Society/Culture Jordan B Peterson

[yebiga]

While I don't agree with everything you're saying, I appreciate your thoughtful responses yebiga at some point I will give you a more detailed reply specifically on post-modernism.

To me this part of your post highlights one of many problems with Peterson's timeline and theory of post-modernism, in that he places far too much emphasis on post-modernism and the New Left as the source of feminism, gay rights, immigration and so on. He ignores the far more significant role of post war liberal institutions and a legalistic human rights discourse in 'progressive' change in the West. Article 2 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was in place from 1948. To say condemn all government intervention in social relations as tyranny means disavowing much of the liberal conception of human rights.

I think you would find Peterson entirely agreeing with that charter - as it is quintessential enlightenment thought concerning universal rights.

 

[Snake_Baker]

His misinterpretation of what postmodernist forms of Marxism look like is not minor.

Peterson claims that they are interested in totalitarian when they are actually arguing for something that in many ways is indistinguishable from anarchism. The mischaracterisation could not be more fundamentally wrong.

He is right to criticise authoritarian collectivism, but you will find that there is more drive towards such a politics in the mainstream political parties in Australia than there is in the works of postmodern Marxists.

Hey, you can argue the fine print all you like, it doesn't matter to me.

His overall premise regarding social and academic fraud is bang on the money.

 

[smokingjacket]

I think you would find Peterson entirely agreeing with that charter - as it is quintessential enlightenment thought concerning universal rights.

Yes, saying you believe in universal human rights is easy. The problem is achieving those rights for historically marginalised groups. Peterson has often had trouble defining a clear position on state coercion to redress rights imbalances.

 

[Seeds]

Entrepreneurs are known for innovation in applying ideas into action in the material world....In that respect they are certainly at the cutting-edge of the Capitalist ethos.

I'd of thought the inventors of things to be more the actual thinkers.....Entrepreneurs certainly have 'vision' about how to put new ideas & inventions to best use.

We would certainly refer to the likes of Galileo, Aristotle, Plato, Nietzsche, Jung, Newton & Locke as thinkers in the purist sense.....Buffet, Gates & Zuckerberg however?.....I'm not so sure.

I reckon Chomsky still reigns supreme in the contemporary world as the quintessential 'thinker'....His notion of manufactured consent, perfectly encapsulates our commercialised contemporary Capitalist world.....Orwell would be another modern I'd have right up there along-sides of him....And for good reason, when you see his Distopian novel 1984, come to fruition on so many levels.

The only place 1984 is playing out is in China.

He got it completely wrong in the West. Some would argue in the west we have gone too far the other way.

 

[Seeds]

Yes, saying you believe in universal human rights is easy. The problem is achieving those rights for historically marginalised groups. Peterson has often had trouble defining a clear position on state coercion to redress rights imbalances.

If you need a state to coerce something then it shouldnt be a universal right. States are only needed to protect universal rights not to artificially create them. If it needs to be created then it cant be universal.

 

[Procrastinator35]

The only place 1984 is playing out is in China.

He got it completely wrong in the West. Some would argue in the west we have gone too far the other way.

Careful Seeds....Your TV set is watching you....As too your computer & your mobile phone.

But Shhhhhh…..It's a secret.

 

[smokingjacket]

If you need a state to coerce something then it shouldnt be a universal right. States are only needed to protect universal rights not to artificially create them. If it needs to be created then it cant be universal.

Protect by what? The law? That's a form of coercion too.

 

[Seeds]

Careful Seeds....Your TV set is watching you....As too your computer & your mobile phone.

But Shhhhhh…..It's a secret.

Yeah but its not the government doing it. Its private companies who want to figure out how to better sell advertising to me which im free to dismiss.

In China its the government spying on you through technology and giving you social scores based on what you and even your family members do.

Which one sounds like 1984?

 

[Seeds]

Protect by what? The law? That's a form of coercion too.

Not if the law is only about intervening when you infringe on others universal rights. This is actually how we can define universal rights. Something you can do if you dont need to infringe on others in the act of doing it.

 

[Procrastinator35]

Yeah but its not the government doing it. Its private companies who want to figure out how to better sell advertising to me which im free to dismiss.

In China its the government spying on you through technology and giving you social scores based on what you and even your family members do.

Which one sounds like 1984?

LOL....All your 'stuff' on these devices can be accessed by ASIO dude....You're only kidding yourself with this.

The NSA has a record of every sms, e-mail, phone call, down-load, up-load in the U.S....You name it.....On file.

If you're on face-book, twitter or any other social media, then say hello to the deep-state directly.

Any site on the internet you visit, they know about.....Welcome to the world Seeds.

 

[Seeds]

LOL....All your 'stuff' on these devices can be accessed by ASIO dude....You're only kidding yourself with this.

The NSA has a record of every sms, e-mail, phone call, down-load, up-load in the U.S....You name it.....On file.

If you're on face-book, twitter or any other social media, then say hello to the deep-state directly.

Any site on the internet you visit, they know about.....Welcome to the world Seeds.

And does it influence me in any way? No one from the government is reading or listening to as long as I dont try and blow people up in a terrorist attack so it effectively does not exist.

In china it greatly influences my life and in negative ways. Yet you defend China.

 

[Procrastinator35]

And does it influence me in any way? No one from the government is reading or listening to as long as I dont try and blow people up in a terrorist attack so it effectively does not exist.

In china it greatly influences my life and in negative ways. Yet you defend China.

You're losing sight of the point Seeds....The Orwellian dystopia of 24/7 surveillance & coverage is for all intents & purposes already here.....In 1984 it was forbidden to people to turn of their tv's....It was a thought-crime to stray from the hive-mind.

Our homogenised contemporary MSM in the West has become just such a hive-mind.....The power of TV to brainwash people is well known.

 

[smokingjacket]

Not if the law is only about intervening when you infringe on others universal rights. This is actually how we can define universal rights. Something you can do if you dont need to infringe on others in the act of doing it.

Who is "you?" There are cultural reasons for rights imbalances and the government has to coerce certain groups to comply with non-discriminatory policies to achieve universal rights.

 

[yebiga]

Yes, saying you believe in universal human rights is easy. The problem is achieving those rights for historically marginalised groups. Peterson has often had trouble defining a clear position on state coercion to redress rights imbalances.

You’ve just made that up out of thin air. If anything his had a perfectly clear definition in line entirely with enlightenment values.

 

[yebiga]

Who is "you?" There are cultural reasons for rights imbalances and the government has to coerce certain groups to comply with non-discriminatory policies to achieve universal rights.

It is equally true that Governments are Infact coerced
By certain groups to comply with those groups non discriminatory fantasies.

 

[smokingjacket]

You’ve just made that up out of thin air. If anything his had a perfectly clear definition in line entirely with enlightenment values.

Look, I'm not exactly a scholar of his works but I've seen a number of his interviews where he becomes increasingly vague around whether it's ok for a government to redress human rights imbalances. Civil rights for example required intervention from the government. To have equal opportunity for all classes in certain situation requires intervention from the government and Peterson at some points says this is ok and at others says it's bad.

 

[ShanDog]

Look, I'm not exactly a scholar of his works but I've seen a number of his interviews where he becomes increasingly vague around whether it's ok for a government to redress human rights imbalances. Civil rights for example required intervention from the government. To have equal opportunity for all classes in certain situation requires intervention from the government and Peterson at some points says this is ok and at others says it's bad.

Where has he said it's ok? I can't think of one off the top of my head. This is a very interesting and perinent discussion though, and it's why Peterson argues the narrative for too long has been about rights and not its equally important and necessary opposite - responsibilities. It's pretty much the crux of his public talks. Everything else is an addendum to that.

 

[RobbieK]

Hey, you can argue the fine print all you like, it doesn't matter to me.

His overall premise regarding social and academic fraud is bang on the money.

Argue the fine print?

His overall premise regarding "social and academic fraud" is that a particular group is responsible for it, these postmodern Marxists are the "reds under the bed", threatening to undermine the foundarions of western society.

But the views he attributes to that group are not ones they hold, they are in many ways diametrically opposed to the ones they hold.

How is this not important?

If there is academic fraud occuring it is Peterson's own misinterpretation of a bunch of philosophers who he has apparently not read.

 

[ShanDog]

Argue the fine print?

His overall premise regarding "social and academic fraud" is that a particular group is responsible for it, these postmodern Marxists are the "reds under the bed", threatening to undermine the foundarions of western society.

But the views he attributes to that group are not ones they hold, they are in many ways diametrically opposed to the ones they hold.

How is this not important?

If there is academic fraud occuring it is Peterson's own misinterpretation of a bunch of philosophers who he has apparently not read.

Have you been following the "Sokal Squared" hoax that has just happened? That is exactly what Peterson is talking about and he's 100% right that it's a problem. I think he exaggerates just how much, but that might be because it's a localised issue to North America and out of our visibility here.

 

[yebiga]

If you are genuinely interested and not quite understanding what he is on about - the Peterson / Harris videos 1-4 from Vancouver Dublin and I believe London - are well worth your time.

They reconceptualise the issue of
we’re our culture is very well. Peterson is certainly no bogeyman. And Harris is a gem - a consistent gem of what left should be in its purist form.

 

[RobbieK]

Isn't this the most powerful part of Peterson's criticism of utopian thinking, that the human psyche resists autonomy? That hierarchical structures are in fact favoured by many people because it gives them a sense of place in the world (the whole order/chaos + lobster thing). And that on the other side of the coin, that there are authoritarians that will take advantage of power vacuums.

Sure, high functioning autistic types of the academy are thinking of ways they can build successful and fully self-actualised communities of free people, but they don't actually build them. All non-religious communes fail, all utopian states collapse into dystopia.

Eg Peoples Temple - a weird utopian cult that was the synthesis of communism and Christianity. Jim Jones was a Marxist who thought he'd infiltrate a cultural institution (the church) to create the perfect utopian Marxist society. And he almost succeeded down in Guyana!

This relates to the other side of the argument, the Talebian argument, that these people have no skin in the game. Academics have a view on how society should operate, but they have no relation to the guts of how society operates - they don't even do simple things like open businesses or engage in any kind of skilled craft. It is all theory. No true understanding how to manipulate the physical world or deal with actual human relations. The theory amounts to "wouldn't it be nice if ..."

Etiene de la Boétie was writing about our tendency towards "voluntary servitude" in the 1500s. This isn't a new concept either.

It has had plenty of influence on anarchist thought over he last few hundred years. The takeaway is not that hierarchy and domination are necessary or desirable, but rather that they rest on our willingness to accept them. Their rejection also needs to be willing. Utopian thinking that rests upon coercion is doomed to replicate the hierarchical and dominating structures of the systems it seeks to overthrow.

It is easy to make glib comments about ivory towers, and some academics certainly choose to reside outside of society to do their work, but most of the key figures within this trajectory of political thought were engaged in real political movements and activities, a bunch even ended up in prison because of it.

Much of this activity happens on the micro political level. Necessarily so, in order to create communities of members willing to reject hierarchical societal structures you need to start with small groups, limited in space and/or time (see Temporary Autonomous Zones for example).

That utopias fail or have limited potential for success is no reason to abandon utopian thinking. The main trajectory of thinking within postmodern Marxism and post modern anarchist philosophy (and there are strongly related, moremrelated thab they have been before, just as the anarchists were key figures in the communist movement in the late 19th century until the split after the first international) is not revolutionary but rather insurrectionary - rather than desiring to take control of the mechanisms of power within the economy or the state by overthrowing those who currently hold that power they are exploring the ways in which the productive power of individuals, and individuals working together in non-hierarchical cooperation, can create new ways of doing things.

Peterson is right to criticise those who would seek to impose a "utopian" society using authoritarian means. That is doomed to fail in the tragically bloody ways we have seen it do in the 20th century. He is wrong to suggest that the postmodern philosophers and political theorists who have picked up and continued the critique of capitalism and society from Marx are arguing for this, that they are trying to smuggle in Stalinism via identity politics or political correctness. Its just not an accurate reflection of their work at all. Their work is in many ways a direct response and disavowal to the authoritarian utopian disasters of the 20th century.

 

[its free real estate]

Etiene de la Boétie was writing about our tendency towards "voluntary servitude" in the 1500s. This isn't a new concept either.

It has had plenty of influence on anarchist thought over he last few hundred years. The takeaway is not that hierarchy and domination are necessary or desirable, but rather that they rest on our willingness to accept them. Their rejection also needs to be willing. Utopian thinking that rests upon coercion is doomed to replicate the hierarchical and dominating structures of the systems it seeks to overthrow.

It is easy to make glib comments about ivory towers, and some academics certainly choose to reside outside of society to do their work, but most of the key figures within this trajectory of political thought were engaged in real political movements and activities, a bunch even ended up in prison because of it.

Much of this activity happens on the micro political level. Necessarily so, in order to create communities of members willing to reject hierarchical societal structures you need to start with small groups, limited in space and/or time (see Temporary Autonomous Zones for example).

That utopias fail or have limited potential for success is no reason to abandon utopian thinking. The main trajectory of thinking within postmodern Marxism and post modern anarchist philosophy (and there are strongly related, moremrelated thab they have been before, just as the anarchists were key figures in the communist movement in the late 19th century until the split after the first international) is not revolutionary but rather insurrectionary - rather than desiring to take control of the mechanisms of power within the economy or the state by overthrowing those who currently hold that power they are exploring the ways in which the productive power of individuals, and individuals working together in non-hierarchical cooperation, can create new ways of doing things.

Peterson is right to criticise those who would seek to impose a "utopian" society using authoritarian means. That is doomed to fail in the tragically bloody ways we have seen it do in the 20th century. He is wrong to suggest that the postmodern philosophers and political theorists who have picked up and continued the critique of capitalism and society from Marx are arguing for this, that they are trying to smuggle in Stalinism via identity politics or political correctness. Its just not an accurate reflection of their work at all. Their work is in many ways a direct response and disavowal to the authoritarian utopian disasters of the 20th century.

I think that utopias fail is a great reason to abandon utopian thinking. If your experiment to test the theory fails, and fails catastrophically on multiple occasions, then your theory is wrong.

 

[RobbieK]

Have you been following the "Sokal Squared" hoax that has just happened? That is exactly what Peterson is talking about and he's 100% right that it's a problem. I think he exaggerates just how much, but that might be because it's a localised issue to North America and out of our visibility here.

Some academic research seems useless. Some seems silly. Sometimes the things that seem useless and silly and one point in time end up being very important later on, often in unintended ways. Sometimes they remain useless and silly. This is true in the hard sciences as well as in philosophy or the humanities. The beauty of the university as an institution historically has been that it has been a place of freedom, for ideas to be explored, without applying metrics like economic benefit, national significance or any other measure of success in terms of direct and measurable "real world" applicability. By offering researchers that freedom we have advanced knowledge in ways that we could never have otherwise dreeamed of.

I really don't think you can extrapolate a whole lot about academia from the Social Squared papers. They say more about the broken academic publishing system than they do about academia. The kind of "cultural theory" these academics sought to spoof is not representative of much beyond itself, it doesn't tell you anything about the seriousness or legitimacy of the work postmodern Marxists theorists are doing in the fields of politics and economics. There is a lot of interesting work going on that has significantly more real world value, that is engaged with real world practice in alternate ways of living together, than a paper on rape culture manifested in the dog park.

 

[RobbieK]

I think that utopias fail is a great reason to abandon utopian thinking. If your experiment to test the theory fails, and fails catastrophically on multiple occasions, then your theory is wrong.

Which is why postmodern Marxists theory looks nothing like the utopian theories within political philosophy from the 19th and early 20th century (with the exception of anarchist theory, which was criticising the authoritarian tendency within communist thought from the beginning).

That authoritarian utopian societies failed in dismal and predictable ways is no reason to stop thinking that we can't do better than what we currently have

 

[its free real estate]

Which is why postmodern Marxists theory looks nothing like the utopian theories within political philosophy from the 19th and early 20th century (with the exception of anarchist theory, which was criticising the authoritarian tendency within communist thought from the beginning).

That authoritarian utopian societies failed in dismal and predictable ways is no reason to stop thinking that we can't do better than what we currently have

This is like saying present geocentric + flat earth theories are nothing like pre-Copernican geocentric + flat earth theories.