Woke staff revolt over Jordan Peterson book

@queenofknives there is definitely something to be said for that - the self-congratulatory 'feminist' men do also seem to be quite bad at doing basic things like picking up after themselves.

I'm rather interested by the way that all the people here who think Petersen is conveying profound deep truths and people who think he's a tedious sexist arsehole are missing something amazing, seem unable to communicate said profound deep truths in their own words. All I'm picking up from the Peterson defenders is that they think Peterson is great and that it offends them if other people don't share that opinion. I was open minded to the possibility that he's got something interesting to say, but this thread is persuading me in the opposite direction.

To be fair, the message also comes through that he's good/useful for young men to pay attention to, which does actually seem to be the case.

@queenofknives

oh god, flashback to the blowjob wars and Hugo whatshisface, and the bees and the wasps. Feels like whole other lifetimes ago

Femonade was back in the feminist blogging days - don't think there even was MN at that point. She melted down around the issue of PIV sex and I think she disappeared shortly after. Someone who was around then was Elizabeth Hungerford, who is still campaigning now. Probably others are still about, but we were mostly anonymous, so I don't know. There was a blog called AROOO (A Room of Our Own) which was kind of the centre of it all, which totally imploded when the co-bloggers fell out. Lots of accusations of racism and lesbophobia were thrown around. I think it was really identity politics that destroyed those little communities - I remember so many interminable discussions (fights) about whether you could call yourself a lesbian if you had ever had sex with a man or whether bisexuals were intrinsically lesbophobic and so on. Still, there was a lot of interesting writing being done around that time - and we were regularly invaded by TRAs and were having the trans conversations long before they came to light elsewhere on the internet.

Yes, I have many friends who thought they were going into equal partnership with a modern man, only to find themselves lumbered with an extra child in the form of a grown man completely incapable of stepping up to his responsibilities. I do like JP for insisting that there is nothing attractive or good about not being able to take care of yourself and your family - too many men seem to think that their family exists to support them. You only have to look at the relationships threads on here to see how that works out!

Fair enough, honestly wasn't quite sure what you meant.
Not been here long enough to know Femonade but she sounds quite interesting so I'll have a search for that.
I'm a lesbian so it's a bit redundant what sort of man I'd prefer but it is the sort of thing where I'd be very interested on other women's experiences and opinions on traditional versus modern men.
Of my married friends, I have one whose husband is of the very traditional variety. At first, she seemed on cloud nine because he was a "proper gentleman". This meant, in practice, quite rich, good looking and always paid on dates. The appeal seemed to wear off after they had a baby, when "traditional values" suddenly translated quite differently.
On the other hand, I've several friends whose expectations of an equal, modern relationship with nice trendy man has fallen through very quickly when put into practice.

You know what I mean by a "male feminist" though. They're the ones yelling 't*rf' at JKR on twitter, or telling us 'sex work is work'.

I don't know if anyone here will remember the blogger 'femonade'? She used to have a thing about how she'd rather be with an un-reconstructed man who had maybe more traditional views on gender than with a 'new man' who would always end up being a covert dick. At least with the former, they were more likely to actually LIKE women and not be terrified/resentful of them. Just her opinion, obviously, but I always think there's something in that. Men who actually like women are my favourite kind of men.

Men who go around calling themselves 'feminists' are invariably, at least in my personal experience, manipulative arseholes. Or they are suffering some kind of 'male guilt' which makes them insufferable and secretly resentful.

I'm a bit astounded by people who think he's superficial and not that smart or impressive.

I've not read him, but I bet he doesn't write like Judith Butler. That's what proper clever writing looks like.

he seems to have a fairly unsophisticated set of views.

All the sophisticated folks these days have sophisticated views like "the sex binary is a white colonialist construct" and "the female skeleton didn't exist until the Enlightenment".

How could he hope to compete in those leagues...?

Out of interest, why is it either or? Which of those characteristics would being a "male feminist" retract from?

Of course this may be because I am simple minded, and other cleverer sorts saw immediately how superficial he is, or maybe not?

I'm a bit astounded by people who think he's superficial and not that smart or impressive. I suppose maybe I'm just a thicko. But he seems pretty fucking clever to me!

I agree with you about how he conveys ancient and deep truths. I'm glad I'm not too smart to learn from him.

I'd rather have a generation of men brought up to be tough-minded, resilient, responsible, family-oriented and caring than a generation of "male feminists" in any case.

So would I.

I think Peterson is extraordinary and one of the greatest thinkers and intellects of our age.

Or least the greatest communicator of ancient and deep truths that seem to have been lost at present.

Saying that, I didn't enjoy 12 Rules so much, and do prefer listening to him.

I returned to this this week:

and it still astounds me. The depth of what he is saying. I feel that each time I return to a lecture of his, I get something new from it, as my understanding of what he is conveying grows.

Of course this may be because I am simple minded, and other cleverer sorts saw immediately how superficial he is, or maybe not?

Certainly the characterisations of his comments on incels, and women as representations of chaos, strike me as laughably superficial to the point of not coming near an understanding of what he is conveying.

It seems to be at the analysis level of: Hummphhh, chaos sounds bad, so you saying we're something bad??
Or, so you're saying it's my fault then are you??

Which didn't go well for Cathy Newman.

I

That interview with Cathy Newman is just wonderful! It was the first thing I saw of JP and it impressed me so much that he just laughed off her nonsense and then pinned her so successfully that she was literally struck dumb! Hahaha it's a brilliant example of what happens when you seriously underestimate your opponent.

This interview of JP responding to that interview is also extremely revealing and fascinating

I cheerfully admit to never having read anything by Peterson, but having read interviews with him and articles about him, he seems to have a fairly unsophisticated set of views.

For me, though, this isn't really a freedom of speech issue. It's about employees at a publishing firm having such a sense of entitlement that they think they can tell their employer not to publish an author who is a major source of income for that employer. How on earth do you get to be so entitled? Where do they think their salaries are coming from? The whole business ignites in me a desire to make them all spend a year working down a coal mine for 12 hours a day.

My eldest secured a media-related degree this year from Salford University.

Cathy Newman's interview of Peterson in 2018 was being used as an example of how to NOT conduct a television interview. Peterson was superb. Newman...well, it defined her career, she can certainly say that.

Helen Lewis interviews Jordan Peterson:

Pretty interesting.

His Cain and Abel lecture remains one of my favourite things he has done. It really is fantastic and I wish everyone who sits and moans about their live and how hard done by they are, would listen to this

www.jordanbpeterson.com/transcripts/biblical-series-v/

@NecessaryScene1

That article is really good.

I have been following Peterson for some years and I have gained so much from his work. I was brought up in the 90's on radical feminism and have been feminist ever since and honestly, I think Peterson has moved me further forward than any feminist text for years.

I think it coincided with my boys becoming teenagers as the messages he gave out really helped them become good men. Genuinely. Both my boys have listened to him and say he has helped them understand what it is to 'be' as a man and to take on as much responsibility as they can bear, without being bitter about everyone else. And that is not an easy thing to get across to young men, and I will be forever thankful to him for that (their DF is not great in this aspect!)

I have no idea what JP's books are about but I have just reserved one from the library on the basis of this thread!

Dido my opinion's based on having read some of Peterson's stuff. I used to be in academia and there are a lot of people with extensive publication records whose output I find a bit facile.

I still treasure the put-down one of the mature PhD students delivered a propos of the new prof in his department. The prof had given the grad students a talk on time management in academic research. He actually had the front to trot out the old saw from airport bookstall management books of "only touch each piece of paper once.". Mature post-grad muttered "I've read his book on Saussure, and let's just say, it shows."

Lengthy publication record doesn't necessarily equal brilliant thinker. In fact, in these days of trial by RAE, quite the reverse. Churning out publications at a rate of 2 a year has become quite an industry.

New article up from Andrew Doyle:

Jordan Peterson: how the left manufactured a folk devil

Ooh irony

I think that judging people that you've never met on an ad hominem basis just shows that you're not bright enough to engage with what they say.