Some links and lot of quotes about Jordan Peterson who seems to be everywhere.
My interest is in how cults develop and what causes one brain to believe one thing is true while another brain thinks it's false.
Not long ago, he was an obscure psychology professor.
Now he leads a flock of die-hard disciples.
(A good starting point if you don't know anything about him.)
It can be tough to parse the Peterson phenomenon. For one thing, it seems as if there are multiple Petersons, each appealing to, or in some cases alienating, separate audiences. There is the pugnacious Peterson, a clench-jawed crusader against what he sees as an authoritarian movement masquerading as social-justice activism. That Peterson appears on TV, including on Fox & Friends, President Trump's preferred morning show, arguing that the left is primarily responsible for increased polarization. That Peterson contends that ideologically corrupt humanities and social-science programs should be starved of students and replaced by something like a Great Books curriculum.
There's also the avuncular Peterson, the one who dispenses self-help lessons aimed at aimless young people, and to that end has written a new book of encouragement and admonition, 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos (Random House Canada). The book isn't political, at least not overtly, and it grew out of his hobby of answering personal questions posted by strangers on the internet. That Peterson runs a website on "self-authoring" that promises to help those with a few spare hours and $14.95 discover their true selves.
Then there's the actual Peterson, a guy who Ping-Pongs between exuberance and exhaustion, a grandfather who is loathed and loved by a public that, until very recently, had almost entirely ignored him. Now he has more than a half-million YouTube subscribers, nearly 300,000 Twitter followers, and several thousand die-hard disciples who send him money, to the tune of $60,000 per month.
... In the video that made Jordan Peterson famous, he can be seen sparring with a handful of transgender students about the use of pronouns. He is nattily attired in a white dress shirt with rolled-up sleeves and dark red suspenders. Several supporters, all of them male, stand behind Peterson, amplifying his points. A transgender student accuses Peterson of being their enemy for refusing to use gender-neutral pronouns. "I don't believe using your pronouns will do you any good in the long run," he says. "I believe it's quite the contrary." When another student asks what gives him the authority to determine which pronouns he uses when referring to someone else, Peterson spins to face that person.
"Why do I have the authority to determine what I say?" Peterson replies, his voice brimming with outrage, his fingers pressed to his own chest. "What kind of question is that?"
... To understand Peterson's worldview, you have to see the connection between his opposition to gender-neutral pronouns and his obsession with the Soviet Union. He believes that the insistence on the use of gender-neutral pronouns is rooted in postmodernism, which he sees as thinly disguised Marxism. The imposition of Marxism led to the state-sponsored slaughter of millions. For Peterson, then, the mandated use of gender-neutral pronouns isn't just a case of political correctness run amok. It's much more serious than that. When he refers to the "murderous ideology" of postmodernism, he means it literally.
An introductory video (by someone calling himself Cult of Dusty) that explains why Jordan Peterson is just a modern day televangelist.
In case your have doubts about other people's analysis of Peterson, check out this 21 minute video of snippets from his his own videos. Very good, although the clips are obviously selected to show his worse moments. If you encounter a true Jordan Peterson convert, this is the first link you should point them to.
"scientific truth is nested inside moral truth and moral truth is the final adjudicator"Also there is some interesting back and forth starting at the 1:54:39 minute mark. Harris postulates a scenario where his wife is cheating on him and he kills himself and says:
(and by "moral truth" he means survival in the Darwinian sense)
"you have to grant one thing; you cannot remove the one piece:"For Sam Harris' analysis of the interview see his notes at, Speaking of "Truth" with Jordan B. Peterson
"because you killed yourself it's not true that she was having an affair" (and that is followed by a long silence from Peterson)
But the place at which Peterson and I got stuck was a strange one.
He seemed to be claiming that any belief system compatible with
our survival must be true, and any that gets us killed must be false.
...
Peterson's peculiar form of pragmatism, anchored to the lone value
of survival, can't capture what we mean by "truth"
(or even what most pragmatists mean by it).
An open discussion on Quora.com with some nice analysis.
Some good comments trying to explain Peterson's position but I still cannot understand it. Here's one summary:
Peterson proposes that scientific truth is "nested within a [Darwinian] moral framework", which implies that there may exist facts which are true, but are "not true enough" since they've proven adversarial to survival.
Sam Harris opposes this dependency and insists that scientific truth is not concerned with morality in any way. Of course, the practice of scientific exploration should be bound by ethical considerations, but the discoveries of science exist outside of any moral context.
Also on quora.com a discussion What are Dr. Jordan Peterson's religious beliefs?
In the end, it is much more accurate to simply label him an agnostic. Granted, an agnostic that sees value in the utility of religion, due to a deep understanding of the mystical/quasi-gnostic/psychological ideas that religion has hidden in it. But still, roughly speaking, an agnostic at the end of the day.
Peterson believes in an objective morality rooted in Jungian archetypes. He believes in modes of being played out through the course of human evolution. Modes of being that have contributed to successful societies win, those that don’t fail. We see these archetypes played out in movies today. He is also big on the dominance hierarchy.
A defense of Jordan Peterson by Paul McKeever, leader of the Freedom Party of Ontario and advocate of laissez-faire capitalism. There are transcriptions of some relevant parts of the conversation.
The essence of the explicit disagreement between Harris and Peterson
concerned the issue of whether the truth or falsity of an idea
depends upon the moral value (e.g., good or evil) of the idea. On
Harris' view, an idea is true if it corresponds to the facts of
reality, and the moral goodness or evil of the idea has no bearing
on its truth or falsity: the good is a species of the true. On
Peterson's view, an idea is true only if it is morally good:
the true is a species of the good.
...
On Peterson's stated theory of truth, an idea can be thought
to be true (or false) at a "micro" or "proximal" level -
e.g., at the level of a scientific experiment, or at some other
level that does not take the morality of the idea into account -
yet actually be false (or true) at a "macro" or "distal" level
that includes a consideration of whether the idea is pro-survival
or anti-survival (i.e., good or evil).
McKeever finds fault with Sam Harris but I think it is Jordan Peterson who was unreasonable and couldn't defend his own viewpoint.
An examination by A.J. Drenth of some of the philosophical and psychological propensities of Harris and Peterson in trying to understand why they disagree. (May be paywalled.)
If we think of Harris as a philosopher-scientist, Peterson is more
like a philosopher-storyteller. A self-described existentialist
and pragmatist, Peterson rarely uses formal logic and is far less
structured and systematic in his approach than is Harris. Taken
as a whole, I think we can safely locate Peterson on the opposite
side of the philosophical aisle, namely, within what is commonly
known as the continental school of philosophy
...
Continentalists often criticize analytic philosophers for their
relative inattention to epistemology (i.e., how we go about knowing
things), their disregard for the historical-cultural context in which
their work is nested, and their avoidance of topics that matter most
to human beings (e.g., existential issues). Analytic philosophers,
in turn, are inclined to see continentalists as vague, speculative,
and lacking methodological rigor, as well as contributing little
of real substance to the advancement of knowledge.
...
On the whole, NTJ personality types, such as Harris, are more
structured and systematic in their thought, often drawn to objective
methods and more formal types of logic. They can thus be associated
with science and analytic philosophy, even if only for the way they
approach and think about philosophical problems.
NTP types, like Peterson, are typically drawn to metaphysical
thinking, meaning-centered philosophies (including religion),
history, existentialism, and other forms of continental
philosophy. Rather than seeing things through a mechanistic lens,
many prefer philosophies that engender a sense of mystery toward life
and humanity. While NTJs are well-described as knowledge-oriented,
NTPs are generally more concerned with existential issues, things
such as meaning and wisdom. They are also more comfortable allowing
certain truths to remain implicit, as doing so preserves the sense
of mystery and potentiality they value.
Who Peterson is, and the important truths he reveals about our current political moment.
Long article but good summary by Zack Beauchamp in vox.com. Here are some selected quotes that I think highlight the important points.
His reactionary politics and talents as a public speaker combine to
be a perfect fit for YouTube and the right-wing media, where videos
of conservatives "destroying" weak-minded liberals routinely go
viral. Peterson's denunciations of identity politics and political
correctness are standard-issue conservative, but his academic
credentials make his pronouncements feel much more authoritative
than your replacement-level Fox News commentator.
...
Peterson is also particularly appealing to disaffected young
men. He's become a lifestyle guru for men and boys who feel
displaced by a world where white male privilege is under attack;
his new best-selling book, 12 Rules for Life, is explicitly pitched
as a self-help manual, and he speaks emotionally of the impact his
work has had on anxious, lost young men.
...
At base, he argues that that Soviet-style communism, and all the
mass murder and suffering it created, is still a serious threat to
Western civilization. But rather than working openly, it seeps into
our politics under the guise of "postmodernism."
...
But this work, respected as it may be, has little to do with
Peterson's fame. His most influential research was published
in the late '90s and early to mid-2000s; of his 20 most cited
papers, only one came out after 2010. By contrast, his international
celebrity - as measured by worldwide Google searches for "Jordan
Peterson" - didn't start to rise until October 2016:
What happened in the fall of 2016 is that Peterson inserted himself
into a national Canadian debate over transgender rights - specifically
by refusing to refer to a student by their chosen gender pronouns.
...
"I shouldn't say this, but I'm going to, because it's just
so goddamn funny I can't help but say it: I've figured out how
to monetize social justice warriors," Peterson told the podcast
host Joe Rogan. "If they let me speak, then I get to speak,
and then I make more money on Patreon ... if they protest me,
then that goes up on YouTube, and my Patreon account goes WAY up."
...
Peterson's stellar academic credentials act as a sort of
legitimizing device, a way of setting up his authority on politics
and making his denunciations of "leftist ideologues" more
credible and attractive to his fans. Combine his undeniable talents
as a public speaker and debater with his ability to use YouTube to
reach audiences around the world and you get a right-wing celebrity
who has transcended Canada and become a global reactionary star.
...
He argues that these philosophers, famous for their skepticism about
objective reality and emphasis on the social construction of human
society, were actually crypto-Marxists. The difference is that they
change the language - instead of arguing that society is defined
by class oppression, Peterson says, they argue that it's defined by
identity oppression: racism, sexism, gender identity, and the like.
... Actual experts on postmodernism note that the thinkers Peterson
likes to cite were often quite critical of Marxism.
...
Perhaps more fundamentally, there is no evidence that 20th-century
French thinkers have a dominant influence on any sector of the left
in contemporary Western politics, let alone society as a whole.
...
But Peterson has inextricably intertwined his self-help approach with
a kind of reactionary politics that validates white, straight, and
cisgender men at the expense of everyone else. He gives them a sense
of purpose by, in part, tearing other people down - by insisting
that the world can and should revolve around them and their problems.
Epic takedown of Peterson in the guise of a book review by Pankaj Mishra in The New York Review of Books.
It upset Peterson a lot (perhaps with some good reason?)
I don't want to pay $5 per month to ask Dr. Peterson a question, so here it is:
You got very angry at what Pankaj Mishra said in The New York Review of Books and many transsexuals are very angry at you for some of your comments. Why do people get angry over words? The late great cognitive psychologist Albert Ellis use to say, why should other people behave the way you want them to rather than the way they want. Isn't it irrational to expect otherwise?