[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. — Maw

Quillette, like another earlier, lively, and defunct magazine, Lingua Franca, focuses on the affairs of the Academy. Peterson does too -- he being an academic. What goes on in parts of the academy (like English Departments) looms large because they are there, up close.

Now, how post modernism became a popular approach in English Departments is beyond me. I graduated before its perversity penetrated those previously quiet precincts. As for activism on campus, students are going to be exercised about something, and young people tend to be extremists. There is also the principle of "The less there is at stake the more vicious is the internecine warfare." There's not all that much at stake here.

Take transgenderism as an example:

Transgender issues are very hot right now--have been for a while. Transsexuals (as they were then referenced) in the early 1970s were something of a novelty. Mostly they hung out in the gay community. That seems to be still true, even though many of them say they are not gay. Transsexualism, therapy for transsexualism, and advocacy for transsexualism (later referenced as transgender) grew steadily over the years.

The legitimacy of transsexualism rested on the strength of individual assertions. "I AM A WOMAN TRAPPED IN A MAN'S BODY" or visa versa. They were convinced. They are convinced. "Believe me, God damn it -- I know what I feel." I would have to do some extensive research on this, but I don't know that a biological basis for transsexualism/transgenderism has been established. Of course, some people have indeterminate genital structures, indeterminate sex/genetic signatures, and so on.

We junked Freud a long time ago, so the possibility that transsexualism might actually be the conscious expression of an unacknowledged (and possibly unacknowledgeable) fear or wish isn't given much consideration.

Most people have no contact with the turmoil in academia; they either didn't go college or graduated some time ago.

But none the less, the thinking that goes on in academia (as screwy as it might be) does leak out as people graduate and take their college experiences with them. This is nothing new, and is normal. "Screwy as it might be" is nothing new. In Gulliver's Travels Swift depicts some academics trying to figure out what food went into a pile of dung

Ahahaha, and people take this guy seriously.

I have at least actually seen Chomsky in person.

Indeed.

According to wiki the earliest known examples of writing are 3100BCE, which is 5100 years ago.

I suppose they must have found a clay tablet from 3100BCE that said something like '8000 years ago, Ug made up this story about a mermaid, which I am now writing on this cuneiform tablet'.

Or something like that?

Peterson comes across as a full-blown conspiracy theorist in that interview.

Not just a lovely story about sisterhood? — Time magazine

No, not just a lovely story about sisterhood. No, ‘fraid not. No, you don’t spend tens of millions of dollars on a carefully crafted narrative that’s just a lovely story unless that’s what you’re trying to tell — Peterson

Um, no, you spend tens of millions of dollars on a lovely story, and catchy songs to go with it, so that you can make hundreds of millions of dollars at the box office and in video and music sales, to people (most of them not politically engaged at all) who enjoy the story and the songs.

I thought this guy saw himself as a prophet of capitalism. Yet he doesn't seem to understand how it works.

[Delete] @Baden

I thought this guy saw himself as a prophet of capitalism. Yet he doesn't seem to understand how it works. — andrewk

He's less a prophet of capitalism than he is a travelling salesman of the status quo. It's why he can feel so disproportionally threatened by a kids movie which simply doesn't fit his palaeolithic conception of 'how things should be'.

my daughter of 2 suspected the Prince from the beginning. But then, I'm instilling her with a healthy skepticism against princes being nice. And she figured out she'd rather be a queen and have other people be princes and princesses because then they have to do what she says like mommy. :rofl:

There is also the principle of "The less there is at stake the more vicious is the internecine warfare." — Bitter Crank

If anyone should doubt it, let them consider this latest UK scandal.

If anyone should doubt it, let them consider this latest UK scandal. — unenlightened

We're raising a militia in Cornwall as I speak.

If anyone should doubt it, let them consider this latest UK scandal. — unenlightened

That is a scandal? :rofl: Man, people certainly have a lot of time on their hands...

He was pretty much the same. He's 89 now; I don't think he travels around much giving talks, now. I saw him at the U of M quite a few years ago, then at Macalester College maybe 15 years back. No, he's not more exciting in person, but I did't find him boring. He is, however, approachable if the venue is small enough.

As it says in the American Constitution, "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the proper placement of jam & cream on scones"...

I assume the militia will be well regulated and the jam and cream will be in the proper order on the scones which, according to constitutional scholars, are a clunky biscuit.

Peterson says in the interview that we aren't allowed to make up new stories for "political reasons", yet , as I've seen pointed out, his top two recommended books are Brave New World and 1984....

It's also not exactly clear what political propaganda Frozen is attempting to get across. Peterson doesn't explain. he's just saying that it undermines an archetypal trope used in Sleeping Beauty.

Frozen is a shitty movie in any event. I've never understood its mind-boggling popularity.

I've never understood its mind-boggling popularity. — Thorongil

Just let it go.

I always presumed that's what a well regulated militia meant, one which knows the correct order in which to add one's condiments to one's baked goods.

A Messiah-cum-Surrogate-Dad for Gormless Dimwits: On Jordan B. Peterson’s “12 Rules for Life"

So far, the best review of Peterson's book (and critique of Peterson) I've read yet.

I thought it was a bit strong in its criticism. However it makes one excellent point that I had not considered before. The primary target at which Peterson directs his attacks is identity politics, especially as manifested in what he terms 'authoritarian political correctness' (a distinction which he makes in contrast to what he calls 'egalitarian political correctness'. To give him his due, that does appear to be a useful distinction to make.)

He regards the concern of many on the non-conservative side of politics with identity politics to be a major driver of the election of Trump. OK, so far, so coherent.

But then he starts saying how terrible Marxism is, and conflating identity politics with Marxism.

But hang on, out of the two potential Democratic candidates, it was Bernie Sanders that was closer to Marxism, not Clinton. Sanders talked about class rather than identity politics. It now appears that Clinton lost because she did not talk about class enough, ie that she was not Marxist enough!

To conflate identity politics with Marxism, as Peterson does, is to deny the very dilemma that is arguably the biggest problem facing the non-conservative side of politics in the US, and likely the reason it lost the 2016 election.

I feel that Peterson generally comes across as quite reasonable, just a bit too ready to interpret laws (like C-16) and viewpoints as much harsher and more prescriptive than they really are. But it seems that 'Marxism' is a trigger word for him that suddenly switches him from cool-headed, rational academic to hysterical ideologue. As soon as the word enters his talks, he abandons reasoned argument and makes only unsupported assertions. He is happy to say that all the terrible things that have happened through the exercise of insufficiently constrained capitalism were issues of implementation rather than fundamental flaws in laissez-faire philosophy, but refuses to apply the same principle of charity to Marxism. He insists that every terrible thing that has happened in a Marxist context is indicative of the fundamental wickedness of Marxism rather than an implementation problem.

BTW I heard this interview yesterday with Peterson. It was pleasant to listen to and Peterson came across as an interesting, fairly charming, chap - largely due to the skill of the interviewer who mostly kept Peterson away from his hot-button issues. Even so, Peterson was quite self-relevatory at one stage when he said that he had an epiphany when he realised that the opposing cold war ideologies of capitalism and communism were not morally equivalent because capitalism had a wonderful value (individualism) at its heart whereas the other one did not. It occurred to me that, if one wants to romanticise like that, one could equally argue that communism has the wonderful value of Love at its heart - love of one's fellow humans, wishing to see that none of them have to suffer terrible poverty and exploitation. The fact that he could so extremely romanticise and idealise one philosophy while refusing to even consider the possibility that one could do the same to its alternative seemed indicative of a remarkable lack of self-examination - something that is a bit surprising in a professor of psychology.

I’ve listened to one YouTube lecture and also heard the interview referred to above yesterday. Can’t understand the hysterics about Peterson, seem quite a sane sort of person. I have two young male relatives who could use a bit of adult guidance, the fact that they like him and not some alt-right or Pomo leftist is a good thing in my view.

With regard to identity politics - discovered a very interesting word in connection with little-known German philosopher Georg Hamann:

Prosopopoeia

Hamann used the notion of ‘Prosopopoeia’, or personification, as an image of what can happen in philosophical reflection. In a medieval morality or mystery play, the experience of ‘being chaste’ or ‘being lustful’ is transformed from a way of acting or feeling into a dramatic character who then speaks and acts as a personification of that quality. So too in philosophy, Hamann suggests.

Ain’t that the truth! Written so large into identity politics.

one could equally argue that communism has the wonderful value of Love at its heart... — AndrewK

Such a romantic notion.

Such a romantic notion — Wayfarer

Yes, I'm not advocating the adoption of such romantic views of one's preferred political philosophy. Just pointing out that if one wishes to assert that some lovely, romantic notion drives one's preferred political philosophy, one should allow that other political philosophies may be driven by equally lovely, romantic notions.

So far, the best review of Peterson's book (and critique of Peterson) I've read yet. — Maw

Thanks for drawing attention to it. It's pretty good, and spot on, if only, maybe, a bit too unrestrained (in respect of style, not content).

As a general critique of Peterson, and finer analysis of the multifaceted ideological fault lines that he exploits, I still find The Black Truth of Jordan Peterson more insightful, though. It's also more charitable even though it is, in the end, similarly unforgiving.

It's funny that Peterson doesn't even explicitly take political sides; he contends that his views are more "religious" than political. Of course, that's blasphemy. But glad to see that he continues to spark intelligent discussion on the forum, rather than the initial emotional hysterics.

Canadian academic preparing for
tutorial discussion of Jordan Peterson.

But then he starts saying how terrible Marxism is, and conflating identity politics with Marxism. — andrewk

I thought about this while reading through some of Peterson's ideas. I'm not an expert on Marxism but it would seem as though one who subscribes to the communist worldview would necessarily eschew identity politics, at least forms of it based on anything other than class identity.

There may be possible points of convergence between Marxism and identity politics on occasion (e.g., when one's racial identity strongly correlates with a socio-economic class), and hence some sort of alignment is not totally unreasonable under specific conditions, but conflating the two as necessary allies - or as essentially the same - as Peterson does seems unwarranted and unfair.

This seems such an obvious oversight that I'm sure he must have noticed it, and this being so one can only assume there must be some deeper explanation for his tendency to lump them together without making the proper distinctions. I can't imagine that it's nothing more than a dishonest attempt to discredit both in one fell swoop by purposely conflating them. Perhaps TPF posters who are more familiar with and more sympathetic to Peterson's views can clarify this issue for those of us who are confused by it.

Anyway, I can definitely see how others may dislike almost everything about Marxism but IMO there's one significant advantage it has over other leftist rivals: it transcends racial, national, gender, and ethnic identities (along with others I may have missed) in favor of class-based ones. This in turn makes it much more inclusive than identity politics as typically conceived today; the two seem theoretically incompatible in fact.

Going off recollection I think Andrew has acknowledged those points before.

I personally think the term white privilege is aggressive and alienating, and therefore on the whole counterproductive if the goal is to get as many white people as possible to recognize and sympathize with the struggles against discrimination of non-whites.

So keeping the focus on instances of racism - which clearly and unfortunately exist in abundance - without also introducing the notion of white privilege as a necessary corollary of racism, would be more a more effective strategy in pursuing that aim IMO. Racism can exist without most white people receiving tangible and recognizable benefits from it. Unless you lower the bar so much as to make (e.g.) not getting randomly pulled over by police because you're white, or not getting followed around in a store while shopping because you're white, examples of privilege. The one strategy immediately puts white people (regardless of class background or personal struggles more generally) on the defensive while the other is, at the very least, more likely to open them up to the challenges facing minorities - many of which we as white people may be oblivious to.

That's my hunch and it's mainly based on my own experience. The very idea of privilege conjures up ideas of absolute advantages one receives through no effort of their own, whereas many disadvantaged white people cannot fathom how they are privileged in any meaningful way. This seems true even if we acknowledge that poor white people, despite their challenging socio-economic predicament and limited opportunities, are still relatively privileged in significant ways compared to non-whites.

It would be like telling a woman who gets physically and/or mentally abused by her husband once a week that she's privileged, because this other lady down the street gets beat up by her husband every single day. Lame analogy perhaps, but I think it hits on the potential misuse of the term privilege. In a (relative) sense it's true that the first woman is more "privileged," but in an absolute sense that doesn't seem true at all and, more significantly, it would be an extremely insensitive thing to say. Average (i.e. non-affluent) white people do not have it easy these days, and this is true even if non-whites typically have to deal with even more serious obstacles than they do.

I've presented similar "arguments" elsewhere and have often been met with something akin to "figures you'd say that since you're a privileged white guy," (as in lame social media arguments with complete strangers where the only thing you notice about the other is their profile pic) and, as mentioned, these experiences have influenced my feelings on the topic. It's hard to sympathize with others when they generalize and demonize you based on something you have no control over; and since it's wrong to do it to non-whites then it should also be wrong to do it to whites. De-emphasizing racial identity is an ideal to me and anything which runs counter to this goal is met with resistance.

I will admit one thing, though: I have had the privilege of discounting the significance of my racial background in large part because I'm white, whereas it seems much harder to do this for black people and other POC living in countries like the USA, since they're often reminded that they're the inferior "other" through the actions of narrow-minded bigots. Again, it's those actions (e.g., being passed on for a job, not being allowed to rent an apartment, etc.) based on negative stereotypes that should be the focus of our attention IMHO.

I will admit one thing, though: I have had the privilege of discounting the significance of my racial background in large part because I'm white, whereas it seems much harder to do this for black people and other POC living in countries like the USA, since they're often reminded that they're the "other" through the actions of narrow-minded bigots. — Erik

This! This is - or should be - the import of what 'privilege' is about: it's acknowledging that one's experience is not universalizable, and that one cannot proscribe injunctions on the basis of that experience. One always approaches the world from a certain point of view, with different motivations, worries, and cares. 'Privilege' is the - perhaps misnamed, or at least underdeveloped - notion that those motivations and cares cannot be extrapolated to others without loss or without skewing their experience. The idea of 'checking one's privilege' (racial or otherwise) refers to nothing other than this: that one can't say 'well I don't have to worry about that, so no one else should make it an issue either".

:up: Well said.

I agree, completely with this particular point. — Mr Phil O'Sophy

Then you agree completely, I suggest, with the impetus behind claims of privilege.

Can this also be said to minority’s? Who claim their own personal experiences of oppression are universalisable to all minority’s? — Mr Phil O'Sophy

Do 'they'? Last I checked, the notion of intersectionality - much derided by those like Peterson - was developed precisely in order that minorities recognize the specificity of their own experiences so as to acknowledge the broad tent under which fights against opression take place.