The PC and Perpetually Offended Brigade

[astfgyl]

No nothing like that really interests me the inflammatory for the sake of it stuff. It's the common sense approach that kills everyone.

[boozegeune]

My favourite thing I know about Jordan Peterson is that time his grifter daughter made him eat only red meat for ages until he nearly died. Fascinating stuff

[Blackout]

Jordan Peterson was a dissenting voice in the ever-growing safe spaces colleges have now become. Looking at the state of some of the colleges now and he wasn't wrong.  Anyone - with the exception of perhaps Sam Harris- who has been in a debate with him has lost very badly (open to correction). Its tough to debate him without having a keyboard and pages of worthless word-salads to rely on.

[Black Shepherd Carnage]

He made an absolute fool of himself "debating" Zizek. Not that Zizek was particularly great, but he was better than a high school book review that sounded like it was based purely on skimmed cliff notes. Unsurprisingly, it's not one you see shared very often.

[Eoin McLove]

For all the anti-Peterson rhetoric I see thrown about,  the fact of his importance and influence on a vast number of people remains unchanged. Whether you agree with him or not, or believe he is a monster or a charlatan, he seems to be getting through to a massive number of disenfranchised people who are finding meaning in their lives through his, dare I say it, positive message. And he is like a gateway drug into a world of fascinating online discussion and discovery. That alone is to be applauded. People need to use their time on the Internet in better,  more productive ways and the likes of Peterson, Harris, Michael Schermer, Brett (and Heather) and Eric Weinstein in their respective shows, Lex Fridman, Joe Rogan, Glen Loury etc. are, rather than just wildly trying to bring their perceived cultural opponents down,  are offering alternative views and interviews with a wide array of interesting people. That's my experience at least. Peterson recently introduced me to Iain McGilchrist and I'm slowly (very slowly) inching my way into his vast thesis on the divided brain. The amount of fascinating people I have discovered trough my own YouTube adventures over the past few years is astonishing. I have discovered all sorts of interests I never knew I had so when I see these attacks on Jordan Peterson, who as far as I can tell from the hours I've spent listening to him speak,  is all about improving yourself, your prospects and the lives of those around you, alarm bells ring.

Why are the left so threatened by him? Is it because he is encouraging people to think for themselves,  to act for themselves and not to give in to lunatic woke ideology? That might make the masses harder to control and direct. Dunno,  just a thought.

[Blackout]

The attacks are so vicious and personal too. "Hur hur he nearly died". 

[Black Shepherd Carnage]

so when I see these attacks on Jordan Peterson, who as far as I can tell from the hours I've spent listening to him speak,  is all about improving yourself, your prospects and the lives of those around you, alarm bells ring.

Why are the left so threatened by him? Is it because he is encouraging people to think for themselves,  to act for themselves and not to give in to lunatic woke ideology? That might make the masses harder to control and direct. Dunno,  just a thought.

The answer couldn't be any more visible though; why do the left feel, I wouldn't say threatened, but rather incensed by Peterson? The guy who single-handedly disseminated his strawman idea of "Cultural Marxism" to the entire western world (an achievement of sorts, granted), which everyone in the know suspected was based on absolutely no knowledge of Marxism, which he then went on to very successfully prove in his debate with Zizek? The guy who has endlessly echoed the trope of "socialism" - as opposed to just run-of-the-mill-can-take-many-appearances totalitarianism - has killed 60 million? Why do the left not like that guy??

[Eoin McLove]

From what I can tell, though, he is as concerned about the lunatic fringe on both sides. Maybe the far right hate him as well, I suppose their voice isn't as culturally prominent so you would have to dig to find it. The Cultural Marxism stuff that he talks about is almost a side show (you will argue a clever one, I'm sure,  which may be true) to his valuable message. That's my take on him. The ideological battles are less valuable to me than his discourse on meaning and the powerful symbolism of religion. That's fascinating to me, and many more it seems,  and opens up avenues of exploration to people. That's his value, essentially. He is asking people to stop and think for a minute.

[Black Shepherd Carnage]

Firstly, I was just giving you a very obvious reason why the left dislike him, a much more obvious one than some kind of conspiracy where they secretly don't want to allow Peterson to get people to think. Their problem with him is that what he calls "thinking" can't really be all that great shakes, since when he "thinks" about the left (socialism, Marxism, etc.) what he comes out with is often uninformed sweeping statement nonsense. Zizek (again, I'm no great fan) totally caught Peterson off-guard (again, largely because Peterson didn't arse himself preparing) by being just as critical of liberal wokeness as Peterson, but happening to also have the knowledge to separate that brand of wokeness from vacuous, right-wing stroking labels like "Cultural Marxism" and "Postmodernist neo-Marxism", or whatever.

Asking people to stop and think for a minute is laudable, but leading by example is even more laudable, and that's where Peterson really falls down. People who tend to agree with him also tend not to be informed enough about his classic targets to notice that he's often making stuff up on the spot and not genuinely "thinking" at all. As a result, while he may have helped X number of individuals sort their lives out - which is again laudable - he also definitely stoked the flames of division and helped poison the discourse by arming people even less knowledgeable than him with a bag of nonsense tropes which they promptly used their keyboards to often aggressively relay around the globe. Net effect of Peterson has not been increased "thinking" at all, from what I can tell.

[Eoin McLove]

I suppose you might have to separate Internet warrioring with those on an actual quest for personal growth. Of course there will be people who use his terminology to win whatever transient Internet argument is currently blazing, but by that logic, the ones who are actually gaining something real from what he says are less likely to be getting involved in Internet spats. Maybe? It seems to me that if his message is getting through to people,  then getting away from the likes of Facebook and Twitter would be a solid first move to make. I'm not really interested in having a circular argument about his merits or demerits. I think we've all been there.

[Black Shepherd Carnage]

I've said many times, if his book 12 Rules For Life genuinely helps some people get back on track, great. What's a pity is that he became famous enough to be a person people might find first when in need of getting back on track, and it was his cultural marxism schtick that initially made him famous. Personally, I don't see the appeal, and find it somewhat amusing that someone like Blackout can, in the same sentence, champion Peterson while blanket dismissing his critics as dressers of worthless word-salads. I would tend to say that that in itself is fairly symptomatic, since there is no more literally, etymologically worthless word salad in today's marketplace of ideas than "cultural marxism." The only people it appears to mean something to are those who will instantly perceive those words to mean "cultural evil anti-western thing" and have no interest in finding out whether that is accurate or not. Not that Peterson came up with cultural marxism, people far worse than him did, but he did bring it to the world, and that made the world a stupider rather than a more thoughtful place.

[astfgyl]

Saw this one earlier.

Left in 1991 - Fuck you I won't do what you tell me.

Left in 2021 - Fuck you, just do what you're told to.

Bit simplistic and probably confined to a certain section as I know plenty of lefties who don't fit the bill that way but I found it a bit funny considering I have made a similar point myself several times on here.

Must find one for the right for balance though, because I'm neither. It was the comment about Peterson encouraging some folks to think for themselves reminded me of it. Still can't comment on the man himself but I'm glad I have missed the stuff the 2 lads are on about. It sounds like a sideshow

As for cultural Marxism, I haven't a fucking clue what it means. Is it some reference to the homogenisation of modern culture or such like?

[boozegeune]

I forgot he was the originator of the cultural Marxism thing, an annoying and, as far as I can tell, meaningless trope that other Internet right wing people have been repeating. As some of ye have illuminated, probably not really his fault or his main thing.
I don't go in for him, his work never did anything for me, but admittedly I've only watched some videos and talks by and about him, not read his book. I imagine that for the left he is another character in a tiresome ongoing online culture war, a protagonist for anyone 'anti-woke', an issue which itself is so unbelievably tiresome. This is obviously reductive, and again, not necessarily his fault. His ideas obviously just appealed to one group of people over another.

Making 'wokeness' (which as far as I can tell is what Cultural Marxism means) the central issue of the left is the greatest success of this online right; no longer are we arguing about fair distribution of wealth and resources, or access to health care or education and fairness in the way people are treated no matter who they are (yes, even straight white lads, despite what some people think). Instead, we argue about pronouns or some shit.

Never deep dived on philosophy like some of ye have, but I watch some Contrapoints. I recommend her channel on youtube. Absolutely from a left perspective, may as well know that going in if ye're to check it out.

[Black Shepherd Carnage]

The Contrapoints video on Peterson is absolutely delicious. I find her a bit much to take most of the time, but a rigorous and humorous critique of his work delivered by a trans woman is so rich with irony it's hilarious in and of itself.

[boozegeune]

The attacks are so vicious and personal too. "Hur hur he nearly died".

Fair point. I'll clarify I don't wish the man ill health, that would be deranged.

The event just has an element of extreme high farce to me, given the context of who he is (successful and respected intellectual and philosopher), who she is (daughter, but could be anyone in the genre of 'child/sibling/spouse/ex-partner of the actually relevant person who is using their proximity to sell whatever dumb product they have'),  what the product was (an all meat diet to own the woke snowflakes) and the outcome (not good).

Obviously, it's great he's recovered from that. I believe it was pneumonia so possibly even unrelated to the diet, but it can't have helped and the point is that the whole thing was like an elaborate dark sketch.