Jordan Peterson Interview with Helen Lewis

[rightreckoner]

here

It's long but I thought I'd give it a bit of a watch since I've heard so much about him. Initial thoughts are - he's not as clever as he thinks he is. Questions he doesn't like he closes down with a bait and switch answer or a terrifying Paddington stare. Comes across as a bit of a plonker. With absolutely no humour. Helen Lewis did a good job I think of not getting annoyed although he is so bullet proof there's almost no point in the discussion.

His basic thesis (if I understand it correctly) is that society is not shaped by the patriarchy but by competence. So the reason men are scientists and women look after babies is that they are better at these skills respectively. There is no such thing as the patriarchy.

There is a good bit at about 1.05.40 where she asks him why women change their names on marriage if not to symbolise their transfer from one man to another and he says - ugh, Margaret Atwood is an idiot.

Studies over many countries over many years [25 yrs]over many thousands.But not good enough.

Do you have a link to those studies?

Conventionally men in my family work in farming and women have families of up to 9 children.

Luckily we can all adapt. It’s great to be a human with opposable thumbs and a pre frontal cortex.

Early on in the interview, JP says that men are leaving university social science departments because of the 'doctrine' that is being taught there and hostility towards them.

This is a similar situation to women not being in male-dominated professions. How much is inclination and/or ability and how much just because of the unpleasant and unwelcoming atmosphere that can be present in a single-sex dominated area for someone who is in the minority?

If men are self-excluding from the female-dominated social sciences because they feel unwelcome there, then are women self-excluding from male-dominated areas for the same reasons? People put up with a lot more shit if it's the only way they can earn a decent living, than if they live somewhere where they have a lot more choices.

Was this issue examined in the studies you mention sunnyroad?

"My impression is that he's a kind of Guru figure, a beacon for the incels
He is easily destroyed by rational enquiry but that's not what it is about, gurus don't jive with rational enquiry and they're not trying to appeal to people who analyse things in that way
it's all about invoking masculinity with the meat eating, the primitive caveman get back to the roots stuff"

Why are the majority of his students female? At his talks it's overwhelmingly guys, but if I remember correctly, in his lectures, it's more women.

I quite like Peterson - I find the way he talks quite interesting. I also really enjoyed his Christianity lectures on YouTube. I don’t always agree with him but I think he’s got a powerhouse of a brain.

I also think it’s false to present the 12 rules as a list - they are chapter titles and often the subject matter is only loosely related.

@birdsdestiny

In that case, touche.

However if you have watched hours of his interviews you would know that his (un)popular opinions are not his own, to which he concedes, and that they have been reinforced by academia over and over again. This is his point. That is why in almost every interview he points out that the argument men and women have different tastes based on biology has effectively been freed on by academics, literally, decades ago. The super lefties, however, do not agree with this. They are simultaneously , for example, arguing that a woman's choice, whatever that is, is respectable, whilst making many women feel they must succeed in work and in raising a child to be validated in today's world. They undermine women in a roundabout way, essentially telling not that you can do what you want, but that you must do A) B) and C) in order to BE a "modern woman".

I find mother's to be absolutely nothing short of heroes. (Heroines? You pick).

Anyway, I agree, JP's lack of humour is hilarious in its own right, I agree with a lot of what he says, but I found Helen Lewis to be a pretty good opponent for him (until she exclaimed that because lobsters "urinate out of their faces" as, seemingly, the reason to disbelieve decades of biological truth). I empathised with a lot of what she said too. His use of his stare is laughable as well actually. I totally cringe at it. So obviously an intimidation tactic, but he'd argue to his grave it wasn't.

freed = agreed. My brain has ceased working for the day. Good day.

Mrghardy if he has more female students is it the demographic for the degree he teaches on?

@Manderleyagain

As if he hasn't queues of women trying to get into his course.

Come on.

But yes, to a non famous psychiatrist, demographic plays the part.

You won't get me disagreeing that the left is misogynistic as is the right. Feminists are fighting against many of the expectations of women that you have listed above.

Regarding the voting issue, the vast majority of those in the trenches couldn't vote either (which I only found out tecently).

The only person who thinks that "women are always victims of men" is the fragrant sunny. No one else believes that at all. Everyone is affected by patriarchy, whether they believe in it or not, or want it or not or whatever.

The idea that women have traditionally only done childcare or other caring roles is facile and betrays a deep lack of understanding of history in every corner of the world.

If you have any evidence for your outlandish claims sunny, I urge you to present it. Soon. Because presently you just look like you're flailing about and being bloody rude.

There's something about JP threads on FWR, always brings at least one poster very, very like sunny who calls us all feminazis, quotes this study about utopian Scandinavian countries which are perfectly equal and women are completely liberated, and gets increasingly pissed off when women don't immediately see the error of their ways and have the audacity to ask challenging questions.

nobody has suggested that the Scandinavian countries are perfect,just pointing out that the studies that have been extensive, conducted by left-wing social scientist have so far pointed out that the more egalitarian societies are, and Scandinavia is top,[they have socially engineered schooling to be proactive in equalizing the sexes } women and men tend to choose conventionally traditional jobs. Countries where there is far less equality, women given the choice will choose engineering roles. SO FAR NO FEMALE/MALE SOCIAL SCIENTIST HAS LOOKED AT,OR STUDIED THIS DATA AND BEEN ABLE TO REFUTE IT. You can reject it all you like but so far nobody with your political leanings has been able to find fault with it. Don't you think the Cathy Newmans and Helen Lewis's of this world would be on it they had? .You can twist and turn, deflect as much as you want, The truth remains.

Sunnyroad1
You seem very good at posting walls of text, but not so good at replying to questions or reading other people's posts.

I asked you for a link to the studies you talk about. If you can't give a link, just authors, titles, journals will help and I can look them up myself.

Just in case those studies are behind a paywall, can you say whether they took into account the everyday experience of women working in male-dominated workplaces in Scandinavia? JP mentioned social science departments in universities being an inhospitable environment for men. HL mentioned male primary teachers finding their female-dominated workplace uncomfortable at times. That sort of thing.

I'm not rejecting what you're saying, I'm just asking for a bit more evidence to back up your assertions.

nobody has suggested that the Scandinavian countries are perfect,just pointing out that the studies that have been extensive, conducted by left-wing social scientist have so far pointed out that the more egalitarian societies are, and Scandinavia is top,[they have socially engineered schooling to be proactive in equalizing the sexes } women and men tend to choose conventionally traditional jobs. Countries where there is far less equality, women given the choice will choose engineering roles. SO FAR NO FEMALE/MALE SOCIAL SCIENTIST HAS LOOKED AT,OR STUDIED THIS DATA AND BEEN ABLE TO REFUTE IT. You can reject it all you like but so far nobody with your political leanings has been able to find fault with it. Don't you think the Cathy Newmans and Helen Lewis's of this world would be on it they had? .You can twist and turn, deflect as much as you want, The truth remains.

citations needed

preferably separated by paragraphing and other grammatical norms

Or, you could utterly fail to prove any kind of argument and fail at mansplaining my actual job again. Choice is totally yours.

There was some discussion up thread about voting. In England male heads of household have been able to vote in general elections for many centuries – but only if they had a large income from land, keeping legislative power in the hands of landed gentlemen, and Lords who obviously had a place in the legislature themselves. People lost their lives in the 19th century struggle for manhood suffrage, but the struggle for votes for women was largely separate, and later. I personally think we should have made more of 1918 centenary giving the last men the vote (as well as some women) because it was such an important step in our democracy.

Whenever I hear JP talk about gender/patriarchy, he gives the impression that he rejects the idea that western society was ever patriarchal. It’s completely a-historical. Until married women’s property act (which HL mentioned) the political and economic system was literally ‘rule by the fathers’. Wives were subordinate to husbands by custom and law. Male heads of household had responsibility, and their power was backed up by many laws. For example a man’s legal right to use violence against members of his household (including his wife). Married women did not hold legal rights as an individual adult under coverture – eg. they could not own anything. Poorer men who were not householders did badly from the system too. The fact JP has never wandered why women change their name on marriage suggests he hasn’t really thought about what ‘patriarchy’ means. But to dismiss it as a descriptor of social organisation is to dismiss this history. This is what we have come from.

I’ve heard a lot about this Scandinavian argument , and I don’t know what it’s supposed to prove. So in an “egalitarian society” the women are more likely to choose “traditional” jobs. What am I supposed to conclude from this,, though? That women are actually really shit at engineering because , given a free choice, they don’t prefer it? That women “innately” desire to do “traditional jobs” so getting them to do engineering is contrary to their feminine nature? That we should never ever try to influence people’s natural desires because that’s social engineering? What’s the argument here?

Out of interest, in Scandinavia do women dominate “traditional” feminine roles like professional cooking and fashion? Or are the men still in top?

I’ve heard a lot about this Scandinavian argument

I've heard a lot about it, but it all seems to be anecdote so far. It could just be something that someone (JP?) made up to make a point, but no studies have actually been done. Until I see evidence to the contrary, I'll assume that's the case.

Even in egalitarian societies where there are supposed to be equal opportunities for women and girls, we still see things like the girl in yesterday's report who was told she couldn't play football because she's a girl, and from time to time I see threads on MN about girls being discouraged from studying maths and physics in school.

Are these studies looking at the workplace now, where some people (near retirement age) will have gone to school in the 60s and girls may have still been encouraged to go into traditionally female roles? Are they looking at women who have engineering degrees but choose to work in another profession? Are they looking at intakes at university and seeing that not many women choose to study STEM subjects?

I'd like to see these studies and see how the research was carried out and if it is reasonable to draw the conclusions that JP does. I'm still waiting for those citations, Sunnyroad.

I personally think we should have made more of 1918 centenary giving the last men the vote (as well as some women)

I agree - more should have been made of the fact that so few people had the right to vote. The real date for women to celebrate is 1928.

It's also irrelevant to argue that women weren't hard done by because so many people couldn't vote - women were excluded at all levels. There are men sitting in the house of lords now because their title can only be passed to men. 26 bishops sit in the house of Lords, and until 2014 they were all male.

Obviously the Lords have limited powers now, but that is a comparatively recent change, and the remnants of how things used to be are still very clear to see.

There are men sitting in the house of lords now because their title can only be passed to men.

And women can't inherit the titles even if they transition.

I've heard a lot about it, but it all seems to be anecdote so far. It could just be something that someone (JP?) made up to make a point, but no studies have actually been done. Until I see evidence to the contrary, I'll assume that's the case.

Do you really think that given his number of detractors just itching to trip him up at every opportunity that JP would just 'make it up' and hope nobody notices?

Anyway, there have been plenty of studies, a 30 sec google search flags up a number of them, or are you just expecting others to provide evidence for you and until that happens you can just write it off as 'anecdotal'?

Dr. Nima Sanandaji published a paper called '“The Nordic Glass Ceiling' and later wrote a book called the 'The Nordic Gender Equality Paradox' .

Researchers, from Leeds Beckett University and the University of Missouri also did a study on the phenomenon that found that countries with the greatest gender equality see a smaller proportion of women taking degrees in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM).

Do you really think that given his number of detractors just itching to trip him up at every opportunity that JP would just 'make it up' and hope nobody notices

his detractors repeat his message and strengthen it in the minds of his fanbase, thats also how trump operates

he doesnt so much make things up as frame things in a way which conceals and distorts the full picture