Woke staff revolt over Jordan Peterson book

[Apollo440]

thepostmillennial.com/publishers-woke-staff-revolt-over-jordan-petersons-new-book

Isn't he regarded as transphobic for refusing to use compelled speech and warning of the consequences (and proven right by Yaniv). Seems like the woke at Random House publishing are appalled that their business is based on making a profit. Peterson may not be your glass of tea but he's hardly Goebals.

That interview with Cathy Newman is just wonderful! It was the first thing I saw of JP and it impressed me so much that he just laughed off her nonsense and then pinned her so successfully that she was literally struck dumb! Hahaha it's a brilliant example of what happens when you seriously underestimate your opponent.

This interview of JP responding to that interview is also extremely revealing and fascinating

I think Peterson is extraordinary and one of the greatest thinkers and intellects of our age.

Or least the greatest communicator of ancient and deep truths that seem to have been lost at present.

Saying that, I didn't enjoy 12 Rules so much, and do prefer listening to him.

I returned to this this week:

and it still astounds me. The depth of what he is saying. I feel that each time I return to a lecture of his, I get something new from it, as my understanding of what he is conveying grows.

Of course this may be because I am simple minded, and other cleverer sorts saw immediately how superficial he is, or maybe not?

Certainly the characterisations of his comments on incels, and women as representations of chaos, strike me as laughably superficial to the point of not coming near an understanding of what he is conveying.

It seems to be at the analysis level of: Hummphhh, chaos sounds bad, so you saying we're something bad??
Or, so you're saying it's my fault then are you??

Which didn't go well for Cathy Newman.

I

I'd rather have a generation of men brought up to be tough-minded, resilient, responsible, family-oriented and caring than a generation of "male feminists" in any case.

So would I.

Of course this may be because I am simple minded, and other cleverer sorts saw immediately how superficial he is, or maybe not?

I'm a bit astounded by people who think he's superficial and not that smart or impressive. I suppose maybe I'm just a thicko. But he seems pretty fucking clever to me!

I agree with you about how he conveys ancient and deep truths. I'm glad I'm not too smart to learn from him.

Out of interest, why is it either or? Which of those characteristics would being a "male feminist" retract from?

he seems to have a fairly unsophisticated set of views.

All the sophisticated folks these days have sophisticated views like "the sex binary is a white colonialist construct" and "the female skeleton didn't exist until the Enlightenment".

How could he hope to compete in those leagues...?

I'm a bit astounded by people who think he's superficial and not that smart or impressive.

I've not read him, but I bet he doesn't write like Judith Butler. That's what proper clever writing looks like.

You know what I mean by a "male feminist" though. They're the ones yelling 't*rf' at JKR on twitter, or telling us 'sex work is work'.

I don't know if anyone here will remember the blogger 'femonade'? She used to have a thing about how she'd rather be with an un-reconstructed man who had maybe more traditional views on gender than with a 'new man' who would always end up being a covert dick. At least with the former, they were more likely to actually LIKE women and not be terrified/resentful of them. Just her opinion, obviously, but I always think there's something in that. Men who actually like women are my favourite kind of men.

Men who go around calling themselves 'feminists' are invariably, at least in my personal experience, manipulative arseholes. Or they are suffering some kind of 'male guilt' which makes them insufferable and secretly resentful.

Fair enough, honestly wasn't quite sure what you meant.
Not been here long enough to know Femonade but she sounds quite interesting so I'll have a search for that.
I'm a lesbian so it's a bit redundant what sort of man I'd prefer but it is the sort of thing where I'd be very interested on other women's experiences and opinions on traditional versus modern men.
Of my married friends, I have one whose husband is of the very traditional variety. At first, she seemed on cloud nine because he was a "proper gentleman". This meant, in practice, quite rich, good looking and always paid on dates. The appeal seemed to wear off after they had a baby, when "traditional values" suddenly translated quite differently.
On the other hand, I've several friends whose expectations of an equal, modern relationship with nice trendy man has fallen through very quickly when put into practice.

Femonade was back in the feminist blogging days - don't think there even was MN at that point. She melted down around the issue of PIV sex and I think she disappeared shortly after. Someone who was around then was Elizabeth Hungerford, who is still campaigning now. Probably others are still about, but we were mostly anonymous, so I don't know. There was a blog called AROOO (A Room of Our Own) which was kind of the centre of it all, which totally imploded when the co-bloggers fell out. Lots of accusations of racism and lesbophobia were thrown around. I think it was really identity politics that destroyed those little communities - I remember so many interminable discussions (fights) about whether you could call yourself a lesbian if you had ever had sex with a man or whether bisexuals were intrinsically lesbophobic and so on. Still, there was a lot of interesting writing being done around that time - and we were regularly invaded by TRAs and were having the trans conversations long before they came to light elsewhere on the internet.

Yes, I have many friends who thought they were going into equal partnership with a modern man, only to find themselves lumbered with an extra child in the form of a grown man completely incapable of stepping up to his responsibilities. I do like JP for insisting that there is nothing attractive or good about not being able to take care of yourself and your family - too many men seem to think that their family exists to support them. You only have to look at the relationships threads on here to see how that works out!

@queenofknives

oh god, flashback to the blowjob wars and Hugo whatshisface, and the bees and the wasps. Feels like whole other lifetimes ago

I'm rather interested by the way that all the people here who think Petersen is conveying profound deep truths and people who think he's a tedious sexist arsehole are missing something amazing, seem unable to communicate said profound deep truths in their own words. All I'm picking up from the Peterson defenders is that they think Peterson is great and that it offends them if other people don't share that opinion. I was open minded to the possibility that he's got something interesting to say, but this thread is persuading me in the opposite direction.

To be fair, the message also comes through that he's good/useful for young men to pay attention to, which does actually seem to be the case.

@queenofknives there is definitely something to be said for that - the self-congratulatory 'feminist' men do also seem to be quite bad at doing basic things like picking up after themselves.

[quote Summerstorms]@queenofknives

oh god, flashback to the blowjob wars and Hugo whatshisface, and the bees and the wasps. Feels like whole other lifetimes ago[/quote]
Hahaha omg yes, feels like another lifetime! Hail to you from the old days, fellow survivor of the blowjob wars!

Sorry I can't provide summaries of JP's work, Kantastic. For a start, there's so many different areas he teaches on, and the ideas are pretty complex (at least for me they are) . A lot of what he does is to dig deep into various world mythologies and relate those stories and archetypes to our personal psychology. He also does a huge series of lectures on the bible. This is in addition to his self help stuff, which is in addition to the political science stuff. And I think there are other areas too. I definitely couldn't convey the deep truths he gets at in a short post on social media, or even a long post - they don't lend themselves to soundbites and I just don't have the skills or knowledge to do that. But I and others have dropped links to interviews and speeches which I think are quite accessible.

I'm not remotely offended that people don't like him but some of the criticisms read to me like people haven't engaged with his work really and are just going off what they've heard about him. Maybe that's not fair but that's how it comes across. But honestly I think JP is maybe one of those people who some connect with and learn from but who leaves others cold. Having said that, I truly believed I didn't like JP until I actually listened to and read some of his work, at which point I discovered I'd been missing out. So I suppose it's worth defending him in case others have the same experience. Also we know by now that anyone who gets so thoroughly trashed usually has something to say that's worth listening to! But I'm sorry if anyone has the impression that I'm offended by their dislike of JP as I am not at all! Man can take care of himself :)

queenofknives you didn't seem to me to be one of the offended ones , sorry for overgeneralising!

I am genuinely curious to know what people are getting out of his stuff. I instinctively bristle at pompous sexists, and Peterson seems to fall into that category to me - it seems like he uses 200 words where 2 would do, and I've seen a lot of appallingly sexist quotes from him. So there is probably no chance of me ever "getting it" unless someone can somehow paraphrase the insights to me.

But I get the impression he's a good orator, and I definitely believe there is a HUGE power in working with mythic archetypes, I've been doing that myself with some writing exercises lately and it was far more powerful than I could ever have anticipated. So maybe Peterson's thing isn't so much what he says (none of which seems new) as the way that he says it? So you can't paraphrase the insights because there's something experiential there that can't be consciously articulated? I honestly get the impression that some people are having quasi-spiritual experiences listening to him. And I don't mean it in a derogatory way, I can totally see how a good orator working with powerful myths could achieve that effect. Maybe he's more of a preacher than a public intellectual as we usually understand it?

Kantastic, different people like him for different reasons.

Although there are some people who are very taken with him, most people presumably just find something of use in his writing.

So I find his writing useful, but I also found books by Helen Pluckrose, Richard Dawkins and Tom Holland useful. Yet if I say I enjoyed Peterson’s 12 Rules for Life, that is taken by some as meaning that I am deeply invested in Peterson as part of a culture war. It’s just another book.

I would say he covers general life advice, Jungian archetypes and psychology.

The general life advice is good because it combines the small and everyday with some bigger statements. The ones I particularly remember are - your life should have meaning, life is fundamentally about suffering, the more responsibility you take on the more meaning your life will have, and that you should not underestimate your own capacity for evil.

The Jungian archetypes as applied to fairy tales and the bible - some of this I don’t find particularly engaging. I think he moves the bible out of its cultural context, but I can see why it is appealing to people who are very unfamiliar with the stories. There are bits of his Jungian stuff I love. His comments on the pieta and how mothers give their children up to the suffering of the world gets to the heart and tragedy of motherhood, in my experience.

The psychology - talking about different personality types and the dangers of them - that is important for a public audience because we are fed a diet of CBT and mindfulness which give us no insight into who we are.

I am sure there are many academics who could tell us similar things, but for whatever reason we are not hearing from them.

For me life is about both meaning and the material world. Peterson engages with both. The rise of identity politics means that many academics are no longer addressing either of those things.

I find him most interesting when he talks about his academic areas - things related to personality, things related to his clinical experience. His Jungian stuff can also be interesting though I agree it tends to be out of place somewhat when he looks at ancient texts.

But I am not really the right audience for that. I think why it appeals to many is they have never had any real exposure to any kind of serious use of literature to elucidate meaning. And a lot of them are starved for meaning in general. Even the idea of meaning, that there could be something available in art or literature that can't be found in science or the news is a revelation for some. There's been a kind of intellectual and also what you might call spiritual lack of content in their education and experience, and Peterson is the first time they see that.

I think that's why they respond to what he says about taking responsibility. Because if it's meaningless, just about getting laid, maybe, that's not very motivating. WHat's the point? The way he talks about being honourable is really important to those young guys.

I find him not so great on political theory - kind of all over the place. He has some insights but his thinking is much sloppier.

I do agree that people tend to be appalled at some of the things he said without actually looking into them. The stuff in that article above about forced monogamy was really terrible reporting and I'd say almost an outright falsification.

I haven't read or watched much by Jordon Peterson. There does seem to be a general aversion towards him among left / liberal circles, and I'm not sure why especially when many also admit that they haven't read any of his works.

I think most people don't really make informed decisions. They follow whatever is considered 'good' or 'bad' among their peers and align themselves with the appropriate 'right think' and distance themselves from arbitrary 'wrong think'.

Almost three years ago when I was first getting my head around the trans debate, I came across Peterson and his argument for opposing the Canadian government effectively compelling its citizens to comply with people's pronouns. And I completely agreed with him! I could not understand why people were against him. The state must never frame non-compliance on issues like pronouns as the equivalent of hate speech because it is deeply illiberal and will end up causing deep divisions in society in the long-term.
It was also one of the first issues that started to get me worried about the direction in which so called 'progressive' politics was taking - illiberal, reactionary, authoritative, unwillingness to debate and disagree etc.

I read the Louise Perry article a while ago and agreed with what was said as it came across as well-balanced in its compliments as well as its criticisms. Peterson does seem to resonate with many people, especially young men. I think whatever it is he taps into does a much better job of enabling men to take personal responsibility and work towards becoming better partners than any kind of feminist solution that has been marketed over the years. Maybe that explains some of the hostility and deliberate misinterpretation of the things he says? A sense of envy and anger that someone who isn't a feminist is getting much better traction among men (and in turn facilitating tangible improvement in women's lives in the long-term if many men follow his advice)?

The Cathy Newman interview made me cringe so much. I was soooo embarrassed on behalf on Newman and ashamed that her approach seemed to be a trademark of contemporary feminism. It was such an awful way to conduct oneself and Peterson really gained the upper ground by not rising to her very obvious provocations.

I will read the other links posted, thanks. Andrew Doyle article is good.

I’m open minded about Peterson (haven’t yet read the books) and think the staff at his publishers need to get a grip. I did see a good thread of video clips where he was rendered speechless himself. Eg, on Joe Rogan, when Joe pointed out that men not getting any sex was the same as the natural success that Peterson celebrates in other areas, Peterson couldn’t answer.

I wonder how many of them have actually read the book 🤷🏻‍♀️

His comments on the pieta and how mothers give their children up to the suffering of the world gets to the heart and tragedy of motherhood, in my experience.

I find the accusations that he hates women really curious. I have found more validation of my experience of motherhood from JP than any feminist. His approach of acknowledging the biological aspect to nurturing really made sense to me as I approached the ‘end’ of motherhood. I had actually spent many years being frustrated (not daily frustration but a simpering frustration) at my seeming incapacity to be an ‘all things’ mother. I’m a single parent raising two boys so maybe this was more pronounced, but I had been trying for years and years to overcome most of my natural responses to motherhood. Late meeting vs. Get home to the kids. Cook (nurture) an amazing meal vs be resentful about being in the kitchen. I had been doing the late meetings and feeling discombobulated by it, for years. It never felt right. But I carried on because apparently I was a blank slate and only told by society that I couldn’t do that corporate high flying job, it was the glass ceiling etc.

I think it’s much more grey than that. If I’m totally 100% honest with myself, I would have preferred to have had the opportunity to raise my children away from the pressures of my corporate job. And he helped validate me that that was perfectly natural, that many women feel that. I know feminists say that too, but honestly I never really believed them. I felt I was letting the side down if I didn’t want to smash the glass ceiling.

As it turns out I married a terrible man and had to just crack on anyway and it’s no bad thing I’ve a decent job, but as I say the actual truth is is that I would have sacrificed all of that in a heart beat if I could have and would have spent my life feeling much more congruent and satisfied.

I find it ironic that JP, the one accused of being anti-feminist, is the person who helped me find peace with motherhood and sacrifice.

There does seem to be a general aversion towards him among left / liberal circles, and I'm not sure why especially when many also admit that they haven't read any of his works.

It appears he's very anti-Woke, in that he believes you can actually do things that improve your life. (And conversely do things that make it worse).

The Woke/CRT position is that it's all someone else's fault, and that you should never have to take responsibility. (Only if you're Woke/Black, of course - if you're not anyone in that group's problems are your fault).

To some extent that Woke view is a pushback against the equally ridiculous rightwing view that everything is down to the individual and if you're not a millionaire it must be because you're just lazy, and clearly there's nothing wrong with society because some people managed it.

Obviously the answer's in the middle. Society can be unfair, and systematic things like progressive taxation (or even UBI?) are needed to counter that. But you can't just be Kevin the teenager and scream "It's so unfair" and expect that this will help you as an individual.

You can both "do the work" Woke-style, and also tidy your room and go to work...

... it seems like he uses 200 words where 2 would do, and I've seen a lot of appallingly sexist quotes from him.

Could we have one such quote?

I'd love to be able to discuss on this board an actual JP quote rather than just assertions that he is sexist etc.

"Context is everything" is one of the first lessons I learned on these boards for which I am thankful. (Waves to ROwantrees.)

I’ve no particular skin in the Peterson game as I agree with him on some stuff and disagree on other stuff on the basis of having listened to him on a couple of podcasts. I find his pompous style off putting so have no urge to delve further in (JP thread always end up with recs of 3 hour you tube videos that you must watch in order to fully understand the man and I’ve never arsed myself to do so).

I’m still agape at the spectacle of another round of overly woke drama llamas destroying their future careers in an already precarious industry as the world enters a recession. I mean, talk about luxury beliefs.