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Jordan Peterson

Very poor criticism.

Myers says that “Following Jordan’s logic is the same as saying “ I have a moustache - therefore it’s follows that my great grandfather had a moustache and so does my brother”. That is a bizarre example and poor criticism.
Myers then says that (following Jordan’s logic ) “because bees live in social groups, live in hives and make honey it follows that bears live in hives and make honey” !

Huh?

P Z Myers is another that’s just not familiar with Peterson’s work.
In the video he says he watched the Kathy Newman video and thought Peterson came out worse.
This is perhaps the most revealing indicator of his rational thinking.

Ebaracum you can ally yourself to this ‘great mind’ if you want. We must all find our level.
 
I am a follower of P Z Myer's work, and I must admit that I disagree with much of what he says, on other matters. But he is right about Peterson.
 
Myers then says that (following Jordan’s logic ) “because bees live in social groups, live in hives and make honey it follows that bears live in hives and make honey” !

Huh?
I can explain this if you like, although a biologist should recognise the logic immediately. Bees and bears share a common ancestor, and so do lobsters and humans; this last common ancestor (LCA) may even have been the same entity, since arthropods and mammals diverged at least half a gigayear ago. Any shared behaviour has passed through 500 million years of divergent evolution, so there are no reliable points of resemblance between them in the current era.
In short, what gordonrutter said;
"Lobsters are not a common ancestor of all life ."
 
Any shared behaviour has passed through 500 million years of divergent evolution, so there are no reliable points of resemblance between them in the current era.

Bees have a strong hierarchical structure to their colonies.
Bears have a strong hierarchical structure through male dominance, territory and mating preference.
That is the point Peterson was trying to make.

Arguing whether he could have used a different organism as an example, is being contrary for the sake of semantics.
Lobsters were the example he chose and his point, hierarchy is innate and evolutionary, rather than modern social construct is irrefutable.
 
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Nonsense. Myers has blown this idea out of the water- no real biologist would make such a statement. In this way Peterson demonstrates that he is not a biologist. Note for instance that the beehive is dominated by a female.
 
Peterson is not a biologist.
P Z Myers is a biologist, and he knows enough to call the Canadian twat out on his nonsense.
https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyn...nderstand-evolution-nervous-systems-or-logic/


So, Peterson is unqualified to comment on lobsters because he is not a biologist.

But you support P Z Myers, who isn't a psychologist.

And the subject is behavioral psychology.

pzmyers.jpg


(From Wikipedia)
 
As for the IDW. I find Rubin a good presenter as he can keep his subject talking.

Of the listed members, I have only really followed the Weinstein brothers and Peterson.

After all, there are only so many hours in the day.
 
Eburacum,

It is clear that you dislike Peterson as a person, and I will concede that when he is in discussion with others he can be most overbearing and has an unfortunate habit of interrupting the person he is talking to. I do find that irritating.In fact I have a hard time watching him in this setting. Not so when he is lecturing.

But the question is 'is he correct on the subject of behavioral psychology ?'.
 
This is evolutionary biology, about which he has little clue.

The main thing I dislike about Peterson is his bias towards normality, monogamy, heterosexuality, male insecurity. As I've mentioned in the past, it seems likely that human behaviour and nature is likely to change radically in the next few hundred years - genetic engineering, neurological augmentation, brain computer interfaces, artificial intelligence- and that's just for starters. Peterson's concerns about normative sexual behaviour will start to look quaint when people can change their somatic and genetic gender at will, or meld themselves into a hive mind gestalt that includes sentient computers (and/or chimpanzees).

In the next few hundred years humanity will take control of its own evolutionary development- and I expect that people like Peterson will be working as hard as they can to oppose any radical changes. They are welcome to do so- but in the long run they will fail.
 
Incidentally, this is the area in which I disagree with P Z Myers; he also opposes the radical transmogrification of humanity. Well, fuck 'em both. The future will come, whether we want it to or not.
Bwah-hah-hah-ha!
 
Here's an entertaining deconstruction of Peterson's critique of 'Postmodern Neo-Marxism'.

Her--or his--point is that Peterson's work as a self-help guru is valuable inasmuch as it appeals to a demographic that currently needs such leadership, but his views here are not that original.

The objection is that Peterson's is overambitious in his attack and ropes in too many different movements and theories under an almost meaningless label ('postmodernism'), and many of his targets are not actually postmodern. Similarly, his opposition to 'the left' is clumsy and unhelpful because there is no monolithic entity answering that description.

Lobsters/hierarchies at 21:20... Again the critique is the Peterson is too ambitious and ends up firing scattershot. His arguments in favour of natural hierarchies either fails or justifies any and all hierarchies.

Might be NSFW:

 
Jeeez ! A very beautiful and highly intelligent woman - but that was hard work to follow !
Great video and great points though.

Again though like the moustache man before - a criticism of Jordan’s Lobster reference based on the Cathy Newman interview.

The chapter of his book simply uses the Lobsters reference solely to answer and negate the specific accusation that hierarchy is a construct of human civilisation.
He THEN goes on to discuss (at length) the ways that hierarchy has both negative and positive aspects on society etc . . .
But of course without given time in the interview to discuss this at length and having to use the short time he had mostly to defend himself against an attempted attack he had no time to expand on this.

And so it is reduced to a misunderstood soundbite that sounds ‘crazy’ enough for those with no time to read to comment on. And these attacks are getting clicks so they continue.

Jordan’s concerns about society and the rise of the left is of course of direct concern to him as he has lectured to university students for years and seen first hand the change in the freedoms he has to teach and what he can/can’t say.
So the incredulous “what’s it to you anyway - they’re our life choices” in an attempt to infer he’s poking around with what doesn’t concern him is unfair.

But wow though, did you see that list of patrons to her channel ! ££££ you go girl !
 
Eburacum,

It is clear that you dislike Peterson as a person, and I will concede that when he is in discussion with others he can be most overbearing and has an unfortunate habit of interrupting the person he is talking to. I do find that irritating.In fact I have a hard time watching him in this setting. Not so when he is lecturing.

But the question is 'is he correct on the subject of behavioral psychology ?'.

I've seen a TV interview with JP where he bats away challenges from the (female) presenter rather ably whilst doodling nonchanantly on a notepad - like a rebellious teenager who knows (or thinks he knows) that he's cleverer than his schoolteacher - and not even bothering to make eye contact.

He seemed a bit grumpy in general, so who knows what had occurred before he went on air, but although this was clearly deliberate rudeness, or at least an act of passive-aggression, it was a highly effective way of discomfiting a hostile opponent and rather impressive.

The only problem I have with him (apart from not entirely agreeing with his every opinion) is that sometimes I simply can't follow what he's going on about - and I suspect this is not entirely due to stupidity on my part. I regret I am unable to supply examples, just suggesting that I think he sometimes deliberately bamboozles an interlocutor with waffle which cannot meaningfully be deconstructed - 'bullshit baffles brains'. Nothing wrong with a bit of devilment and playfulness in a debate.

On the whole, I like him. He keeps his cool and has the maturity not to lose his rag and, I feel, is on the whole, intellectually honest. He certainly seems confident enough to be willing and able to modify or reject a position he's previously held should it no longer appear tenable - that is, he actually knows how to think; which presents a refreshing contrast to the way your 'liberal' / 'far-left' professors seem to be carrying on.
 
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I watched a video of talk he did at Liberty University a few days ago that featured the incident in the clip below.
A distressed student rushed past security and onto the stage to get to JP.
I think JP’s reaction to the incident both during and after (@ 5.50 ) give a measure of him not always seen by his detractors.
 
For those of you who have any qualifications in psychiatry or psychology I apologise, I'm sure we would have an intereasting discussion down the pub - but this is why I don't trust you one inch.

 
For those of you who have any qualifications in psychiatry or psychology I apologise, I'm sure we would have an interesting discussion down the pub - but this is why I don't trust you one inch.

No apology necessary, these kinds of things make me even angrier than usual.
 
So, as you will have heard, Jordan Peterson has gone into rehab after becoming dependent on anti-anxiety medication following his wife's illness:

https://www.westernjournal.com/jordan-peterson-rehab-horrific-withdrawal/

So how do we feel about this? For myself I have to admit to struggling with a bit of the old schaudenfraude. My own feelings about the guy, and what he seems to stand for have always been somewhat mixed (see above somewhere).

On the one hand I very much respect the way he has raised - and addressed - the issue of spiraling suicides among young men. On the other, that whole `pull-yourself-up-by-your-own-bootstraps` machismo attitude I just couldn't fully relate to. (And I speak as a lover of self-help psychology!)

He always made me feel a little as if he was pointing at me and going: `You! Yes YOU Zeke! Pull yourself together you namby pampy liberal loser!`

But now... its as if the tables have turned a bit. I mean I'm in my fifties - and, okay my wife has never had cancer (mostly owing to th fact that I don't have a wife!) - but I have undergone various trials and tribulations (mind your own business!) - and throughout it all I have never become drug dependent and in fact have never required any kind of psychiatric counselling.

Who's standing on their own two feet now, Jordy-boy?

I should add that, if he handles this right, Peterson's overall message could emerge from this strengthened rather than weakened. If he embraces a bit of humility and vulnerability - accepts that sometimes shit happens and that it can knock the best of men sideways - he could become a sort of Wounded Healer (they very best type of healer, that is).

I think this video is very much to the point:

 
I think anxiety medications are meant to be for things like getting you out of bed in the morning once your wife has been given a terminal cancer diagnosis and he is perfectly entitled to take them. If people are on them for relatively minor life annoyances then yes, they are better off learning how to "pull their socks up". I am assuming that is the sort of thing his books are aimed at by the way and are not meant to cure major traumas.

ps- yay for Jordan Peterson's wife.
 
Yay for his wife? In what sense?

Despite an original diagnosis that her cancer was likely terminal, she has responded well to treatment and looks set to survive.

Edit: it is an extremely rare form of kidney cancer, but surgery revealed that it had not spread as the doctors had initially believed.

Edit2: I have no respect for anybody who takes political capital for what has happened, although I am baffled as to why so many North Americans end up on hugely poweful anti-depressants.

Edit3: of the two people I know who have taken such medication for medium and long terms, the former had his personality drastically (and negatively) altered and the latter became a zonbie who only exists on the surface of her former life--it's like she's only half focused. I have no idea whether it was a choice of this or suicide, but both outcomes look pretty poor to me.
 
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Despite an original diagnosis that her cancer was likely terminal, she has responded well to treatment and looks set to survive.

Ah, well I'm glad to hear that, I hadn't heard it was a terminal until Min's post and was confused by the "yay".
 
Despite an original diagnosis that her cancer was likely terminal, she has responded well to treatment and looks set to survive.

Edit: it is an extremely rare form of kidney cancer, but surgery revealed that it had not spread as the doctors had initially believed.
Fantastic news. I did not know that.
 
He's a human being. Even the best of us can have problems.
When one goes around promulgating a doctrine of "`pull-yourself-up-by-your-own-bootstraps` machismo", only to lose one's sh*t due to drug addiction over one's wife getting ill, observers might reasonably suggest that practicing what one preaches is in order. Jordan can talk the talk, but apparently doesn't walk the walk, and that's pretty much a public admission of hypocrisy for a self-styled philosopher. Yes, that's harsh, I know, but JP had been very harsh and unsympathetic to a large number of people, so call it karma.
 
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