Mr. David Brooks in The New York Times today:
The Jordan Peterson MomentMy friend Tyler Cowen argues that Jordan Peterson is the most influential public intellectual in the Western world right now, and he has a point...
Nope.
Nope.
Not gonna do it.
I'm out.
Over to you, Maclean's magazine:
Is Jordan Peterson the stupid man’s smart person?Tabatha Southey delves into University of Toronto professor Jordan Peterson’s work and finds his secret sauce—and what makes his work unnerving...To be clear, Jordan Peterson is not a neo-Nazi, but there’s a reason he’s as popular as he is on the alt-right. You’ll never hear him use the phrase “We must secure a future for our white children”; what you will hear him say is that, while there does appear to be a causal relationship between empowering women and economic growth, we have to consider whether this is good for society, “‘’cause the birth rate is plummeting.” He doesn’t call for a “white ethnostate,” but he does retweet Daily Caller articles with opening lines like: “Yet again an American city is being torn apart by black rioters.” He has dedicated two-and-a-half-hour-long YouTube videos to “identity politics and the Marxist lie of white privilege.”Now, as I’ve said, I failed to get in on the ground floor of the “not using a person’s chosen address” industry which, in a simpler time, was known as “calling people names” and was considered bad manners. But since calling a certain University of Toronto professor “Jordan Pea-Headerson” is apparently the only thing standing between us and non-stop collectivist potato farming, I’ll do my part for the resistance....As far as I can tell, Jordie—and not the cool “Geordi” from Star Trek either— rewards the devotion of his Patreon patsies with regular rants against “political correctness,” and relationship advice I can only call “Angry Oprah Says.” For USD $29.99, Petersonites can get access to the Self Authoring Suite (a USD $119.92 value!). Those looking for further opportunities to give him money can pay USD $9.99 for “100 question phrases” which “can be found, along with similar question sets, elsewhere on the web” so that they might learn how your personality compares to 10,000 others.Pro tip: just take a personality test from the back of an issue of Glamour; you’ll only be out about five bucks, and you might find a free perfume sample....There is no polite way to put this, but since Peterson claims that “If you worry about hurting people’s feelings and disturbing the social structure, you’re not going to put your ideas forward,” I’m just going to say it: Spend half an hour on his website, sit through a few of his interminable videos, and you realize that what he has going for him, the niche he has found—he never seems to say “know” where he could instead say “cognizant of”—is that Jordan Peterson is the stupid man’s smart person...
Behold, a Tip Jar!
10 comments:
As an avid reader of the leading brookoligst of our time, I'd say you are entitled a day off (or a gag reflex) from time to time,considering how soul-crushing your task is!
Sorry, brookologist. Damn keyboard.
Wow, white privilege is Marxist? And a lie? One needs no more to recognize a walking talking sack of poo.
Promoting dystopia without using the song, "springtime for Hitler".
Is so alluring and charismatic to the supremacists vulnerable cranium emptiness. Which provides the euphoria of belonging and fulfilled.
Thanks for not going there... As they move us all closer to ( doesn't qualify as a society). Unless an insect world on the planet Uranus interacts qualifies.
The soft spoken language of bigotry is not bigotry?
Paying for Sex with Stormy D. is not purchasing and consuming prostitution services? just exchanging money for love and affection? As well as re enacting the pro life behavior?
Not only that, but a particular flavor of stupid...
-Doug in Oakland
You left out two great interstices and one very sharp barb:
Western civilization is, after all, a delicate thing. Today you agree to call Edda van Heemstra Hepburn-Ruston “Audrey Hepburn,” tomorrow we’re all fighting over water and gasoline in a post-apocalyptic hellscape. Even worse, some social justice warlord will ask you to call him “Immortan Joe,” and that’s not your real name, Joseph....
He also gives book recommendations apparently drawn from a high-school English-class reading list. If somehow you missed them, Mistress Peterson is the portal to such obscure works as Animal Farm, Of Mice and Men, and that cornerstone of the Western canon, Flowers for Algernon....
I’m hard-pressed to find a course on Chaucer that comes this close to promising to clear my thetans.
In the words of a great Doctor of Journalism, "Cazart! And how's that for a left-handed whipsong?"
Jordan Peterson, to put it kindly, is the most over-rated philosopher in the world today. But I'm polite. You can call him an idiot if you like.
When he peddles apologetics like the "Moral Argument for God" as if it were philosophy gold, he should have lost credibility. When he argued that Sam Harris is "really a Christian" because he doesn't rape or murder (no, I'm not making that up), he should have been laughed off the stage.
As a Canadian, I have to apologize to the whole Internet that this "moran" is not only Canadian, but has a "job" in "education".
I'll beg your forgiveness because I've heard a couple of interviews with Jordan and I found him to be intelligent, thoughtful, forthcoming and open with his ideas. I didn't ever pick up a hint of ethnonationalism or alt right likeness. Yes he went after political correctness but his arguments (at least theoretically) seemed based on more of the devaluing of intellectual discourse and though I disagreed with him that political correctness had no value, it can also be true that pc culture has legitimate criticisms. I didn't agree entirely with the examples he used to support his positions but at least in theory I could relate to the reasons for his positions. He was upfront about how at odds he was with the liberal faculty members at Toronto but he kept his criticisms to the ideological and even convinced me overall, of the problems with micro aggression charges and the entitlement and privilege that goes with it. All this said, he could be the next level of William F.Buckley speak and I fell under the spell of someone intelligently explaining his positions because he doesn't use obvious right wing language and talking points. I surprise myself how naive I can be at times so I might have missed the boat with Peterson and after reading this post I'm going to have to pay better attention to what he says and who his friends are.
Oh come on,
Both sides do the political correctness.
But it is not actually both sides using it the same.
I see political correctness as a common decency zone of generally accepted and respectful place to either begin debate or retreat to after going to zany.
Political correctness by GOP is their religious rights mulligans for Trump prostitution consuming and corrupt business as were Clinton must burn in hell for eternity. Thoughts and Prayers on mass shooting deaths while doing nothing to protect life. While ranting and rampaging pro life on Abortion.
The lack of the Mulligans for Dems by GOPers is reflected in the evils of political correctness for liberals by GOP.
Taking away forgiveness and respectful zones that GOP will not have to venture.
Because, Compromise might dwell in the aura of respectful debate and serious reason.
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