To wonder why mumsnet hates Jordan Peterson?

[Gogster]

Strange because he's actually keen on women's rights

You Guardian link does not take me to a page that contains any words.

Yeah. That "forced monogamy" business is exactally what I meant.

It's a technical term from sociology/anthropology and it means a society which codifies or has as a social norm of marriages between one man and one woman, as opposed to one man and multiple women which is the other common practice across cultures. In the latter of what can happen is there may be significant numbers of young men who have no hope of marriage and family life, and Peterson points out they are a destabilizing influence. Which is, btw, exactly what experts in radicalization say about large numbers of young men with no hope of marriage.

The idea that it means forced marriages comes out of someone's imagination, and you really have to wonder why it still gets passed around, because the error has to have been pointed out hundreds of times by now, including by Peterson himself.

Well there are plenty of people who think that looking at institutional racism is not particularly useful, including quite a lot of black conservatives, so I would hesitate to call that racist just because. For fear of looking like I am accusing someone of being an Uncle Tom which certainly would be racist.

You can critisize someones words without engaging in what they aer saying.

That link is unimpressive. I'll repeat what I said earlier, if you want to justify a claim about him, point to something where he is speaking or writing, not something where someone is writing about him. There is an enormous amount of him on Youtube, I imagine every opinion he's ever had is there, several times over. Other people writing/talking about him are hugely unreliable.

As distinct from those who are totally clipless 😄

I haven't noticed him being keen on women's rights! I wouldn't say I hated him, but he exasperates me. His writings are a weird mixture of actual science (not a lot), the worst forms of oversimplified evolutionary psychology, and a lot of blah-de-blah from mythology and religion. Most of what he writes is fairly meaningless and harmless but useless (like a poor dissertation by an arrogant and rather lazy student)- but then he starts on his arguments that imply that men become violent because they don't have long-term female partners and that "If men are pushed too hard to feminize they will become more and more interested in harsh, fascist political ideology." There are plenty of people who are worse than Peterson as individuals; but what's dangerous about him is that he's been adopted as a cult figure by some incels and far-right group members.

In turn, it would be great to see some clips, blogposts etc from him that some posters might think would encourage people to support him. Unfortunately a lot of things I’ve seen from him (not just about him) I haven’t agreed with.

Preferably not an extra long video though! Or if you do have a video maybe suggest a specific time stamp

That's true but there are probably 563 things I would rather be doing than researching more of JP's opinions and trying to decipher his psychobabble when he will literally add nothing useful to my life and probably gives zero shits about female empowerment.
Agree with pps who say he's just on the lam.

Finally a link that works. I only skimmed it, but I don't see anywhere that he says any of the the things in your last sentence. Can you quote his sentences that do?

(I don't mean on the lam I mean another phrase but I can't remember it)

He's been a great aid to men, I think, in a way that will also benefit women, as a great deal of his popular writing and talks has focused on encouraging men to "grow up", take responsibility for their lives and for their families, and act like competent adults.

@Getoff (using @ instead of the quotes as super long quotes are annoying to read)

It would be easier to believe you were willing to genuinely engage if you did at least appear to be putting a bit of effort in. But sure, here you go:

Men get frustrated when they are not competitive in the sexual marketplace (note: the fact that they DO get frustrated does not mean that they SHOULD get frustrated. Pointing out the existence of something is not the same as justifying its existence). Frustrated men tend to become dangerous, particularly if they are young. The dangerousness of frustrated young men (even if that frustration stems from their own incompetence) has to be regulated socially. The manifold social conventions tilting most societies toward monogamy constitute such regulation.

So apparently it is up to women in monogamous relationships to regulate male violence.

This is a quote of a quote he uses to evidence his points:

In suppressing intrasexual competition and reducing the size of the pool of unmarried men, normative monogamy reduces crime rates, including rape, murder, assault, robbery and fraud, as well as decreasing personal abuses.

Which against suggests women should be in monogamous relationships with men to regulate them.

Personally I think there are much, much clearer ways to regulate men’s violent behaviour than relationships. There’s also nothing to say these violent men and rapists would not turn to their girlfriends and wives as an output for their abuse.

I had only ever heard of him described as rather irrational

then I watched the Cathy Newman interview and was impressed

I haven't watched much other stuff as I find the Kermit voice annoying

but I do think he might be misrepresented. I heard him telling men to grow up etc. It's hard to know what to think.

I very much agree with what he says about mental health.
I don't know how I feel about the rest because I was raised in a misogynistic, abusive family and I'm still questioning things.

I think your ‘interpretation’ of what he said is way off.

It is clear that men who commit mass shootings etc tend not to be popular guys, or in relationships - they tend to be loners or people whose only ‘meaningful’ relationships are online.

I read his suggestion as the antithesis of this is a committed monogamous relationship.

Extrapolating what he said and taking it to the most extreme outcome just looks silly

Exactly. I mean, aren’t there enough threads on MN complaining about lazy useless man-children?

I imagine there are very good reasons why these people are loners.

Plenty of people who are not white males don’t have meaningful offline relationships but so many of these mass shootings etc are committed by white males.

And he isn’t just talking about mass shootings, he’s also talking about rape, fraud etc.

Do you truly think men being in monogamous relationships will stop this? Society needs to change at a much deeper level.

You can’t pin male violence on oh the poor menz without a woman 😢

Happy to agree to disagree anyway.

That's a bizarre interpretation. He's speaking in the way a political scientist or anthropologist would about how societies are constructed.

What he is saying is that human beings have certain tendencies that are not always socially productive and can even be dangerous.

Certain social structures can exacerbate that. One example being a society where there is widespread polygamy, so a smaller number of men have a lot of wives, and quite a few men don't have any.

Empirically, we know a population of young men with no partners, and no ties, and no clear future, are a risky population in any society.

On the other hand if the social norm is single partners most people will marry and there will not be that population base ripe for radicalization and revolution.

Of course you could argue there are other reasons to dislike normative monogamy and prefer something like polygamy or something else. (Though most people do not argue that polygamy is better for women, as it happens.)

But that's not what he's talking about, he's talking about how societies deal with the problem of disruptive males at the level of social structure.

To wonder why mumsnet hates Jordan Peterson?

YABU. Posters may hate Jordan Peterson. MN is not a hive.

I disagree, to an extent anyway @user1471504747

its true that shooters are more likely to be white (although given USA is 60% white it’s not surprising) but nearly half or so are not:

www.statista.com/statistics/476456/mass-shootings-in-the-us-by-shooter-s-race/

I mean, from another perspective, years ago I was involved in my work in looking at populations who were vulnerable to radicalization, particularly in the Middle East, or from a Middle Eastern background living in the west.

The markers for radicalization are pretty well researched and well known. The people who are most vulnerable tend to be poor, socially isolated, they don't have much hope for the future or see a way things could become better. If they feel they have been given a crappy hand unfairly it makes them vulnerable too.

Being unmarried, and with no hope of marriage, is huge. That can be because there are not women to go around but that is also an economic issue - most of these guys are too poor to marry, and in places where some men have several wives that is exacerbated.

The reason for this is two-fold - one is that most people want to marry, have kids, and have a family life. For many places, especially where there are not a lot of material goods, these are the things that give people meaning. And just companionship and a sexual outlet are issues too, I know people don't like that but they are. Poor guys who have no spouse are mostly going to have their sexual lives through porn or prostitution, neither of which contribute to stability. Or not at all which is the best of options but leads to stress of its own.

But the other element is that having a family creates stability because people know they have to remain on the straight and narrow in order to care for them.

I find it really weird that we can know so much in one professional context about what creates unstable populations but it's so unacceptable to admit it in another context.

The poor fellow is very fucked up, and not as bright as people think. I find him a frightening sort of 'thought leader'.

@MangyInseam so why in societies where there are a lot of poor single unmarried women do those women not become radicalised and violent?

And the idea of clear sex roles being inevitable because of survival has been proven again and again to be wrong.
Anthropology tell us this. But just watch one of Bear Grylls series. What is needed is not strength, but brains and co-operation. Catching large animals for meat or catching a lot of fish nearly always involves a group working together. With the rest of food coming from gathering nuts, fruit, seeds.

Because women aren't the same as men?

Why would you think they would?