Society/Culture Jordan B Peterson

[Leeda]

Oh well he is a head man from the Grand State of Canada.. Now I am thinking.. Talking too..

Nothing to worry about, the more information we all have the better we can be...

 

[kickazz]

In your opinion, how do we know when the left has gone too far?

Some people believe we reached 'too far' when the left started to deny biology.

It's not so much as going too far, but more being misguided at times, and, most definitely, falling back on black & white dogma and not even listening to alternative views, or dare I say it, cold hard data.

Your example of denying biology is a good one. Denying it is just wilful ignorance. Smart lefties acknowledge it, but then add (for example) that we are an intelligent species that can transcend our basic biology for good. Biologically, every (heterosexual) adult male would take every opportunity possible to "mate" with as many girls/women of child bearing age they could, all the while violently dealing with other males trying to do the same. We are all above that now.

A good example I think is the diversity/quotas/gender pay gap issue. My gosh is there some shockingly poor interpretation of data in this area, and I think there is a tendency (as Jordan would put it) to focus on uni-variate data and equality of outcomes. Smart lefties would posit that there is a place for some affirmative action - for example, to help build role models for future minorities, etc. They'd also drill down on the data and think of how to empower individual women to improve their assertiveness. Hell, they might even push for extended leave for men (to counter balance women taking maternity leave) The dumb ones just want to "juke the stats" and say "see, now its equal" on some arbitrary metric like income or percentage of female engineers.

I've worked at some companies that I believe do diversity really well, there is a place for it. But now I'm seeing some weird policies (giving senior women big pay rises to even out the averages, Adelaide Uni and their "women only" maths academics policy, etc) that will tick the box in the short term but make things worse in the long term.

But they wouldn't listen to Peterson's criticisms here, and instead label him a misogynist. Identity politics in a nutshell. Not that she deserves mention in intelligent discussion, but Clem Ford's recent article (after the tragic murder of the Arab Israeli girl in Melbourne) put up a false dilemma, saying you are either with us, and all our kooky fourth wave feminist thinking, or you are on the side of the rapist. Hmm, who wants to be on the side of the rapist?

It's cheerleading for a side, black & white and lacking in nuance.

And there are areas the Left is dragging its feet big time - gig economy, people working too many or too few hours, homelessness, etc.

 

[kickazz]

He critiques it from the point where it intersects libertarian borders, and I for one (as an anarchist) am grateful for that.

You are aware that you can be a lefty AND a libertarian at the same time, aren't you?

IMO, Peterson is centre-libertarian in his politics.

He is. He even states in certain areas (can't remember what) he sees himself on the left side of things.

Lefty and libertarian - it sort of sums up my world view. The libertarian ethos of live and let live forms a good basis for living life. Encourage people to take responsibility for their own wellbeing. Where my leftness comes in is probably twofold - one, I do believe in the benefit of social institutions, and I also believe that no matter how much we take responsibility for ourselves, there are still a lot of external factors that can influence us (positively or negatively), and having mechanisms to "smooth out outcomes" (not equalise - I'm not a commie) is desirable.

 

[Leeda]

It's not so much as going too far, but more being misguided at times, and, most definitely, falling back on black & white dogma and not even listening to alternative views, or dare I say it, cold hard data.

Your example of denying biology is a good one. Denying it is just wilful ignorance. Smart lefties acknowledge it, but then add (for example) that we are an intelligent species that can transcend our basic biology for good. Biologically, every (heterosexual) adult male would take every opportunity possible to "mate" with as many girls/women of child bearing age they could, all the while violently dealing with other males trying to do the same. We are all above that now.

A good example I think is the diversity/quotas/gender pay gap issue. My gosh is there some shockingly poor interpretation of data in this area, and I think there is a tendency (as Jordan would put it) to focus on uni-variate data and equality of outcomes. Smart lefties would posit that there is a place for some affirmative action - for example, to help build role models for future minorities, etc. They'd also drill down on the data and think of how to empower individual women to improve their assertiveness. Hell, they might even push for extended leave for men (to counter balance women taking maternity leave) The dumb ones just want to "juke the stats" and say "see, now its equal" on some arbitrary metric like income or percentage of female engineers.

I've worked at some companies that I believe do diversity really well, there is a place for it. But now I'm seeing some weird policies (giving senior women big pay rises to even out the averages, Adelaide Uni and their "women only" maths academics policy, etc) that will tick the box in the short term but make things worse in the long term.

But they wouldn't listen to Peterson's criticisms here, and instead label him a misogynist. Identity politics in a nutshell. Not that she deserves mention in intelligent discussion, but Clem Ford's recent article (after the tragic murder of the Arab Israeli girl in Melbourne) put up a false dilemma, saying you are either with us, and all our kooky fourth wave feminist thinking, or you are on the side of the rapist. Hmm, who wants to be on the side of the rapist?

It's cheerleading for a side, black & white and lacking in nuance.

And there are areas the Left is dragging its feet big time - gig economy, people working too many or too few hours, homelessness, etc.

tinkering around the edges is good.. you have trapped all the more impertinent points.. get back to you on your more impotent points..

no not impotent.. but your shandy points where you gather your 'boy .. friends.'.. and you know what I mean..
not like these tragic people who tie you down when you write the truth..

 

[kickazz]

Well to paint a picture, there was one police patrol car with 2 cops sitting in it parked on the street just to keep an eye on things. But the protesters were fine - they were a small group who stayed behind some of the pedestrian bollards adjascent to the entrance to the facility and were therefore not in the way at all. So kudos to them for not being dicks about it.

All they were doing was holding up a few signs (only caught one as I went past that said "SA says NO to misogynists" or words to that effect) and they had one bullhorn that was leading a chant of "FIGHT! THE! RIGHT!" over and over. So it was a very confused message since neither of those things were applicable. Everyone walking past was pretty much laughing at how silly it seemed. Couple of people took phones out to take a photo but I didn't see anyone interact. So since they weren't getting in anyone's way and didn't actually want to argue or discuss things (never stopped the chant), I wouldn't say anything. They can do their demonstration and it's all good.

If some wanted to actually engage on the topic I'd just ask what they were protesting against and try to explain where I think they either mischaracterise Peterson or the people going to see him. There's not much else you can do really.

Mischaracterise. Spot on. I'd encourage them to just listen to him and think about what he has to say. I'd say "Don't worry, there will still be plenty of stuff for you to disagree on and even maybe get worked up over; but I dare say you'll be challenged and learn something as well. You'll learn, and be afforded the opportunity to better your argument that can only come from having it robustly challenged"

Oddly enough I ran into some protesters once, they were all crappy slogans and signs. I engaged with one of them and it turned out that whilst he believed in the cause he was there for a bit of a laugh and actually was pretty reasonable to talk to. Might have been a one off, I don't know.

 

[Leeda]

Mischaracterise. Spot on. I'd encourage them to just listen to him and think about what he has to say. I'd say "Don't worry, there will still be plenty of stuff for you to disagree on and even maybe get worked up over; but I dare say you'll be challenged and learn something as well. You'll learn, and be afforded the opportunity to better your argument that can only come from having it robustly challenged"

Oddly enough I ran into some protesters once, they were all crappy slogans and signs. I engaged with one of them and it turned out that whilst he believed in the cause he was there for a bit of a laugh and actually was pretty reasonable to talk to. Might have been a one off, I don't know.

How did you get to sound.. be.. so smart.. stop making sense and stop percolating coffee..

 

[kickazz]

If anyone thinks he's a pseudo psychologist they're obviously not interested in any form of basic research.

For all the stuff he is willing to talk about, this is where his expertise lies.

I say that he can be dismissive of the benefit of social institutions, but so what, that's not what he knows best. Leave that for someone else, Jordan's best way to solve the world's problems is through empowering the individual - THAT IS WHAT HE IS GOOD AT.

He also focuses on the modern problems that men have - does that make him a misogynist? Or has he simply seen a lot more male patients and had success with them? I would like to hear about his experiences with female patients though.

 

[JCHolmes]

The 4 evil horsemen of the white male apocalypse.

Leftists will have NONE of it!

Its really sad and pathetic that these virtues are taken as a personal attack by some people, but it says it all really.

 

[Leeda]

Norma Dryden.?.these are not words of mere sophoriphic diamonds?

 

[its free real estate]

Smart lefties acknowledge it, but then add (for example) that we are an intelligent species that can transcend our basic biology for good. Biologically, every (heterosexual) adult male would take every opportunity possible to "mate" with as many girls/women of child bearing age they could, all the while violently dealing with other males trying to do the same. We are all above that now.

Dunno about that, it’s the implicit threat of violence if you don’t behave according to social norms that matters. And those social norms arise in order to control negative aspects of our biology.

Eg Peterson’s remarks about “enforced monogamy”. This provoked outrage among “smart” lefties, but they ignored the fact that monogamy was a cultural innovation to deal with the problem of excess single males in polygamous societies. Now in a sexually liberated society we have problems with incels, Islamic terorrists (usually a different kind of incel), all taking out their frustrations over a lack of female companionship.

 

[yebiga]

I don't, in fact many times after reading something of his I've gone off and examined what he has said and on numerous occasions I've acknowledged that his self-help books and parts of his video content are helpful to people, anecdotally in their results, but more importantly that aspects of the methods proscribed are good advice for young men broadly.

As I keep saying, it's his political views that I repeatedly find fault with. Politically he's a cold war conservative with all of the baggage that it entails. The type of people who are so pathologically anti-Marxist that they've created a paranoid politics where all government programs are signs of "creeping communism," climate change action is a "Marxist plot" from socialist agitators and so on.

Sorry dude but you have faile to understand JP and are looking at his views from a narrow dichotomy

 

[yebiga]

His definition of truth is nonsensical, and renders the word meaningless. Especially when you try to square this with his scientific claims such as "there are only two genders". Listening to his podcast with Sam Harris was so frustrating. He was literally arguing for a paradoxical definition of truth.

This video has it about 10 minutes in:

His definition of truth has a long philosophical tradition
The popular notion of things and facts requires some values to and objectives to make any sense of them

Essentially that is all he is pointing out

Once you accept humans need some kind of value system to make sense of the objective world then something approaching Peterson’s views become self evident.

If you don’t accept that values are necessary to make sense of the world you need to explain how you manage to decide what actions you take when confronted by an infinite set of facts.

Please try

 

[Substance]

His definition of truth has a long philosophical tradition
The popular notion of things and facts requires some values to and objectives to make any sense of them

Essentially that is all he is pointing out

Once you accept humans need some kind of value system to make sense of the objective world then something approaching Peterson’s views become self evident.

If you don’t accept that values are necessary to make sense of the world you need to explain how you manage to decide what actions you take when confronted by an infinite set of facts.

Please try

So you would accept petersons version of pragmatism then? Even though it causes a contradiction, demonstrated by sam harris' example of the husband committing suicide after discovering his wifes affair?

 

[yebiga]

So you would accept petersons version of pragmatism then? Even though it causes a contradiction, demonstrated by sam harris' example of the husband committing suicide after discovering his wifes affair?

You are jumping the gun and clutching at straws
Peterson doesn’t make any claims regarding pragmatism.
I’m not familiar with the specific arguement but My guess is that pragmatism is Harris’s way of fudging a value system when he can’t explain one.

Either way Peterson notion of truth is not based on pragmatism except to say all of us face the need to act in the world

 

[Substance]

You are jumping the gun and clutching at straws
Peterson doesn’t make any claims regarding pragmatism.
I’m not familiar with the specific arguement but My guess is that pragmatism is Harris’s way of fudging a value system when he can’t explain one.

Either way Peterson notion of truth is not based on pragmatism except to say all of us face the need to act in the world

So you didn't listen to the podcast, and therefore have no idea of the stupid things peterson claimed in it.

I'll give you an example - "if it doesn't serve life, it isn't true". This warped definition not only allows him to claim things that are true as "not truth", it also allows him to claim things that are not true, as truth.

For example: the knowledge that built the atomic bombs dropped on hiroshima and nagasaki wasn't "true" in the sense that it didn't serve life. But if it wasn't true, then how did they build the bombs?

Personally I think it's a waste of time to try and change the definition of a word like this - just invent a new word. But he can't do that because then he can't claim christianity is "true enough".

 

[yebiga]

So you didn't listen to the podcast, and therefore have no idea of the stupid things peterson claimed in it.

I'll give you an example - "if it doesn't serve life, it isn't true". This warped definition not only allows him to claim things that are true as "not truth", it also allows him to claim things that are not true, as truth.

For example: the knowledge that built the atomic bombs dropped on hiroshima and nagasaki wasn't "true" in the sense that it didn't serve life. But if it wasn't true, then how did they build the bombs?

Personally I think it's a waste of time to try and change the definition of a word like this - just invent a new word. But he can't do that because then he can't claim christianity is "true enough".

Whilst, I have read his books, watched most of his lectures - I am not familiar with this particular podcast you reference.

However, Peterson's thoughts are arranged on a very solid foundation and once you understand that foundation - the way he explains reality it is pretty easy to follow. Not wanting to be a smarty but I expect you are getting something confused.

So the quote "ïf it doesn't serve life, it isn't true" would have to be related to our values - "true values" which are fundamentally based on the promotion of human life - hardly a controversial belief. But I can assure you "True" here doesn't mean as we commonly use it - as real or not real. Surely, you don't believe he thinks Hiroshima isn't real - you are certainly misinterpreting this.

We both know Peterson believes in the existence of Malevolence. Often he speaks of a moral battle between good and evil - this is one area I do not agree with him. Nevertheless, I expect he would explain hiroshima and nagasaki as manifestations of malevolence - evil eclipsing good.

Further, you over state his Christianity. It is not clear exactly he is Christian at all. All he is doing with the bible is extracting those stories as powerful archetypes and asserting that as they are so old and persistent that there is some thing deeply true in them. He does do the same with Pagan, Bhuddist and some Hindu stories. He in fact apologises that he is not as familiar with these other cultures and their stories as he should be.

 

[Frank Bunn]

So you didn't listen to the podcast, and therefore have no idea of the stupid things peterson claimed in it.

I'll give you an example - "if it doesn't serve life, it isn't true". This warped definition not only allows him to claim things that are true as "not truth", it also allows him to claim things that are not true, as truth.

For example: the knowledge that built the atomic bombs dropped on hiroshima and nagasaki wasn't "true" in the sense that it didn't serve life. But if it wasn't true, then how did they build the bombs?

Personally I think it's a waste of time to try and change the definition of a word like this - just invent a new word. But he can't do that because then he can't claim christianity is "true enough".

Your argument is based on misquoting and misrepresenting Peterson. Here's the transcript of the discussion with Harris.

www.scribd.com/document/337709796/Sam-Harris-Jordan-B-Peterson-What-is-Truth-Transcript

 

[Frank Bunn]

For example: the knowledge that built the atomic bombs dropped on hiroshima and nagasaki wasn't "true" in the sense that it didn't serve life. But if it wasn't true, then how did they build the bombs?
.

Here's the actual quote. Complete nonsense to suggest he was claiming a falsehood in how they built hydrogen bombs.

let's look at the results, let's look at the hydrogen bomb, if you want a piece of evidence that our theories about the sub atomic structure of reality are accurate, you don't really have to look much farther than a hydrogen bomb, it's a pretty damn potent demonstration. And so then I was thinking well imagine for a moment that the invention of the hydrogen bomb did lead to the outcome which we were all so terrified about during the Cold War, which would have been, for the sake of argument, either the total elimination of human life or perhaps the total elimination of life. Now the latter possibility is quite unlikely, but the former one certainly wasn’t beyond comprehension. So then I would say that the proposition that the universe is best conceptualized as subatomic particles was true enough to generate a hydrogen bomb but it wasn’t true enough to stop everyone from dying, and therefore from a Darwinian perspective it was an insufficient pragmatic proposition. And was therefore in some fundamental sense wrong, and perhaps it was wrong because of what it left out. You know, maybe it's wrong in the Darwinian sense to reduce the complexity of being toa material substrate, and forget about the surrounding context.​

 

[Substance]

Here's the actual quote. Complete nonsense to suggest he was claiming a falsehood in how they built hydrogen bombs.

let's look at the results, let's look at the hydrogen bomb, if you want a piece of evidence that our theories about the sub atomic structure of reality are accurate, you don't really have to look much farther than a hydrogen bomb, it's a pretty damn potent demonstration. And so then I was thinking well imagine for a moment that the invention of the hydrogen bomb did lead to the outcome which we were all so terrified about during the Cold War, which would have been, for the sake of argument, either the total elimination of human life or perhaps the total elimination of life. Now the latter possibility is quite unlikely, but the former one certainly wasn’t beyond comprehension. So then I would say that the proposition that the universe is best conceptualized as subatomic particles was true enough to generate a hydrogen bomb but it wasn’t true enough to stop everyone from dying, and therefore from a Darwinian perspective it was an insufficient pragmatic proposition. And was therefore in some fundamental sense wrong, and perhaps it was wrong because of what it left out. You know, maybe it's wrong in the Darwinian sense to reduce the complexity of being toa material substrate, and forget about the surrounding context.​

Yeah I wasn't quoting peterson. If you listen to what sam harris said in the podcast it was his point I was referring to, and peterson would not concede that his definition leads to a contradiction.

I'm not going to bother argue this anymore, we are clearly using different definitions. It's rejecting the dictionary definition in order to get away with irrational beliefs.

 

[ShanDog]

Yeah I wasn't quoting peterson. If you listen to what sam harris said in the podcast it was his point I was referring to, and peterson would not concede that his definition leads to a contradiction.

I'm not going to bother argue this anymore, we are clearly using different definitions. It's rejecting the dictionary definition in order to get away with irrational beliefs.

No dictionary can accurately describe or constrain a definition for something as complex as truth.

 

[Frank Bunn]

So you didn't listen to the podcast, and therefore have no idea of the stupid things peterson claimed in it.

I'll give you an example - "if it doesn't serve life, it isn't true". This warped definition not only allows him to claim things that are true as "not truth", it also allows him to claim things that are not true, as truth.

For example: the knowledge that built the atomic bombs dropped on hiroshima and nagasaki wasn't "true" in the sense that it didn't serve life. But if it wasn't true, then how did they build the bombs?

Personally I think it's a waste of time to try and change the definition of a word like this - just invent a new word. But he can't do that because then he can't claim christianity is "true enough".

Another relevant part of the discussion

Harris: No, but again, I just don't see how that could be relevant. That is a separate claim which is intelligible to me and it's perfectly worth talking about, in fact it's essential to talk about because there's an infinite number of things we could be paying attention to, and some will get us killed.Peterson: That’s it, that’s it, there we go, that’s part of the problem. So why are we paying attention to the things that we're paying attention to?​

​

Harris: Great​

​

Peterson: And that puts you in the moral domain immediately.​

​

Harris: Exactly, but​

​

Peterson: One other question is: why do scientists choose to study the things that they study? And then you might say “well because it attracts their interest.” And then you might say why? And I would say uh-oh, now you're back in the dimension of the morality that surrounds science.​

 

[fleabitten]

No protesters at all. Very disappointing effort from Melbourne's sjw community

 

[Frank Bunn]

Yeah I wasn't quoting peterson. If you listen to what sam harris said in the podcast it was his point I was referring to, and peterson would not concede that his definition leads to a contradiction.

I'm not going to bother argue this anymore, we are clearly using different definitions. It's rejecting the dictionary definition in order to get away with irrational beliefs.

A lot of philosophy comes down to discussions of definitions and meaning.

What irrational beliefs do you think Peterson is getting away with?

 

[Substance]

No dictionary can accurately describe or constrain a definition for something as complex as truth.

Truth describes reality. If you want to talk about something more complex, make a new word. This "true enough" stuff I don't like because I refuse the budge on the definition - just like harris.

I should state that I don't dislike JP, I just don't see why he uses the dictionary definition of truth for 95% of his life, but when it comes to defending things you cannot say are true in the empirical sense, then he switches to his definition. I've seen him do this on podcasts as well. Just frustrating to watch from my PoV.

 

[fleabitten]

Crowd is about 35-40% female and racially diverse. Maybe the protesters saw that was the case and went home to think about their lives.