<faults a university professor for resonating with young people> — Buxtebuddha

There's nothing wrong or unprofessional with professors influencing or guiding students. Often times, they should act as mentors. What's wrong is influencing students while using dishonest arguments, faux facts, summoning illusory enemies, and adding fuel to the 'culture war' flames, under the guise of "self-help" psychology.

What's wrong is influencing students while using dishonest arguments, faux facts, summing illusory enemies, and adding fuel to the 'culture war' flames, under the guise of "self-help" psychology. — Maw

<I disagree with JBP, therefore he's the antichrist>

[Delete] @Baden

What do you mean? — René Descartes

Which part of my sentence do you have a problem with?

[Delete] @Baden

Are you saying Socialism is possible, or are you saying it is never possible? — René Descartes

I am saying it is possible given proper education.

[Delete] @Baden

I might write a full thread about this, but I was recently thinking about why Peterson, Sommers, Quillette contributors, and other members of this sort of quasi-alternative right fringe never precisely explain how political correctness, or more radically, "Post-Modern Marxist Identity Politics", has (for them) dominated college campus, private businesses (STEM-based companies), and mainstream media and other institutions, influencing all of society. I think the reason for this is that any explanation would more or less require a discussion around the power of ideology, language, and power-relations - the very discursive tools that the humanities have provided as well, and that the quasi-alternative right (or whatever the hell to call them) aim to criticize. It's self-defeating.

never precisely explain how political correctness, or more radically, "Post-Modern Marxist Identity Politics", has (for them) dominated college campus, private businesses (STEM-based companies), and mainstream media and other institutions, influencing all of society. — Maw

To answer how is actually quite simple. Basically it's because political correctness etc. are the prevailing cultural zeitgeist and values of society - or at least the relevant segments of society. Why are they the prevailing zeitgeist? I don't think there is much reason - it's like fashion. There's no reason why pink hats are fashionable now, or why it was fashionable to wear a wig 200 years ago, etc. It's just what it happened to be. If we played history again, it would likely be different.

This isn't an answer, though. How did an esoteric academic philosophy transform into a the prevailing "cultural zeitgeist" or the paramount "values of society"? How did it insert itself there? Why is it an "quasi-religious orthodoxy", as some have said? Offering parallels to fashion is just a poor excuse to adequately ponder the question.

How did an esoteric academic philosophy transform into a the prevailing "cultural zeitgeist" or the paramount "values of society"? — Maw

I think to a certain extent (but not completely) it is random. It's not something that can be explained by a deterministic theory. A series of ideologies compete against each other, and the one that emerges as victorious isn't something that can, prior to the fact, be determined. That is exactly why we can't predict history or say what will happen next.

I am aware that you will take this response as a copout and a refusal to think more deeply about the problem, but I have thought deeply, and looking back at history, I see that it is pretty much impossible to predict what will happen next. This impossibility to predict means either that the solutions are intractable or that the phenomenon isn't entirely deterministic. I think maybe both factors are relevant.

If you have an alternative explanation, I'd be curious to hear what that is, and why you think so.

lol this is a profoundly lazy cop-out, even for you. We are not talking about future predictions. We are talking about how post-modernism became, andis presently, the cultural orthodoxy.

I have no explanation, because I don't believe that post-modernism, "Marxist Identity Politics", or however you want to label it, is "dominating" these various institutions or the "cultural zeitgeist". This is a talking point from Quillette, Peterson, Sommers, et al, and I'm asking you to explain it.

We are not talking about future predictions. We are talking about how post-modernism became, andis presently, the cultural orthodoxy. — Maw

The present was once the future no? If we didn't know how it came about as it was happening, what makes you think we'd have anything more but the illusion of knowing anything (rationalisations) after the fact?

But sure, if you want me to play that silly game, I can come up with lots of rationalisations why it happened. The declining influence of religion played an important role. As did democracies combined with the secularisation of society.

Know your enemies.

http://www.openculture.com/2018/03/the-entire-archives-of-radical-philosophy-go-online.html

Ahh, awesome! RP has hosted some of my favourite articles, glad to see they're doing well enough to go open access.

If I look around the predominant values in Europe: liberal quasi-democracies, corporate capitalism, foreign policy realism. I'm not sure where Marxism fits there. Since the crisis there's a definitive resurgence in the interest in Marxist economic thought but his ideas do not serve the vested interests of ruling parties and corporate powers. Where it matters, he's widely ignored in favour of other more quantified research by the IMF and Picketty on inequality.

The issues Peterson takes aim (gender identity, PC cult) at do not strike me as having to do anything with Marx in any meaningful sense. It comes across as an attempt to label things he doesn't like as "Marxist". This then plays into the cultural idea that Marx = Communism = Stalin/Mao = evil, which is a mischaracterisation but is in fact the "prevailing" cultural value in that sense.

Got any particular recommendations for the average newcomer?

Judith Butler's "Can One Live a Good Life in a Bad Life" (RP176) is unmissable, and Jason Moore's "Nature in the Limits to Capital" (RP193) is great too. Otherwise Linda Martin Alcoff's "Philosophy and Racial Identity" is an oldie but a goody. (RP 75)

Cheers! :smile:

Daaaaaaaaayuuuuuuuuuuuuum! Das mah $*%@# right there!

So please have a listen to the lecture when you have some time, and post your thoughts. — Agustino

Is there a transcript I might skim? Or perhaps a short section of the video that's especially instructive? I'm not in the habit of sitting through hour-long speeches before I have some indication that they're likely to be worth the time. I've been through the first ten minutes. So far there's been no hint of a significant claim to support the headline, only what strikes me as shifty and philosophically irrelevant stage-setting.

Perhaps you can say something more about the speaker's view yourself, since you're here and he is not.

Personally, I agree with Peterson, and it is something that I have been saying for 2-3 years or so. I think we all have disadvantages and handicaps - it's nobody's fault. We have to become stronger and learn to deal with it. As the Buddhists say, life is suffering - there is no escape from that. I think this is the point that many of the leftist radicals don't get - suffering cannot be eliminated completely, and seeking to eliminate it completely, merely makes it worse. Instead, we should train people to be psychologically stronger, much like Nietzsche's Zarathustra, who can say "di capo!" every time. — Agustino

This rhetorical stance strikes me as absurd.

Of course the fact that "we all have disadvantages and handicaps" is nobody's fault. But some disadvantages -- some injuries and injustices -- are in fact the fault of one or more human agents, and it's a foul thing to deny responsibility for injuries one has caused to others intentionally or negligently, and to refuse to compensate the victim. Moreover, any of us can make it his responsibility, and for that reason arguably each of us has a moral obligation, to aim to live and act so as to promote social justice, to correct socioeconomic imbalance, to improve the lot of others along with his own lot, to labor for the sake of others no less than for his own sake, to share his inheritance or the proceeds of his own labor with the others in his community, the community of human beings. One might say it takes greater strength of character to make that sort of sacrifice, than to pursue narrow selfish interest without a hint of compassion like the worst sort of dog.

It's extremely misleading to speak as though the aim of leftist politics is to eradicate all forms of human suffering. What authors would you site, or does Jordan site, in support of the claim? If this is the premise of the argument, I expect it never gets off the ground.

There is a clear difference between ideals of political and socioeconomic equality, freedom, and prosperity on the one hand, and the ideal of the cessation of suffering on the other hand. I'm not aware of any leftist thinker who has conflated such distinct concepts along these lines.

How does Peterson's account, or your account of his account, proceed from this tendentious misconstrual of the leftist's point of view?

Interview from Time Magazine, during which Peterson calls Frozen propaganda :roll:

Knowing who owns Disney, that isn't a surprise.

Those evil Jews, I know

Yeah, totally.... :shade:

Spare your effort, mate. Right wing conspiracy is as worse as left wing conspiracy, see Alex Jones and Noam Chomsky.

[Delete] @Baden

Peterson says that "some of those folktales have been traced back 13,000 years." Fascinating.

I wonder how they did this tracing.

Right wing conspiracy is as worse as left wing conspiracy, see Alex Jones and Noam Chomsky. — Kitty

You mean, ... conspiracy is as bad as...

BTW, Chomsky is God.