But I don't care about the fight against "Postmodern Neo-Marxism" or any of his discussion about free speech. His value for me is due to his religious content. I, like many people my age, grew up in a conservatively religious household and became irreligious as soon as I left home. I thought of it as breaking free from burdensome constraints.
But after years of attempting to "simply be a good person", I've found that there is indeed some kind of void that needs to be filled. And yet, I just cannot go back to being (in my case) an evangelical christian. Once you're out, you're out. So where should a modern, rational, scientifically literate person do when they need a deeper source of particularly religious meaning in their life? Peterson is the first person I've come across who has even come close to answering that question adequately. No matter how many faults the man has, he has done me this kindness. All the rest is fluff to me.
I do think he's a bit of a prophet, in that he has the ability to inspire conviction without guilt, passion without irresponsibility, and courage without hubris.
However, let me also warn you that this path of becoming infatuated with "thinkers" like Peterson is a dead end.
People like Rand, Chomsky and Peterson look heroic merely because they are willing to shout the loudest and attract the spotlight.
If you are really searching for authentic meaning, you're probably not going to find it among those in in the spotlight.
Instead of Rand, seek out Robert Nozick. Instead of Chomsky, seek out Murray Bookchin. Instead of Peterson, seek out Alasdair MacIntyre.
There are smart, brilliant thinkers of every ideological stripe. However, the best and brightest rarely make the NYT bestseller list. Continuing to be attracted to "thinkers" like Peterson will only lead to disappointment. Almost everything he is saying has been said before by someone who was smarter and a better writer, and most importantly kinder, than Peterson.
He has done a good job surfing the wave of fame for sure. In my opinion the core of it is not about fame though, the core is a message he's promoted for decades and that he truly thinks is correct, and helpful to people.
I think you're falling into a trap that's easy to fall into, and perhaps lies at the crux of the criticisms leveled against Peterson. What I'm about to say has certainly been more eloquently stated by someone else, but I'll do my best here. As I see it there are effectively two types of knowledge acquisition and transference. The first is explanatory knowledge. Scientists and philosophers work to build new explanations of the world. In this realm, it makes no sense to re-tread familiar territory, and the faster we accumulate this knowledge, the better.
There's another realm, and it's what I would call cultural knowledge. These are like "social truths" that are arrived at via some method of consensus in a given group of people. In this realm, the re-treading of familiar territory is acceptable, so long as the knowledge still needs to propagate throughout society or be contested by those who deviate from it. In this realm faster is not better, because these truths act as societal stabilizers.
I see Peterson's influence as belonging to the second realm. I find it irritating when people point out that "it's been said before". Yes, I'm sure it's been said before, but that is not the point. The point is to revivify that knowledge within a culture. To assume he needs to tread new ground is to treat him as belonging to the first realm, and I don't think that's the correct approach here.
You're writing off people in "the spotlight" as if it is incapable of shining on people who convey rational ideas.
To be frank, you also assert your opinion on the competence of thinkers as if it's factual.
the thing makes me most uncomfortable about his attitude is what he doesn't say. demonizing 'social justice warriors' and repeating danger of politically correctness is ok, but what criticism about rising nationalism, alt-right movement? this is the elephant in the room he does not talk about, instead he is only focusing on small-minority leftist groups. don't know weather he is biased towards right, or he is trying to get-well with these group. but these are my two cents.
Here's a great example of how to read it:
https://thoughtcatalog.com/ryan-holiday/2017/08/everything-y...
You can keep the supernatural stuff at bay and just use the Bible the way it's intended to be used, as a repository of wisdom. It's got a bunch of really cool stories in it that are also really dark and rich. They don't just have one moral. You can see yourself in any of the characters in any of the stories and it will show you what to look for and how to respond.
So religion is the whole thing of living by a particular moral code, going to church every sunday, marrying within your creed etc. it's a very "wordly" concept.
Spirituality then is the whole "higher consciousness" "explaining the unexplainable" thing.
We can be religious without being spiritual, and spiritual without being religious. Ayn Rand for instance, or much of modern atheism serve as examples of the former. Ayahuasca, psychodynamicm, meditation etc. the latter.
Of course we often have the two come together as they complement each other quite well but we often see spirituality subjugated by religion, or people scared off spirituality by it's religious connotations.
I come from a deeply religious (Evangelical) background, and in some ways, perhaps, my situation is 'worse' than yours because I never left because I felt that it was burdensome. On the contrary! I loved much of it and in hindsight the structure and social life it provided me might've been extra-valuable in light of my Asperger's. I just couldn't believe it, and moved to another city, country, etc.
While I'd like to say I figured it out in the interim, I'm still very much working on that. However, I found that at least on the personal level, zen buddhism has filled a significant part of that void, and if you haven't looked into it I can highly recommend it.
I've not looked into the more social aspect of it, though. That's high on my list. I'm bracing myself for a degree of disappointment, because I often don't really like the 'woo-hoo buddhist types' that I run into who are or claim to be buddhists. But I have no real evidence for that.
Nonetheless, despite my ongoing 'search', I feel zen has provided enough that I feel I can be some degree of content without running back to more 'traditional' religion (and I have considered that, up to going back to an evangelical church).
If you're interested in discussing this further, don't hesitate to send me an email.
I personally think there's a very valuable role 'us' ex-evangelicals/ex-religious folk can play in this growing sense of emptiness that I see all around me, and that I see turns people to various 'extreme' movements that all strike me as rather less-than-stellar (alt-right, extreme SJW, rabid marxists/anarchists/whateverists). I'm still often shocked at how many nonreligious folk around me simply do not understand the sense of community that, among other things, a church can provide. It's like talking to someone who has never been in love!
EDIT: Let me add that I don't immediately have anything concretely against Peterson either, and the article kind of confirms my suspicion that he's a bit like C.S. Lewis, which I consider mostly a good thing. I would not want to deny anyone the positive role Peterson could play in their lives, in the same way that Lewis played a very important role in my life. Peterson makes me uncomfortable in a way Lewis usually didn't, but that could be because my point of entry was, well, being deeply religious.
I have nothing against people gathering to find a sense of community but I am somewhat against the beliefs of most organized religions that I am familiar with.
In some places there are even “church”/gatherings for non-religious people called Sunday Assembly
"The politics in this book lean a bit right, but if you think of Peterson as a political commentator you’re missing the point. The science in this book leans a bit Malcolm Gladwell, but if you think of him as a scientist you’re missing the point. Philosopher, missing the point. Public intellectual, missing the point. Mythographer, missing the point. So what’s the point?"
I think part of the problem with our initial impressions of Peterson is he (or comes across) tries to present himself as these things kind of like he misses the point of himself sometimes .. but maybe that's just from having been taking such an embattled position so long.
The article goes on to describe Peterson as "a prophet". As a student of psychology I don't personally think his views are "groundbreaking" but he does take a set of very well worn ideas and attune them to modern times.
I read Bertrand Russell's "Conquest of Happiness" [0] a number of years ago and to me it seems to tick a lot of the same boxes, but perhaps in a less timely fashion.
It's easy to think Russell managed to get his views out without annoying anybody but he had his fair share of partisan controversy in his time as well. It's only after the dust has settled that we view him as one of the most important western philosophers of the 20th Century.
My first encounter with Peterson was hearing his "lobster theory", which struck me as such pseudoscientific piffle that I've tried to pay him as little attention as possible ever since.
I imagine the reason Peterson elicits such strong reactions is because he presents differently for different audiences. As suggested elsewhere in the comments, "he's built his own persona into this gigantic strawman that looks like an ogre to everybody", luring them into attacking a position he never held so that he can appear calm, wise and reasonable in his rebuttal, and take the role of the poor attacked underdog.
He speaks of "postmodern curtural marxism", yet by his own admission, has never debated a marxist. Like the best controversialists, he picks his fights very carefully, preferring to "debate" with campus teenagers than other "intellectuals".
For those who haven't heard it, his "lobster theory" goes:
1. Lobsters are animals with a hierarchical society
2. Lobsters have a "seratonin based nervous system". Humans also have a "seratonin based nervous system".
3. Therefore, a hierarchical society is natural (and therefore best) for humans.
What I do see is him continuously parading around the podcast circuit and the polarised discussion online about him.
My gut reaction when I heard him on Joe Rogan was one of disgust, while quietly finding I actually agree with a lot of what he says. He's a guy who has access to "truth" (in the pragmatic, William James sense) that many of his attackers do not.
I don't believe he's on the level of any of those people you've put up him up alongside. I think he draws on their work, mediates and applies their ideas as a clinical psychologist does.
Clever, no doubt, and with a message that is undoubtedly of value to many, and certainly making a lot of money at it too.
He's a career clinical psychologist, father of two, well studied in Jungian archetypes, and bears all the mannerisms of being a folksy father figure. And what do you know, there is some popularity of memes referring to him as a "father of YouTube/Reddit/Internet" and wishful posts for him to be their father along with them.
If there are people listening who have a deficit of such a figure in their lives, perhaps it's good they receive something to compensate for it. That seems more important than the partisan pontificating to me.
“He, uh, told us that we should do good, and not do evil, and now he’s looking at us like we should fall to our knees.”
“Weird. Must be a prophet. Better kneel.”
Edit: Ha, maybe I should read the goddamn piece before commenting.
You see the thing about Peterson is for whatever reason (could even be just for the purposes of marketing himself), he is very much the controversialist.
Time and again he'll say something controversial that he knows will troll a huge audience and then he's always got research and facts to back it up. That his take is often facile isn't really of consequence as any typical interviewer doesn't have the tools to take him up on it.
The guy is a professor of psychology. You may not like him or his views, but he is "smart", and fundamentally the meat of his message is actually quite benign so you can't even really accuse him of being "bad".
It's like he's built his own persona into this gigantic strawman that looks like an ogre to everybody.
That said, I don't think he comes across as completely intellectually honest in a lot of his interviews. I think that this might be more a product of a lot of the bad faith he's been subjected to than anything intrinsic to his ideas. Though I do think he plays it up a bit now to broaden his reach.
I think a lot of people need authority figures to function.
> the meaning part has yet to hit me
You don't feel any sort of pride after getting yourself in order? Are you sure you have yourself in order?
>You don't feel any sort of pride after getting yourself in order? Are you sure you have yourself in order?
alt: "You didn't feel touched by Jesus/the holy spirit because you didn't reach out with full sincerity."
It's mostly vague hand-wavy kind of stuff that sounds profound in the moment but later realize it's either blatantly obvious truth dressed up in fancy words or it's nonsense wearing the same clothes.
Had he not gained fame and notoriety through his campaign against that Canadian law and political correctness in general, I don't think anyone would have cared about what he has to say.
If anyone familiar with his work could point me towards some of it that would dispute that characterization I would be happy to read or listen to it, provided I don't have to pay for it.
I'm only 10 minutes or so into it, but this is a quote (not exact, but close enough) from Jordan Peterson:
"(music and cathedrals) are ways of trying to symbolically represent how things could be if they were put in the proper state of balance or harmony"
What does that even mean? The only concrete nugget of knowledge I can get from that is that cathedrals are designed in a relatively balanced manner. Symmetrical, I guess.
I plan to listen to the rest of this interview but that statement was a particularly good example of the hand-waavy nonsense that I was talking about so I decided to record it here so I didn't forget.
Is the auto flag mechanism to do with up and down votes of comments? Does that make some comments controversial? I like upvoting comments that go against the stream, but would that mean that the whole discussion gets more likely to be auto flagged? Would a user's best bet be to go with the crowd (and to downvote or not vote up such dissenting opinions) ?
This is what happened to me as well. Strange stuff, I think it is well worth the time.
He's a thoroughgoing Jungian and a mediocre philosopher. He gets sassy with reporters, which people like, I guess. But he's still going to situate the problems with modern society with a couple of french theorists rather than the forces that actually affect people's daily lives.
I'd also argue that his popularity is a sign that people still really, really want religion/religious guidance in some form.
It's hard to take a reviewer seriously when they make a statement like this, that is blatantly untrue ("all religions are equal paths to wisdom"). Peterson is known to be very critical of Islam, and has gone as far as saying that it's incompatible with western values (paraphrasing).
