Jordan Peterson

[Wilsonwilson]

What do people make of him? Watched the triggernometry interview with him yesterday. I have previously seen bits and bobs of his but not taken much notice. In the interview he pointed out that out that his greatest criticism has been because he was lecturing people whilst being a benzo addict, tbh this was my criticism.

I don't know, to me he just seems disingenuous somehow, could be my bias like he says.

@Doona

What a silly comment

Why? It's the feminist board, and women are being criticised for expressing their views, and a man is being praised for setting us straight.

You said "a bunch of men". One poster has said he is a man- where are the rest of this "bunch"?

Also if a poster who happens to be a man makes a good point what on earth is wrong with acknowledging that? Particularly when much of the thread is discussing what Jordan_Peterson, a man, has to say about men and masculinity. So yes, what a silly comment.

@LibertyMole

He’s not religious. He’s been very clear he’s not a Christian. There was a YouTube video of him and Bishop Barron meeting and discussing his beliefs.

He draws on all kinds of mythology - ancient Egyptian for example. His focus on Christianity and Judaism is more to do with his investment in the traditions of the West. That is where he is conservative. He’s not particularly conservative on economic issues.

The religious aspect to him comes from Carl Jung, who believed that humans have a 'religious instinct'. This is basically that we all have an inbuilt striving towards a relationship with something or someone that transcends human power.

So in that sense, anything can be a God.

That is why he is so ambiguous when asked whether he believes in God.

It is not a 'religion' that he believes in, but that we need a higher purpose beyond ourselves.

Some might say identity politics is an example of this e.g. feminism

Yes, I agree Hamster.

Although I wouldn’t consider feminism transcendent.

@EarthSight funnily enough the reason I first encountered MN was when I was studying English language A Level, and we used the site to analyse unique speech patterns! Guess I carried on coming back to it partly because sometimes ots hilarious on here, but more so because of the interesting state of the trans debate at my university. And also I'm not trying to talk down to people, I just think that given how innocuous the bloke really is, there's not much point pretending he's some hate guru. It's just a clinical psychologist giving out free lectures on the Internet, and saying stuff people may not agree with.

@LibertyMole

I am not sure feminism is transcendent either....but there is something like it getting used as a poor substitute for transcendence experiences, iykwim.

I say that because of the ideological rigidity of it at the moment, and the use of it to search for higher purpose.

Welcome student it's interesting to hear different voices.

interesting discussion about Feminism as transcendent. I've just listened to chapter 6 in JP's latest book, which talks about why ideologies are unsatisfactory, one of the reasons being that they are not transcendent.

I think a transcendent ideology has to have a meta level, doesn't it? Something that holds things together? Traditionally you'd have a metaphysics, but once you get to the late 19th/early 20th century, the dominant idea was that there was no metaphysics. So people had to look for something else to hold together thier ideas about truth and justice and how we know what is right.

There has been an attempt to make all the SJ movements into one thing, and use that as the rational basis for politics, beliefs, society, in maybe the last five years. It's one reason I think you get people who think that anti-racism and feminism and whatever are all the same thing and could never conflict. But none of them are up to it - all rest on deeper ideas about the nature of justice and it becomes random or incoherent without that underlying structure.