You’ve said it. Not sure you’ve supported it in any way
apologies if i’ve misinterpreted you. it just seemed that’s what you were suggesting above.
This
Fucking hell.
(Thread muted)
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There’s absolutely nothing wrong with self actuation, sitting up straight and doing the best you can with your set of circumstances. There is something wrong with believing that lads mending the road or the unemployed are there because they’re just not trying. There is something wrong with making a leap from self-help to a belief that today’s heirarchies are natural and good, and if you don’t get to the top of them it’s because you’re fundamentally a mediocre person.
That’s a recipe to keep you feeling marginalised and hating yourself, which ultimately is what all right wing philosophy does for the working class. Because how else is Jordan Peterson going to keep feeding you his shit? The road out of this is through collectivisation, reaching out to other working class people and fighting a world designed to make you feel isolated and beaten down, but that’s something he would never suggest.
The fact that you zone out when he starts talking about theory is very much design by the way. What I will give the guy credit for is that he’s great at sophistry, disguising the deeply unpleasant roots of what he’s saying and his wildly disingenuous takes on established philosophy via pure guff.
Also I think merging the two threads was a bad idea, for the reason @hexagram gave - the other one had become a good resource for anti-Peterson stuff. The guy is unfortunately very widely talked about, and it was good to direct people to a thread filled with stuff dissecting what a rotten weirdo he is.
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The lobster shaman doesn’t have any class consciousness. He hates wealth redistribution but thinks sex should be redistributed so his jag off followers don’t committ anymore mass murders. He’s alluded to a belief in race IQ theories. Cathy Newman came off worse in that interview because she didn’t do her homework beforehand. He’s not a rhetorically gifted wizard. He doesn’t attract specifically working class followers. Like ISIS, he appeals to wacky young men from a mostly middle class background. Dipshits who are too comfortable and dense and lazy and entitled to do the work necessary to understand why western society is shit and why they’re being fucked and why their lives are terrible. He sounds like Kermit. He cries on youtube videos. He can suck my balls.
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All the way from Canada? That’s an achievement, at least.
Globalls
Yeah, this pretty much echoes my sentiments. I gave up posting in the previous thread as it wasn’t really possible to have a discussion. I really enjoyed some of the links, especially the Haider essay, but also things like the explanation of the differences between lobster and human brains.
I do find Peterson interesting and thought provoking. I disagree with him on virtually everything, but find it fascinating to get a glimpse into how someone can hold such an opposing ideology and then challenge my own ideas accordingly. Ultimately I don’t think it is anyone’s fault that they are the way they are, including Peterson, so I can’t see the point in just abusing him.
Unlike a lot of people in the world, Peterson is not a direct threat to anyone. The fear (alluded to in the OP) is that he disproportionally influences public opinion, at worst contributing towards a wider descent into fascism or at the very least slowing positive social progress. There is also a risk that he empowers dangerous people/groups towards action. On the first point I think his influence is very limited. On the second point, I think these people/groups are already a danger, and in their particular ideological spheres Peterson is actually a relative voice of moderation.
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What’s going on here then?
Looks like a months-old 400-post thread about a specific gobshite got merged into the general descent into fascism thread?
Very disorientating. And irksome.
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Fair enough. The reason I find him useful is that I think it’s worthwhile having someone who you’re politically opposed to (in spite of his protestations otherwise, Peterson is an economic and social conservative) to stress test your assumptions against. Like I don’t think I can think properly without always having some sort of dialectical process going on. I don’t especially like Peterson but he at least offers a robust counter-narrative to certain Left orthodoxies which can’t be easily explained away. I mean sure it means you have to listen to some opinions which you might find galling, but I find that preferable to pretending that the guy doesn’t exist. I find him useful in that regard, doesn’t mean I think he’s right. I used to subscribe to the Spectator for the same reason but I just found it too rubbish.
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DB wanted it merging, Theo (I think) merged it
I think that’s what I was basically trying to say!
NO CHAT
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Hmm I’m not sure merging a thread of this size was really a good idea…
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I think we, as white, privileged, males, have to be very careful with this kind of approach. What may seem like an intellectual exercise for us may, with the platform it grants him, be horrifically abusive to many others.
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Aye, a link would have sufficed.
can you unmerge them and get rid of all this fucking chat?
I’m not sure if that’s possible without having to go through and pick out all the JP related chat, I’ll run it past the mods though because of who made the changes in the first place.
A similar charge can be levelled at a number of his critics, in fairness.
Sure and I do try and be careful of the balancing act here. Although I don’t think the alternative of not engaging with ideologically opposed voices and closing oneself off from them has much going for it either.