1. Background The Canadian psychologist Jordan Peterson rose to internet fame in the last several years, partly due to his protests against a Canadian law that, he said, would compel people to use other people’s preferred pronouns, including made-up words like “ze” and “xir”. Peterson said he would not use such words. The resulting SJW freak-out brought Peterson to international attention, whereupon many viewers discovered that they rather liked him. He has since quit his university professor job to become a full-time (very successful) self-help author and public speaker.
Let me just get this straight. You’re saying that we should dress up like lobsters and make love to Jordan Peterson by snapping our claws in his direction? :-)
I like your speaking style as well, Michael, especially in debates. You're not dogmatic and you're clear and easy to understand. Thanks for donating your time to do that.
I've read his 12 rules book. From the summary you provide, I have reservations about #6: “Set your house in perfect order before you criticize the world.” That's stated too strongly. Would *anyone* be able to criticize the world? Does anyone have their house in perfect order? Of course, more fully explained, he is making an excellent point. I would just drop the word "perfect".
Mike, at the end of "Ethical Intuitionism," you give an aside about the book, and you cover how much cynicism and scientism have penetrated intellectual thought. Everything needs to be debunked these days (free will, moral realism, religion, traditional virtues for living). How much do you think Peterson's work is attractive to people because it goes completely against this?
Peterson's promotion of self-help and individual responsibility is unsympathetic to leftists, who prefer to treat the poor and minorities as helpless victims of oppression, who must be supported by "society" (in the form of leftist government).
I've had many patients reference Peterson's positive influence on them. Clearly an unfairly maligned man. I could personally do less with his woolly language and his habit of saying "technically speaking" in sometimes amusingly non-technical ways. He also seems prone to anger on social media, which may not always be wise. Just my taste though, obviously I'm in no position to give him any advice. Whatever you think of him, I have a hard time imagining him as a net negative to the world.
If in the land of the blind the one-eyed man is king, in the land of the spineless conformist the person who stands up for (and speaks for) himself is also king.
I am immune to the charms of JP, and also perplexed by the unhinged hatred he inspires (seems to be some combination of herd resentment and Two Minutes Hate), but very much appreciate his willingness to fearlessly confront the petty tyrants who patrol our culture and discourse.
It's sad what's happened to American academia, it's morphed into a cult that combines the worst aspects of Scientology and Jonestown.
So you praise him for being more aggressively confrontational to things he disagrees with but then you criticize climate scientists calling him out aggressively. You cannot have it both ways
4a is so important. I think this is true for a lot of folks who are part of the so-called 'intellectual dark web'. Many of them are sharing ideas that were once obvious, but because they've fallen out of favor, people aren't used to hearing them and maybe haven't thought about them before.
Even mainstream moderate voices sound like extremists in the right context.
Im not a fan of peterson, mostly because of all the politics and anti wokeness / lgbtq critisism he seems sorrounded by: but yeah, his basic actual advice is generally very good
Great post! Always refreshing to read something reflected and „neutral“ about JP.
He has done a lot of good, but definitely has his flaws too, which I agree on with you.
But, in terms of the lobster theory, I think I disagree.
I think, that his point is well represented with lobsters, as he doesn‘t compare the „social“ hierarchy, in terms of them communicating as sophisticated as humans or primates do
It‘s rather about the depth of hierarchies at all, which means the earliest forms, like dominance/competence hierarchies, right?
He wants to point out, that EVEN lobsters have the same foundational system that uses serotonin for example, which is 350 mio + years old.
It shows, as you can give lobsters the same anti depressants as humans and both benefit through higher levels of serotonin etc. which makes them „rise“ artificially in the hierarchy, as perceived by their own body.
But it is the argument that gets huge amounts of criticism, as people disagree with whatever they want, without getting to the bottom of it.
He said this which I believes is true: "80% of my patients would be fixed and could stop therapy if they just did these two things--get up at the same time each morning, and have breakfast each morning."
Well put. The rambler part drives me crazy. But I do like his ideas. I just wish he could keep some focus. He spent 25 minutes pontificating on a show with Bjorn Lomborg on 12 cheap and effective changes before he got substantively to the first point.
I don’t think his rambling is totally random, you’ll notice he seems much more likely to ramble on when it comes to questions about immigration, his religion and redistribution.
I suspect that while he is right of the academy he is actually left of of his most die hard supporters, which makes him hesitant to talk about certain issues.
He basically calls his reader a co conspiracy theorist, but not directly. Segways into his spiel about his beef with what he calls post modernism and feminism and applies personality theory in a provocative way that actually isn’t sexist but would seem sexist to most liberals.
Also rule 6. Is pretty nonsensical taken literally, (only Jesus can vote?) and if it’s some kind of metaphor I don’t understand it.
As for his vagueness about religion, My guess is he is an atheist but thinks religion is useful for certain types of people but of course he can’t say this.
Though iirc correctly he has a whole elaborate conversion story to some form of Christianity, though I’d like to run an experiment where we grab a Jordan Peterson clone who calls himself and atheist but is the same in every other way, and see how far he gets as a public intellectual of the right.
Let me just get this straight. You’re saying that we should dress up like lobsters and make love to Jordan Peterson by snapping our claws in his direction? :-)
I like your speaking style as well, Michael, especially in debates. You're not dogmatic and you're clear and easy to understand. Thanks for donating your time to do that.
I've read his 12 rules book. From the summary you provide, I have reservations about #6: “Set your house in perfect order before you criticize the world.” That's stated too strongly. Would *anyone* be able to criticize the world? Does anyone have their house in perfect order? Of course, more fully explained, he is making an excellent point. I would just drop the word "perfect".
Mike, at the end of "Ethical Intuitionism," you give an aside about the book, and you cover how much cynicism and scientism have penetrated intellectual thought. Everything needs to be debunked these days (free will, moral realism, religion, traditional virtues for living). How much do you think Peterson's work is attractive to people because it goes completely against this?
Peterson's promotion of self-help and individual responsibility is unsympathetic to leftists, who prefer to treat the poor and minorities as helpless victims of oppression, who must be supported by "society" (in the form of leftist government).
I've had many patients reference Peterson's positive influence on them. Clearly an unfairly maligned man. I could personally do less with his woolly language and his habit of saying "technically speaking" in sometimes amusingly non-technical ways. He also seems prone to anger on social media, which may not always be wise. Just my taste though, obviously I'm in no position to give him any advice. Whatever you think of him, I have a hard time imagining him as a net negative to the world.
Just to add onto one of your points:
If in the land of the blind the one-eyed man is king, in the land of the spineless conformist the person who stands up for (and speaks for) himself is also king.
I am immune to the charms of JP, and also perplexed by the unhinged hatred he inspires (seems to be some combination of herd resentment and Two Minutes Hate), but very much appreciate his willingness to fearlessly confront the petty tyrants who patrol our culture and discourse.
It's sad what's happened to American academia, it's morphed into a cult that combines the worst aspects of Scientology and Jonestown.
So you praise him for being more aggressively confrontational to things he disagrees with but then you criticize climate scientists calling him out aggressively. You cannot have it both ways
4a is so important. I think this is true for a lot of folks who are part of the so-called 'intellectual dark web'. Many of them are sharing ideas that were once obvious, but because they've fallen out of favor, people aren't used to hearing them and maybe haven't thought about them before.
Even mainstream moderate voices sound like extremists in the right context.
young people like him because he fills in where dead beat dads,uninspired elders and the general leadership in the west has miserably failed.
Im not a fan of peterson, mostly because of all the politics and anti wokeness / lgbtq critisism he seems sorrounded by: but yeah, his basic actual advice is generally very good
Great post! Always refreshing to read something reflected and „neutral“ about JP.
He has done a lot of good, but definitely has his flaws too, which I agree on with you.
But, in terms of the lobster theory, I think I disagree.
I think, that his point is well represented with lobsters, as he doesn‘t compare the „social“ hierarchy, in terms of them communicating as sophisticated as humans or primates do
It‘s rather about the depth of hierarchies at all, which means the earliest forms, like dominance/competence hierarchies, right?
He wants to point out, that EVEN lobsters have the same foundational system that uses serotonin for example, which is 350 mio + years old.
It shows, as you can give lobsters the same anti depressants as humans and both benefit through higher levels of serotonin etc. which makes them „rise“ artificially in the hierarchy, as perceived by their own body.
But it is the argument that gets huge amounts of criticism, as people disagree with whatever they want, without getting to the bottom of it.
Would you agree?
I hope this was semi coherent, I just woke up😅
Cheers!
>These all seem like sound advice. Especially #12, which I follow religiously
Enjoy your toxoplasmosis load, I guess?
>I say this, btw, even though all traditional religions are false and many traditional social constraints were arbitrary
Thanks for clearing that up. Also, thanks for leaving this post up for free - guess not enough people were paying for your content.
He said this which I believes is true: "80% of my patients would be fixed and could stop therapy if they just did these two things--get up at the same time each morning, and have breakfast each morning."
Well put. The rambler part drives me crazy. But I do like his ideas. I just wish he could keep some focus. He spent 25 minutes pontificating on a show with Bjorn Lomborg on 12 cheap and effective changes before he got substantively to the first point.
I don’t think his rambling is totally random, you’ll notice he seems much more likely to ramble on when it comes to questions about immigration, his religion and redistribution.
I suspect that while he is right of the academy he is actually left of of his most die hard supporters, which makes him hesitant to talk about certain issues.
I.e take this clip
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=KX6KETs_5xE
He basically calls his reader a co conspiracy theorist, but not directly. Segways into his spiel about his beef with what he calls post modernism and feminism and applies personality theory in a provocative way that actually isn’t sexist but would seem sexist to most liberals.
Also rule 6. Is pretty nonsensical taken literally, (only Jesus can vote?) and if it’s some kind of metaphor I don’t understand it.
As for his vagueness about religion, My guess is he is an atheist but thinks religion is useful for certain types of people but of course he can’t say this.
Though iirc correctly he has a whole elaborate conversion story to some form of Christianity, though I’d like to run an experiment where we grab a Jordan Peterson clone who calls himself and atheist but is the same in every other way, and see how far he gets as a public intellectual of the right.