choices which fall outside the prescribed options.
For non-authoritarians, however, Peterson’s observations are more akin to an exploration of WHY things are as they are, providing self-knowledge which in turn provides power and options. When you understand the root of your impulses, the nature of your inner monster, you become equipped with the tools necessary to make rational choices, to use your wonderful neocortex to question blind impulse and to choose according to reason. -To choose, if you like, to live efficiently; to recognize that certain social structures are not fabricated from whim, but have deep components; if you want to change how things work, to make them work better, you first need to know how they work.
If you deny those mechanisms even exist, (and certainly not within you!), if you pretend they are make-believe ‘social constructions’, then you are at the mercy of those impulses, of your shadow self, and no draconian law or campaign of punishment, (shaming or mob-bullying) will serve to improve anything. In fact, they will only make things worse because not only are you are not attacking the root issue, you are attacking unrelated support systems which may be essential for your survival. Swinging a sledge hammer around in the engine room while wearing VR goggles, pretending to be fighting zombies (or nazi-zombies); whatever inner demons you happen to be projecting on the world rather than dealing with them in yourself.
Those who wish to outsource their personal responsibilities, who wish to not even see their inner dark drives, to project and punish them in others, and to do it by submitting to draconian laws, are naturally going to want very much for Peterson to shut up.
-And they cry out, “But you’re empowering Nazis with your words!”
I submit: People most likely to believe this are in fact recognizing something in themselves which they are afraid to confront.
https://www.sott.net/article/381218-Jordan-Petersons-critics-are-resorting-to-desperate-attacks
-Which means it will effectively vanish in about 24 hours. I'm fine with that in most cases, but this one represents a bit of an "Ahah!" moment which I wanted to file somewhere a little more permanent. -So I've copy/pasted it here...
~~~~~
Something I’ve noticed pop up frequently with Peterson’s critics...
From Cathy Newman’s repeated, “So you’re saying women should...” or “So what you’re saying is we should all just...”
And from the Robinson essay...
Why this obsession with Moral Advice? Does the Left think this is what Peterson is trying to transmit when he describes biological functions?
I’ve noticed this feature often enough that I find myself wondering, “Is this repeated insistence/fear that Jordan Peterson is actually TELLING people to be horrible.., is that a significant differentiator between people who are inclined versus disinclined to take issue with him?”
When Peterson talks about Lobsters, for instance, my impulse is to think, “Ah. So that helps explain some of the differences we see manifesting in society. There is a biological component which expresses in behavior.”
I do not think, “Oh, because this Lobster argument makes sense, I must set aside my personal agency and conduct myself like a Lobster because that is Good and Right; because it is moral.”
Those are not the same. It is a subtle, but vital difference. I do not crave authoritarian rules to tell me how to behave. The Radical Left, however, seem to actually think that Peterson wants people to punch women!
Wow.
And we see it: Radical Leftists are obsessed with rules. Enormous energy has been spent trying to work out the most moral and fair stance in any given area of life, from statues to gender pronouns, they exhibit a desperate desire to establish and enforce rules not just of conduct, but of belief and expression, across entire populations.
If you are wired to seek and adopt top-down rules which govern your personal behavior at the level of your cognition and beliefs, then I can reasonably see why there would be alarm at the contention that Humans and Lobsters share certain biological traits which govern social hierarchy behavior. To an authoritarian, rules of behavior once established, are meant to be followed uniformly, without any space allowed for personal choices which fall outside the prescribed options.
For non-authoritarians, however, Peterson’s observations are more akin to an exploration of WHY things are as they are, providing self-knowledge which in turn provides power and options. When you understand the root of your impulses, the nature of your inner monster, you become equipped with the tools necessary to make rational choices, to use your wonderful neocortex to question blind impulse and to choose according to reason. -To choose, if you like, to live efficiently; to recognize that certain social structures are not fabricated from whim, but have deep components; if you want to change how things work, to make them work better, you first need to know how they work.
If you deny those mechanisms even exist, (and certainly not within you!), if you pretend they are make-believe ‘social constructions’, then you are at the mercy of those impulses, of your shadow self, and no draconian law or campaign of punishment, (shaming or mob-bullying) will serve to improve anything. In fact, they will only make things worse because not only are you are not attacking the root issue, you are attacking unrelated support systems which may be essential for your survival. Swinging a sledge hammer around in the engine room while wearing VR goggles, pretending to be fighting zombies (or nazi-zombies); whatever inner demons you happen to be projecting on the world rather than dealing with them in yourself.
Those who wish to outsource their personal responsibilities, who wish to not even see their inner dark drives, to project and punish them in others, and to do it by submitting to draconian laws, are naturally going to want very much for Peterson to shut up.
-And they cry out, “But you’re empowering Nazis with your words!”
I submit: People most likely to believe this are in fact recognizing something in themselves which they are afraid to confront.
I also find it fascinating to read his book. The book gives a lot of context to his position on many topics. For example, his position of 'the role of man in evolution and society' has roots in his observations in some of his ruined friends. I was listening audible as my book hasn't come yet from amazon after 3 weeks, which is strange for amazon's type of service. He takes a topic starts with the mainstream explanation and goes into 10 different directions each looks convincing. In between, he says something that makes one feel 'WoW'. In the process, he was exposing the complexity of our society and possible explanations in an easily understandable way. This is a big antidote to the modern-day simplistic mainstream propaganda - repeating the sound bites of agenda to emotionally manipulate the masses. That's why Cathy Newman types can't win over him.Divide By Zero said:
We feel it these polarizing propaganda of PTB, but explicitly saying it is like splitting the hair, but that is what exposes the propaganda. the entire book is full of examples of it. He said recently, most of his in-person audience to his lecture falls under 2 categories - 25% say they know something was wrong with the society, but they can't explain it until he articulated, other 75% say his talk changed their life.
Mercury Retrograde; A time for clearing up and untying little knots of false assumption. Vehicles, (both physical and theoretic) barreling along with loose screws tend to fall apart more readily at this time, and demand re-assessment. It's uncomfortable and often embarrassing, because we don't like our cars to fall apart or to have our mistakes thrown into a spotlight, but the larger goal is a better car. Embrace it!
I was trying to sift through various analyses of Peterson from people more knowledgeable than the Cathy Newmans of the world, and came across this short video about Lobsters...
https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2018/01/29/jordan-peterson-does-not-understand-evolution-nervous-systems-or-logic/
As Peterson explains; you put your best theory together and throw it out into the intellectual environment and watch it try to survive. The battered results are what you reel back in and from which you develop your next, hopefully more accurate theory.
Thoughts?
I was trying to sift through various analyses of Peterson from people more knowledgeable than the Cathy Newmans of the world, and came across this short video about Lobsters...
https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2018/01/29/jordan-peterson-does-not-understand-evolution-nervous-systems-or-logic/
As Peterson explains; you put your best theory together and throw it out into the intellectual environment and watch it try to survive. The battered results are what you reel back in and from which you develop your next, hopefully more accurate theory.
Thoughts?
Woodsman said:
IMO, he totally doesn't get JP's arguments or rather doesn't want to, probably for ideological reasons. He nitpicks in a very narrow way to attack Peterson instead of making his arguments as strong as possible before attacking them. Just one example: he rightly points out that we can't just take an old species (like the lobster), see how they behave (i.e. they form hierarchies) and then deduce that humans do the same. But that totally misses the point that hierarchies do exist across species, across time, and across human history - the lobster example being just that, an example to illustrate the point. The whole thing is really rather stupid, in a annoyingly wiseacring way.
Interesting video from Lindsay Shepherd on YouTube: "I've come to the realization that I am no longer a leftist. Here's why."
https://youtu.be/Qpg6P1PNWR8
https://youtu.be/Qpg6P1PNWR8
truth seeker
The Living Force
I thought this was a pretty good lecture that covered a fair amount of ground in terms of his thoughts:
Lecture and Q&A with Jordan Peterson (The Mill Series at Lafayette College)
Lecture and Q&A with Jordan Peterson (The Mill Series at Lafayette College)
Last edited by a moderator:
This video is a little over a year old, but I thought it was excellent. Peterson breaks down and shows the errors in a number of liberal narratives, from gender as a social construct to the wage gap to the culture of victimhood, along with discussing his reasons for opposing the Ontario law forcing people to use gender pronouns. He's emphatic, hilarious at times and incredibly passionate. It's an excellent example of why he is so popular with men and women IMO.
Jordan Peterson's analyses "resonate" a lot with the mode of being developped in this forum, and besides the multi-level knowledge that most foru members are familiar with, there is also a hint of stoicism as noted by this short review of 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos:
Jordan Peterson and the Return of the Stoics
Jordan Peterson and the Return of the Stoics
PerfectCircle
Jedi Master
I've wondered for some time now if JP actually visits this forum from time to time :)
Yes, and the closing part of the Q&A was very interesting, and indeed, JP is engaging and discusses how to talk to an audience rather than deliver a lecture. He talked about ensuring that whatever subject you are discussing one should know 10 x the breadth and depth of what it is so the speaker can draw from outside the boundaries of the topic. Good advice. JP makes no bones about saying he does not know something when asked questions, especially if they can lead one to error.
Much of the talk draws also from other talks/ideas, yet the university students were pretty engaged here and asked good questions. JP in other talks; and this was remembered because it points to the errors we can all make, is with someone latching on to one mistake and exploiting it - this worries JP, and it is natural to consider for someone like him that is going against the present grain.
He is asked questions or repling to them from subjects of anti-social behavior in four years old's (a marker for predictiveness to crime without methods to resolve), IQ testing (the military use and how to make an IQ test - re psychometrically etc.), changes in his Twitter use (he says if it was worth making a tweet it is worth writing a blog post - which he did with someone asking a Jewish question recently), Ethnic questions - something along the lines of it's way to difficult to answer or you will get killed. You can't dispense with the findings - there is a real danger in the debate because we confuse human value and as with IQ, being a genius can make you a brutal SOB, too. There was a little on Sweden and stem or aggression between men/woman. Someone asked about celebrating European culture (left see it as nationalism etc.) and the question of ‘pride’ which JP gets angry at, correctly so, imo, with his response. When asked about Islam, he said I don’t know enough about Islam - it would take multiple years of study - discussion as an initial look, is that it looks like radicle Islam took over tribes and united them under a unifying ethos. There is a problem - there is no dissection between church and state in Islam (as there is in christianity i.e separation, and he can’t see this in Islam). JP is asked a question - that came around to what a female totalitarian system would look like: factor analysis examples in areas of political correctness and totalitarian (incl. divisions). Left devouring themselves. Agreeableness - outcome high to female - personalities. Discussed tyrannical nature of the social structure that most have faced at one time or another.
He makes one comment to a question that I quote - (43:52) "I think, isn’t your President Donald Trump going, going to talk to insane totalitarian number one sometime in the near future? But that's still a Soviet era state. Those people are armed to the Teeth. You know, they have weaponry that can easily take you out…."
He went on mention how just one airburst hydrogen bomb over America would cause havok electronically (as example).
If he was talking about Kim, he is not about to take anyone easily out, especially American's.
If anything with JP; what might (and I say might) shapes some of his thinking, I don't really know if there is an inability or a reluctance to speak of the undercurrents that shapped some socities (take N-Korea for example and how it was shapped and locked down to what it is by a very brutal western war-bent imperilistic society needing as others have said a 'keyhole' to China). I don't know what he would say in terms of the 'rape of Russia' and how they have batteled back under the leadership of Putin since Yeltsin's dealings with the West. I've a close teacher/educator who still says (all CAPS) that Putin is a KGB murder period. Oh well.
JP takes note of China and the fast rising nature of electronic control of the masses - it would make your hair stand up he mentions, and how the leader has been now appointed for life. Which begs the question, and it has been said before, what if a leader is so great for the people that replacing them as our political system does every four years can lead to a societies fall? Of course It can work the other way too (hence its fear) with the outcome being a bad yoke on society as JP is inferring with a long term dictatorship. Many verables to this.
JP was asked a funny question concerning what a proffesor had said (someone like that) - and speaking of the KGB, something along the lines of how did Solzhenitsyn tell his story (The Gulag Archipelago) from memory after 20 years in a Gulag, suggesting he was KGB - I won't go there nor did JP, except that he replied that memory is an amazing structure that can recount in detail over great spans of time (he offerd examples of friends).
Peterson was asked about differnces (althouth they have the same leanings) between himself and Jonathan Haidt. This seemed to come out (should review) in terms of methods of addressing left issues, especily radical left (and even right) and how JP is more vocal. Personally, JP is calling a spad a spade and society needs that.
There was a question on being a good speaker (recounted above) with the added point about reading and writing everyday, being an excellent aid for this.
He does get into identity politics - the silliness of it all.
There is so much more not discussed.