#2356

I’m not giving him any more of my time but why is it always an essay or hours of YouTube to prove him right.
Think post twitter means if you do anything more than a few sentences you’re a genius

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#2357

Eurgh ffs youtube
image

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#2358

Misclicked on this going into the ear gunk thread

Was v worried for ya

#2359

I’ve watched that one ‘the Jewish question’ isn’t as bad as it sounds.

He argues that Jewish people do well because they are more competent due to having higher IQ (obviously ‘race realism’ is very bad but he is not going full Nazi there).

Annoyingly he raised the point that ‘race’ isn’t really a valid scientific grouping but then puts it aside to go on with his argument anyway

He takes a detour to bash women by misrepresenting the STEM gender equality paradox

I’ve watched far too much Jordan Peterson

#2360

Yeah no that’s exactly as bad it sounds.

#2361

Yeah fair, I think the Jewish question bit wasn’t as bad as it sounds while still being bad, in the context of a title which is definitely as bad as it sounds, was splitting hairs

#2362

i find if i use left concepts without couching them in “lefty” terms people are more responsive, @safebruv. do you find this? like you can scoop up a fair number of people just by bonding over making fun of bosses and shared experience of shit pay/conditions.

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#2363
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#2364

Technically I’m a boss but I encourage people to only work their hours and join a union.

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#2365
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#2366
#2367

That article title is a bit:

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#2368

Yeah on this obviously he bangs on about “postmodern neo-marxism” and it is both ill-defined and sounding like a Cultural Marxist bogeyman (which I have absolutely no time for). However I was thinking back to when I was taught Theory at undergraduate level and there was definitely a focus on the meshing and reconciliation of po-mo thought (Lyotard, Derrida, Foucault) with Marxism (particularly that of Louis Althusser). Although this was > 15 years ago (lol) and how these things are taught may well have changed. Especially wrt to Althusser - not sure the ideas of someone who murdered his wife are particularly welcome in the academy.

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#2369

He does often use the phrase ‘cultural marxism’ though, and it seems closer to the bogeyman sense than a credible criticism of academia.

I did sociology in the early noughties, I agree marxism and post modernism were two big perspectives taught (sadly i’ve forgotten most I learnt) and we were encouraged to draw both for out essay, but we were taught how they both developed and the tensions between them.

Peterson rolls it all up into one thing, says post-modernism was basically just a rebranding of marxism, due to marxism being discredited by totalitarian regimes, and that it is all about the drive to power rather than the actual moral arguments. I don’t think that is right, either chronologically, or in representing their ideas (think marxism was still popular when postmodernists emerged, and there was considerable tension between the two, and I don’t think there were many theorists who made the switch). Then he says that it has taken over the universities, HR departments, media, and low levels of government.

To me that does seem quite bogeyman, that there has been a continuation of a totalitarian ideology, first known as marxism, now disguised as post-modernism, determined to gain power (rather than fairness) that will inevitably lead to totalitarian, and that worryingly they have already infiltrated all aspects of society, and it seems clear that he does this so he can raise the spectre of gulags and totalitarian government, to completely inappropriately dismiss arguments and movements he disagrees with (trans-activist have the same Philosophy as Mao etc.).

Can’t remember where I saw/read it, probably some youtube, but it was someone who made a good argument that what marxism and post-modernism do have in common is both are critical theories that demystify the world and undermine the supposed natural order of things. Peterson is the exact opposite, he is attempting to re-mystify the world, telling people that unfairness is the natural order of things, people aren’t oppressed, and rather than try and change the world it is all down to individuals to change themselves

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#2370

Yeah I think that’s a really good summary of it all actually, at least in line with what I understand about him. I don’t think that his oversimplification of “postmodern neo-marxism” is particularly egregious theoretically (again, it chimes in part with my experience at undergraduate level). The issue is the conspiratorial language he uses. I don’t think it’s especially dangerous fwiw “smugging Marxism in through the back door” or whatever he says (early Derrida being an actual Marxist notwithstanding). But how on earth can you teach philosophy/critical theory without reference to either postmodernism or Marxism??

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#2371

It’s nothing more than an update on the longstanding suspicion and outright hatred the right wing have always held academia in. The idea of a grand conspiracy to indoctrinate tha youth into marxism is an obvious absurdity dispelled by spending about ten minutes talking to your average humanities professor, but it isn’t if you already believe or suspect it.

It’s also a classic example of how Peterson is a gateway to darker things. He would never say that unis should be purged of insidious marxist agents and any suspected marxist thinkers should not be on the curriculum, but it’s the obvious implication to take from the assertions he makes.

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#2372

he was going to set up that website at one point that listed universities courses that he considered indoctrination cults

#2373

I think the argument’s a little bit more nuanced than that, it’s more about bias than conspiratorial indoctrination (although his presentation of the argument is explicitly conspiratorial granted). I mean how many Humanities Professors are conservatives? Appreciate JBP is speaking from a Canada/US perspective.

#2375

Facts have a left-wing bias!!

(In b4 anyone else can say it)

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#2376

I did History. Almost all my professors were essentially well-healed liberals, with a smattering of Oxford-type conservatives and maybe two overtly left wing people. That matches up with other people’s experience. The idea that unis in this country are hotbeds of radical marxist thought is bunk.

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