MNHQ here: How would you feel about a Jordan Peterson webchat?

[RowanMumsnet]

Hello

We've been offered a webchat with Jordan Peterson (his new book has a chapter on parenting, although the publishers (Penguin) recognise a webchat is likely to be more wide-ranging than that). We know he's very controversial, to put it mildly, but also as you know we believe in the value of open debate. So we thought we'd ask you what you think: would you like the chance to put questions to him and debate him on-site or would you rather not?

Yes, I think this would be great. Looking forward to it if it goes ahead.

I love his youtube videos & book so I say yes please!

He takes biological differences to mean hard wired brain differences, which he then argues explains the massive imbalances in things like women in STEM careers. Women are chaos, men are order, apparently. Women tend towards liking people and men tend towards liking things, due to unavoidable brain differences, apparently.

He argues that men have more propensity to physical violence and that almost all very violent people are male.

He doesn’t talk about ‘hard wiring’ but he does say that at a population level, women are more interested in people and men more interested in things. That is his argument for the STEM bias. To be fair to him, he is quoting years of psychological research. He hasn’t just made it up! I don’t think he’s making a judgement on that, just quoting the facts —in a provocative way—

Also, he didn’t say (afaik) that WOMEN = chaos, he said FEMININE = chaos and it’s all in the context of his religious lectures where he’s talking heaven / hell. Opposites/balance. Yin/ yang arguments

Yes please.

Having just checked out one of his chaos lectures, you're right. The argument seems to be roughly "ancient myths (inc. Bible) often have order emerging from chaos, and the emergence of the universe is often seen as analogous to a birthing process, and babies come forth from women, hence the ancient association of chaos with femininity."

But oh my god, the delivery. I've marked better 2.2 undergrad metaphysics essays. It's all a bit jejeune.

Also if you’ve ever heard him talk about ‘the catastrophic price’ women pay for having children, you’d find it hard to call him a woman hater

I’m not actually his biggest fan, I think he has very little understanding of the general female experience, but I think it’s naive to dismiss him as alt right woman hater

Oh well, if it's "feminine" that's chaos, and it's a religious opinion then that's ok! Wonderful. I take it back, what a lovely and totally non-misogynistic view to have.

No one thinks he's "making it up" fgs. There are plenty of people who disagree with his opinion on the research. Plenty of people who address the issues with the idea that men and women are fundamentally different in meaningful ways. Afaik he thinks gender is not a social construct, so these things are not influenced by society or culture at all. Which is fairly obviously not the case.

Oh well, if it's "feminine" that's chaos, and it's a religious opinion then that's ok! Wonderful. I take it back, what a lovely and totally non-misogynistic view to have.

It’s really not a good tactic who is good at winning arguments to be sarcastic with no actual counter argument. What do you actually think about the analogy he has put forward other than ‘ewwww misogynist’?

I quite like Jordan Peterson.

Afaik he thinks gender is not a social construct, so these things are not influenced by society or culture at all. Which is fairly obviously not the case

He’s a clinical psychologist so of course he believes our environment influences us. And we can learn. But he also doesn’t believe in the ‘blank slate’ level of social constructionism, he believes we can take personal responsibility. Don’t you?

Apologies for the sarcasm. I'm not trying to win an argument, I was expressing my (chaotic, feminine) feelings.

So this woman = chaos comment is an analogy, apparently describing common themes in mythology. I think it's irrelevant to any theories about fundamental and important brain differences between men and women.

As for the comment about personal responsibility...

The "feminine as chaos" thing seems like a rather limited set of ideas cobbled together from a Reader's Digest level understanding of anthropology and ancient philosophy, and I suspect a professional anthropologist or classicist could run rings round him (would be amusing to watch him go head-to-head with Mary Beard, for instance). And I'm not sure, having made this somewhat sophomoric observation (I believe that's the appropriate North American campus put-down), I can't really see where he's going with it. Is it meant to be an insight into some timeless truth? Or the explanation of where an idea comes from that he's setting up in order to knock down? Or what?

Don't get me wrong - I enjoy reading stuff by people whose world views I don't agree with, but who can argue - Niall Ferguson, for instance. I'm just not finding myself convinced (on a quick dip into his youtube offerings) that Peterson is intellectually interesting enough to invest the time in. But other people on here obviously really like his stuff, so obviously @MNHQ have a market for this webchat.

Evolutionary psychology 90% bollocks????
Oh come on, I mean really??
it's 100% bollocks

Where is he going with it?

That’s a good question
I couldn’t tell you!
But I do think he tries to seek out harmony not conflict and in some way he’s trying to just make sense of things. I agree that it could be pulled apart and that’s what we should do on MN - no platforming him would be idiotic.

Evolutionary psychology 90%
bollocks????
Oh come on, I mean really??
it's 100% bollocks

I don’t think it is helpful to just dismiss our thousands of years of evolution as having no impact on our every day. Unless of course you also believe we are blank slates when we are born?

I quite like Brett Weinstein and his evolutionary view. Stephen Pinker too.

Stating that Evo psych is bollocks doesn't mean denying that thousands of years of evolution has had no impact.

The problem with evo psych (I used to proof read for a journal about biology and philosophy when I was a grad student, so have read Lewontin and Gould critiquing EO Wilson, and a lot of discussions of both sides) is that ultimately it's unscientific, unverifiable "just so stories."

Also reminds me of the rather wry comment by an anthropology prof I knew, who, when asked what difference it had made to anthropology when it was discovered that women and men both hunted as well as gathered in early hunter gatherer society, said "well, the textbooks have gone from having illustrations of men heroically hunting, to having illustrations of men heroically gathering as well..."

"Stating that Evo psych is bollocks doesn't mean denying that thousands of years of evolution has had any impact." Sorry, major typo.

Stating that Evo psych is bollocks doesn't mean denying that thousands of years of evolution has had no impact.

It does say exactly that! Evol psych / biology looks at how our behaviours have been developed via the process of evolution. If you think that’s 100% bollocks, I’m amazed

I find many of his ideas deeply questionable but that’s no reason not to have a chat about them with him.

Ok but by saying ‘100% bollocks’ that means we have nothing to learn from evolution. Some of it might be bollocks, as with literally every discipline out there, but seriously you just play into someone like Peterson’s hands with such fixed views

I think it would be great. I like his ideas and I think that people who claim he is a racist, sexist homophobe haven't actually read any of his material. He is constantly misquoted for some reason.
Let's do it!

I'm strongly against.

"but by saying ‘100% bollocks’ that means we have nothing to learn from evolution. " no. Of course that's not what it means.