A woman talking about the Men's Rights Movement.
Here's a decent rebuttal:
https://www.dailywire.com/news/30825/new-york-times-runs-comprehensive-hit-piece-jordan-ben-shapiro
Jordan Peterson
- Thread starter Kyriakos
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A woman talking about the Men's Rights Movement.
Here's a decent rebuttal:
https://www.dailywire.com/news/30825/new-york-times-runs-comprehensive-hit-piece-jordan-ben-shapiro
A woman talking about the Men's Rights Movement.
Here's a decent rebuttal:
https://www.dailywire.com/news/30825/new-york-times-runs-comprehensive-hit-piece-jordan-ben-shapiro
The NYT article is a hit piece. There are elements of truth to it, but mostly it's just smearing him.
The thing is, though, that he brings this on himself. He makes provocative statements, and only later does he explain what he means. It always turns out that his positions are more moderate and more nuanced than they first appear. But he definitely understands that controversy sells in this era, and there's no market for nuance.
I'm tired of defending this guy. But I guess I'll do it. Not tonight - I'm going to bed soon - but tomorrow or the next day. Ben Shapiro's article is much closer to correct than the NYT article - unsurprisingly, given that they have spent quite a bit of time together as leading figures of the so-called intellectual dark web. The alt-center-right, if you will. But Shapiro misses the elements of truth in the hit piece, because he's a right-winger and thinks the social justice left is full of crap - a position that I do not share. So I'm going to have to write my own response.
Lexicus
Deity
Farm Boy
I hope you dance
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It's the Trumpy era. Just spam the same garbage over and over and you'll have it stick with the sort of person who wants it to stick. I mean, that's always worked. It's just the scope of people willing to do it and celebrate in it seems broad.
I like calling him "feline" probably the best out of the whole thing.
But yes, as always, the most "damning" criticism is "look at the scumbags who like him," which is what El Mac said from the get-go. And that pretty much ties in with the general tenor of a repeating theme - redemption. We're kind of over it in secular society(and seems to sort of be making Calvinist inroads in the religious(yuck)). We have reviticism rates, and repeat sexual offenders, we have targeted policing, and employment background checks. We have social media ratings rising, and slurs used 30 years ago. We're post-redemption. And that's leads us to Peterson's cardinal sin - because he's really as much theologian as anything - he's speaks to the wrong people to try and make them happier/better/more productive. Those that hate Peterson the most hate his audience the most, and their goal, pretty near as I can tell is not getting "alt-right" or "horsehockey" or "whatever" people to move past the most odious aspects of their political beliefs or personal malaises and be better - it's to make sure that "they're bad people and they feel bad, because they should." Or something. You can see it in the thread about the incels. You can see it in the threads regarding Trump supporters. You can see it everywhere on the right too. But they're still a little bit more forgiving, to their credit - and not, sometimes. At least with "their own," which is often enough massively lacking in decency with how they apply it.
Lexicus
Deity
The best line from the Shapiro piece is probably:
In other words, he is absolutely attempting to undermine them, by calling them an "effort to promote equality of outcome" (which is mostly false anyway) and identifying that effort as fundamentally totalitarian, pathological, etc.
This is what is so frustrating about Peterson's defenders, they just point-blank refuse to admit that Peterson's political and cultural project is what it plainly is. This for example, Shapiro knows perfectly well that Peterson and his followers - and Shapiro himself - absolutely are "looking to undermine mainstream and liberal efforts to promote equality," that is literally the whole goddamned point of conservatism.
Anyway, I decided to just go through the NYT article and pull out every quote from Peterson:
“The masculine spirit is under assault,” he told me. “It’s obvious.”
“We have to rediscover the eternal values and then live them out,”
“I am a very serious person,” he often says.
“You know you can say, ‘Well isn’t it unfortunate that chaos is represented by the feminine’ — well, it might be unfortunate, but it doesn’t matter because that is how it’s represented. It’s been represented like that forever. And there are reasons for it. You can’t change it. It’s not possible. This is underneath everything. If you change those basic categories, people wouldn’t be human anymore. They’d be something else. They’d be transhuman or something. We wouldn’t be able to talk to these new creatures.”
“Marxism is resurgent,” Mr. Peterson says, looking ashen and stricken.
“I am not going to be a mouthpiece for language that I detest, and that’s that,”
The lesson most patients need to hear, he says, is “grow the hell up, accept some responsibility, live an honorable life.”
“We just haven’t talked about that in any compelling way in three generations,” he says. “Probably since the beginning of the ’60s.”
He says a couple years ago he had three clients in his private practice “pushed out of a state of mental health by left-wing bullies in their workplace.”
“She had a radical-left boss who was really concerned with equality and equality of outcome and all these things and diversity and inclusivity and all these buzzwords and she was subjected to — she sent me the email chain, 30 emails about whether or not the word flip chart was acceptable,” Mr. Peterson says.
“The people who hold that our culture is an oppressive patriarchy, they don’t want to admit that the current hierarchy might be predicated on competence,”
“It makes sense that a witch lives in a swamp. Yeah,” he says.
“Right. That’s right. You don’t know. It’s because those things hang together at a very deep level. Right. Yeah. And it makes sense that an old king lives in a desiccated tower.”
“Yeah, they do. They do exist. They just don’t exist the way you think they exist. They certainly exist. You may say well dragons don’t exist. It’s, like, yes they do — the category predator and the category dragon are the same category. It absolutely exists. It’s a superordinate category. It exists absolutely more than anything else. In fact, it really exists. What exists is not obvious. You say, ‘Well, there’s no such thing as witches.’ Yeah, I know what you mean, but that isn’t what you think when you go see a movie about them. You can’t help but fall into these categories. There’s no escape from them.”
“He was angry at God because women were rejecting him,” Mr. Peterson says of the Toronto killer. “The cure for that is enforced monogamy. That’s actually why monogamy emerges.”
“Half the men fail,” he says, meaning that they don’t procreate. “And no one cares about the men who fail.”
“You’re laughing about them,” he says, giving me a disappointed look. “That’s because you’re female.”
In situations where there is too much mate choice, “a small percentage of the guys have hyper-access to women, and so they don’t form relationships with women,” he said. “And the women hate that.”
“So I don’t know who these people think marriages are oppressing,” he says. “I read Betty Friedan’s book because I was very curious about it, and it’s so whiny, it’s just enough to drive a modern person mad to listen to these suburban housewives from the late ’50s ensconced in their comfortable secure lives complaining about the fact that they’re bored because they don’t have enough opportunity. It’s like, Jesus get a hobby. For Christ’s sake, you — you — ”
“I’ve had lots of women tell me that,” Mr. Peterson says. “Women will never admit that [they secretly want to be housewives] publicly.” Women are likely to prioritize their children over their work, he says, especially “conscientious and agreeable women.”
“You don’t have a future and you don’t have a job and no bloody wonder you’re anxious,” Mr. Peterson says. “That just means you’re sane.”
Mr. Peterson’s response is often, “How’s that working out for you?”
So maybe someone can explain how these quotes taken together constitute a "misrepresentation" of Peterson in any way, shape or form. I can identify several comments I feel are shockingly misogynistic and basically validate what @inthesomeday was saying earlier, and then there is some of the Jungian mysticism stuff that the Baffler recently referred to as "counter-Enlightenment malarkey," which I think is accurate enough.
Senethro
Overlord
It's the Trumpy era. Just spam the same garbage over and over and you'll have it stick with the sort of person who wants it to stick. I mean, that's always worked. It's just the scope of people willing to do it and celebrate in it seems broad.
I like calling him "feline" probably the best out of the whole thing.
Well, kinda, but so what?
To an extent the alt-righters and co. should have the freedom to be "wrong" or have odious beliefs if they want to, and everyone else should be able to be free from them acting on those odious beliefs where it would affect others negatively. Deprogramming nazis is a worthy activity but does require significant personal investment of time, energy and risk.
Alternatively, why is social shaming not an acceptable tool, if I've read you correctly?
Farm Boy
I hope you dance
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Because most of the people who like him aren't nazis. Nowhere close. Some might even be good people. But who cares, right? So what? Redemption isn't valued and apparently that doesn't matter.
Spirit of the Age.
https://postimg.cc/image/mufb7emx7/
Spirit of the Age.
Spoiler :
Lexicus
Deity
I don't like Peterson because as far as I can tell, he's doing basically the opposite of "getting...people to move past the most odious aspects of their political beliefs or personal malaises." Peterson is telling people things like "He [Toronto murderer Minassian] was angry at God because women were rejecting him. The cure for that is enforced monogamy. That’s actually why monogamy emerges."
Can someone explain how this helps incels move past being incels? Maybe you can explain how saying things like “The people who hold that our culture is an oppressive patriarchy, they don’t want to admit that the current hierarchy might be predicated on competence” helps Nazis get over being Nazis?
Senethro
Overlord
Yeah, that and the "hierarchy of competency emerges in free societies" thing as an excuse for male domination of some fields to hide behind.
To which I say: What free societies would that be? The old ones from last century with legal and social curtailments on women or what?
To which I say: What free societies would that be? The old ones from last century with legal and social curtailments on women or what?
Hm, the idea that 'chaos is represented by the feminine' isn't always there (as Peterson claims; i mean, many female deities are deities of order, including Athena and Hestia, two of the twelve* olympian gods).
That said, 'chaos' is neither feminine nor masculine; even the term (in its original, greek, ie chaos) is neutral.
Furthermore, one would logically assume that 'chaos' is connoting something non-tied to social state, and humanity (humans being geared towards being human), but deeper/more free mental progressions, and likely of older and less distinct nature than the semi-organized ones focused upon by Psychology (eg animism).
This isn't a good point by Peterson; it shows, imo, that he isn't a serious thinker, because it is not a rigorous argument, and is open to very casual attack; you can see that when a few lines in a forum post already include some evidence against his position.
*Hestia sometimes is replaced by Dionysus
That said, 'chaos' is neither feminine nor masculine; even the term (in its original, greek, ie chaos) is neutral.
Furthermore, one would logically assume that 'chaos' is connoting something non-tied to social state, and humanity (humans being geared towards being human), but deeper/more free mental progressions, and likely of older and less distinct nature than the semi-organized ones focused upon by Psychology (eg animism).
This isn't a good point by Peterson; it shows, imo, that he isn't a serious thinker, because it is not a rigorous argument, and is open to very casual attack; you can see that when a few lines in a forum post already include some evidence against his position.
*Hestia sometimes is replaced by Dionysus
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Lexicus
Deity
To me it underscores that Peterson is in fact a dishonest manipulator rather than an ignorant charlatan. Dude is going all out of his way to say that current society is individualistic or whatever but then he says things like "the current hierarchy" which means that he knows damn well that men hold the power in our societies. That means he knows that and wants to keep it that way - or even, as he frequently suggests, to revert back to the even more oppressive hierarchies we had in the past - before "the beginning of the '60s". That's bad.
Synobun
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A woman talking about the Men's Rights Movement.
Here's a decent rebuttal:
https://www.dailywire.com/news/30825/new-york-times-runs-comprehensive-hit-piece-jordan-ben-shapiro
A woman! The nerve of such a creature.
Out of curiosity, how is this a rebuttal? It is a piece designed entirely to oppose an extended interview that was consented to by Jordan Peterson. It serves only to deny the author's credibility and Shapiro makes barely an effort at dispelling any falsities. Ben Shapiro wields 'bias' as a synonym for 'lie' when this is clearly untrue. Bias can and does cloud judgment but it doesn't automatically make what the person is saying incorrect.
The majority of Shapiro's 'rebuttal' can be freely dismissed because of this approach. There is no reasonable response to give to "But then we get to the full Bowles sneer session. Check out these doozies:" or any other of Shapiro's carefully crafted sentences that exist only to stoke the flame instead of actually address anything.
So let's focus on his 'corrections'.
"In Bowles’ model, then, Peterson is calling for the masculine to overcome the feminine. He is, you see, a sexist. But this ignores that Peterson’s entire ouvre is attempting to find a balance between what he describes as the ying/yang of femininity and masculinity. When he calls for young men to be better human beings – to cultivate themselves – he’s challenging them to find that which makes the masculine worthwhile."
Except, this isn't true. Peterson explicitly draws the line on what masculinity is and what femininity is. 'Finding a balance' is pretty language to cover up the sexist foundation. His viewpoint on balance is entirely determined by his viewpoint on the sexes. In his model, you can't have one without the other. They do not exist independent from one another.
More to the point, what 'makes the masculine worthwhile'? He directly says that a man will be at risk of mass murder and severe mental illness if he isn't gifted a woman to take it out on. Cleaning your room doesn't make that 'worthwhile'. Convincing your followers to commit to basic human chores isn't a groundbreaking development in the ying and yang that is the masculine and feminine.
"This is plainly untrue. He has never said that a society run as a patriarchy makes sense and stems from men’s innate competence – he has said that in a free society, free choices lead to hierarchies of competence."
Good counter. Men are naturally in power over women (due to 'competence'!), they don't do anything to enforce this discrepancy in authority. Just the way the cookie crumbles, hombre. That makes it not sexist, because... uh... let me get back to you on that...
"This is not what Peterson is saying. It’s a deliberate misconstruction, once again, of what he is saying. Peterson is saying that in a free society, there will be hierarchies; to misinterpret those hierarchies as oppressive patriarchies rather than as reflective of merit is to misguidedly ignore science."
Treating women as cattle and not granting them basic human societal rights is not what I would claim as 'science'. This is not a good argument. All these "see, but what he really meant..." retorts just go further to solidify his position as someone who operates from a position of misogyny. It is the height of pompous arrogance to represent your personal archaic views as the righteous expression of science.
There is no functional difference between "Men are in control because women are inferior" and "Men are in control and women are beneath them because of science". At the end of those paths, the result is the same: you are directly classifying women as lesser, and saying it's because of nature is gobblygook nonsense. We are not unhinged wild animals. We've given women the vote for a century and the world hasn't collapsed. Perhaps it may be possible that women aren't feeble, and arguing that they are from the hidey-hole of 'science' isn't doing you any favours?
"But then we get to Bowles’ creepiest smear: the implication that Peterson actually believes in witches."
Nope, that was not the implication. The implication was that Peterson has an incredibly disjointed way of parsing his thoughts. If he can barely offer a lucid thought on the rhetorical instance of witches and where they live, he can hardly be expected to offer a lucid thought on something as critical as reproductive rights and the place of women in society. He gets from point A to point B without much of a pattern and that is dangerous when you intentionally put yourself in a position where people look to you on how to get from point A to point B.
"This is plainly dishonest reportage. First off, Peterson is using well-established anthropological language here: “enforced monogamy” does not mean government-enforced monogamy. “Enforced monogamy” means socially-promoted, culturally-inculcated monogamy, as opposed to genetic monogamy – evolutionarily-dictated monogamy, which does exist in some species (but does not exist in humans). This distinction has been present in anthropological and scientific literature for decades."
There is little functional difference between this correction and the original interpretation when kept in context with the rest of what Peterson said. A social pressure for monogamy already exists and very clearly has no impact on this. What's more is that women are by-and-large killed by their male partners so dealing with the male killer issue by heightening the social pressures on 1x1 relationships seems illogical.
But what's being missed in this correction is that Peterson explicitly says that these men are who they are because they have been rejected by women, and that the solution is enforced monogamy. He directly says this. It's not a smear piece, it's not some random attack. He says this.
So, how do you couple "a social pressure to be monogamous" with "the solution to the Incels is enforced monogamy"? You remove the rights of women and force them to be romantically involved with these men. That's the offered solution. What else fits in this model that isn't simply white noise meant to fill the silence? How will these men gain a woman to possess -- which is the spoken solution to their woes by Peterson -- without restricting the woman's rights? We live in a society now where women can choose and Peterson directly cites this as a cause for mass murder, and that the solution is to revert to a previous state.
His compelling support in this case is that without enforced monogamy, one man has many women. Peterson lives in Toronto. There are no harems. The precedent and expectation is still monogamy. It is still one of the top dreams of people growing up: to find a significant other, to marry them, to settle down with them. This supporting argument is noise to obscure the underlying claim: that women should be restricted in who they can choose so that the undesirable men can have at least one woman to claim.
Shapiro goes on to provide an incorrect overview of what an Incel is in order to drive home his point that Bowles is some misguided feminist here to piss on Peterson.
"Men would prefer to marry conscientious and agreeable women. But repeating this obvious fact makes Peterson – you guessed it – a sexist."
How many times do you describe a desired woman as "agreeable", and why is she subservient to a man's will each of those times?
Closing thought: If someone has to constantly say "That's not what I meant" and they are in a position where the words they mean are intended to guide people, perhaps there is an issue with the person speaking those words and the viewpoints they're expressing instead of everyone except his supporters rightfully not being so keen on it all? Every time he opens his mouth, he needs to be defended. At what point does it go from "He's being misrepresented" to "Yeah, maybe he believes some pretty bad things"?
Even if you take him at his very absolute best, and give him the benefit of all the doubt in the world, he is still an enabler for all who believe in these deplorable positions. There's no way you can mark him out as anything positive.
Broken_Erika
Play with me.
I just mark him out as another moron in the masses of terminally incomplete braindead sheeple.
He has the right to state his opinion. And we have the right to make fun of his opinion.
He has the right to state his opinion. And we have the right to make fun of his opinion.
aelf
Ashen One
Yeah, I totally don't understand that defense of Peterson. I guess he effectively says: "Clean up your room! But I totally get why you hate feminists", and FB, being himself, is only paying attention to the first sentence because he will cut someone who rails against the urban left whatever slack is required.
Traitorfish
The Tighnahulish Kid
They might be good people. But it's not clear that the burden is on the rest of us to extend them the benefit of the doubt, not until they chose to start proving it. They're grown-ups, more or less, and if they prefer clinging to the robes of a reactionary mystic to actually behaving like good people, that's a choice they have made.
Lexicus
Deity
"Good people" is a meaningless term. Good and bad is what you do, not what you are.
Senethro
Overlord
I'm not clear who it is who is this great authority that may issue redemption...
Broken_Erika
Play with me.
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