The PC and Perpetually Offended Brigade

[Black Shepherd Carnage]

I can see how Peterson helps a lot of individuals by telling them what they should do, and I've nothing against that per se. But he certainly exacerbates the wider situation by telling just as many individuals how they shouldn't feel. Just not very wise, but very biblical.

[mugz]

...

[Bigmac]

Having read the 12 rules thing ages ago, there were a few parts I liked, but it all seemed like common sense to me, wrapped up in some sort of newer package for modern times. Hardly groundbreaking, so I found it hard to understand the associated worship.

It also seems he's been unable to take his own advice, and fell on chaotic times. If I was selling someone a product, and it failed whilst I was demonstrating it, I wouldn't expect them to buy it.

[Eoin McLove]

Right so.

[Eoin McLove]

Having read the 12 rules thing ages ago, there were a few parts I liked, but it all seemed like common sense to me, wrapped up in some sort of newer package for modern times. Hardly groundbreaking, so I found it hard to understand the associated worship.

It also seems he's been unable to take his own advice, and fell on chaotic times. If I was selling someone a product, and it failed whilst I was demonstrating it, I wouldn't expect them to buy it.

I think he has been inspirational for many people by trying to redirect their focus towards positive personal change. Simple as that. He has fallen on chaotic times,  as you say, but that's ok, he's only human. I think it's a testament to his own message of human weakness actually. Everyone struggles.  It's how you try to wrestle with that throughout your life, which is important. Dunno, I was half joking when I mentioned him earlier as I knew he'd wind people up and I don't really want to derail the conversation, but as with any message being given,  you take what works for you and the rest falls by the wayside.

[The Butcher]

I wonder how much of it is that in the last decade or so, opportunities open to younger people have been either closed off, the road to "success" has been lengthened hugely or it's just noticeably not as "fruitful" a pathway as it was for their parents...the bootstrap pulling no longer works the way it used to, frustrated that they feel they have zero control over major aspects of their lives in terms of financial well being, getting a secure roof over their heads and staring into the abyss of a gig economy with zero job security or pension etc etc...they begin to head down into these social avenues where they feel or sense that they have a greater control over? Part of the reason why we are witnessing some obsessively going deep down into this rabbit hole with bizarre/negative outcomes?

I don't mind Petersons ideas around personal responsibility at all, the concepts he brings up all seems fine on a surface level and might boost a minor % of the population which would be great but applied against the backdrop of an economy that seems increasingly set against us plebs as time goes on, I just don't think it's the antidote, in fact I think there is no silver bullet unless we can find a way to use the internet to our advantage as a collective when it comes to political change to improve our quality of life and quality of outcome etc. Probably for another thread.

[Eoin McLove]

Very valid points there,  yep.  I still don't think the solution being chosen is going to yield positive results for anyone but your assessment of the causes has some sense to it.

[Caomhaoin]

He's not infallible, and there might be some pseudoscience in there but apart from the common sense approach to self improvement, much of his appeal is his willingness to provide a vocal alternative to the neo-NKVD destroying all opposition of thought on the far left.

I enjoy him immensely, but he's a fan of Jung so he's unlikely to hold up as much of a scientist, granted. As Andy says, take from him what works for you, and millions have done to their benefit.

Does he possess the intellect of Zizek or Foucault? Maybe not, but he's a shite sight more accessible and relatable to the man on the street than those two.

[ochoill]

Did he not disappear for months then turn up in a panopticon in Russia rattled from gear or is that someone else

[Black Shepherd Carnage]

Speaking of Zizek, the much touted Peterson vs Zizek debate was an interesting one. Zizek was much more accessible and relatable during the opening speeches (Peterson, not for the first time, just went off on what seemed like an improvised ramble), but then during the discussion, aul sniffles totally abandoned that pragmatic focus and went off on his hifalutin references and concepts. The whole thing ended up being a non-event as a result.

As Butcher hinted at above, when your schtick consists of telling everyone that they can improve themselves just by tidying the bedroom of their lives, well, there's only so far that can go within a system structured such that not everyone can succeed at that game. It's the same American dream angle I criticized in the 200 page thread about nothing; the American dream is built on the fact that it can't work for everyone. Rather, those who do get it to work for themselves do so, ultimately, to the detriment of many others, whether or not they are conscious of it. Rather than Peterson representing an opposition to the "cult of the self", most of his detractors would say that he just represents a more classical, "conservative" denomination of that same general cult.

All that said, someone falling off the wagon doesn't detract anything from the value of their work, so anyone having a pop at him over that really isn't worth the time of day. But... you will find that his followers are a hotbed for precisely the kind of "if you're in the shit, it's your own damn fault" mentality that explains why, in general, we treat drug addicts more like criminals than people who are ill.

[Eoin McLove]

So is it a form of misdirected rage with people taking their frustration at a system that is rigged against them out on ordinary civilians rather than the government? Is there consolation to be derived from having a voice, regardless of how insane a voice that is, as they howl into the void? It's nutty however you slice it.

[Pedrito]

A lot of this meaningless and 'the system is rigged against me' stuff, especially in the West is complete horseshit though. If you took a job only in Starbucks or McDonalds and stuck at it for a number of years. If you saved, put money away, stopped spending on needless bollox, analysed your bills, found the cheapest ways to educate yourself, stopped boozing and doing drugs etc etc etc then you could build up a fairly comfortable and enjoyable life for yourself. Would you be doing what you love..maybe not. But satisfaction and success is in the eye of the beholder. I know people who cone from places that make Dublin look like paradise on earth. Where abductions and murders are a part of everyday life. The mere fact that we get to lounge around writing drawn out paragraphs upon paragraphs about it should tell us all we need to know about taht, and trust me I'm as guilty as anyone with it. You can spend your life moaning, yes some people are born into squalor and degredation, plenty make something of themselves. It's far from perfect but this idea that we have no control over it is defeatist nonsense that a day's work in the bog would cure most of us of.

[Black Shepherd Carnage]

You've just reformulated what I said but with a positive rather than negative spin on it.

If you saved, put money away, stopped spending on needless bollox, analysed your bills, found the cheapest ways to educate yourself, stopped boozing and doing drugs etc etc etc then you could build up a fairly comfortable and enjoyable life for yourself.

As I said, a fairly comfortable and enjoyable life isn't possible for everyone; there isn't enough comfortable housing for everyone, for starters.

I'm absolutely not moaning about my lot in life, and I don't get the impression that anyone here is, but the point - the point that Peterson doesn't address afaik - is how to move towards a better society in a more insightful way than just pushing every individual to bootstrap themselves up. It's similar to a point I made about government policy regarding coronavirus measures; part of the role of the government is to predict that many individuals won't do what is best for society if left to their own devices, and so, for the sake of society, you have to think of something more robust.

The idea of working in Starbucks or McDonalds for years and years is a picture of hell for a large part of humanity, and rather than saying "Tough luck!", I think we should be quite glad that, as docile as the average person can be rendered, we're not actually that docile. In a way, you couldn't really pick any two better examples of corporations where the sense of alienation and awareness of the abuse of selling one's own labour for less than it is worth must be practically visceral on a daily basis for the ground staff. Apologies for the direct references to Marx there, but whatever we might think of his specific elaboration of the idea, he at least looked at the economic and psychological misery of the average exploited "have-not" worker and got to thinking about potential societies in which it wouldn't have to be a necessary and integral part.

So, while there are arguments to be made for each individual having control over their own situation, there is much less of an argument to be made for all individuals having control. If you think about that situation from a position of world leader (whether political or financial or masonic or whatever), either you have to re-engineer policy to change the lot of whatever "random" sample of individuals remain on the necessary lowest tier, certainly disturbing all other tiers in the process, or else you endorse the current policy which has set things that way. And given that, whoever they may in reality be, those world leaders are all on the highest tier, it's hardly surprising which option the majority of them choose.

From my perspective, every time someone responds to the current situation with an appeal to individual responsibility, they're really just missing the bigger picture which is that what is best for society is unlikely to emerge from individual responsibility within a system where the most universal sign of achievement is extraneous material possession.

[Pedrito]

You´ re going for the melodramatic again with the `  economic and psychological misery of the average exploited "have-not" worker´.  In Starbucks? McDonalds? I think that´  s very much in the eye of the beholder. You could choose to see it all that way or you could go to work everyday with a smile on your face, put in a decent effort, likely get a promotion, and have some money in your pocket at the end of the week. Now, we´  re talking about manual work here. It´  s not easy, but standing in an air conditioned premises, serving coffee, getting tips, in a generally positive atmosphere is far from the worst job that anyone could do.  I have never encountered anyone shouting or threatening staff in all my years walking into a Starbucks. Nighttime Macdonalds is another kettle of fish entirely. I get your arguments, I´ m certainly not entirely opposed to elements of them but a little bit of perspective wouldn´  t go amiss.

I´  ve personally worked in hotels and restaurants: hall porter, kitchen porter, waiter, bar staff, security, call centres, the bog, I spent a summer picking strawberries as a young fella. I think of all the jobs that I see that can be the most brutal are usually of the fruit picking variety and we now have temprorary seasonal workers brought in from abroad to take care of that. Back breaking work. The likes of Starbucks or Maccie D´ s would be far more manageable, and I would add that any kitchen work is tough, be it some fancy arse spot, a vegan spot or Maccie D´ s. It´ s all the same slog. 

[Pedrito]

Apologies for the direct references to Marx there, but whatever we might think of his specific elaboration of the idea, he at least looked at the economic and psychological misery of the average exploited "have-not" worker and got to thinking about potential societies in which it wouldn't have to be a necessary and integral part.

What are these potential societies and what form do they take? And I´ m geniunely asking out of interest. (Please do not say Venezuela, Cuba, former Soviet Union, China, Vietnam or your post will be automatically deleted)