I like Jordan Peterson AIBU?

[NeatFreakMama]

With his rise to fame recently it seems like Jordan Peterson is everywhere. Personally I really enjoyed his book and I find his lectures fascinating largely, I think for me, because he's a great orator.

I know he has his detractors and I'd be really interested to hear their opinions on him. I don't really see much not to like about his rhetoric; it feels like he tends to speak mostly on universal truths but just in a really engaging way?

goods aren’t around- sorry!

Haven't rtft so apologies for that.

I'm halfway through 12 Rules. The thinking is very insightful and it's well written.

The issue for the left is that his focus is understanding people as they are rather than how we'd like them to be. He's a tea

The multi-generational family environments (which are still the norm in many cultures) certainly have a lot of advantages. Grandparents are on hand to support with childcare while also being looked after themselves into their old age.

I don't know of any historical situations where it was common for men to go and live in the clan of their wives though (living with maternal rather than paternal extended families). Do you?

Sorry, feeding baby and pressed send too soon.

He's a realist, not an idealist. I think he believes human nature is what it is and we need to work with this rather than hope to change it.

He also is much better at seeing the world from a male POV than a female one. That makes sense at a personal level (given he's a man) and also a societal one (we live in a patriarchal culture). Which is why the alt right love him and feminists find him very problematic.

The 'rules' don't feel totally relevant to me as a woman. I'd love him to be challenged in this.

He's Canadian, and to me he just seems like another white male standing up for the colonizer status quo - in this case, a culture based on western cultural ideals, while ignoring the very different cultures Canada was laid on top and Canadians deliberately tried to destroy and christianize. He's just another christian colonizer.

While not all are, some First Nations cultures were matriarchal, along with an acceptance of 2-spirit individuals eg the Haudesaunee Confederacy. Many first nations people, including academics in anthropology and archaeology, have a lot of issues with what he says and disagree with his mahoosive assumptions about human nature. Just because the Europe is a heirachical cesspit, doesn't mean all cultures are.

Meh, he's just another white guy telling mostly white people what they want to hear, that they don't have to change, that life is simple and blah blah lobsters. All his arguments have been debunked by actual experts in various fields that he's not very well versed in.

ItLooksABitOff
All his arguments have been debunked by actual experts in various fields that he's not very well versed in

Could you please share one? A debunking by an expert? I'd be particularly interested in the research which might debunk the thinking on dominance hierarchies.

Are there any species that coexist in an entirely egalitarian basis (no pecking order, no "head" / "lead", no status)?

ItLooksABitOff
Meh, he's just another white guy

Is it acceptable to reject a person's point of view on the basis of their race and sex?

FrancinePefko42, Matrilineal societies do exist both now and historically. They problem for me with them is that basically the men do nothing but play games and fight on the periphery of society while the women do all the work. Dunno at least patriarchy gives men an inducement to be involved and do more than that.

I don't know of any historical situations where it was common for men to go and live in the clan of their wives though (living with maternal rather than paternal extended families). Do you?

Some Native American societies were. The Musuo culture in China. I should imagine there were more that by their very nature were wiped out by the hierarchical ones that spread across the world.

It seems inevitable that as different cultures come into contact with each other the hierarchical war-obsessed ones (which patriarchal societies tend to be) wipe out the ones that are more egalitarian and have less weapons/desire to fight.

When European explorers went to America they were shocked at the political power that women had there. Also at the tribes who believed in shared paternity.

And then they wiped them out. With their diseases and weapons and introduced fierce competition for weapons and goods. Hierarchy and competitiveness will always win.

Here is a good article on the Musuo tribe. But note how even the Guardian headline is framed in terms of winning or losing and it would be nice to know how men fare in the society. Their way of life is also diminishing as it comes into contact with the values of surrounding China.

www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/apr/01/the-kingdom-of-women-the-tibetan-tribe-where-a-man-is-never-the-boss

Very interesting. I have learned something.

"Meh, he's just another white guy telling mostly white people what they want to hear, that they don't have to change, that life is simple"

Um, you are joking, right? You have actually listened to the man? because I don't think you've heard him at all. He's saying here is the problem but finding a solution is incredibly complex. Life is more complex now than ever and not only that but your actions have unfathomable consequences that you can't even imagine. He's saying we haven't been able to find a satisfactory solution to some of our most pressing problems and seriously asking what the hell we do about that.

He's saying that maybe, regardless of wether you have the best of intentions, you are very wrong and not only that you might be wrong but that the concequences of being wrong could be horrific for the people that are most vulnerable.

The pendulum swings left, the pedulum swings right but it never, ever stands still because life is change.

He's encouraging us to come back to the level of the individual and recognise that every single one of us carries the capacity to commit unspeakable attrocity regardless of who you are or where you're from. We are all equally flawed. If you don't recognise the sinister side of your human nature and everybody elses you are deluded.

But that is not ALL we are...

If we can't agree that peace is possible and that we are one people what should be hell should we be uniting around? because at the moment, what I see is we are becoming increasingly divided by our differences, arrogant enough to think we have a solution and the ideologically possessed who think they have the solution pushing for change are so blinkered that they can not see they are driving that dangerous wedge between us ever deeper.

He is all about change but that this starts with the individual. Peace is possible but it is always a choice. I really think that this decent into a tribalist perspective of clumping people together is totally naieve and when we are engaged in that, we're failing to recognise that we're playing with fire.

I have watched some podcasts - but it was so cringeworthy - one with Camille Paglia was particularly laughable. Why should I read someone whose intellect is missing. I might as well read Patience Strong. I set my students good materials to read and hope that they do so. I wouldn't bother wasting their time, as I don't waste mine. Might be fun to let the postgrads loose on JP for some ideological critique and a laugh though.

It is stupid to operate from the level of the individual. That is not how societies, economies work. It is idiotic thinking that serves only to speak to the individual holding the book in their hand, feeling flattered, superior - through its faux-profundity.

Wiz, what do you teach?

It is stupid to operate from the level of the individual. That is not how societies, economies work. It is idiotic thinking that serves only to speak to the individual holding the book in their hand, feeling flattered, superior - through its faux-profundity.

But realistically we can only operate on the level of the individual because we can only ever control our own thoughts and actions.

Might be fun to let the postgrads loose on JP for some ideological critique and a laugh though.

Good idea. It would be great to see an actual debate instead of blowing horns, yelling and making bomb threats whenever the JP types show up at a college somewhere. I find it very ironic that TRA's now use the ''NO DEBATE'' tactics, only from within. They apply the same old rules, you don't debate oppressors, you crush them.

The closest I've seen to a debate was the one where he was on the same ''team'' with Stephen Fry (of all people) but it was completely derailed by identity politics and quickly turned into same old ''you're a mean white man'' narrative.

YANBU Love him. Also fancy him something rotten. I love an intellectual man, a stimulating conversation can get me hot and bothered over suave looks any day. Of course liberals despise him. The Cathy Newman interview was all that is wrong with this nonsense post-modern, post truth era we're in, where ones emotions about something is all that is necessary to legitimise an argument.

Also like Camille Paglia. I have Sexual Personnae on my shelf. Confess I haven't got to grips with it yet. It's a hard read (or maybe that's just me).

I saw that too Agripinah. It was awful. I cringed.

Yes, that debate was terrible. Talk about intellectual pigmies!

Have you actually listened to the man They may have listened but they haven't understood.

I might as well read Patience Strong. Nowt wrong with a bit of Patience Strong.

It is stupid to operate from the level of the individual. Have you looked into the Eastern philosophies at all.

Can you imagine if these professors and the kids they've brainwashed were in charge? People who wear Che t-shirts and cried hysterically when Castro died? While having no fucking idea what these monsters did and how much suffering they caused? What's even more ironic is that these middle class ''intellectuals'' would be the first ones to go if real Che's and Fidel's came to power again. Dragged away from their MacBooks, right out of Starbucks and probably dealt away with on the spot.

YABU

The chapters in his book about children and childhood are mean spirited and encourage parents to slap children as a sensible form of discipline. He lost me right there. Up to that point I’d been listening with interest.

I asked for my money back from audible and stopped listening.

Can you imagine if these professors and the kids they've brainwashed were in charge? People who wear Che t-shirts and cried hysterically when Castro died? While having no fucking idea what these monsters did and how much suffering they caused? What's even more ironic is that these middle class ''intellectuals'' would be the first ones to go if real Che's and Fidel's came to power again. Dragged away from their MacBooks, right out of Starbucks and probably dealt away with on the spot

What are you on about?

Who has said this on this thread?

Have a Bex and a lie down.

Would add, his chapter on parenting reads like it was written by someone who values compliance in children above all else, and sees children who aren’t compliant as worthless. I suspect he’s rarely had sole charge of his own children for more than an hour at a time - too busy being an academic superstar to put any of his parenting theories into practice.