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.
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?
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".
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.
No. Mechanisms -- even highly complex ones -- for efficiently negotiating territorial disputes between members of a solitary species, bear some clear similarities to mechanisms for establishing hierarchies in a social species, and presumably they sort of scaffold evolutionary shifts from solitary to social or vice versa. So it makes sense to treat a solitary stretch as not breaking continuity. Look at the behavioral similarities across social and solitary great cat species, for example. If leopards were to evolve lion-like sociality, they wouldn't be starting from scratch, and they'd end up with some strong similarities.
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.
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? :-)
Yes.
So clever, you are.
lolololol
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.
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?
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".
I like Jordan Peterson, and his "Clean Your Room" directive, but have you seen the funny picture/meme of Peterson in his messy room?:
https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.reddit.com%2Fr%2FQuotesPorn%2Fcomments%2Fk0sn66%2Fif_you_cant_even_clean_up_your_own_room_who_the%2F&psig=AOvVaw3JZjaVlj6TA0we5_ms86rp&ust=1689723558178000&source=images&cd=vfe&opi=89978449&ved=0CBAQjRxqFwoTCMj_wfX0loADFQAAAAAdAAAAABAE
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!
Not sure I'm following you. Doesn't a dominance or competence hierarchy require a social species?
No. Mechanisms -- even highly complex ones -- for efficiently negotiating territorial disputes between members of a solitary species, bear some clear similarities to mechanisms for establishing hierarchies in a social species, and presumably they sort of scaffold evolutionary shifts from solitary to social or vice versa. So it makes sense to treat a solitary stretch as not breaking continuity. Look at the behavioral similarities across social and solitary great cat species, for example. If leopards were to evolve lion-like sociality, they wouldn't be starting from scratch, and they'd end up with some strong similarities.
Just as I outlined my argument, I thought I look up the text again to check yours and it was virtually the same...
„Of course they all have hierarchies. That’s plenty for Peterson’s main point: social hierarchy is deeply rooted in our biology.“
That was my point. I didn‘t read carefully enough.
Apologies, my bad.
Great point. Great essay.
Thank you!
>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.
I think that he makes all his posts freely available after 24h. Always been that way.
You pet a cat *if it will let you*.
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.