Jordan Peterson

[Perimental]

dl-tube.com/watch?v=UFwfJVv9P34#.Wvvtj8Hnqjk.link

Thoughts on this man......

@@MerchFach "You will note that I said 'probably autistic'.

Your 'diagnosis' is bullshit. I am autistic and would never say that someone is 'probably autistic' on the basis of watching them on a video.

Your post is grossly offensive.

Anlaf Yes, it's a hit piece. I believe that's fairly clear when you read the article and see comments about how Dr. Peterson "has nothing of value to say".

As to your selected example, I don't have a problem with it. It's an excerpt from an academic textbook on different psychological approaches to cognitive science and neuropsychology. The use of technical terms is appropriate. I just ran your excerpt by a friend of mine (who is an English teacher and female seeing as people love to characterise) and she said (and I was very careful to avoid any prejudicial comments beforehand): "Well, the writing style is pretty straightforward, but whether it's clear or not depends on if some of the terms used have been adequately defined previously. But assuming it's all been defined and unpacked previously then it's fine."

And yes, as it's those terms will be well defined by that point, I'm sure. You are welcome to show us your much shorter version that doesn't lose anything. ;)

Frankly, it's a determined attempt to attack him when you pull out sections from the midsection of a specialist academic work with no context and throw them at lay readers and say behold how awful he is.

And it's worth saying- the impact Jordan's ideas have on his followers is (I think) the most interesting part of this. Perhaps the most frightening part.

It's helped literally thousands of people. I don't see that as frightening. More as evidence, if needed, of how society or parents have failed so many people.

It reminds me a great deal of people I was exposed to in my youth - self-described preachers, healers, soul therapists etc. Basically small-time cult leaders- and wow were they incoherent.

He's not self-described himself as any of those things. He's an actual clinical psychologist. Helping people is what clinical psychologists do. I have to agree with another poster that you seem to have a bit of an axe to grind here. Cult leaders use techniques such as isolating people from friends and family and traditional support structures, make people doubt traditional beliefs and culture around them, seek financial or sexual or political power over adherants. Dr. Peterson has done none of these things and in fact tends to reinforce traditional beliefs if anything.

I've never read any Peterson, but I have noticed that whenever he is brought up on here there always seems to be a rush of people to defend him, a lot of whom seem unwilling to brook any criticism of him or his ideas. It does all seem a bit cult-like.

Well there tend to be a lot of very unfair and misrepresentative attacks on him, so whenever that is done you get people leaping to defend. Also, what you just said can be applied to pretty much anyone who is criticised of your choice.

I think that the unusual (or maybe cult-like) thing is not that people who like JP want to defend JP, it's how vociferous and proactive they are about it.

Lots of people are misrepresented by the mainstream media. Lots of people are discussed on internet forums. Unflatteringly, even.

But I've noted that JP supporters often just arrive in a place they haven't previously been, like they've been searching his name on Google for something to do and decided to go Educate The Masses On A Random YouTube Video/Internet Forum/Reddit Thread (and I've seen this happen in multiple places).

Like they're doing evangelism, you might say.

To be fair, unlike a lot of the ploppers you see on feminism chat (who post 'you're all hateful bigoted bitches!' and then flounce off) people who come here specifically to post about Jordan Peterson at least try to stick around and debate stuff.

Not work to dismantle the structural inequalities within our society so that some people aren’t confined to poverty within a system that stacks some people’s cards much higher than others?

I don't think "setting a right example" is incompatible with improving society. It's a variant on the very old spiritual teaching of "if you want to improve the world, first improve yourself". And there is merit to that.

Showing an example isn’t much help at all to someone who doesn’t have access to the means to help themselves.

True, but in the West, there are a lot of opportunities and I think setting a right example IS beneficial. I can give you an example right now which is that in neighbourhoods where more fathers stayed with their families not only did the children of those specific families do better, but so do those of fatherless families in the neighbourhood. I think it is unfair to damn him because he didn't say "institute more social programs" especially when there's such an extensive history of social programs doing more harm than good. He's a clinical psychologist.The large thrust of his subject matter is personal responsibility and behaviour. Not government programs (which I think he'd agree he's not an expert on).

It's unreasonable to expect someone with high anxiety to pull themselves up by their bootstraps - most would if they could - they need a different approach. None of this is rocket science - there's neither the will, the funding nor the skills to deliver cost effective tailored solutions that make a difference

Isn't helping people deal with the issues of their upbringing and society 90% of what Jordan Peterson about? Including (and I'll single this out because of the "Guardian of the Patriarchy" article linked above) helping many women who came to him because they wanted to learn how to succeed better in business?

I actually like lots of what he says, I think he’s interesting and I actually enjoy hearing points of views that I might not necessarily agree with.
And I actually do agree with him on lots of things.

Buuuuuuuut

The biggest flaw with Peterson is that he’s so blinded by the idea that he is ‘logical’ that he totally fails to see that he is looking at the world through his own lens. Yes he has evidence but as I’m sure everyone knows even scientific evidence when it comes to anthropology is biased by the people doing the research, no one is completely neutral, but when someone comes along and says ‘my way is logical and above feelings and therefore right’ it’s dangerous.
Women encounter this aaaaaaall the time with men, a lot of men seem to think they are above such things as social conditioning and unconscious bias as though it’s some personality flaw for thick people.

He is a really important mind and he is giving a really important piece of the puzzle, but it’s not the only one!

To be fair, unlike a lot of the ploppers you see on feminism chat (who post 'you're all hateful bigoted bitches!' and then flounce off) people who come here specifically to post about Jordan Peterson at least try to stick around and debate stuff.

Sometimes too much so.

I've exclusively been defending Dr. Peterson in this thread. Especially with a couple of hit pieces that have been linked. That's because I feel the attacks have all been unfair. But I don't agree with Dr. Peterson on everything (for example, he thinks Frozen is a terrible film which is utterly unforgivable to me). In the interests of balance, here's someone who I think does do a good job of taking him on (Michelle Goldberg). I feel if I wanted to I could do a much better job of attacking Dr. Peterson than his critics here. People have picked out the oddest things to twist into condemnations. You could much more easily picked a quote like "the unholy trinity of Inclusivity, Equality and Diversity - when you hear these words you know exactly who you're dealing with."

But ultimately, I don't think you need to agree with everything Dr. Peterson says to grant him "decent human being" status. He has helped and is continuing to help large numbers of people and if the worst sustainable criticisms are that he focuses on personal responsibility rather than promoting government social programs, I think he's in a pretty good place. He certainly doesn't deserve the demonisation he gets from some quarters. I'm still waiting on a reply from that poster who speculated on what he'd think of 'choking women porn', for example.

@teacuphiccup "but as I’m sure everyone knows even scientific evidence when it comes to anthropology is biased by the people doing the research, no one is completely neutral"

True, but what happens when studies are backed up by other studies? Peterson isn't forming his opinion based on one study or approaching it from an ideologically entrenched position. As he said on c5 he looked at the data and decided it was reliable.

I think I've said this already, but if someone was totally neutral and without a side on the nature vs nurture debate I find it hard to believe they'd be more convinced by the evidence for nurture being the biggest influence

Here are all the studies he links to on his James Damore video:

Here are a series of references buttressing the claims of James' memo:

Sex differences in personality/cognition: Lynn (1996): bit.ly/2vThoy8

Lippa (2008): bit.ly/2vmtSMs

Lippa (2010): bit.ly/2fBVn0G

Weisberg (2011): bit.ly/2gJVmEp

Del Giudice (2012): bit.ly/2vEKTUx

Larger/large and stable sex differences in more gender-neutral countries: (These findings run precisely contrary to social constructionist theory: it's been tested, and it's wrong).

Katz-Gerrog (2000): bit.ly/2uoY9c4

Costa (2001): bit.ly/2utaTT3

Schmitt (2008): bit.ly/2p6nHYY

Schmitt (2016): bit.ly/2wMN45j

Differences in men and women's interest/priorities: Lippa (1998): bit.ly/2vr0PHF

Rong Su (2009): bit.ly/2wtlbzU

Lippa (2010): bit.ly/2wyfW23

See also Geary (2017) blog: bit.ly/2vXqCcF

Life paths of mathematically gifted females and males: Lubinski (2014): bit.ly/2vSjSxb

Sex differences in academic achievement unrelated to political, economic, or social equality:

Stoet (2015): bit.ly/1EAfqOt

Big Five trait agreeableness and (lower) income (including for men): Spurk (2010): bit.ly/2vu1x6E

Judge (2012): bit.ly/2uxhwQh

The general importance of exposure to sex-linked steroids on fetal and then lifetime development: Hines (2015) bit.ly/2uufOiv Exposure to prenatal testosterone and interest in things or people (even when the exposure is among females):

Berenbaum (1992): bit.ly/2uKxpSQ

Beltz (2011): bit.ly/2hPXC1c

Baron-Cohen (2014): bit.ly/2vn4KXq

Hines (2016): bit.ly/2hPYKSu

Primarily biological basis of personality sex differences:

Lippa (2008): bit.ly/2vmtSMs

Ngun (2010): bit.ly/2vJ6QSh

Status and sex: males and females

Perusse (1993): bit.ly/2uoIOw8

Perusse (1994): bit.ly/2vNzcL6

Buss (2008): bit.ly/2uumv4g

de Bruyn (2012): bit.ly/2uoWkMh

To quote de Bruyn et al: high status predicts more mating opportunities and, thus, increased reproductive success. “This is true for human adults in many cultures, both ‘modern’ as well as ‘primitive’ (Betzig, 1986). In fact, this theory seems to be confirmed for non-human primates (Cheney, 1983; Cowlishaw and Dunbar, 1991; Dewsbury, 1982; Gray, 1985; Maslow, 1936) and other animals from widely differing ecologies (Ellis, 1995) such as squirrels (Farentinos, 1972), cockerels (Kratzer and Craig, 1980), and cockroaches (Breed, Smith, and Gall, 1980).” Status also increases female reproductive success, via a different pathway: “For females, it is generally argued that dominance is not necessarily a path to more copulations, as it is for males. It appears that important benefits bestowed upon dominant women are access to resources and less harassment from rivals (Campbell, 2002). Thus, dominant females tend to have higher offspring survival rates, at least among simians (Pusey, Williams, and Goodall, 1997); thus, dominance among females also appears to be linked to reproductive success.”

Personality and political belief:

Gerber (2010): bit.ly/2hOpnHa

Hirsh (2010): bit.ly/2fsxIzB

Gerber (2011): bit.ly/2hJ1Kjb

Xu (2013): bit.ly/2ftDhOq

Burton (2015): bit.ly/2uoPS87

Bakker (2016): bit.ly/2vMlQ1N

Occupations by gender: bit.ly/2vTdgPp

Problems with the measurement and concept of unconscious bias: Fielder (2006): bit.ly/2vGzhQP Blanton (2009): bit.ly/2vQuwEP (this one is particularly damning)

Microaggressions: Strong claims, weak evidence: Lilienfeld (2017): bit.ly/2vS28lg

And, just for kicks, two links discussing the massive over-representation of the left in, most particularly, the humanities: Klein (2008): bit.ly/2fwdLrS Langbert (2016): bit.ly/2cV53Q8

I'm a Canadian and I know who Peterson is. He's a Christian fundamentalist, men's rights whacko. He is not to be trusted on anything. His testimony at the Senate regarding Bill C-16 (another gender identity law) was atrocious.

He thinks women are born with pink brains and men are born with blue brains. He thinks the gender pay gap is a myth and that women are 'chaos'.

Peterson is a misogynist and a men's rights activist. I'm shocked to see some rad fems falling for him.

The NYT just released an article on him. He's had THREE sexual harassment claims filed against him during his teaching days.

www.nytimes.com/2018/05/18/style/jordan-peterson-12-rules-for-life.html

I think I've said this already, but if someone was totally neutral and without a side on the nature vs nurture debate I find it hard to believe they'd be more convinced by the evidence for nurture being the biggest influence

Biggest influence for what though?
There is no denying that nature is a massive influence, but the world is not balanced the way it is only because of nature. The power dynamics of the world are not the way they are simply because of nature.
We have a complicated political system and power dynamics due to capatalism and literally centuries of Eurocentric rule and an entrenchment of the ruling class.
There is nothing ‘natural’ about the system under which we live.

In a neutral world I would probably agree that nature is more of a driver than nurture but we don’t live at point zero, the game is already rigged when we’re born.

For a start, he's specifically said that he's not a christian. I've watched his testimony to the Senate and there was nothing atrocious about it. The NYT article was a hatchet job.

Using a biological basis for gender should be abhorrent to all GC feminists, but I realize that not all of you are GC.

He has admitted publicly that he's a Christian.

Could you provide a link please? I've seen plenty of links where he says he isn't. I'm away from home, otherwise I'd give the link to where he makes the Senate look incompetent.

@mancheeze "I'm a Canadian"

Good for you, being a Canadian doesn't give you any extra authority on this subject.

"He's a Christian fundamentalist"

Absolute nonsense.

-1 for an outlandish false claim

"men's rights whacko"

"He believes in equality of opportunity, which is not the same as mens rights."

-1 for the ad hominem

"He thinks women are born with pink brains and men are born with blue brains."

Correct, see a few posts up for all the studies on the subject

"He thinks the gender pay gap is a myth"

Doesn't think it's a myth, just doesn't agree that the cause is "but patriarchy"

"Peterson is a misogynist"

Lulz no

"The NYT just released an article on him"

Another Leftist hit piece. The biggest question is why he keeps inviting them in

@mancheeze "He's had THREE sexual harassment claims"

He mentions this here, 8m10s in. Says he had three baseless accusations

Doesn't seem to be any more information online readily available.

@mancheeze "He has admitted publicly that he's a Christian."

Being a Christian doesn not necessarily make you a "fundamentalist" as you described him

@lucydogz "I've seen plenty of links where he says he isn't."

Do you believe in God seems to be asked of him frequently. It's like how the Daily Politics host couldn't wait to ask him if he thought trans women are women.

The reason they want to nail down someone on these questions is because the answer can then be used to discredit him.

Peterson doesn't believe the Bible literally happened as described, but believes in the power/mythology of the stories contained within

I agree with everything he says. However no human being has every answer to the human condition. He bases all his arguments on solid research which is good enough for me.

Sorry haven't read whole thread but was somewhat confused when I tried to pick it up

Have I got this straight...Scandinavian country tries to get more women in STEM. Female participation in STEM go down. This is Presented as evidence that females are genetically not able/wanting to do STEM?

Surely the experiment shows that female participation is heavily influenced by society and the method chosen to encougae females backfired? Otherwise if society had no impact the numbers would not have fallen?

@OldmanOfTheWeb3 Thanks for posting the debate video, that was really interesting and I just watched the whole thing.

Michelle Goldberg made some great points and I agreed with practically everything Stephen Fry said. The other two appeared to be in a bit too much of a hurry to engage in a pissing contest and not listening to one another properly. Which is interesting in itself in the light of the debate upthread on how men and women handle conflict. You could argue that Goldberg and Fry engaged in a ‘feminine’ manner, which appeared to me more constructive and capable of leading to a workable compromise. In contrast Peterson and Dyson were combative and more personal in their approach. I don’t see anything useful emerging if you left those two alone together – but maybe I just don’t understand male ways of communicating properly

It leaves me thinking that, while Peterson and Camille Paglia are concerned that the feminisation of culture is a negative phenomenon, it doesn’t appear to me to be so. Although I can understand why men who are unable to communicate without an underlying threat of violence may feel threatened by it. And if such men can’t come to terms with the increasing equality (they might say dominance) of femininity, they may feel compelled to do something physical about it. So, not a comfortable situation at all. I suppose it may go some way to explaining the tweet from Peterson, “Women: if you usurp men they will rebel and fail and you will have to jail or enslave them.”

@midgebabe "Have I got this straight...Scandinavian country tries to get more women in STEM. Female participation in STEM go down. This is Presented as evidence that females are genetically not able/wanting to do STEM?"

No, it did not go down. More women went into nursing and more men went into STEM - the gender gap got bigger, not smaller. As do personality differences between the sexes in more egalitarian Countries.

Exactly, proving that society not genetics is the cause.

MIdgebabe I believe the argument is in Scandinavian countries which have worked hard to bring in policies to enable women in the workplace, fewer women choose to go into STEM jobs compared to countries where women are struggling far more for basic rights. It is argued that when given greater freedom and protections, people make different choices based on their personal preferences (which may be influenced by sex) rather than purely for monetary or prestige based benefits. It would explain why in less equal countries, more women go into STEM and similar masculine jobs though obviously not a definite one. It doesn't prove things one way or the other really, but an attempt to explain why what could be called stereotypical behaviour are showing up as they are.

He's charismatic and I get how some quite like him and why others find his manner repellant. I think acting like what he's doing is 'cult-like' because of how people like him ignores cults are more than just charismatic leaders, they involve behaviour, information, thought, and emotional control for the benefit of an ideology usually around those individuals. While some of his followers are overly enthusiastic, I'm not sure how someone who encourages relationships, questioning, reading, and doing more is anything like a cult. Personally, having left those controlling environments (with adults I think I would have respected more if they had the nerve to stand up and risk violence to themself when they saw violent, intoxicated members risking kids lives but those valued their reputations as good people more), I think 'cult-like' is thrown around way too often just for people others do like that an individual doesn't.

@midgebabe "Exactly, proving that society not genetics is the cause."

I'm really not sure how you've arrived at that conclusion

If the "nurture" argument is that society tells us that Nursing is a womans job, so more women do nursing than men. And that STEM is a boys subject, so more men do STEM than women.

Then how is the gender gap for nursing/STEM getting bigger in more equal Countries proof of the nurture argument?

An intended solution making a problem worse does not prove what created the problem in the first place.

Men pay more for car insurance, this is because men drive faster and more aggressively. The nature theory says this is because testosterone makes men more likely to take risks.

The nurture element would say that we give boys toy cars, F1 and shows like Top Gear encourage driving fast etc.

But laws against speeding, penalties, possible jail time, campaigns about dangerous driving etc are societies way of trying to educate all drivers against speeding.

If the govt decided to increase spending on their anti speeding /dangerous driving campaigns but the number of road accidents increased - you wouldn't blame that on society/nurture, would you?

Why don't you read the article?

quillette.com/2017/07/15/time-stop-worrying-first-world-gender-gaps/

Or watch the documentary