The Jordan Peterson Thread

The standard of public debate and the level of thinking of the people invited to discuss things on, for example BBC radio 4's The Moral Maze, is so far beneath the standard of what I can get from ILX or a few other places that you do have to wonder why certain people get to be heard all the time when they have so little of substance to contribute, and of course its down to privilege and nepotism and the power of establishment and the idea of constructing a "balanced debate" implemented by producers who don't understand the issue, but the point is that this is the shitty world Jordan Peterson exists in, and in this world he isn't really that exceptional, we are only discussing him at all because he's managed to market his bullshit to alt-righters.

There are flaws in the study for sure—“political correctness” has negative connotations to begin with, which I’m sure biased the respondents—but it’s still interesting. I think for at least some part of the population the appeal of figures like peterson comes from his ability to strike rhetorical blows against the culture of the educated classes. Trump may have been the same way. This is comforting, actually, beause this means that for *at least some* of these people who feel threatened by change, the change they fear isn’t necessarily a more diverse society where women have a higher status, it’s a world where they are simply out of the loop and looked down upon. Which is actually understandable.

xps

Many xps - The term "political correctness" has been used as a weapon to attack the left for decades now, and it needs to be either reclaimed or disavowed as a slur immediately if that is possible. I suspect the people surveyed would have quite different ideas about it if you described it using any other terminology.

Of course most people say they dislike 'political correctness'. It's like asking people what they think about 'high taxes'. It's not interesting at all.

This is comforting, actually, beause this means that for *at least some* of these people who feel threatened by change, the change they fear isn’t necessarily a more diverse society where women have a higher status, it’s a world where they are simply out of the loop and looked down upon. Which is actually understandable.

Except they feel that they are out of the loop because of the status of women. If they didn’t feel that the two were linked, they’d see through this guy. All his bullshit is rationalising misogyny in a pseudo intellectual way that makes them feel that their feelings are not just valid but rational.

I mean, I made a note of that

Xp frederik

And the 'woke' boogieman is not the 'educated class', in the debate on Universities the battle lines are drawn between noble professors defending ideals of academic freedom vs hordes of coddled students destroying civilization in their need for trigger warnings and safe spaces. It's about the fear of the othered masses.

Treeship, I just don't think you can say 'it's a bullshit survey, but it's still interesting'. No it's not. It's bullshit. We learn nothing from it.

I mean, I made a note of that

Yes, I definitely felt that you understood and gave a fuck about my point. His whole thing is based on women being bad and ~chaotic and disruptive, whereas men represent order and rationality. You don’t buy into that shit unless you’ve got at least some negative feelings towards women.

in the interview with helen lewis one of the points they agree on is that twitter is quite unhealthy. JP says that the format of twitter encourages ppl to be provocative, which I think is true. ppl from across the political spectrum feel fatigued/disgusted/offended/intimidated by the discourse on social media, I don't really think anyone is completely immune to it, the differences are in what you cling to in the face of it

I’m not defending Jordan Peterson’s ideas or excusing people for being drawn to him. They should be able to see through the bullshit and identify the misogyny. I was specificallt addressing the question of why there is such a hunger for youtube videos of him “taking down” figures from “the left,” who usually end up just being journalists and not even activists. I think for a lot of people “the left” is associated with the educated.

Treeship, have you ever heard this cum town bit (the first three minutes or so of this video)? it's ableist and crass etc, but I think it really gets at something about Peterson's appeal that more high-minded critiques sometimes don't

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aVXiXn8Oec8

the contempt for universities/students that you get on the right/centre sometimes overlaps with a more general anti-intellectualism, but he relies on his renegade intellectual image and appeals to a paranoid anti-establishment culture war-type sentiment. ppl who are against education in general are probably not going to be swung by a jungian academic

It’s more like they’re against the culture of the educated/professional class. Peterson has the credentials but he’s coming back and saying it’s bullshit, which they see as validating.

I just think there is a semi-unconscious class dynamic here

he's had most success destroying journalists who are sufficiently convinced of his dumb-full-of-shitness that they come with lazy questions that betray some woolly thinking which he can unpick. there's more than enough bad thinking on the left for someone to make a career taking it apart.

Expect a whole lot more of this as he's due to appear on Question Time this Thursday. In fact the BBC is doing a sterling job of promoting him and disseminating his ideas - he couldn't pay for this sort of publicity and support.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p06qcgdv

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0b2gsct

It's like those various Living Marxism/Spiked clowns - Claire Fox, Brendan O'Neill, Ella Whelan et al - broadcasters love them, they make 'good television'... apparently.

I just think there is a semi-unconscious class dynamic here

― Trϵϵship, Monday, 5 November 2018 13:19 (five minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I'm sure you're not actually claiming this prissy middle class milksop of an academic draws his support from the disenfranchised, alienated working class. That would be silly.

Aren’t his supporters all like, underemployed, underachieving men who need someone to tell them to “get teir shit together”? I think these people feel alienated by what they believe to be the mores of elite society, sure. Whether they 1.) are correct about what those are or 2.) have a right to feel wronged are different questions.

John Sacks had a bbc 4 program where he was forcing poor students to listen to one of JP's lectures and then having a "discussion" with them about his ideas with the obvious bias that he completely agrees with him, but done with that faux "let's just see where this takes us" bs! It is deeply annoying to be paying a license fee for free advertising for this fucking bell-end.

Aren’t his supporters all like, underemployed, underachieving men who need someone to tell them to “get teir shit together”?

These people don't exist in the middle class?

When did I say they were the dienfranchised, alienated working class or even that they deserved sympathy?

You did go mention a 'semi-unconscious class dynamic'.

Though I'm not exactly sure what you were referring to tbh.

... tbf not tbh.

Aren’t his supporters all like, underemployed, underachieving men who need someone to tell them to “get teir shit together”?

No

they're mostly men tho

which feels more relevant than the class elements that i'm sure are also in play

Using the language of "class" does muddy things imo, Treesh. If there's a class dynamic at work here, it isn't really in the Marxist or even the socioeconomic sense.

Worth noting the reverential tones in which Fox & Friends hosts address him as "professor" and tell him how smart he is. It does suggest that the anti-intellectualism that exists on the right is related to some kind of sour grapes, that they really want and feel they should have more scholarly respect and credence than they do. xps to Treeship

Oh, did I “go mention” it?

Seriously, the middle class is slipping away as a concept in America, tons of people feel insecurity for all kinds of reasons, and the language of “woke” culture feels alien and inpenetrable to many people, and Peterson’s simplified worldview speaks to all of these things, in my view, in addition to appealing to misogyny.

Xp

That Cumtown bit is really gross btw.

Sorry for my snarky tone tom d i regret it already

Don't be silly, I'm like Jordan B. Peterson, tough as bold boots.

"have you ever heard this cum town bit? it's ableist and crass etc but" hard pass forever, Christ the Chapoization of left discourse is the absolute worst

Lol

i'm not sure that anti-intellectualism (i have the urge to quote mark a bunch of these words but it'd be too much) is a growing phenomenon - given the muddying in the public mind between intellectual/academic/technocrat/politician/certain class shibboleths - but that what's changing is partly the access of anti-intellectual opinions to mass media like the internet and partly an increasing willingness on the part of former authoritarian gatekeepers - like the BBC for example - to allow, even encourage, anti-intellectual opinions coverage

LOL bold boots.

just for the record what this fuckin guy on the cumtown extract above says this:

Autistic is a little less 'bad' or -- debilitating, whatever, as regular -- medical retardation [collapses laughing]

he spends the rest of the extract being generally hateful about autistic people

launch the entire Chapo-related enterprise into the fucking sun

Ta-nehisi Coates wrote a good thing about 'anti-elitism':

But racism occupies a mostly passive place in Packer’s essay. There’s no attempt to understand why black and brown workers, victimized by the same new economy and cosmopolitan elite that Packer lambastes, did not join the Trump revolution. Like Kristof, Packer is gentle with his subjects. When a woman “exploded” and told Packer, “I want to eat what I want to eat, and for them to tell me I can’t eat French fries or Coca-Cola—no way,” he sees this as a rebellion against “the moral superiority of elites.” In fact, this elite conspiracy dates back to 1894, when the government first began advising Americans on their diets. As recently as 2002, President George W. Bush launched the HealthierUS initiative, urging Americans to exercise and eat healthy food. But Packer never allows himself to wonder whether the explosion he witnessed had anything to do with the fact that similar advice now came from the country’s first black first lady. Packer concludes that Obama was leaving the country “more divided and angrier than most Americans can remember,” a statement that is likely true only because most Americans identify as white. Certainly the men and women forced to live in the wake of the beating of John Lewis, the lynching of Emmett Till, the firebombing of Percy Julian’s home, and the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Medgar Evers would disagree.

Joan Crawford Loves Chachi totally otm. It doesn't seem that long ago a seasoned ilxer was saying Retard is permissible again because those fucking Chapo dickheads are throwing it about with gay abandon, so it must be ok.

Aren’t his supporters all like, underemployed, underachieving men who need someone to tell them to “get their shit together”?

you don't want to grant that these guys are underemployed and underachieving unless you think more ppl who reflect the demographics of JP's fanbase should hold positions of power

Joan Crawford Loves Chachi totally otm. It doesn't seem that long ago a seasoned ilxer was saying Retard is permissible again because those fucking Chapo dickheads are throwing it about with gay abandon, so it must be ok.

fyi only c*m town does this and ppl conflating the two really bugs me

but uh we have a thread for that I guess

to quote on of Ilx's finest "I don't know if the mods got the memo, but Chapo Trap House is making it ok for liberals to say retarded again"

*one of*

_Joan Crawford Loves Chachi totally otm. It doesn't seem that long ago a seasoned ilxer was saying Retard is permissible again because those fucking Chapo dickheads are throwing it about with gay abandon, so it must be ok._


fyi only c*m town does this and ppl conflating the two really bugs me

I know this seriously nailz roofer from Seacroft with a daughter with DS. Would love to see these brave lads chucking about hateful words like that in front of him!

will pay top dollar for ringside seats