Curious about Jordan Peterson?

TheMadWoodcutter · 2019-10-29T20:12:40+00:00

Men and women, statistically speaking, typically earn different wages when working the exact same jobs, and even when factoring in job performance. This is not a disputable fact, the data backs it up. This is called sexism though, not racism.

Men and women do indeed have biological and psychological differences that lead to different behavioral patterns, but science has shown that when social factors are removed, they are nearly inconsequential. The vast majority of why we behave the way we do is due to social pressure, rather than biological programming. JP and red pill flatly ignores all the data on this because it contradicts their speaking points.

Nobody except extremists have disputed that extremists who hate men are extremists, and they're not that common. Jordan Peterson has created a largely ficticious enemy.

Similarly, the vast majority of progressives understand that capitalism is, on the whole, a good system, and would agree that getting rid of it would be a mistake. All we want are social systems to give the disadvantaged an opportunity to, at the very least, not be ground into the mud so badly.

Jordan Peterson uses manipulative language to create a fantasy of a world that doesn't exist, and then uses his "logic" to convince his followers he knows how to fix it. He's a cult leader and nothing else, basking in the adoration of people who are searching for explanations for their unhappiness that they can, primarily, blame on other people. Even his original claim to fame, his refusal to use his students preferred pronouns, was deliberately misleading. It was never going to be made illegal for the average person to misgender anyone. It has been made illegal for the government and government organizations to deliberately misgender people. He knew this and used it as a rallying cry anyways.

KrizzkoStyx · 2019-10-29T20:51:23+00:00

Imo Jordan Peterson is a pseudointellectual who just uses big words to make his illogical ideas look smarter. Anything of his that I watched or listened to would sound "smart" while he was presenting it, but if you even think on what he actually says for a minute then you realize he has no real argument.

Looking at some of your points:

women and men earn different wages. A lot of that is because of factors like job choice and interest, rather than explicit racism.

Nothing to do with racism anyway, I'm assuming you meant sexism. It's a big assumption to say that it's only "because of factors like job choice and interest". How do you know that? Just because job data shows women are more present in certain industries? Could that not be a result of sexism itself? Also, even if every woman chose to work in a select few professions of their own volition, that still wouldn't discount the effects of a sexist society (e.g., would many women choose to be factory laborers, soldiers, or football players if they were ridiculed and shunned for taking those roles in a hypothetically sexist society? In such a society, choosing to avoid those jobs wouldn't mean that sexism had no affect on job preference.)

Men and women have biological and psychological differences.

Do they? Are these differences so great that they have to be segregated into different jobs and/or treated differently by society? How do you know this? Can it be reliably proven that men and women think substantially differently? Even using very flawed mediums such as E.Q. questionnaires or something like that can find trends sometimes but never universal rules regarding how the sexes think. It's all junk science.

extremists that hate men are extremists.

Yes. But ideologies like feminism aren't about hating men. And the only reason the public discourse seems to focus more on anti-women sexism is because, historically, they've suffered far greater (politically, materially, physically, etc) from misogyny than men have from misandry. Note that pointing out this fact does not imply that men cannot be hated or abused.

wanting to throw out all of capitalism because of some of the issues that arise within the kind of capitalism we have is just a little simplistic

It's not that simplistic; in fact, summing up anti-capitalist critique by saying "some of the issues that arise within the kind of capitalism we have" is a very simplistic response. There have been centuries of very robust, comprehensive, and scientific anti-capitalist discourse and practice. When I listen to Peterson I get the feeling that he's not even aware of this, and he kind of has a warped idea of what he assumes socialism, communism, etc. are and he just argues from that POV instead of actually trying to understand them. The whole "capitalism vs anti-capitalism" debate is obviously way too big for me to discuss in this thread, but if you're asking me, I think J.P. is one of the last people to be looking to for any kind of informed analysis on the matter.

It's good that you're open minded and like asking questions. Just be sure that you're looking for real answers and logical analysis, not just any answer that sounds good, which is a trap I've seen a lot of people fall into.

I also think it's good that you're sympathetic to trp men, even if you're wary of them. It's a complicated feeling to have. Ultimately, however, it's up to them to decide how they handle their problems and insecurities. If they choose a hateful and/or destructive outlet, be sure you know where to draw the line with your sympathy.

In what ways do you think the LGBT community takes things too far? Most of the complaints (including calling it something like the 'LGBTQ+AI..... community') are little more than right-wing inventions, from what I've seen.

Personally I think you're on a good track, in that you like seeking out and finding answers to some complicated questions. But by listening to someone like Peterson, you'll only really find some answers that sound nice because they fit some preconceived biases that you already had. If you want substantial analysis, then J.P. is not the way to go imo.

Tl;dr Jordan Peterson is more or less a children's philosopher and isn't reliable for anything more than preaching to the choir in a slightly more erudite manner than other right-leaning figures.

mein-shekel · 2019-10-30T03:16:15+00:00

I read one of his books and found him very charismatic and convincing... However i kept waiting for him to delve deeper into his claims and he never did. He makes claim after claim that sounds plausible but never goes into detail. He says things to the affect of "more men die in war then women." And says that while talking about modern feminism, to put the idea that "feminists are blowing women's struggles out of proportion" into your head without getting tagged for saying it. Even though in that example, he's smart enough to know that women weren't allowed in the military in the cast majority of historical armies.

He makes leading statements and then refuses to back them up. He either isn't smart enough to know he is practicing bad science/philosophy/debate, or he knows what he's doing and is acting in bad faith.

brahmidia · 2019-10-30T06:20:11+00:00

It sounds simple enough on the surface but the problem is his public/internet persona and the "manosphere" ecosystem he's a part of feeds into toxic, backwards, wrong BS.

Anyone can tell you to clean your room. Your mom told you to. The only reason it's powerful coming from him is he seems like the gateway to acceptance into a manly man-club of stoicism, respect, and virility. But again the problem is that what you're actually joining up with is a bunch of disaffected loner/loser sadboys with an axe to grind. So instead of becoming successful and happy and empowered, you find yourself bitter and reclusive and blameful.

JP didn't get his start by being a good role model, he got fame from loudly declaring that respecting someone's pronouns is fascism. I know he has a perfectly reasonable-sounding explanation for this, but fact is his fame is cultivated by being controversial and pissing off anyone who's not a straight white Christian man. While spouting a lot of truly-mediocre advice.

Case in point I think Neil deGrasse Tyson fulfills a very valuable role as science educator and has a gift for explaining astronomy and physics in charismatic ways. But his online persona has gotten insufferable and his track record of being a decent non-asshole human is questionable. I once bought tickets to see him, and loved to see his recorded show at the planetarium, but now he's a magnet for scummy people and it's just a turnoff. Much like listening to Nickelback, they sound catchy at first and then you realize it's all part of a douchebag-industrial complex and now it's unlistenable. Context matters when consuming media, and character matters when patronizing celebrities. I don't hate the guys, I just think the world would be better off if they mowed lawns for a summer and did some thinking.

I_like_the_word_MUFF · 2019-10-29T20:12:49+00:00

Jordan P was taught as an example of how NOT to do social science in classes at my university. He and Jared Diamond (guns, germs, and steel) are examples of how trying to squeeze data into a preconceived idea is not seeking Truth but simply trying to sway the conversation for personal interest.

There's nothing more to say than that. To argue would be to lend credence to it, which I won't do.

boardgaming234 · 2019-10-30T00:00:52+00:00

Jordan Peterson is dishonest in the way he speaks.

He puts out a lot of descriptive claims and edges people on without using any real normative claims. For those of you who can't speak philosophy, he'll say stuff like "women and men are biologically different"... then lead you on to think something like "hence women shouldn't be treated the same as men"... and then leads you on think "it's your role as the man to take care of society and women". See how he goes from a fact to an "ought to". It's really insidious how he frames things to fit his narrative.

One way that he does this is to go on and on about some super meta topic to wear your metal energy down so he can throw in some normative claim without people realizing it. He's like a hunter... wearing down his prey... then he takes that well planted shot to the head.

Another way he does it is to just not answer you. He makes you do the work. He makes you do it so that he can wear down your energy without you even realizing it. This is why even after watching interview after interview from him I still haven't learned anything mind blowing from him. He's never wrong because he hasn't actually said anything of substance half the time.

This is why in the Cathy Newman interview she tried to pin his position down. She knows the tactic and she was trying to get him to just spill the beans. She fucked up because she ended up doing all the work.

His real points:

JP thinks that women are paid less because of xyz. I really don't care, I've read a bunch of contradicting shit on this subject and have come to the conclusion that no amount of mental pain over it will solve anything. This is due to the fact that it's a very polarizing topic filled with people who do not for the love of almighty FUCK understand how to conduct themselves in a proper debate. For the intellectual that he is, JP also sucks at debating, so he's also contributing to this problem.
JP had a whole debacle over pronouns. Pronoun debates are also highly polarizing. If it was me, I would have immediately made the distinction between how I would use pronouns practically as a description for something vs if we should invent new pronouns, how biology plays a role, issues with trans people, etc. His whole thing from it produced nothing of substance except for attention.
JP has something against feminism. JP isn't educated enough to understand feminism. There I said it. JP doesn't distinguish between what kind of feminism he doesn't like, nor can he even define what feminism is. Feminism is just a very polarizing topic.

I can go on and on, but the pattern here is that everything he talks about is polarizing. Like his carnivore diet. And that's why he's such a sensation. People like the shitstorms he stirs up... even through he says he doesn't like shitstorms.

JP, if you don't like shitstorms, STOP STARTING SHITSTORMS.

justapopato · 2019-10-30T05:45:05+00:00

Jordan Peterson says nothing especially novel at all unless you've lived under a feminist rock, which in fact a lot of people have. It is why he got so popular. A willingness to stand up against the establishment and say normal, mundane ideas that are unacceptable to many people, plus a bit of luck and timing to go viral.

internet_username_97 · 2019-10-30T16:16:25+00:00

I've read his 12 rules book. The main theme of his advice is to focus on the things that you can change and accept what you cannot. It seems like a self evident idea but I dislike how all his tips such individual self focused stuff. The side affect of most of his advice is to focus on the self instead of organizing with others. I think most of our popular causes are better addressed through organization and we're all probably too self focused and lonely as it is. I can appreciate the 'clean your room,' 'stand up straight', 'care about yourself' stuff but I think he misses all the situations in life where uniting is important.

coffeetablestain · 2019-10-30T16:34:40+00:00

Ol' JP is a master at creating strawmen and then crafting a "reasonable" sounding argument to defeat said men of straw.

Most of what JP likes to argue would be considered typical conservative propaganda if he were just making his points by themselves, but since he likes to present a "bOtH SiDeS" type of radical centerism debate that paints typical reasonable and progressive people as belonging to some kind of camp that also contains radicals and extremists, he gets away with sounding like some kind of sage to people who ... and I mean this with utmost respect... don't get out much.

Nobody reasonable wants to throw out capitalism entirely and make 30 different kinds of bathrooms and force men and women into rolls they don't want. Some people hate men and they would be extremists. But those aren't necessarily people marching in the street carrying anti-men flags. There's no structured oppression of men, but it sure sells books when you validate lonely kids who don't get much attention from women when you paint a picture of an actual anti-men movement, or the idea that there are bad people out there who want to make you suffer for being a white male.

See, the reality is that most people generally want to get along, men and women are actually attracted to each other if everyone is behaving normal and washing regularly but there really are systemic social attitudes that harm people of color and create biases about both men and women that can harm all of us.

JP and his followers are not most general people, they're typically young, white college-age males, irate about something, lonely, frustrated, disillusioned by politics or society, and JP is a book seller, first and foremost. He's selling his thoughts and it's his career, so I always caution people not to get pied by pipers that have self interest in making you feel a thing. Because when they can get you to feel a thing, they can get you to think a thing.

Redpill and the Internet Manosphere in general is really good at making this cycle where you feel a thing, provide you with the thoughts you should have as a response to the thing you feel, which makes you feel a thing even stronger, which drives you to cling to those thoughts again.

For example, both JP and TRP have a similar methodology of making you feel superior for having normal human thoughts and feelings, showing you an example of extremism ("Political correctness gone too far! Women taking advantage of men! Men can't get girlfriends because girls don't like men! Because feminism! Lobsters! You should be angry at transgender people because REASONS AND BATHROOMS!") and then making you feel enlightened for simply not subscribing to or relating to the issues that others have. They aren't tools to help you understand the world and others better, both JP and TRP are tools to help you shore up, hunker down and defend your bunker of comfortable thoughts and displaced accountibility.

2019-10-30T08:22:57+00:00

[permanently deleted]

Title	Curious about Jordan Peterson?
Author	honestgoing
Upvotes	9
Comments	50
Date	October 29, 2019 7:27 PM UTC (6 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/ExRedPill
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/exredpill/comments/dousw7/curious_about_jordan_peterson/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/ExRedPill/curious-about-jordan-peterson.304813 https://theredarchive.com/post/304813

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