Ask Hadley on Jordan Peterson

[Freespeecher]

I know that 'Ask Hadley' is a lighthearted column but she opens by damning him by association (he doesn't choose his fans) and essentially writes a hit piece by cutting and pasting a previous hit piece. ReluctantCamper could have written this for a fraction of Hadley's fee!

I understand opinions on Peterson are somewhat mixed to say the least but, in the wake of her articles on the Trafalgar Square anti-semitism demo and ManFriday, this article comes across as a disappointingly weak effort.

Thoughts?

(And link - don't seem to be able to do clicky links on my phone, sorry: www.theguardian.com/fashion/2018/may/23/jordan-peterson-public-intellectual-isnt-clever-violent-men-monogamy).

There's probably a germ of truth in his theory if you consider only public violence (i.e. the kind of violence that men fear might happen to them) and ignore domestic violence (i.e. the kind of violence that men generally don't fear).

Hadley's piece was lazy at best.

Enforced monogamy is a recognised anthropological term. It's through laws on polygamy, constant societal narrative on marriage/monogamy and so on. Most of us are happier in stable pairings, children are better off with stable pairings of their parents.... these are not new ideas.

My reading of JP is that he sees adult males as irresponsible whiny babies and women as champions of victimhood. I do agree to an extent, but insofar as we are all responsible for our own lives and identifying into a victim class or never growing up isn't great for anyone. I part company with JP's more robust criticism of feminism, but it does need it's critics and at least he's not a malevolent nasty POS....

I also see much of his theories as observations rather than endorsements.

He says interesting (and occasionally batshit crazy) things, and that's OK. Horses for courses innit?

I'm very interested in Alan Titchmarsh's views on how best to prepare my vegetable bed, but he's not my go to person for advice on how to undermine the patriarchy.

Peterson being there and constantly piping up is fine, it all adds the gaiety and variety of life (although one gets the impression that his life is not very gay at all).

I'm just very puzzled (and a little worried) by people taking him so seriously. Some just on the basis of his stance on pronouns.

He talks as if from a pulpit, and I see a certain religious fervor in some of his followers.

at least he's not a malevolent nasty POS

come on posie, surely that's the minimum we expect from people taking part in public life? He doesn't get props for that!

"These ideas were then said to originate from an all powerful deity, not mortal men, and so should not be questioned. When in the west there was less emphasis on religion and more on science, they then concocted things like craniology, eugenics and social darwinism to justify their subjection of others"

Textbook cherry picking, why not also mention for sake of accuracy other things that emerged from the enlightenment (that dispensed with a lot of religious ideas) e.g

Supernaturalism -> naturalism
Mysticism -> objective experience and reason
Original Sin and Gods Will -> Tabula Rasa and autonomy
Collectivism -> Individualism
Feudalism -> Liberal Capitalism

Because they aren't relevant to what's being discussed fms ?

If it's gone over your head then I really can't be bothered to explain the relevance to you

sure fms, sure

Freespeecher: He did a follow up making his meaning more clear? Oh good, words we can actually pin him down on! Let's take a look:

"So, let’s summarize. 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.
That’s all."

How curious. Peterson presents himself as this renegade thinker, who blasts through preconceived notions and political correctness to get to the steely cold truth of the matter. And yet, whenever he's asked to clarify his position, it turns out he didn't actually mean anything radical at all! It turns out that what he actually meant was the most mild, boring, milksop, unoriginal interpretation.

Anyway, so his argument is that young men get frustrated when they don't have sexual access to women and when they are not sexually competitive. This frustration makes the young men dangerous. Their dangerous behaviour has to be regulated. And so the (best? easiest? only?) way to regulate their dangerous behaviour is to have "social conventions" that "tilt" us towards monogamy. These conventions constitute the regulation of the dangerous young men.

Some problems:

1. Peterson is presenting the violence of frustrated young men as this large social problem he wants to solve. It's bizarre, though, that he only presents one potential solution to this problem without providing any evidence or argument that this is the best or most efficient solution. If male violence is our real concern, there are loads of other potential solutions to this. We could radically change the way we raise boys, so that they learn that violent responses to frustration are absolutely unacceptable. We could institute a matriarchy where traditional feminine values are emphasised and male values, like aggression have a social penalty. We could have a zero tolerance policy to male violence- any male who is violent goes to prison for a long time. We could sterilise violent young males to reduce their influence in the gene pool. We could manufacture massive conflicts every few generations to kill the violent young men off. We could give the non-violent, decent men massive rewards to send a strong message that not being a dick really pays off.We could socially enforce the idea of 'free love' so everyone gets lots of sex all the time. And so on. There's literally a million different ways we could deal with the problem of male violence and aggression. It's curious that Peterson presents just one solution.

2)It's also not good enough for Peterson to say 'well, they shouldn't act this way, but they do.' Violent young men are not a destructive force of nature that just has to be 'put up with'. They are rational human beings who know they shouldn't act this way.Peterson shrugs and talks about the violence of young men as if it is natural, an inevitability. This doesn't justify their behaviour, but it does frame their behaviour in a way that makes them appear less responsible for it. "Aww they can't help it! The poor dears just have to kill people when they don't get what they want!" I think it's crucial to constantly emphasise the agency and free will of these young men. They CHOOSE to be aggressive and violent. They are WILLINGLY holding the rest of society hostage to their demands. If we view male violence as less of a natural phenomenon and more as a consciously chosen decision, I think this can help influence how we deal with this problem. Peterson obviously thinks that reshaping and bending the whole of society to their violence whims is the best way to go. I'm not so sure. Why should we accommodate these bullies?

3. So Peterson ignores other potential options and jumps straight to "enforcing monogamy" as the solution. We HAVE to regulate the violent young men, and this regulation is constituted by enforced monogamy (note, he doesn't actually tell us why this has to be the regulation. I presume he thinks it's the best option.) And by 'enforced monogamy' Peterson doesn't actually mean anything, you know, exciting or innovative or ballsy. No...'enforced monogamy' for Peterson is just bigging up social conventions that 'tilt' us towards monogamy. Positive depictions of monogamy on the tv and in movies. Tax breaks and benefits for monogamous couples. The monogamous joining of a famous couple televised worldwide and reported in adulating terms. Getting little girls to dream about their future prince and their wedding day. And so on.

What's the problem? Well, let's see what you have to say about this proposal: "Just the plain, bare, common-sense facts: socially-enforced monogamous conventions decrease male violence." It's just common sense! It's totally obvious! Socially enforced monogamous conventions decrease male violence! Except, if that's all that Peterson means well...we tried it (we're still doing it) and it doesn't work. In the UK, and the Western world in general, monogamy is still the norm. It is presented as a highly desirable state of affairs. The vast majority of UK adults, at some point in their life, get married. And male violence is still a massive problem, and seems to be getting worse if the behaviour of incels is anything to go by. Peterson is presenting the normalisation of monogamy as this radical new idea we've never tried before, when it's been the status quo in the West for hundreds of years. Also, it SEEMS obvious and commonsensical, but where is the proof that monogamy reduces male violence? This shouldn't be too hard to test or verify. The fields of social psychology, sociology, and physics are full of 'it's just common sense!' claims that turned out to be absolutely bollocks. How do we know that enforced monogamy isn't actually making the problem worse?

4. Now, Peterson might demur that I'm not being fair (because that is what he always says). What he really meant to say is that we aren't 'socially enforcing' monogamy enough. Monogamy being enshrined into religion, popular culture, law etc just isn't doing enough. The men are still being violent, so we have to do more. To be honest though, short of the more exciting totalitarian options, I have no idea how we make monogamy even more of a thing. Monogamy is, compared to other social norms, already pretty well advertised and enforced in the west. We could make divorce much harder, but that's harmful to women. We could heavily penalise single women and ostracise them, but that's unjust. I mean...Peterson's big idea, his solution, is to present something we've been doing for hundreds of years anyway. It's obviously failed. It doesn't work. Men are still violent. So the onus on him is to propose new and better ways of "enforcing monogamy" that doesn't entirely shit on the rights of women and girls, and that doesn't give too much up to the men who are holding our society hostage with their threats.

"We could radically change the way we raise boys"

Things are already moving in this direction

"so that they learn that violent responses to frustration are absolutely unacceptable"

Pretty sure this is already a thing

"We could institute a matriarchy where traditional feminine values are emphasised"

Like caring?! How would you react if all of a sudden the number of women entering traditionally female professions like caring skyrocketed!

If as has been discussed at great length already, efforts in Scandinavia to make things more egalitarian only increased differences between genders in personality and career choices, then surely emphasising traditionally feminine values would only pour further fuel on the "nurture" fire

"male values, like aggression have a social penalty"

Pretty sure we have a legal system in place for this

"We could have a zero tolerance policy to male violence- any male who is violent goes to prison for a long time"

How full are our prisons already? What do you think would be the effect of a zero tolerance policy on societies with higher levels of violent crime?

What groups in society do you think would be most impacted by this?

"We could sterilise violent young males to reduce their influence in the gene pool."

Ok you got me, good one, this is satire right?

"We could manufacture massive conflicts every few generations to kill the violent young men off."

ok, definitely satire

"And male violence is still a massive problem, and seems to be getting worse if the behaviour of incels is anything to go by"

Just to point out that two people associated with the incel movement have gone on killing sprees.

One of whom, Elliott Rodger, was put in therapy at a very very very early age by his parents who could tell he was deeply troubled/disturbed - a real "we need to talk about Kevin" type scenario.

It really pisses me off that people continually use him as a figurehead of anything

Peterson strikes me as a man so comfortable inside the box that he does not even want to acknowledge the existence of the box.

He is not impartial (no-one is), but seems to lack the insight to see this.

I think he is a very dangerous POS actually - except he covers his veneer with his so called intellect - he has low empathy and compassion for women. His remarks about enforced monogamy illustrate the shallowness of his analysis and that ultimately he thinks women can socialise men. So simplistic as to be crass. He has no idea about systems thinking and as quoted above, doesn't appreciate he is part of the problem not of the solution.

As to identifying with a victim class - that's crass as well - it ignores the systemic subjugation that is very really. Just because you may not have experienced it doesn't mean it doesn't exist nor negates the real harm it does to too many women and girls. When one has been victimised, often repeatedly, women are not playing the victim but telling it like it is. To call out victimisation of a sex does mean one is "being a victim" or identifying with a "victim class"

very real not very really

I still find it very bizarre how people take a statement Peterson has said and suddenly act like he’s endorsing specific actions that could arise from said statement. It’s like the general population has lost the ability to separate a theory from a person’s moral stance. Or maybe that ability didn’t exist in the first place.

Cynical, moi?

"he has low empathy and compassion for women"

How do you square that statement with his lengthy career as a clinical psychologist?

As he said to Cathy Newman, he's worked with many high flying successful women, helping them negotiate pay rises etc

Do you think you can successfully give life/career advice and solutions to women without empathy and compassion

"To call out victimisation of a sex does mean one is "being a victim" or identifying with a "victim class""

Lots of people are critical of the "oppression olympics" hierarchy encouraged by intersectionality, including some women eg Christina Hoff Sommers

This is a tweet from 5 minutes ago (from a woman), funny how relevant it is

"This and it is such a shame. Postcolonial theory, queer theory, critical race theory, intersectionality. They all have something important & useful to say if only they didn't decide to do it insanely." twitter.com/HPluckrose/status/999637641653030912

I think it’s certainly true that western society is less violent than it used to be in say, the Middle Ages, even taking into account domestic violence/rape etc. But I don’t agree that there is a clear link with monogamy. I think social equality and prosperity have a lot more to do with it.

The trouble with JP is that he glibly says things like ‘of course we have to tackle injustice/inequality’ ( I heard him say this in an interview). But no suggestion about how you do this without talking about the fact that some groups have it better than others. He seems a bit incoherent.

Ok I’ll bite, when men become fathers AND couple that with actual, regular hands on care of said children we become less violent and our testosterone levels reduce. The masculine impulse to protect should be directed towards our children and not women.

I don’t think it’s the sex we get in monogamous relationships that corrects the problem. It’s the children. Now on that front the best most efficient environment to do that in is through monogamous relationships.

This benefit is advantageous to both men AND women. Women aren’t left holding the baby and men can enjoy a higher degree of paternal confidance. Also society isn’t left picking up the tab quite so much.

None of this is incompatible with a lot of feminist thought, of course in situations of domestic violence the initiation of the use of force towards your partner is a violation, and sex in no way should be seen as a right. Even in a monogamous relationship.

Surely some of you have the mental dexterity of thought to meet halfway on this? In fact rather than subsume any feminist principles to this idea, can they be promoted along with it? I mean if men were more hands on with childcare surely that frees up more choices for women in the world of work?

fmsfms:

Dude, out of my frankly massive post the only thing you pick on is my entirely hypothetical examples of things that potentially could be done to reduce male violence? You are confusing me listing a bunch of potential solutions as actual endorsement of them! All I was pointing out is that if your number one concern, and goal, is to reduce male violence there are literally gazillions of ways you could solve this problem. I literally just came up with these proposals on the spot. I said nothing about whether these are good proposals - in fact, most of them are shite. What's curious to me is that Peterson zeroes in on just ONE solution, without consideration of any alternatives, and without an explanation as to why he's chosen it. He obviously must think that enforced monogamy is optimal in some way - maybe it's the easiest to enforce, or the best. But it's certainly not the only solution out there, and it's weird to me that he doesn't consider any competing views when there are so many possible ways this problem could be solved.

"in fact, most of them are shite"

Which is what I implied

"What's curious to me is that Peterson zeroes in on just ONE solution, without consideration of any alternatives"

If the alternatives bear any similarity to yours then probably for the best he doesn't bother

I wonder why enforced monogamy is a better solution than any of the ones WeeBisom came up with.

We've had how many centuries of socially enforced monogamy on the west now- has it worked?

fmsfms:

So that's Peterson's view then? That every single alternative to dealing with male violence is so poor that the ONLY viable solution is "enforced monogamy"?

I thought Peterson fans were supposed to have superior reading comprehension, high degrees of charity, and an aversion to logical fallacies. None of my solutions were intended to be serious proposals to the problem. Rather, my solutions were a rhetorical device to illustrate my main point - in the logical space available there are many, many potential solutions to the problem, and yet Peterson only focuses on one. It is unusual that Peterson only focuses on one solution, especially when he hasn't actually given any reasons for us to think that his proposal is the best or the only viable option.

It pisses me off that the role of women in this scenario is to stop men being violent. Who wants to be married to a man so entitled and lacking in fellow feeling that he will commit mass murder if he doesn’t have a wife?

It's almost like Peterson sometimes spouts absolute nonsense without properly thinking it through WeeBisom.....

Surely some of you have the mental dexterity of thought to meet halfway on this? In fact rather than subsume any feminist principles to this idea, can they be promoted along with it? I mean if men were more hands on with childcare surely that frees up more choices for women in the world of work?

Okay, now this really is a straw man. Literally no-one on this thread has objected to anything like what you're describing there TransExclusionaryMRA.

The first and only person here to bring up the idea that the reduction in violence from 'enforced monogamy' is due to offspring from the relationship is you.