An interview with Jordan Peterson, who believes in witches and dragons

Nah. Performance art can be a little silly, but A-listers (Marina Abramović, Wafaa Bilal, Jana Sterbak, etc) make powerful, thought provoking work. I’m not an expert on Peterson, but he seems like a pop psychology huckster with bad intentions. Or possibly a used car salesman.

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If you like to make you own assessment, here’s his Youtube channel’s videos:

I don’t have the time to watch them all now, there are about 300 videos.

I’ve only seen a handful of videos (on Youtube, not necessarily on his channel) of him debating and I found him a competent debater. Very unlike what the NYT piece portrays. I would say, take a look and decide yourself.

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Do you have a source where Peterson’s arguments are carefully picked apart and demolished? Genuinely asking, I find reading that sort of thing enjoyable.

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He has a youtube channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCL_f53ZEJxp8TtlOkHwMV9Q

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Ha. You really think Cory pays any attention to what happens in the bbs threads?

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This leads to so many more questions…

No. Until now, I thought he was just some fossil professor that objected to having to get used to different pronoun usage. Now I see that he’s got himself a nice money-making proto-cult going, like Stefan Molyneux.

From skimming NYT, he seems to be doing argument from analogy, unproven assertions as fact, and other fallacies, so I’d be shocked if his arguments couldn’t be demolished. The trouble is in getting him or his followers to realize it or admit it.

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Yeah, I know. SA is still satire.

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Not to mention made up stats. I found a few in the NYT article that didn’t pass a casual inspection.

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I should give him an unfiltered listen just because he’s a competent debater?

Merely hearing that someone is even a great debater isn’t enough to send me to their YouTube channel.

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This is why Catholic Priests are the single deadliest fighting force ever to walk this earth.

Also, this explains The Unsullied in Game of Thrones.

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From one of Peter Jackson’s early classics:

(note: the bad lip-sync is deliberate. Obligatory for a kung fu priest.)

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Hey, this reminds me of Priest 85 by Irritating Rainbow.

It was played at the end of Rob Schrab’s Robot Bastard.

It is a little cheezy, but paints the picture of what sounds like a kick ass RPG campaign.

http://songmeanings.com/songs/view/3530822107859490568/

Something Awful has always been and always will be a comedy website. The writing never has been subtle or nuanced, this particular satire piece is right on the nose for what is typically produced there. I’ve always enjoyed it and wouldn’t want it any other way.

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The problem for me is there are some loons out there that do spout off exactly that kind of thing… and some keep showing up here.

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Here are some quotes from the NYT interview

Sorry, no. An NYT hit piece is hardly credible of any actual description. You have to look at Peterson’s quotes and ignore the crazy hitpiece commentary.

  1. In fundamental mythology, the chaos is represented by the feminine and order is represented by the masculine. So blame Peterson for pointing out something exists. Not only that, but it looks like the people who haven’t done their homework actually don’t know what he means by chaos, because it isn’t mayhem. In Peterson’s theory, chaos is that which we don’t know, that which is unfamiliar and outside of the guided patterns we like to operate our lives around. Peterson think chaos is essential, and that one must live on the fine line between chaos and order and take the “heroic path” of fundamental mythology. I’ve yet to see any critic produce any evidence that Peterson means anything bad against the feminine here. They cannot produce this for the life of them, Peterson just isn’t that kind of person.

  2. Forced monogamy. This is the only thing worth discussing. So, what is forced monogamy? Forcing women to get with men? No, that’s a crazy, absurd extrapolation from ‘monogamy’, I mean seriously. In an explanation of Peterson’s views that he himself has recommended, the following explanation is given. First of all, Peterson never invented this term, it’s been around in academia for a while. Of course, the media hitmen don’t know this. “Forced” monogamy is really just a societal pressure on people to only have single partners. That’s really all it is. Peterson thinks something like polygamy is bad for both men and women – women for obvious reasons, men because some portion fo men will actually not even have the opportunity to find women.

Well, that’s what all this is about. Is this a “role model that I could [n]ever endorse”? Of course not, Peterson’s ideas have helped thousands, tens of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands make their lives better. They’re true, they work, Peterson really cares. But, of course, all this comes at the expense of the radical left, their ideas against free speech and their political correctness and their collectivism, etc, etc, etc. So Peterson has to be removed. But he won’t. I think Peterson’s recent debate alongside Stephen Fry versus Michelle Goldberg and Michael Dyson reveals the logical gap between Peterson and his critics.

I think it’s clear at this point. The views of the “intellectual dark web” are inevitably going to attain victory. They’re just right. They tell the better story.

@Shuck

I’m sorry - in what, now? What’s “fundamental mythology” supposed to be? There’s no Ur-mythology; there’s thousands of mythologies that agree with one another on exactly nothing. That Peterson perpetuates the Abrahamic myths by treating them (and cherry-picked related, similar myths) as universal just shows he’s willing to abandon even the pretense of academic rigor to prop up his personal prejudices; he’s barely disguising it. If the “views of the ‘intellectual dark web’ are inevitably going to attain victory,” it’s only because they appeal to lazy fuckwits who just want someone to tell them they’re right so they don’t have to actually think about anything.

Since you don’t know what fundamental mythology is, let me explain it for you. It isn’t something that appears in EVERY MYTHOLOGY. No, it’s just a recurring motif throughout human tales. And Peterson’s explanation that chaos is represented by the feminine has nothing to do with the Abrahamic stories (thus exposing your severe misclaim that he’s doing some sort of (fictional) cherry-picking), it has to do with the yin and yang of Chinese philosophy. The yin represents chaos, and the feminine, and the yang represents order, and the masculine. See the Ancient History Encyclopedia on this. I did some research, and apparently, even the Huffington Post got this right. Sorry, but your enormous misunderstanding of some of the standard claims about mythology, and your willingness to use this ignorance to deride Peterson, is exactly why Peterson and the intellectual dark web are winning.

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First, I don’t have to do anything.

You’re free to get something out of his words, if you like. I’ve heard quite enough, thank you. I don’t believe telling women they’re naturally chaotic, witchy, incapable of leadership, only interested in high-status men, and undesirable unless they’re “conscientious and agreeable” is anything like “helping people” or “just right” or “telling the better story.”

qV5eK

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This is supposed to be satire but it flirts with lible. If you don’t know already he did not say the things he is quoted as saying and the NYT article takes small snippets of quotes out of context and the author supposes what he means mischaracterizing him very badly. I don’t agree with many if the things he says but this is a very poor way to address his arguments.

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Hello, comrade! Welcome to BoingBoing!
What happens if I don’t want a date?

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