Jordan Peterson

[IlliniDave]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v6H2HmKDbZA

So here's another recent interview. In the first half of this one I thought the interviewer did a good job by not trying to bait him into being a supporter for her positions, nor to bait him to flay him as a [whatever-ophobe nazi], and she gets him talking about what it is that motivates drives him.

[BRUTE]

the interviewer is Bari Weiss, who's been writing in the NYT about the "intellectual dark web", and has appeared on Bill Maher, siding with him on anti-PC and pro-free-speech issues. not surprising she's sympathetic.

[pukingRainbows]

Another good one:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Li2J4GxZ6iM
With Eric Weinstein and David Rubin

I'm in the middle of watching it but so far I'm enjoying the differing frameworks that Eric and Jordan use when seeing the world.

The stuff I enjoy the most with Jordan Peterson is when he is engaging with other intelligent people to discuss ideas and the world.

In the previous Aspen Ideas video, I enjoyed the question by John McWhorter (regarding whether or not to call someone by their requested pronoun) and am hoping they will get together and have a discussion.

[Lemur]

I've enjoyed his podcasts with Joe Rogan. Have not researched much beyond that. Seems like a solid guy and someone I wish I would have ran into during my teens years which were marked by no direction, social anxiety, and depression.

[7Wannabe5]

I was updating my workout playlist, when I paused to wonder whether this is what Jordan Peterson meant by "enforced monogamy?"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WaSy8yy-mr8

If so, I don't know how anybody could find this concept in alignment with ERE? -

[IlliniDave]

That one always reminded me of this one
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CG1xJ29Lrj4

[daylen]

His latest video is truely a work of art. It is on the necessity of free speech. Same stuff, but this articulation reminds me of an elegant math proof. The passion is so obvious in his voice and non-verbal behavior.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EuNeqawPuuY

[Mister Imperceptible]

Art

[Jason]

I was updating my workout playlist, when I paused to wonder whether this is what Jordan Peterson meant by "enforced monogamy?"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WaSy8yy-mr8

If so, I don't know how anybody could find this concept in alignment with ERE? -

Jordan Peterson faces the same dilemma that every other figure who has come along espousing Biblical moral principals/teachings untethered from the metaphysical archetronic structure in which they were originally presented i.e. a universe created by holy and judgmental God to which all mankind is subject. That dilemma being: "Who/what becomes the substitute authority to enforce said Biblical moral principals/teachings?"

When you remove a metaphysical heteronomous sovereign you must necessarily supplant it with either another metaphysical heteronomous sovereign or an earthly/state sovereign a/k/a the power abhors a vacuum thing.

[7Wannabe5]

@Jason:

I don't disagree. I think the phrase "enforced monogamy", which I never encountered prior to reading the links on the topic of Peterson, struck me differently than many people, because one of my personal (half-joking) arguments in favor of polyamory (as opposed to strict polygyny) was that I had run out of the energy to enforce monogamy myself. IOW, in general, in modern context, I think individual females are being asked to pay too high a price, more than their fair share, of economic enforcement costs, and that is why the tradition is fading.

[Jason]

I think this is also a basic issue with the "return to..." paradigm. Sodomy laws/statutes were in place in the United States beginning in the colonial period. Yet historians have found that there was only one (1) enforced case in our history and it was really a case of pedophilia. Monogamy never existed in pure practice but it was at one point generally agreed upon as the ideal methodology of creating a family and subsequently, a community, nation, etc.. Yes, there was some Hester Prynne puritanical outbursts in the more theonomic colonial period, but it still remains that monogamy and heterosexuality were never "enforced" post-Founding Fathers as much as they were practices consistent with the moral air that was breathed at the time. Laws banishing "deviant" forms of sexual interaction were in place primarily to fence not enforce the law.

However, that moral air has escaped the balloon and trying to enforce behavior that was never litigated in the first place is not a "return" but is in fact the creation of a secular theonomy. If you try to enforce biblical principles outside the context of forgiveness, repentance, sin etc. you are going to pave your moral streets with a neo-nomianism that is going to make The Scarlett Letter look like a manifesto on free love. And remember, the biblical concept of monogamy is initially breached with the eyes/heart/mind. Engagement of sexual apparatus is not required. That's what the Jordan Peterson types miss. It is pointing to an issue that cannot be cured through legal, penal, political or social means.

[Mister Imperceptible]

What non-Jordan Peterson types miss is that the lack of belief in a higher authority such as God on a wide scale in a given society is usually correlated with the decline of that society. Even if there is individual recognition that there likely is not a higher authority. The recognition on the part of Plato of the necessity of the Noble Lie.

[hojo-e]

What non-Jordan Peterson types miss is that the lack of belief in a higher authority such as God on a wide scale in a given society is usually correlated with the decline of that society.

What are you using to measure decline?

[Mister Imperceptible]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amusing ... s_to_Death

He repeatedly states that the eighteenth century, the "Age of Reason", was the pinnacle for rational argument. Only in the printed word, he states, could complicated truths be rationally conveyed. Postman gives a striking example: many of the first fifteen U.S. presidents could probably have walked down the street without being recognized by the average citizen, yet all these men would have been quickly known by their written words. However, the reverse is true today. The names of presidents or even famous preachers, lawyers, and scientists call up visual images, typically television images, but few, if any, of their words come to mind. The few that do almost exclusively consist of carefully chosen soundbites. Postman mentions Ronald Reagan, and comments upon Reagan's abilities as an entertainer.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soft_despotism

Thus, After having thus successively taken each member of the community in its powerful grasp and fashioned him at will, the supreme power then extends its arm over the whole community. It covers the surface of society with a network of small complicated rules, minute and uniform, through which the most original minds and the most energetic characters cannot penetrate, to rise above the crowd. The will of man is not shattered, but softened, bent, and guided; men are seldom forced by it to act, but they are constantly restrained from acting. Such a power does not destroy, but it prevents existence; it does not tyrannize, but it compresses, enervates, extinguishes, and stupefies a people, till each nation is reduced to nothing better than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd.

I have always thought that servitude of the regular, quiet, and gentle kind which I have just described might be combined more easily than is commonly believed with some of the outward forms of freedom, and that it might even establish itself under the wing of the sovereignty of the people.

Our contemporaries are constantly excited by two conflicting passions: they want to be led, and they wish to remain free. As they cannot destroy either the one or the other of these contrary propensities, they strive to satisfy them both at once. They devise a sole, tutelary, and all-powerful form of government, but elected by the people. They combine the principle of centralization and that of popular sovereignty; this gives them a respite: they console themselves for being in tutelage by the reflection that they have chosen their own guardians. Every man allows himself to be put in leading-strings, because he sees that it is not a person or a class of persons, but the people at large who hold the end of his chain.

By this system the people shake off their state of dependence just long enough to select their master and then relapse into it again. A great many persons at the present day are quite contented with this sort of compromise between administrative despotism and the sovereignty of the people; and they think they have done enough for the protection of individual freedom when they have surrendered it to the power of the nation at large. This does not satisfy me: the nature of him I am to obey signifies less to me than the fact of extorted obedience. I do not deny, however, that a constitution of this kind appears to me to be infinitely preferable to one which, after having concentrated all the powers of government, should vest them in the hands of an irresponsible person or body of persons. Of all the forms that democratic despotism could assume, the latter would assuredly be the worst.

When the sovereign is elective, or narrowly watched by a legislature which is really elective and independent, the oppression that he exercises over individuals is sometimes greater, but it is always less degrading; because every man, when he is oppressed and disarmed, may still imagine that, while he yields obedience, it is to himself he yields it, and that it is to one of his own inclinations that all the rest give way. In like manner, I can understand that when the sovereign represents the nation and is dependent upon the people, the rights and the power of which every citizen is deprived serve not only the head of the state, but the state itself; and that private persons derive some return from the sacrifice of their independence which they have made to the public.

http://edelweissjournal.com/pdfs/Edelwe ... al-015.pdf

[jacob]

What non-Jordan Peterson types miss is that the lack of belief in a higher authority such as God on a wide scale in a given society is usually correlated with the decline of that society.

Eh, no! Maybe I'm a non-Jordan Peterson type, but factually speaking, religiosity is negatively correlated with both income and the human development index which includes a bunch of factors (income, longevity, education) . This is true both internationally (where the US is an outlier) and between individual US states. Basically, a wide-scale belief in a higher authority is correlated with lower levels of education, income, longevity, etc.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/do-countr ... -1.1310451

https://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.co ... -s-states/
(contains both the US state correlation at -0.66 (so significant!) and international comparisons)

There are no (nada, zero) countries that rank high in both religiosity and societal functionality. Even the US (which is an outlier that's rich and somewhat religious) is not that competitive with the rest of the developed world when it comes to longevity, incarceration rates, corruption, freedom, ease of starting a business, etc.

Basically, the more religious the place you live in is, the lower the chance that you'll enjoy health, wealth, and wisdom---as the toast goes.

I guess you could say the countries and states that have reached the highest level of human development have maxed out and become decadent thus entering a stage of relative decline because it simply can't get much better, but ... yeah. Going from a score of 92 to 91 seems more of a #firstworldproblem compared to moving up from 18 to 26.

[7Wannabe5]

@Jason:

I didn't mean to imply that I thought this article offered a fair representation of Jordan Peterson's philosophy:

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/18/styl ... -life.html

I believe him when he said that he was just referring to cultural support for monogamy as best basis for stable society when he used the term "enforced monogamy."

I just wish somebody would ask him why everybody (men AND women) having 3 partners wouldn't be even more egalitarian? I get the downside of 10% of men having 5 wives, while 50% have zero, in terms of social instability, but I would argue that if every woman took on, in part, the responsibility of 3 men, and vice-versa, the situation would be more stable.

What non-Jordan Peterson types miss is that the lack of belief in a higher authority such as God on a wide scale in a given society is usually correlated with the decline of that society. Even if there is individual recognition that there likely is not a higher authority. The recognition on the part of Plato of the necessity of the Noble Lie.

Hmmmm. I think I would take my chances on roll of die transporting me into lifestyle of any random citizen of modern Stockholm, than any random "citizen" of Plato's Athens, especially if I wanted to retain girl bits.

[Mister Imperceptible]

I guess you could say the countries and states that have reached the highest level of human development have maxed out and become decadent thus entering a stage of decline because it simply can't get much better, but ... yeah.

I will say precisely this.

[Mister Imperceptible]

Hmmmm. I think I would take my chances on roll of die transporting me into lifestyle of any random citizen of modern Stockholm, than any random "citizen" of Plato's Athens, especially if I wanted to retain girl bits.

Sure. And of course, what is best for you individually is not always best for society. Oftentimes, what is best for the individual is directly in conflict with what is best for society.

[7Wannabe5]

Sure. And of course, what is best for you individually is not always best for society. Oftentimes, what is best for the individual is directly in conflict with what is best for society.

Yup. That is why I wept the first time I read "On Liberty."

OTOH, I would note that according to research offered in "How the West Really Lost God", the fact that successful organized religions almost always offer a good deal of support for child-rearing makes "good for society" a simple population demographic redundancy. This is well supported by the observation that religious communities that formed absent or contrary to support for fertility declined even more rapidly than secular communities.

[Jason]

Intricate and parsed out written argument existed long before the 18th century and it was not the commencement of man's use of his reason. It was the beginning of man's disassocation between revealed wisdom and reason (theism to deism) that eventually led to a complete breach (atheism). Moral law was no longer found in God, but in nature.

This pinnacle of reason led to the disastrous French Revolution as well being the historical antecedent of Modernism and the early 20th century totalitarian regimes but I guess that doesn't bother Peterson. The US which was based on the more watered down Christian Lockean principals yet remains.

Peterson is just recycling 300 year old trash and creating a syncretic compost fashionable enough for a new generation. I can't believe people think this is new or original.


Edit: I do have to say though, when "non Jordan-Peterson types" becomes a descriptor, you can't argue that the man can create a brand.