Jordan Peterson

[Kyriakos]

Milo Yiannapoulis

This would mean 'Johanna's bird' (or something like that; it isn't an actual term). Milo Yiannopoulos ^^
(the -opoulos ending generally means 'son of', ie is the same as the english -son. Eg my own surname, if fully translated to english, would be 'Copperson', as in copper, the metal. Yiannopoulos just means 'Son of Yiannis' -ie Johnson)

 

[inthesomeday]

He's a liberal whether you like it or not.

I agree he’s a liberal, because liberalism is big. I don’t like it though, and furthermore will restate that this doesn’t make him left anything at all. Leftism and liberalism are entirely mutually exclusive. Liberalism is a right-wing ideology.

To consider him to be "far right" is just idiotic. Anyone doing that obviously has an agenda or knows absolutely nothing about this man's positions, or both. If he's right wing then I'm the tooth fairy and you're an ancient Aztec warrior who worships shoe laces.

If he’s liberal, he’s right wing. I think he definitely displays even a far-right tendency in a number of ways on a number of topics, too.

He doesn't actually oppose trans people though, that's just a lie.

He does, though. He refuses to use trans people’s pronouns, propagates the two genders myth, and opposes the advancement of trans rights.

I don't know about the other stuff, but lying about that one things means I have less faith in the other assertions. And I don't think you can really claim that being opposed to Marxism makes you right wing.

There are plenty of leftists opposed to Marxism, primarily unlabeled anarchists and democratic socialists. But Peterson opposes Marx on right-wing grounds.

This would mean 'Johanna's bird' (or something like that; it isn't an actual term). Milo Yiannopoulos ^^
(the -opoulos ending generally means 'son of', ie is the same as the english -son. Eg my own surname, if fully translated to english, would be 'Copperson', as in copper, the metal. Yiannopoulos just means 'Son of Yiannis' -ie Johnson)

Ah, my bad! I spelled that terribly.

 

[Lexicus]

Leftism and liberalism are entirely mutually exclusive. Liberalism is a right-wing ideology.

As a left-liberal I find this conceptual scheme to be entirely ridiculous

 

[inthesomeday]

As a left-liberal I find this conceptual scheme to be entirely ridiculous

I’m sorry you call yourself that, it’s a contradictory phrase

 

[Lexicus]

I mean, no, it really isn't. See look it even has a wikipedia article.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberal_socialism

 

[Kyriakos]

I mean, no, it really isn't. See look it even has a wikipedia article.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberal_socialism

In Europe, 'liberal' is connoted as a generally right-wing thing (usually the two large parties are the socialist and the liberal). Used by USians i mostly have seen it to refer to the democrat party, so there the connotation is a bit different.

 

[Lexicus]

In Europe, 'liberal' is connoted as a generally right-wing thing (usually the two large parties are the socialist and the liberal). In the US i mostly have seen it to refer to the democrat party, so there the connotation is a bit different.

Yeah, I get that. I'm not using the term in the US sense, but in a broader sense to mean limitations on what the state can do (constitutionalism) and a belief in parliamentary democracy rather than single-party rule, or more broadly that "just kill everyone who disagrees with you" is not a desirable solution to any political problem.

 

[Camikaze]

Surely it depends on what you're talking about, more broadly what society is talking about, and for what purpose you're a liberal. Someone identifying themselves as liberal, for the purposes of an economic conversation, is likely to be placed on the right. Someone who identifies themselves as a liberal for the purpose of a socia issue, is likely to be placed on the left. It's easy for someone to stake a claim to being on the left by pointing to the fact that they're a 'liberal', when they're actually identifying as an economic liberal. It happens less the other way around (a social liberal trying to place themselves on the right when they're economically leftist), but would be theoretically possible.

 

[inthesomeday]

limitations on what the state can do (constitutionalism)

My most silliest moods would have me say that the existence of a state is right-wing but I’m not on that today. Instead I’ll say that elastic liberal constitutions fundamentally fail in the pursuit of limiting state power. However I’ll concede again that immense state power isn’t necessarily right wing.

and a belief in parliamentary democracy rather than single-party rule,

Numerous parties doesn’t solve the problem of “representative” government, which is the distortion of the people’s will at best and a complete disregard for it at worst. However I will again concede that it’s possible to construct a leftist parliamentary democracy.

or more broadly that "just kill everyone who disagrees with you" is not a desirable solution to any political problem.

Liberals kill people they disagree with every day, all around the world. They also kill people who express no opinions, and therefore can’t disagree. They even kill people who probably are liberals themselves.

 

[inthesomeday]

Surely it depends on what you're talking about, more broadly what society is talking about, and for what purpose you're a liberal. Someone identifying themselves as liberal, for the purposes of an economic conversation, is likely to be placed on the right. Someone who identifies themselves as a liberal for the purpose of a socia issue, is likely to be placed on the left. It's easy for someone to stake a claim to being on the left by pointing to the fact that they're a 'liberal', when they're actually identifying as an economic liberal. It happens less the other way around (a social liberal trying to place themselves on the right when they're economically leftist), but would be theoretically possible.

Social liberalism doesn’t even really exist in a vacuum, because any social one could be liberal over usually comes from economics, meaning the discussion boils down to economic Left and right anyways, meaning social liberalism is essentially useless as a label.

 

[Camikaze]

You're taking liberalism to be a complete, consistent worldview that all people self-describing as liberals must universally hold. Realistically, people are liberal for specific purposes, and attempting to cram everything into one spatial description loses sight of that. Most people aren't 100 percent ideologically consistent in their views.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

You're taking liberalism to be a complete, consistent worldview that all people self-describing as liberals must universally hold. Realistically, people are liberal for specific purposes, and attempting to cram everything into one spatial description loses sight of that. Most people aren't 100 percent ideologically consistent in their views.

Add to this that "liberal" is a very wide set to start with. There are known disagreements between subsets that are still easily contained in the wider set. Trying to assign "liberal" to one specific subset and then claim the other subsets "aren't really liberal" is a common event.

 

[Lexicus]

You're taking liberalism to be a complete, consistent worldview that all people self-describing as liberals must universally hold. Realistically, people are liberal for specific purposes, and attempting to cram everything into one spatial description loses sight of that. Most people aren't 100 percent ideologically consistent in their views.

Add to this that "liberal" is a very wide set to start with. There are known disagreements between subsets that are still easily contained in the wider set. Trying to assign "liberal" to one specific subset and then claim the other subsets "aren't really liberal" is a common event.

I'll note that I tried to short-circuit this by describing exactly what I mean when I say that I consider myself a liberal.

My most silliest moods would have me say that the existence of a state is right-wing but I’m not on that today. Instead I’ll say that elastic liberal constitutions fundamentally fail in the pursuit of limiting state power. However I’ll concede again that immense state power isn’t necessarily right wing.



Numerous parties doesn’t solve the problem of “representative” government, which is the distortion of the people’s will at best and a complete disregard for it at worst. However I will again concede that it’s possible to construct a leftist parliamentary democracy.



Liberals kill people they disagree with every day, all around the world. They also kill people who express no opinions, and therefore can’t disagree. They even kill people who probably are liberals themselves.

This opens up a number of interesting theoretical points, but I'll simply content myself by saying that I consider myself a liberal because I believe in maximum individual freedom, and I consider myself a socialist because I believe the dictatorship of capital destroys individual freedom without fail.

 

[inthesomeday]

I think the word you’re looking for is libertarian, not liberal.

 

[Lexicus]

Yeah, I mean, I use those words pretty much interchangeably in most contexts. American crypto-fascists have poisoned the word "libertarian" pretty badly though.

 

[warpus]

In Europe, 'liberal' is connoted as a generally right-wing thing (usually the two large parties are the socialist and the liberal). Used by USians i mostly have seen it to refer to the democrat party, so there the connotation is a bit different.

And we're talking about politics from a north american point of view, in which liberalism is considered to be left-wing, not right-wing.

 

[inthesomeday]

Yeah, I mean, I use those words pretty much interchangeably in most contexts. American crypto-fascists have poisoned the word "libertarian" pretty badly though.

And I hate to play semantics but here it becomes necessary because, while Peterson is very obviously right-wing, the fact that he is a liberal is being used to portray him as somehow left wing. So I must assert that liberal and libertarian do in fact have different meanings, and that what you describe is a libertarian and what Peterson is is a liberal.

Meanwhile the propertarians here in America have definitely co-opted “libertarian” but by calling ourselves “libertarian socialists” (which I do among people who would be frightened by “anarcho-communist”) we can reclaim at least part of the word’s original meaning, which is of course inherently socialist.

 

[Synobun]

It's all branding. There is no real gain in equating liberalism with traditional right-wing adherence unless your only interest is poisoning the well. Which I guess would be true in your case given your admitted anarchist tendencies.

That kind of reads like an insult. It's not meant to be. In general though I'm not sure there is much for anyone to gain by debating political terminology with someone who sees it all as heinously incompatible with the ideal human condition.

 

[Chose]

And I hate to play semantics but here it becomes necessary because, while Peterson is very obviously right-wing, the fact that he is a liberal is being used to portray him as somehow left wing. So I must assert that liberal and libertarian do in fact have different meanings, and that what you describe is a libertarian and what Peterson is is a liberal.

Why is it so obviously that he is right-wing? I know a lot of people on the right have latched onto him, but from what I have seen I don't find much evidence that his views are right-wing. In fact, I heard him say that if he did get into politics, the most natural fit would be the Liberal party in Canada, which is certainly considered left-wing.

 

[Lexicus]

And I hate to play semantics but here it becomes necessary because, while Peterson is very obviously right-wing, the fact that he is a liberal is being used to portray him as somehow left wing. So I must assert that liberal and libertarian do in fact have different meanings, and that what you describe is a libertarian and what Peterson is is a liberal.

But people are saying Peterson is a liberal in the North American sense, which can mean anything from center-right people like the Clintonists, to real centrists like Obama, to modestly leftish people like Elizabeth Warren to center-leftists like Bernie Sanders. "Liberal" in the sense it's used by the far left is generally not how most people understand the term.

It's all branding. There is no real gain in equating liberalism with traditional right-wing adherence unless your only interest is poisoning the well. Which I guess would be true in your case given your admitted anarchist tendencies.

Some of the intellectual forebears of liberalism, like Hobbes, Townsend, Malthus and Ricardo, are pretty viciously right-wing. But some of the big names of classical liberalism, like Smith and Mill, were fairly explicit anti-capitalists. The logic of Smith's Wealth of Nations is that removing the privileges of the monopoly capitalists, and allowing the workers to combine to advance their interests, would produce a surfeit of capital that would ultimately lead to ever-increasing wealth for all. Mill openly stated that if "progress" were to continue, in future traditional business would be replaced by enterprises in which workers associated as equals and elected managers accountable to them.

The far left generally considers liberals to be right-wing because the key element of liberalism, as they see it, is "reformism" which to them means that liberals fail to meaningfully oppose capitalism. The most lazy lines of thought go as far as to see "liberals" as indistinguishable from fascists, and fascist rule as indistinguishable from bourgeois democracy (this was actually the official position of the USSR for a brief period in the '30s). Marxists also follow the basic capitalist ontology that identifies capitalism with markets and private property rather than seeing, as the early anti-capitalists did, capitalism as the political control of capitalists over the system of markets and private property.