Jordan Peterson

[Lemon Merchant]

Moderator Action: Well, this thread seems to have taken a bizarre left turn into off topic territory. Are we going to discuss capitalism, carbon emissions, or Jordan Peterson? We're 90 pages in to this one. If you guys want to debate things other than Peterson and his ideas, I suggest starting a new thread on the topic as this thread will be closing soon, unless I see a return to thread topic.

 

[innonimatu]

Is this Jordan Peterson even in the news still?

Genuine question. because these things tend to be replaced by newer infotainment after a few months. He'll probably soon be one more of the "depressed youtube creators" who no longer get the attention they were used to...

 

[Bootstoots]

Yeah, there is a bewildering array of animal social proclivities, sexual strategies and behaviors, tendencies towards hierarchy, and so on. He could, at minimum, have chosen a more social animal to make his point - but in general he shouldn't really be drawing from other animals (or at least non-primate animals) at all, because there is so much diversity that any choice will say more about him than about the point he's trying to make.

Humans have an extremely high level of social interaction, fairly low but certainly nonzero sexual dimorphism, strong pair bonding with male parental involvement in raising children, a relatively low level of hierarchy in hunter-gatherer societies but a much greater tendency towards hierarchy in more complex societies, and a level of violence that varies enormously from culture to culture. Offhand, I can't think of what the best animal analogue to us would be. But I do know that finding a better one wouldn't prove much.

People who discuss things with Peterson need to dissect some of his talking points to show that reality is more complex than he is making it appear.

One thing that he will admit is that inequality, if taken to extremes, causes severe social dysfunction. Rather than arguing for equality among race/gender/sexuality lines and allowing him to strawman them as a "postmodern neo-Marxist", someone arguing with him should simply promote social democracy. Say that you don't think that everyone should have exactly equal outcomes, but given the tendency of income to distribute along a very skewed Pareto distribution, and the high stability and social cohesion of societies with Gini coefficients of c. 0.20, we should aim for that through progressive taxation and active redistribution with a strong safety net. The successful can still be substantially better-off than average, just not in the winner-take-all way we see in the US, and increasingly in Canada and the UK.

I haven't actually seen someone engage him along social democratic lines. Almost nobody is arguing for his "perfect equality of outcome" strawman anyway, yet I haven't seen anyone call him on it.

 

[luiz]

Yeah, there is a bewildering array of animal social proclivities, sexual strategies and behaviors, tendencies towards hierarchy, and so on. He could, at minimum, have chosen a more social animal to make his point - but in general he shouldn't really be drawing from other animals (or at least non-primate animals) at all, because there is so much diversity that any choice will say more about him than about the point he's trying to make.

Humans have an extremely high level of social interaction, fairly low but certainly nonzero sexual dimorphism, strong pair bonding with male parental involvement in raising children, a relatively low level of hierarchy in hunter-gatherer societies but a much greater tendency towards hierarchy in more complex societies, and a level of violence that varies enormously from culture to culture. Offhand, I can't think of what the best animal analogue to us would be. But I do know that finding a better one wouldn't prove much.

People who discuss things with Peterson need to dissect some of his talking points to show that reality is more complex than he is making it appear.

One thing that he will admit is that inequality, if taken to extremes, causes severe social dysfunction. Rather than arguing for equality among race/gender/sexuality lines and allowing him to strawman them as a "postmodern neo-Marxist", someone arguing with him should simply promote social democracy. Say that you don't think that everyone should have exactly equal outcomes, but given the tendency of income to distribute along a very skewed Pareto distribution, and the high stability and social cohesion of societies with Gini coefficients of c. 0.20, we should aim for that through progressive taxation and active redistribution with a strong safety net. The successful can still be substantially better-off than average, just not in the winner-take-all way we see in the US, and increasingly in Canada and the UK.

I haven't actually seen someone engage him along social democratic lines. Almost nobody is arguing for his "perfect equality of outcome" strawman anyway, yet I haven't seen anyone call him on it.

I never read anything about Jordan Peterson other than this thread and a couple articles that popped up on my browser, all with the underlying message that he is a monster.

Based on what you wrote and the above, I can conclude without wasting much energy to check it that the guy is a weird alt-right guru that makes all sorts of questionable claims, and holds inconsistent views. But the press is not interested in clarifying these views or engaging in any meaningful debate with the millions who find him relevant; they want to "out" him as a Nazi or something, punish him for deviating from the holy PC orthodoxy that is to be expected of an Anglo-Saxon humanities professor.

 

[Bootstoots]

I never read anything about Jordan Peterson other than this thread and a couple articles that popped up on my browser, all with the underlying message that he is a monster.

Based on what you wrote and the above, I can conclude without wasting much energy to check it that the guy is a weird alt-right guru that makes all sorts of questionable claims, and holds inconsistent views. But the press is not interested in clarifying these views or engaging in any meaningful debate with the millions who find him relevant; they want to "out" him as a Nazi or something, punish him for deviating from the holy PC orthodoxy that is to be expected of an Anglo-Saxon humanities professor.

That's it, pretty much. He's no monster or Nazi, and he is capable of holding nuanced opinions on some issues. At the same time, he tends to strawman the people he's arguing against, and some of his claims are dumb.

He is legitimately helping a lot of people, disproportionately but not entirely young men, with a unique take on self-help that acknowledges the misery of the world without sugar-coating it. But he also enjoys signal-boosting himself by saying ill-founded controversial things. While he's not an alt-right figure, he certainly doesn't seem to mind positive attention from them either. And modern political discourse is way too low-resolution for anyone who interviews or debates him to really get to the root of their disagreements.

So yeah, while he is interesting when he is at his best, you're not missing very much.

 

[Ryika]

While he's not an alt-right figure, he certainly doesn't seem to mind positive attention from them either.

And why would he? Given that he has made his opposition to the typical alt-right talking points very clear, any attention he gets from them can only be a good thing. Not only for him, but also for the people who give him the attention, because whatever else Peterson is, he certainly is positioned towards traditional conservative values, not towards the extreme right values that you find in the (actual) alt right.

It's actually the one thing I would give him a lot of credit on, when it comes to online figureheads, he's probably the one who has dragged the most people out of the alt right.

The fact that for that he is himself sometimes portrayed as alt right only reflects badly on the people writing those articles.

 

[Arakhor]

Moderator Action: I believe we told you on no uncertain terms to remain on topic or the thread will be closed. Since you seem unable to follow mod instructions, the offending posts will be deleted and the thread closed.
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

 

[Lemon Merchant]

Moderator Action: Thread closed