The Jordan Peterson Thread

I've been musing devoting a thread to this guy for a while but this is motivating me right now. I can't find info on the faculty letter elsewhere but this Peterson quote (verifiable from the embedded video) is something else:

I have absolutely no regrets about going after the postmodern neo-Marxists as hard as I possibly can and I am certainly not done doing so. So, one of the thing that is going to happen, for example, in the next month or so, I have been working with a programmer who has volunteered his services and has already produced this, he has produced a website that enables people to enter text that will then classify the text as postmodern or non-postmodern and so you will be able to enter a course descriptions from universities – the course description, the professor’s name, the discipline, and the university. It will tell you the degree to which the description is postmodern and then you can decide for yourself whether you want to take that and become a social justice warrior, if that is what you think your education should be about, or if you should avoid that like the plague that it truly is … I’d like to knock enrollment in the postmodern disciplines down by 75% over the next five years. I think that I am thinking about it from the perspective of nonviolent warfare, it is that serious to me and that this would be equivalent to cutting off the supply chain. It is like the postmodernists need a continual influx of young impressionable minds in order to continue their propagandistic and society devouring efforts and I am going to do absolutely everything I can to cut that supply chain off at the source.”

he linked the FB profiles of some associates of mine on Twitter in order to sicc his awful followers on them.

Standout features, to start (assuming this is not empty bluster, which is likely):
i) the level of entitlement it would take for a clinical psychology professor to decide that he should be able to decide which courses and programmes offered by his employer and which of his colleagues should survive and which should perish; does tenure do this to you?

ii) He would in fact do this, not even by applying his own judgment, but with a text-sorting algorithm that he is confident would be able to determine a course's level of postmodernism by scanning a course description (half of mine are not even written by me fwiw)

iii) postmodern neo-Marxism: is this even a real thing?

xp

he linked the FB profiles of some associates of mine on Twitter in order to sicc his awful followers on them.

Ugh

postmodern neo-Marxism: is this even a real thing

as a budding neo- (or at least contemporary) Marxist I feel I can pretty confidently state: no. He's talking out of his ass and conflating totally separate phenomena, some of which he has completely made up

not even by applying his own judgment, but with a text-sorting algorithm that he is confident would be able to determine a course's level of postmodernism by scanning a course description

he's flattering himself with the word "algorithm", for sure he's just going to come up with a list of offensing keywords and crtl-f

And he throws the ever elusive "skeletons" in there too just to make it clear he has no idea what he's talking about xpost

iii) postmodern neo-Marxism: is this even a real thing?

post-marxism is a thing but peterson just means "cultural marxists" or whatever. usually right-wing buzzword nonsense.

i mean he uses the phrase "postmodern disciplines", he is just thinking of anything apart from STEM here isn't he?

He's talking out of his ass and conflating totally separate phenomena

I don't think intellectual honesty is the goal he's aiming for.

Scholarship is boring and difficult for most people and not well-rewarded. Plunging into political controversy with all guns blazing and taking the side of reactionary conservatism, otoh, is invigorating, doesn't tax one's intellectual ability, and if you catch the eye of talent-scouts for a billionaire-funded right wing think tank, it can be enriching, too.

Re: what he means by "post-modern Neo-Marxism," this Reddit post seems to get at it:

Marxism is a very broad social theory that extends far beyond its implementation in Soviet Russia and Mao’s China. Its core assertion is that whoever controls the means of production (the bourgeoisie in Marx’s writings) controls the ‘knowledge’ in society—the set of social norms, values and cultural conventions. This ‘ideology’ thus comes to be regarded as natural by everyone in society, even though it is only true in the sense that it benefits the bourgeoisie at the expense of the proletariat. Marx called this accepted ideology ‘false consciousness’.
Marxism experienced a revival in the social sciences in the 1960s as a theoretical framework for understanding how structures of power shape the social order. This approach to sociology went hand in hand with other emerging theories that questioned and challenged these relations of power (post-modernism, post-colonialism and post-structuralism in particular).
What Jordan Peterson is criticising, is a neo-marxist evaluation of how our society functions. In particular, people who believe that dominant cultural ideas are products of exploitative and oppressive elites. Which, for SJWs, is the white, cis-gendered, patriarchy.

Full thread here.

Just seeing this title made me retch. Not that we shouldn't talk about him, of course.

I just find it bizarre that he (or people of his ilk) equates "SJWs" (a derisive term for people who are extremely vocal but pretty strictly about issues of representation, mostly in pop-culture stuff) with marxists of any stripe

fwiw, the Athenian, Critias (fl. 5th century B.C.), argued that the gods were the invention of the wealthy and powerful few, solely for the purpose of controlling the masses. So, it's not as if the idea began with Marx.

Ironically, Critias himself was a wealthy reactionary politician from a powerful family, who was the leading man among the Thirty Tryants put in place by the Spartans to rule Athens after the Peloponnesian War. He helped carry out bloody purges of democratic leaders in the city. Probably the kind of guy Jordan would approve of, except by Jordan's definition Critias was practically a neo-Marxist SJW.

I wonder where he locates his own views in relation to postmodernism. They don't seem diametrically opposed. There was an interview where he argued for a pragmatist theory of truth and said that scientific truth is secondary and less important than the pragmatic truth of religion, which has to do with utility/morality/flourishing.

He argues that his views are rooted in biology and evolution — Darwinism, basically — in contrast to what he identifies as the social constructionism of the postmodernists. Though I'm less comfortable tossing these $5 words around than he is.

I like when he talks about religion and art, completely uninterested in his pronoun obsession, and his followers are p vile and pathetic for the most part. i do like listening to him speak though, he's entertaining as a pop philosopher. his obsession with postmodernists and marxists is also a little tiresome (i admittedly don't know much about either in depth, to the level where i could confidently call bullshit or not), but the transgender thing is really fuckin grating.

he's a total dipshit

I was just having a conversation about this with a coworker. It's a shame he has fallen into this b.s. rabbit hole. I like his lectures on Jung, religious archetypes, and "cultural dna." I find some of his arguments about the value of religious principles convincing—and I'm in no way religious. The biggest Peterson fan I know is an atheist, as I think many of his followers are. But this dude has a major chip on his shoulder about this pronoun issue. He's also clearly miffed from getting torn apart on Sam Harris's podcast. It's a bummer that he's so caught up in this shit, and with no end in sight.

Say what you want about Peterson, Sam Harris, and others of their ilk. I think it's a positive thing that these people are getting some attention. I don't remember any prominent philsophers or psychologists getting semi-mainstream attention before. And even if people are hearing these discussions through a Joe Rogan podcast, that's fine by me.

He is not getting attention for his scholarly work in psychology.

I was a fan of his from his appearances on The Agenda, a local current affairs show. And his Maps of Meaning is an interesting take on religious and mythological archetypes, in the Joseph Campbell and Northrop Frye vein. It's been disturbing to watch him elevated as this figurehead of the alt right, though I think it's also a consequence of the general polarization at the moment — he believes the "pronoun" issue (or specifically the vulnerability of our institutions like schools and the law to the machinations of radical leftists, which he sees as little different from Nazis) is a step on the path to the kind of murderous totalitarianism of the Soviet era.

If you mean Steve Paikin's The Agenda on TVO, that has always been good when I've watched it. The debate about gender was a very good and at times illuminating episode imo (although Peterson wasn't the best part of it).

It is pretty lazy and irresponsible to associate Peterson with the alt-right. I know plenty of liberals that follow him, as well as reasonable conservatives. He's getting pegged as alt-right by quite a few blogs now.

Though he isn't helping his cause by embracing Pepe, focusing his ire exclusively on the left, appearing on alt right media like The Rebel. He was on Fox & Friends this afternoon.

It's not lazy, he's embraced that group wholeheartedly. They're the reason 99% of the people who've heard of him have heard of him and they're the reason he can pull in $30k a month with his Patreon.

It is pretty lazy and irresponsible to associate Peterson with the alt-right. I know plenty of liberals that follow him, as well as reasonable conservatives. He's getting pegged as alt-right by quite a few blogs now.

― Benjamin-, Friday, November 10, 2017 2:23 PM (four minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i know arguing with someone like you is a waste of time because you're not ever going to be arguing in good faith, but ...

jordan peterson is directly connected to the rebel, who hosted a crowdfunding campaign for him. he associates with the worst examples of the canadian alt-right, and has intentionally built a profile based on his transphobia which he has monetized.

like when you repeatedly appear getting interviewed by people like prison paul, the leader of the proud boys, you are being quite deliberate about who you want to associate with and why

a quick google confirms he was literally on fox and friends today

Marxism is a very broad social theory that extends far beyond its implementation in Soviet Russia and Mao’s China. Its core assertion is that whoever controls the means of production (the bourgeoisie in Marx’s writings) controls the ‘knowledge’ in society—the set of social norms, values and cultural conventions. This ‘ideology’ thus comes to be regarded as natural by everyone in society, even though it is only true in the sense that it benefits the bourgeoisie at the expense of the proletariat. Marx called this accepted ideology ‘false consciousness’.
Marxism experienced a revival in the social sciences in the 1960s as a theoretical framework for understanding how structures of power shape the social order. This approach to sociology went hand in hand with other emerging theories that questioned and challenged these relations of power (post-modernism, post-colonialism and post-structuralism in particular).
What Jordan Peterson is criticising, is a neo-marxist evaluation of how our society functions. In particular, people who believe that dominant cultural ideas are products of exploitative and oppressive elites. Which, for SJWs, is the white, cis-gendered, patriarchy.

See, the thing is, I'm not actually sure that this is an informed and coherent description of a real intellectual tradition, although, unlike Peterson, I recognize that intellectual history in philosophy and social science is not my area of specialization. (Marxism IS a modern grand narrative, for one thing, while I gather that postmodernism, insofar as I understand it to mean anything, involves some sort of scepticism of grand narratives.) It is more or less what he was saying on Fox and Friends, though, that postmodernism was when Marxism 'turned into' identity politics in the 60s, which seems very, very odd.

I really like the cultural DNA and semiotics discussion and as a non-religious person I find the religious meta-narrative stuff fascinating. I don't know his past but he seems to have gained an audience beyond his students & academia and is pursuing them and catering to them regardless of their belief system/makeup. he's an opportunist. i'm not gonna give him money but the little pop philosophy clips of his lectures on youtube are fun to listen to as someone that's really into semiotics and grand narratives. his postmodern / marxist schtick isn't really any different than what DFW was talking about in Infinite Jest, coping with the loss of God and how we have satisfied that innate religious impulse within all of us through various 'false idols' or dead ends or whatever, whether it's drugs or food or social media or hive mind cliques. I like that he mentions the Gulag Archipelago and Solzhenitsyn in almost every interview he does.

his postmodern / marxist schtick isn't really any different than what DFW was talking about in Infinite Jest, coping with the loss of God and how we have satisfied that innate religious impulse within all of us through various 'false idols' or dead ends or whatever, whether it's drugs or food or social media or hive mind cliques.

I haven't read Infinite Jest but it makes me think more of Obama-era Glenn Beck or a million right-wing conspiracy theorists (see the Rich Higgins memo or a bunch of these, in Canada: Worst National Post Columnist).

Closer to Chomsky than Glenn Beck.

He has a vocabulary, but he's basically a "political correctness sucks, amirite?" troll. Fuck him.

(I try not to make a practice of posting on threads about people I hate/make me mad, but as a Canadian academic, this guy has been an unavoidable nuisance for the last year or so.)

That's where he gets his money, but that's far from all he talks about. To be fair I'm not at all interested in the internecine battles of Canadian academics.

^suggest ban

Perhaps he has a way to tie all this together and I'm just not aware, but yeah, it's really difficult for me to see "marxist post-modernism" as anything but a paradox.

To be fair I'm not at all interested in the internecine battles of Canadian academics.

He is literally talking about using his social media following to go 'as hard as [he] possibly can' after any courses, disciplines, or professors that his computer program judges to be 'postmodern' via a scan of keywords in course descriptions. This isn't about something he said on a tenure review committee.

ftr, Chomsky never tried to prevent students from being exposed to other ideas.

http://www.macleans.ca/opinion/is-jordan-peterson-the-stupid-mans-smart-person/

ha, that's a good one and i loved the distinction between post-modern neo-marxism and cultural marxism.

In the least shocking news ever, Bill Maher is having this asshole on his show next week.

Boring guy nobody pays attention to imo. Maher or Petersen whatever.

Shit, we already had a thread for this fuck?

There’s been months of bullshit about him on the alt-right thread.

Also, fuck this guy,he’s a despicable idiot grifter and a nihilist at heart. I hope his family abandons him and his funeral is a well-oiled procedure conducted by bureaucrats wearing disposable gloves.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vyw3Nl8LbFg

I’m waiting for the revelation that this guy has just been a Christoph Waltz character all along.

Bill Maher’s endless piping on about how he’s some arbiter of anti pc is laughable. Luckily Maher is so dumb that most guests can just shut him down

oh, come in.. I didn't see you out there... in the dark.

welcome... welcome to Lobster Manor... a respite, or perhaps, a trap? I jape, traveler, I jape...

I think if nothing else you will find the accommodations very... clean.

yes... very clean indeed. pic.twitter.com/FrB3B2Ucq6

— lvl45 CHAOS POTUS who thinks 'the pee won't leak' (@thetomzone) April 22, 2018

should I be surprised that every comment on that video is complaining about the woman on the panel for not shutting up and listening to Jordan Peterson

was trying to figure out who he reminded me of

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xYAzjJRZ6HA

Jordan Peterson ‘taking some time off everything’ as daughter reveals mold exposure illness

good luck miasma

xxxpost Tossed Benzos and Scrambled Brains

“Praise GOD that we finally know what’s been going on. The fact that doctors don’t generally recognise that mould exposure in indoor air is causing chronic health issues is insane. The fact that this is the cause behind our food sensitivities and inability to tolerate anything other than meat (for eight years now), multiple disorders and diseases in my family, and is virtually unrecognised by the medical community, is absurd.”

Absurd is the word for this family.

hahahahahaha

the MOLD made us eat only raw meat for eight years!! what a fucking nut

Current pic of JP:

https://news.northeastern.edu/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/LastofUs1400.jpg?resize=1100,733

Encouraging update from his daughter:

Hey, as you know
@jordanbpeterson has been really sick. A lot of people have been asking for updates so here’s one. He’s recovering slowly day by day but I won't lie, it's slow and scary. He won't be back for another few months at least, probably longer. We’re not entirely sure what’s going on but it looks like possibly severe CIRS and a LOT of bad luck. Or we’re getting spiritually attacked. Or both.

To be perfectly honest, I think a lot of this is spiritual. My newborn Audrey almost died of heart failure for no reason in June, dad got sick and came to stay with us in July, then needed a hospital and the same day he went to the hospital by ambulance, my newborn turned blue (again) at home for a different reason not heart related and went a different hospital by ambulance.

Within 3 hours of each other.

It's been one thing after another in an otherworldly type of way.

In the meantime, we'll be going full force with
@petersonacademy
, and keeping his message across his brand alive while he recovers. Not letting demons get in the way of that.

Prayers are MUCH appreciated.

Maybe he should have tried having a normal diet.

Another ilxor had a very dark but plausible theory above that JP gets these illnesses in the wake of other family members becoming ill because, at some level, he cannot stand anyone else to have the spotlight. Perhaps this is also true of babies.

these people are very weird

Oh yeah

He seems to be haunted by the same demon that puts Bolsanaro in the hospital every other week.

Bolsonaro got stabbed in what might have been a staged event (I have no idea, people have just mentioned this to me) at a campaign rally but it actually screwed up his intestines.

I think the commonality is that Peterson has claimed to be living off steak and w/e but Bolso actually is, hence them having to unblock his intestines every so often

could we get bolsonaro, charlie kirk, jordan peterson and donald trump all in the same year? still nearly three months left.

Or we’re getting spiritually attacked. Or both.

Or we’re getting spiritually attacked. Or both.

Or we’re getting spiritually attacked. Or both.

Or we’re getting spiritually attacked. Or both.

Jordan Peterson is not actually sick.

He just gets like vapors and then when he recoverd he goes on a media tour where he tells everyone how he suffers more than everyone else.

I think his daughter is giving Munchausen-by-proxy vibes

That’s what people said when she sent jordan to that russian hospital where they put him in an induced coma. Could be.

xp for real

and the fact that he is a clinical psychologist is icing on the cake. you couldn't make it up

pretty sure his family’s been poisoning him or at the very least gaslighting him for years. the spiritual attacks are coming from all directions

If ever a woman was a dragon of chaos, Mikhaila is one.

its me i have been spiritually attacking the peterson family, just as a goof

Etsy witches

the witches of etsywick

Don’t go messin’ with a
An Etsywick Witch

after the teenage tiktok witches hexed the moon in mid-2020 someone in one of my various TLs grumpily said "so why dont they hex trump now?" and got the reply "trump is protected, the secret service has its own witches" (both jokes? i suppose but you shd see my TLs) (derogatory)

anyway what's playing out here is a checklist finally & belatedly tackled after all the secret service anti-hex witches were unceremoniously doged

does the US Secret Service's witch-jurisdiction extend to the land of the maple leaf though?

JP's previous bout of meat-based daughter-based unwellness was in early 2020 so this is clearly unfinished moon-related hex-business from back then: he is high on the list & targeted for his unacceptable opinions about the moon & how earthicans got there

there's some precedent; https://www.military.com/history/coven-of-witches-fought-nazis-during-world-war-ii.html

"clean your moon" --jordan peterson

Eye of Newt Gingrich...

lmao at "daughter based unwellness"

the best part of the first meat madness bout was that the daughter kind of casually dropped that she was still promoting the meat diet but only did it partially, briefly for herself. this was while she was supposedly still feeding her dad all meat!

between that and the sketchy russian benzo detox trip, I am sure they're just using him as a testing ground

lmao at "meat-based daughter"

kind of interesting if you look up CIRS, it's a chronic inflammation thing that's linked to water-damaged buildings, i.e. illness caused by mold

it also is one of the few diagnoses for those symptoms that has am imputed cause -- the symptoms themselves could be indicative of long covid or, hear me out, eating an all red-meat diet

yeah you gotta wonder how many of his symptoms could be attributed to scurvy

Why does his daughter have so much influence over what he eats and what kind of medical care her gets?

jp is basically a mythological/metaphorical figure living among us is how I break it down

power grab when he was initially sick, iirc

(xps) Because, when out of the spotlight, he appears to be a dribbling basket case?

Professor Rational Misogynist Man of Order ends up deeply disordered, enfeebled, and under the demonic control of his religious wackadoo grifter daughter. it was foreordained

in case you're wondering, her instagram is shilling for some guy's "how to purify yourself from toxic mold" grift

think I see what's happening here

Terrifying

dude goes round claiming that being a psychology PHD makes him a doctor; but his jungian shadow knows he really isn't, and expresses that by repeatedly doing things that real doctors would know are batshit and dangerous.

re the idea of SS witches, it prob isn't that far-fetched if the details in "Men who stare at Goats" is also all true (and afaik it was? I mean the fact it existed, not anyone actually killing goats with their mind).

Bedknobs and Broomsticks is the authoritative account of witches fighting nazis.