Jordan Peterson

[Perimental]

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

Thoughts on this man......

OldmanOfTheWeb3 , it's ok if you drop the Dr just once when you mention Jordan Peterson. It's beginning to get a bit .... odd and grovelling.

I type it because it's shorter than typing Jordan Peterson (as you just did) and because both "Jordan" and "Peterson" by themself sound weird to me. There's no grand conspiracy. ¯\(ツ)/¯

What I find really strange about all these JP discussions is that new people l've never seen on Mumsnet before crowd in to defend him -

I created this account to post some help in the Gender Critical Science thread, but whatever. What should matter is whether what people say is true or not. Not whether it makes you oooo- suspicious.

I didn’t really like frozen, that much the music isn’t ducky enough for me. I LOVED Moana though and The Princess and the Frog.

I liked the characters and the message in Frozen. Haven't seen Moana. Got to agree with you about tPatF, though. That's one of the most positive messages in a Disney film. Great opening number, too.

I am open to the idea that women and men choose different paths given equality of opportunity and if that’s what the evidence is pointing to, then fine, it could well be the case. BUT nowhere has complete equality of opportunity and social norms take a long time to change. So, even with encouragement to pursue a STEM career, if it is not seen as something to aspire to among girls, based on input from their social environment, rather than any external structural initiatives, they may still be less likely to pursue it. That said, I haven’t read all the literature posted upthread (too busy watching that debate), and I imagine the authors will have thought about and discussed these possibilities and maybe controlled for them?

Yes. To a fair extent. What you say is true but it can be examined to see how much it matters by comparing between different countries and seeing if it matches up with other measures of equality. The Scandinavian countries are world leaders in empowering women by many objective measures. But women in STEM has declined as that equality increased. I can dig out some supporting material if you like but it's fairly well established. It's certainly true that it takes a while for society to change and there could still be a general rise ongoing. But that it's reducing in the most equal countries heavily indicates there's an underlying tendency.

And I personally think that's okay. So long as there is equality of opportunity and people don't think a tendency means anything as far as ability is concerned or get huffy when someone goes against that career. That's where my efforts would be focused.

OldMan What I am about to tell you may shock you.... I have never seen frozen

falls off chair

I have only read a bit of this thread, but as someone who has a background in psychology I wanted to say a couple of things. It seems to me that many people either assume or pretend that psychologists (and researchers in general) are without bias and nothing could be further from the truth. From selecting an area of study, deciding on a research question, devising an experiment/study etc, interpreting the results, to forming a theory to explain the results, at every part of this process a psychologist’s biases will influence them. It is futile to pretend psychologists (and most other researchers) are objective and without bias.

If a psychologist’s view is that women are not oppressed by men as a group, in other words they do not believe in patriarchy, then they will believe that women have no structural obstacles or societal aspects influencing their ‘choices’. Therefore, if such a psychologist finds that women do not go into STEM careers even if they are ‘encouraged’ to do so, they will explain those findings by theorising about nativism and often propose that evolutionary differences between the sexes are responsible, etc. In other words the psychologist has already decided that females and males act differently and pursue different activities, careers etc, due to reasons of nativism so that is how they will interpret the results.

A feminist (not a lib fem) who of course knows too well that systemic oppression exists will interpret the results in a entirely differently way. For example, they would theorise that because STEM classes and careers are already male dominated and are not suddenly going to change, women are more likely to experience harassment by males in STEM classes/careers due to the males outnumbering them in those subjects/careers. The same can also be said for other male dominated occupations that are not STEM. There is plenty of evidence of women suffering harassment from their class mates, work colleagues and bosses when they venture into heavily male dominated subjects/occupations. It is naive to think these things do not influence women’s ‘choices’. If a woman can earn a reasonable living doing something that does not involve subjecting herself to such harassment then she is likely to do so, which would explain why women in countries where they can support themselves in other jobs ‘choose’ to do so. In the case of women from countries where the pay for traditional ‘women’s jobs’ is extremely low, then women will of course ‘choose’ to enter STEM and similar higher paying occupations, as they are much more likely to be able to support themselves by doing those jobs. In other words the findings that less women go into STEM in more ‘equal’ countries, can be explained by women performing a costs-benefits analysis.

Of course that is without even mentioning that we are all subjected to conditioning (or associative learning, as they now like to call it) from a very young age, which greatly influences our ‘choices’. This explains things like why men like to drive fast despite the penalties, they get social approval from their male peers for being ‘manly’, they also have been taught that is what men should do, if they want to be considered a ‘real’ man. No to mention that males put themselves first, and haven’t been conditioned like women have to put others first, so don’t bother thinking about the danger they may cause to others by their selfish behaviour. So these behaviours can very easily be explained in other ways rather than the nativism theory that some are pushing.

What I find really strange about all these JP discussions is that new people l've never seen on Mumsnet before crowd in to defend him - and they defend him at great length, even making sure they never ever denigrate him by dropping his very important academic title. In that way it's very similar to Brexit threads or Trump threads a la Claig. It makes one suspicious about the nature of his following.

Yes one could be forgiven for thinking threads like this are a setup. Because there's little room for feminist perspectives but a lotta room made for male ones.

The Scandinavian countries are world leaders in empowering women by many objective measures.

Says a man. Right.

No that's not the case!! There's a piece of research, which omits many of the measures of the factors that determine girls and women's careers choices, that gets obfuscated into that of "women choose nursing as society gets more equal". It certainly fits a narrative being pushed that's for sure.

Yes equality of opportunity also includes not being harassed once you get into the job.
You can’t create a toxic environment for women (or men) then claim that it’s simply choice that stops people engaging in certain areas. Look at the thread about the man wearing a top with a naked woman on the front to do a presentation in the tech industry.
If people don’t feel welcome somewhere then when they have a choice they won’t stay there.

Scandinavian countries still have pretty high levels of violence against women don't they?

There's plenty of room for feminist critique of :Peterson, but the best starting point is something he actually said as opposed to the Vice interpretation,.

That said I do have concerns about the entire "free speech" movement being dominated by men, the right is dominated by men too. It's a grave concern as ultimately the attack on women from the right is to stop our autonomy over our bodies, and from the left it's to erase our boundaries. Either way we're fucked.

I think there’s been plenty of critique of things Peterson has actually said on this thread.

The term external influence is used to refer to the specifici intervention. It is different from normal society interactions. sorry if I confuse, I am not used to explaining this sort of thing to non-scientists.

The example as presented is logically false. Not proven. It made an inference about an assumption based on the result of an experiment which was not designed to test that assumption. That's just wrong.

If you are telling me that this guys primary selling point is his rational application of science and logic to any question, I can only hope that is was the presentation of the anecdote on this forum that is flawed.

Please not the provided YouTube link in the thread edits out a crucial part of Michelle Goldberg's summation. Since discovering that, I haven't had the opportunity to review the remainder of the video. But on that basis I would treat that version of the debate with caution. Here's a link from the host.

I've posted my summary of the summations below. tl;dr JP & SF show themselves up by their lack of feeling empathy for those with a lived experience of being marginalised and subjugated. In differing ways, they use intellectual as a guise to ridicule others and self-centre their analysis and conclusions as the "right ones". They don't move towards the MD&MG at all. I was struck by how angry JP is about the situation at his Uni and how a lot of his posturing is displaced projection about a situation where he thinks he has "lost" - MD nailed him when he says he's a mean, mad, white man - the politics of resentment. JP really is - probably lost them the debate but showed JP's true colours up. MG also nailed JP in his dismissive attitude to women. She also showed how blind he is to the threat to women of his propaganda and their fear at him effectively telling them to get back back in their place. She nails JP as part of the problem in creating a climate where women are blamed and threathened

Stephen Fry - around 1:42:00

Underestimation that language does affect people. It does make them very anxious, upset alienated to feel that they don’t know anymore how to operate in the world.
..
I don’t think we should underestimate how much this feeling is prevalent in the culture of this strange paradox that the liberals are liberal in their demand for liberality. They are exclusive in their demand for inclusivity. They are homogenous in their demand for heterogeneity. They are somehow un-diverse in their call for diversity. You can be diverse but not in your opinions, and in your language and in your behaviour and that’s a terrible pity. tl;dr my feelings are important and have more validity than anyone else's. Has some good points but little empathy for other's point of view and lived experience.

Michael Dyson:

A pig and a chicken are walking down the road and say lets go and have breakfast. The chicken only has to give up an egg but the pig has to give up their ass to eat. We’ve been the pigs for far too long so let’s share those asses around. tl;dr how about white men put their asses on the line for a change. White males are resentful they have lost ground to other sections of society, like women and people of colour. This fight back is their Confederate Flag - their lack of accepting they have lost

JP:

hierarchical structures constantly tilt towards tyranny and we have to constantly wakeful to ensure that what they are isn’t always power and tyranny. ..Foucault mentioned unfortunately because he believed the only basis upon which hierarchies were established is power and that’s part of this pernicious politically correct doctrine that I’ve been speaking about. When a hierarchy becomes corrupt and the only way to ascend it is to exercise power, that’s essentially the definition of a tyranny, but that doesn’t mean that the imperfect hierarchies that we have constructed in our relatively free countries, which at least tilts somewhat towards competence and ability as evidences by the staggering achievements of civilisation, that we’ve managed to produce. It doesn’t mean that the appropriate way of diagnosing them is to assume without reservation, uni-dimensionally, that they’re all about power and as a consequence that everyone who occupies any position within them is a tyrant or a tyrant in the making. And that is certainly there fundamental claim of someone like Foucault. And that’s part of this ideological catastrophe that’s called political correctness. I’m not here to argue against process. I’m not here to argue against equality of opportunity. Anyone with any sense understands that even if you’re selfish, you’re best served by allowing yourself access to the multiplicities talents of everyone and to discriminate against them for arbitrary reasons unrelated to their competences - that’s abhorrent and has nothing to do with the issue at hand. tl;dr nothing wrong with status quo - I'm doing all right Jack, why don't you? And don't you dare tell me I'm part of the elite that benefit. My analysis is right, yours is wrong - and I take lots of language and time to say that.

Michelle Goldberg:

One of the irresolvable facts we’re coming up against is the role of feelings. Stephen Fry asked us to recognise and emphasise with this feeling of being silenced, of being threatened and I do. I get it. I feel it sometimes to in my columns. I hate it when I write something and then I get a kind of irate Twitter mob after me. But if I stood up here and said, recognise how threatened so many women feel when for example one of the best selling and most prominent intellectuals in the world right now, says in an interview that maybe the MeToo movement has shown that this whole experiment of men and women working together is just not working. Or maybe if women don’t want to be workplace to be sexualised they shouldn’t be allowed to wear makeup.

JP interrupts and says he didn’t say that. She says Google it, it’s on the record (note his escalation and attack rather than that’s not what I meant to convey - I apologise if that’s how it came across).

1:48.39 - a really important part of what she says is edited from provided Youtube link - this is her full comments:

If I say I’m feel threatened, then I’m being kind of politically correct and hysterical. So much of the condemnation around the debate about politically correctness, is about people saying respect my feelings or accomodate my feelings. And to some extent, we can’t accommodate everyone’s feelings. But there’s one group that really does think it’s feelings should be accommodated and that is what we keep on coming up against - that there’s a group of people, and to some extent I’m part of it, that feels uniquely that our feelings of being silenced, marginalised, censored - that those feelings need to take primacy. We can sneer when these groups ask for us to take seriously their feelings of being threatened or their feelings of being marginalised - then we call those demands political correctness.

Finally I will say that I think there’s a fair amount of research that people become more close-minded, more tribal when they feel threatened. When they feel their group identity is at stake. So as much as you want to blame the left for the rise of the right, I think that when you get the rise of the right- the rise of people who are questioning the fundamental ideals of pluralistic, liberal democracy- the more those views are mainstreamed, the more people I think are going to shut down in response because people are really scared.

tl;dr She names it - this is white male right fight back for recent progress that has meant they have had to give something up, and they don't like that. JP is their mouthpiece and is no friend of women and has said so on the record, but now denies it. She also differentiates between the legitimate demands of the marginalised v the feelings of those entitled and supported in our society who are whinging because they have had to give some up but who are wilfully deaf to women

Scandinavian countries still have pretty high levels of violence against women don't they?

Yes that's correct, and very underreported, and none of that figured in any research. Also the more I get to drill down the stats, the more I realise that the factors affecting women's and girl's career choices, their career experiences plus their economic outcomes are not measured - because that requires research money.

More research where I am has demonstrated that the funding bodies (male dominated) give funding to male led studies and most money to all male teams . That's mirrored in venture capital where only 4% of VC funding is given women led start ups even though companies led by women perform better than those led by men. So men say one thing and do another and their money trail shows the truth.

We can't even get money to research the things that determine women's experiences of life and careers, at all ages, because they're not considered important enough, by ————men.

The example as presented is logically false. Not proven. It made an inference about an assumption based on the result of an experiment which was not designed to test that assumption. That's just wrong.

Brilliant summation - I didn't know how to phase it and you've captured it.

There's plenty of room for feminist critique of :Peterson, but the best starting point is something he actually said as opposed to the Vice interpretation,.

. Sounds awfully like "she's asking for it"

I've said before re JP he's fine if he confines himself to talking about men and owns his projections - which he doesn't, in either case. His comments regarding women are often abhorrent and dismissive of our experience. He outs his thinking continually that we're the problem somehow and demonstrates he doesn't have a felt sense of empathy for our subjugation.

That said I do have concerns about the entire "free speech" movement being dominated by men, the right is dominated by men too. It's a grave concern as ultimately the attack on women from the right is to stop our autonomy over our bodies, and from the left it's to erase our boundaries. Either way we're fucked.

I tend to agree - hence why we are corralled on this board with whips above our heads moderating our speech at times. There really is a war on women and it's coming from both sides.

God I watched that whole debate and felt that Dyson was a nasty POS, And Michelle was just plain wrong. There's no way I would apologise if someone used a shitty interpretation of what I said to score points against me.

And Michelle was just plain wrong. why was she wrong? I listened to the makeup video and JP did say that women who wear makeup in the workplace were being hypocritical.

I'm not defending MD - I don't know him at all - he launched a personal attack to expose JP's hypocrisy I assume. Whilst I don't condone the tactic it did succeed in that. I didn't like MD's style but did respect his point of view. I think the whole thing was not moderated correctly nor the definition of terms sufficiently clear so it would inevitably end up in disagreement.

I don't think any of them demonstrated the understanding of the systemic issues at play that need articulating

@therealposieparker "That said I do have concerns about the entire "free speech" movement being dominated by men, the right is dominated by men too."

Christina Hoff Sommers, Heather Heying and Ayaan Hirsi Ali would beg to differ

mobile.nytimes.com/2018/05/08/opinion/intellectual-dark-web.html

@womanformerlyknownaswoman

"hence why we are corralled on this board with whips above our heads moderating our speech at times. There really is a war on women and it's coming from both sides."

Probably one of the most hilarious posts I've seen here on MN.

Every forum has a code of conduct and a moderation team, crying sexism at this is just ????

@womanformallyknownaswoman

I take back that lost comment, your misrepresentation/analysis of the Fry debate is even funnier

"tl;dr my feelings are important and have more validity than anyone else's. Has some good points but little empathy for other's point of view and lived experience."

How have you drawn that conclusion from the part you quoted?

Are you able to suspend your beliefs and opinions when listening to two opposing arguments? If you can't then you're always going to more receptive to one side and more critical of the other, as opposed to judging each side on the quality of their argument.

For example, imagine if a proper serious debate on trans issues was held, not the channel 4 debacle but a properly moderated event with prominent voices on each side, prime time tv etc

You know your friends and family and colleagues with certain views will be watching and you hope that maybe some of them will be "peak transed"

When you ask them what they thought they give you Cathy Newman esque straw men interpretations and you realize they watched the program from their ideologically entrenched position

How frustrated would you be?

@Artemis7 "I have only read a bit of this thread"

It shows

"It seems to me that many people either assume or pretend that psychologists (and researchers in general) are without bias"

No we don't, I have posted multiple studies on this thread, they can't all be biased

"Therefore, if such a psychologist finds that women do not go into STEM careers even if they are ‘encouraged’ to do so"

If you're referring to the equality paradox in the Nordic countries then this isn't the results of a study, it's what's happened and is happening right now in those societies

"If a woman can earn a reasonable living doing something that does not involve subjecting herself to such harassment then she is likely to do so,"

Nursing is 98% female, nurses work with male doctors, patients and administrators. Terrible point to make, completely wrong.

No female dominated profession is male free lol,

"In other words the findings that less women go into STEM in more ‘equal’ countries, can be explained by women performing a costs-benefits analysis. "

Yes obviously, I already posted this. And in the more egalitarian countries women have more freedom and ability to pursue their own interests, and the personality differences between men and women become bigger, as evidenced by multiple studies

"This explains things like why men like to drive fast despite the penalties, they get social approval from their male peers for being ‘manly’, they also have been taught that is what men should do, if they want to be considered a ‘real’ man."

I already used the speeding example of how society tries to deter and influence drivers not to speed, whilst f1 and Top Gear glamorise it. Men still get into more accidents than women despite the penalties.

Are you dismissing the influence of testosterone entirely (if you are then you're wrong)

Mr Peterson is in a favour of enforced monogamy I get the impression that this would involve every woman being assigned to a man, men and women will then be happy and there will be no violence
What's not to like eh
mobile.nytimes.com/2018/05/18/style/jordan-peterson-12-rules-for-life.html?action=click&module=Trending&pgtype=Article&region=Footer&contentCollection=Trending

"Violent attacks are what happens when men do not have partners, Mr. Peterson says, and society needs to work to make sure those men are married.

“He was angry at God because women were rejecting him,” Mr. Peterson says of the Toronto killer. “The cure for that is enforced monogamy. That’s actually why monogamy emerges.”

Mr. Peterson does not pause when he says this. Enforced monogamy is, to him, simply a rational solution. Otherwise women will all only go for the most high-status men, he explains, and that couldn’t make either gender happy in the end"

He's responded to that here

jordanbpeterson.com/uncategorized/on-the-new-york-times-and-enforced-monogamy/

Actually dolphins have the answer

Dolphins?🐬🐳
Are you sure?
surely the Lobster is self evidently the species most analogous to homosapiens🦂

I can't help seeing Jordan Peterson as a modern day Rasputin
Weird twisted Guru figure

The saviour of the incels