Jordan Peterson

Pin said:
I don't really know if I do or don't agree with him on that topic, to tell you the truth. I'm fairly center right when it comes to ideal economic policy. I caucus with the New Democrat coalition. That said, I can't give you a solid answer about what I think about trans pronouns or fourth-wave feminism because I just don't know.

I've seen a few and he's actually well-versed in philosophy but his definition of truth is kind of sus to me. Anyway, you're right that we're approaching Peterson from different angles. I used to be a big fan until I looked at the sum of his views.

Tl;dr: In my opinion, he's right on a few things but not most things.
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Pin how dare you put a tl;dr addressed to me. I read every single word and enjoyed it. I like breadth and depth of thought. You know that!
 
Reason said:
Prepare to be surprised
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Most Americans are not as socially conservative (blatantly racist and sexist) as The GI Generation or The Silent Generation.

You've got your racial supremacists here and there, your religious traditionalists but that's not most people. Most Americans have their biases but I don't think they're prepared to actively bring back segregation or actively seek to kill ethnic, sexual, and gender minorities.

Contraception isn't going anywhere.
Roe v Wade (abortion rights) isn't going anywhere.
The Civil Rights Act isn't going anywhere.
The Voting Rights Act isn't going anywhere.

Conservative politicians talk big game, they'll deliver on economic issues to placate their donors but they're losing the public on social issues.

Gay marriage = Legal
Interracial Marriage = Legal
Abortion = Legal
Women Voting = Legal
Non-Property Owners Voting = Legal
Marijuana = We're working on it.


Historically speaking, the United States is gradually becoming a more socially progressive place with time. That said, it's a slow country to change compared to our more developed neighbors.
 
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I agree with @Pin that he seems really out of his depth when talking about things other than psychology. I liked his lecture series on YouTube but can't really listen to him since he started talking politics.

It's like he gets to that point of extreme duality (i.e. order/chaos) and then stops and advocates a position of moderation rather than transcendence.

I think the argument for transcending the opposites is the sensible one against the SJW types he talks about. That there is no objective reality or there is a transcendent reality seems to be the argument that needs to be had but isn't happening.

I don't think Peterson is the person to make that argument anymore but there was a time when he could have been. I think he got caught up in his own hype and made way too much money from playing it safe and not acknowledging the truth in post-structuralism, even if he went on to say that it is premature and dangerous to legislate and base social movements on such theories.
 
Pin said:
Not in full, but I don't speak with authority on Marxian economics like Peterson does because I hardly understand it. The thing is, it's not just the Labour Theory of Value. It's the concept of commodification, theories of exchange, and so much more. It's really dense literature.

Peterson has less of an understanding of Marx than I have and he chose to debate Slajov Zizek, an actual expert on Marx. Like, really? I would have at least read Das Kapital before debating an expert on Marx.

It's like debating Dr. Seuss without getting past Page 2 of The Cat In The Hat.
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I think phil answered this well:

philostam said:
The title of the debate was Marxism vs Capitalism. I think the idea was that they both speak for one side.

I agree with you that Peterson is weak on such topics (political economy, history etc) but it doesn't bother me one bit.
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Pin said:
@Deleted member 16771

With respect to the Marxist theory of commodity circulation there's MCM circulation. Money > Commodity > Money. Essentially saying that capitalists use their money to sell commodities for even more money. This is Chapter 3 of Das Kapital.

I assure you, Peterson didn't read it because all he had to say is "That's not the way commodities circulate under capitalism." But he didn't.

In Chapter 4, Marx then says that money stops being capital if it's spent on consumer goods rather than to amass more money. Chapters 1 and 2 are where Marx sets the groundwork for understanding The Labor Theory of Value that even Adam Smith subscribed to, why? Because that's just what Classical economists (Adam Smith, David Richardo) thought, even if they're wrong. At least, in my opinion they're wrong.

Peterson is being lazy, foolish, or intellectually dishonest. He can't even critique Marxism right.
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Pin said:
None of us should have to read Das Kapital. It's too long for no reason and there's lots of math in it.
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Lol, it was a slog for me too, but Marxism being misunderstood is par for the course, especially in the United States where a commentator can simply appeal to the crowd.

I agree with you, which is why I asked about Das Kapital - it actually takes a fair bit of work to get around all the angles of Marxian economics, which is why I'm skeptical of critiques of it coming from a man famous for his baseless speculations.

Having said that, the labour theory of value was a nice try, but still a miss. I'm pretty sure that the Amazon rainforest is worth something, &c. &c. ad infinitum.

Pin said:
@Deleted member 16771

Do you subscribe to the concept of feminist theory as it relates to sociology?
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I don't know what 'the concept of feminist theory as it relates to sociology is'; could you be a bit more specific?


Pin said:
He's great with respect to psychology but outside of that, I'm very critical of what he has to say on almost every other subject.

I think he's become a grifter now; it profits him to have a centre-right perspective. He'd lose the supporters he's amassed if he actually started to subscribe to Marxism, for example.

I don't expect him to change his opinion because he's got a lot of money invested in not changing.
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I don't know why people keep saying that 'he's great with respect to psychology'. He isn't. He has valid perspectives, but again they're practically all speculations. This is why in his earlier career he was constantly defending himself for making use of Jungian concepts (archetypes, &c.) against an academy which (rightly) views that stuff - along with Freud - as mostly baseless.

Now, don't get me wrong, I like Jung and I like that kind of speculation - it might even be true - but it's not 'science'. JP's 'psychology' is very fringe, but again presented with an unjustified level of authority. Back in the day he used to couch everything in 'I reckons', but he's stopped doing that. Like you say, Pin, he's imbibed his own cult and now exists in a kind of ouroboric fantasy-land of his own making.


I like JPs mode of thinking in that he goes on stage and just spouts theories and speculations. I think that's fun, I think it's interesting. He attacks modern problems with explanatory paradigms of Jungian archetypes and evolutionary psychology, bringing to mind the kind of philosophical psychology that was going on in the early twentieth century, like the Gestalt school, &c. (which is also very fun imo). What people don't seem to recognise, however, is that there's actually very little empirical basis to both of these explanatory paradigms. They're also, of course, exceptionally difficult (if not impossible) to test. Evolutionary psychology is a pretty reasonable position, but what it boils down to in the vast majority of cases is just people saying 'modern behaviour A exists because our ancestors gained an evolutionary advantage from doing it... I reckon'. It all rests on supposition and educated guesses.

And then the Jungian stuff... yeah. Super fun - I mean we do it here all the time - but neither science nor indeed psychology. It's comparative religion at best.

Here's how to do a Jordan Peterson impression:

Start with Piaget, end with Jung, and say something intriguing but baseless in-between.
 
I agree with @Deleted member 16771. For me Peterson is some sort of mixture between philosopher and priest.

I like the way he thinks. He is logical and coherent, yet talks about deep topics. I think he stands for good things. It's not a stretch to say that a lot of young people see him as a quasi father figure. If you're from a good family and/or are already doing well in life, then I see why you might think he just talks 'common-sense'. But there is a lot of people from dysfunctional families who never heard an encouraging word in their lives.

Taking care of yourself in terms of mental help, career, family and relationship precedes changing the world. Politics, economics, science etc is super important and interesting, but if your individual life is not in order yet you devote yourself to 'changing the world', you're coming into it from wrong reasons and you're gonna probably just fuck things up and/or be miserable. I think that's Peterson's angle.

But yeah, his strength is speculating (Ne) and presenting a coherent yet not necessarily scientific logic for his positions (Ti). He definitely utilities his strengths well.
 
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Pin said:
He'd lose the supporters he's amassed if he actually started to subscribe to Marxism, for example.

I don't expect him to change his opinion because he's got a lot of money invested in not changing.
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He has spend decades thinking about his positions. Of course he's not going to subscribe to marxism, it would make his world view wholly inconsistent. Of course he would lose his supporters, cause that would be flipflopping on the scale of your average politician; completely disingenuous.

Pin said:
his definition of truth is kind of sus to me
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This on the other hand is fair criticism, and one I share.

Deleted member 16771 said:
Now, don't get me wrong, I like Jung and I like that kind of speculation - it might even be true - but it's not 'science'.
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And this is also fair criticism.
 
Why is it even important if he is 'scientific' or not? It's not even that he denies cold scientific truths, it's just that for him such truths they are insufficient because they don't tell us how to live.

It's pretty simple. He goes on stage and talks about how to live. Sometimes he tries to be objective (cites scientific papers etc.) but is mostly subjective. That's normal, because he is sharing his experience and worldview. He is literally just trying to convey the model by which he constructed reality for himself.

I don't obsess with whether what he's saying is scientifically true. I like his definition of 'pragmatic truth', i.e that something it's true if it's helpful to you or whatever. But this kind of truth only complements scientific truths; it's not one or the other.

No one comes to psychology, philosophy and religion for scientific truths anyway.
 
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philostam said:
No one comes to psychology, philosophy and religion for scientific truths anyway.
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I would agree with you on the last, but the first two? Psychology is literally the scientific study of the mind. Philosophy gave birth to science, and if you don't understand its basis, you don't understand scientific truth.

philostam said:
Why is it even important if he is 'scientific' or not?
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So it's important because people shouldn't assume science when there is none.

I don't think Hos minds that it isn't science, and neither do I, just that it has to be clear to all when it is, and when it isn't.

philostam said:
I like his definition pragmatic of truth,
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What do you like about it?
 
Lady Jolanda said:
He has spend decades thinking about his positions. Of course he's not going to subscribe to marxism, it would make his world view wholly inconsistent.
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He's an educated man who's spent his adult life in academia. It's impressive that he's in his current position and achieved what he has. Unfortunately, his criticism of Marx isn't as impressive as the peer-reviewed work he's done with respect to psychology.

His criticism of Marxism should actually be in reference to Marxian concepts and ideas. He barely seems to understand what Marxism is. Before we get into Marxian political implications, Marxism is a means of sociological and economic analysis.

I'm not criticizing him because he isn't a Marxist. I'm criticizing him because his explanation of why he doesn't subscribe to Marxism as a sociological or economic position is very poor.
Of course he would lose his supporters, cause that would be flipflopping on the scale of your average politician; completely disingenuous.
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There's nothing wrong with flip-flopping and refining your point of view in an academic setting. The issue with Peterson is that he doesn't honestly address his detractors a lot of the time. In my opinion, he's behaving like a good politician or rhetorician, not a good scientist or researcher.

I found his criticism of Marx very shallow, as well as many of his explanations for why he believes what he believes. He's capable of doing better; he has a PHD. He doesn't adequately justify his reasoning; it's a huge disservice to his audience.

In my opinion, he's a sophist who is more concerned with clicks and profit than he is with quality analysis. Sure, he didn't initially choose his fame but he's certainly not famous for his research.

He's famous for controversy rather than the actual quality of his research and I highly suspect that he is a dishonest actor on that basis.

The worst part is, I often agree with Peterson a lot of the time on the subjects that he discusses but my main problem is how poorly he presents ideas to the public.

I get it, he's not Carl Sagan but it's like... Stop confirming my biases without evidence man.
 
Lady Jolanda said:
I don't think Hos minds that it isn't science, and neither do I, just that it has to be clear to all when it is, and when it isn't.
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That's my biggest problem with Peterson. He's a scientist by profession (psychologist) but he's not usually doing science.
 
Deleted member 16771 said:
I don't know why people keep saying that 'he's great with respect to psychology'. He isn't.
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We'll have to agree to disagree on this one because he has produced peer-reviewed research before, he's capable of quality work.

Here.

Here.

Here.

While he's not a complete quack, he's unfortunately still a quack with respect to most topics he discusses outside of his area of expertise.

Because I now have evidence that he's capable of so much more than arguing with blue-haired undergraduates, I am immensely disappointed in him.
 
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Lady Jolanda said:
I would agree with you on the last, but the first two? Psychology is literally the scientific study of the mind. Philosophy gave birth to science, and if you don't understand its basis, you don't understand scientific truth.
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Depends what psychology. In US they are trying to turn it into a science, but they are failing big time imo. I honestly don't see psychology as science. Psychologist have basic understanding of stats and that's about it. All they seem to do is using linear regression and correlation all the time. "IQ predicts educational attainment, but it explains only 15% of the variable". Well, great.

That's only my understanding and opinion of course, but I think that psychoanalysis is much more useful and I am sad that we moved from it to the current version of 'scientific' psychology.

Psychiatry could I guess be considered scientific, but that's a different field in my understanding (you have to be a medical doctor). But anyway. I am out of my depth here because I am not a scientist myself nor do I particularly care about it. Why do you think psychology is scientific?

Lady Jolanda said:
What do you like about it?
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Well, like I say, it's not one or the other. I acknowledge scientific truths, but it's not something that interests me deeply. I don't follow journals in chemistry, medicine, physics etc on a regular basis in order to discover new scientific breakthroughs.

So all that Peterson is saying is that yeah, science is great, but it doesn't tell us how to live. I guess the problem is that he calls his 'truth'. Perhaps truth should be reserved to science, and whatever he's doing (advice, wisdom, life philosophy?) should be called something else.
 
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Pin said:
No, no.

Angela Merkel is educated as a chemist but her current profession is politics. Her past profession was a chemist.

EDIT: chemist.
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OK, but the point remains - why do you have a problem with someone that is educated in a narrow field and branched out?

Peterson was always interested in Jung and other authors which are not accepted by mainstream psychology, so he found his unique path.
 
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