Post for Feedback / Comment on Re-Coding Peterson Episode
Added 2022-07-25 01:40:46 +0000 UTC
It's fair to say we were not big fans of Jordan's new content but maybe you disagree or think we missed something?
Any comments/feedback are welcome!
Comments
Thank you too for a serious reply, it does clarify a lot! My saying "poor job" was a shorthand for specific points/arguing style, not that your analysis was wrong (TL;DR version in point 3.) 1. Both Jordan and totalitarian rhetoric share tropes, but saying that he apes it wrongly suggests that totalitarianism is his source , which makes the argument look sloppy even if there's something there. 2. I completely agree about his questionable endorsement of Orban et al. With Putin he's trying to be painfully careful, condemning the war in Ukraine (and if he changed his mind here, that is to his credit). His comment on the Polish president though are really detached from reality. I think it's his galaxy-braininess - trying to fit it all into his mystical narrative - the interview with Penrose was the most painful example of that to me as a scientist. But Lindsay's example is rather anecdotal. "Just because X hasn't murdered anyone yet in no way means he is incapable of murder, just look at Y." - that's like asking to prove a negative. And compared to a murderer (Lindsay in this case ;) his constant denunciation surely counts for something? I'd rather "charitably" attribute his position to stupidity than malice. He seems rather lacking after the accident. Your point about fascism/Nazis is well taken. If I imagine a more general attempt at comparison, I think I see the same red flags that you do, we just disagree as to the degree, and my personal history makes it a touchy subject. 3. I might have worded it too harshly - it's not that your whole analysis was poor, it's that you used several poor arguments to support what might indeed be true. The assessment is of the form, not of the contents. And I would press you here: You don't find it compelling that I point out common rhetorical pitfalls? You used guilt by association (sharing rhetoric), slippery slope arguments (gateway drug), and anecdotal evidence (Lindsay). Yes, these are examples from your reply, but they mirror the episode. I'll grant you that given enough parallels the guilt becomes real, but wouldn't it be a cleaner victory still with fool-proof arguments?
Tomasz
2022-08-26 17:07:14 +0000 UTCSorry about the disappointment and thanks for the feedback! Here are my own thoughts: 1. We've always indicated we think Jordan is high on his own thinking. Discussing Jordan's propensity to endorse hard-right narratives in no way suggests otherwise. As Matt said, he is remarkably unaware of how many of his tropes ape totalitarian rhetoric. 2. We have discussed specific examples of Jordan being oblivious to and sympathetic towards people with authoritarian tendencies/white nationalist sentiments. If you want two specific examples we have discussed: his attitude to Viktor Orban and Stefan Molyneux. Others have pointed to his long-term connection to things like the far-right Rebel News in Canada. These connections are not hard to locate and always go in one direction. His recent video on Putin was, despite his later claims, extremely sympathetic to Putin and credulous of Russian propaganda. Peterson's tendency to rant about totalitarianism *in no way* means he is incapable of endorsing the rhetoric, just look at James Lindsay. I'm sorry to hear you find the comparison distasteful but there are an increasing amount of 'blood and soil' overtures in Jordan's rhetoric, the Nazis are also not the only movement to make use of fascism. 3. This rests on your assessment that we have done a poor job. I'd counter that I don't find your criticisms to be very compelling. Matt was more willing to note the fascist-style rhetoric, and that should tell you something. This is not Aaron Rabinowitz noting the parallels, it is Matt. Someone who has previously said he thinks Jordan is basically harmless. The examples provided in the podcast are direct quotes, you are welcome to disagree but I think the parallels are pretty obvious. You might note that despite Jordan claiming otherwise, he really is not that unpopular in far-right communities, rather he is identified as a gateway drug.
Christopher Kavanagh
2022-08-26 01:50:53 +0000 UTCI must say I'm quite disappointed with your take here, although it's sometimes hard to distinguish between joking/rhetoric. I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt, since there's so much scientific BS in JBP, and I think it's important to disabuse people of fascination with him, but... 1. I think you're underestimating the degree to which Jordan believes in what he says. You are looking for hidden motives where there's just mysticism. I used to listen to his psychology lectures years ago, and I would claim that he's REALLY into the whole Jungian approach, and has evolved over years to the point of seeing Cain, chaos, logos and DNA snakes everywhere. Check out his video where he analyses ONE sentence from Nietzsche (who Jung also admired). Which brings me to 2. You can't reasonably blame him for who is using his work or agreeing with him. Both here and in a newer episode with Dan Friesen you use guilt by association - speaking about young man, love of the country and a hero is not enough to make him "fash". And if you forgive a personal note, three generations of my family lived in Auschwitz, so I find your comparison a weird mix of inaccurate and distasteful. Given JBP's ranting about totalitarianism, he would obviously (see below) oppose that on par with communism. It's the naive mystical language again that is so easily subverted. You just can't draw a straight line from Nietzsche or JBP to nazism, which finally brings us to: 3. You said it yourself (on the VBW I think) - if you criticize someone poorly, you might actually increase their follower count. So why do a poor job with JBP? You rightly ridiculed Brett Weinstein or Tim Pool for strategic disclaimers, but here you use them yourselves. "I'm not saying he's fash but you make your own mind". You keep mentioning "associations with certain groups" or individuals, but never name them. As I said at the start: let him have it. Show people specifically where he supported fringe and/or dangerous movements. Don't just use "fash" as a joke-slur - give examples of his actions or literal quotes, without stretching the interpretation of his muddy mysticism. Because you might be completely right, but you couched your critique in so much loose rhetoric and jokes, that it's hard to take seriously - even if it is funny ;)
Tomasz
2022-08-25 10:40:39 +0000 UTCThe "Think again Sunshine" line suggests that The Daily Wire have given JP a team of writers!
Andrew Mac
2022-08-08 09:11:05 +0000 UTCWhat's this 'how about'? I demand a link!
Paul Sees
2022-08-02 10:34:05 +0000 UTCYou couldn't come up with a quote like that if you were *trying* to come up with an over exagerrated JP quote.. he's a specialist.
Nick Wiebe
2022-07-30 20:59:07 +0000 UTC"This is not only wrong - theologically, morally, psychologically, PRACTICALLY! and scientifically - it is literally anti-true. It is not a mere mis-statement about the nature of reality, a minor conceptual error, but something that literally could not be farther from the truth. And something that distant from the truth comes from a place that cannot be distinguished from HELL." "You might think that I’m overstating the case. THINK AGAIN SUNSHINE!" How about starting a shared document with our favourite guru quotes?
Maarten Wesselius
2022-07-28 13:45:25 +0000 UTCNice episode! I think you've said it in the last few episodes of JP: he sounds less and less like a poet and more like a croaking old man. Especially on twitter. Just listen to his comments about women's magazine models he can't jerk off to or his transphobic babble over the last few weeks... Although he had this alignment all along, some events in life can radicalize people. For Hitler, it was WW1, for JP, it was drinking apple cider.
Martin Unland Elorrieta
2022-07-28 09:33:51 +0000 UTCOh indeed. I agree. The extreme that you observed could teach kids to be ashamed of a little healthy competition, which really is damaging.
Nancy Carrozza CaraDonna
2022-07-27 14:59:16 +0000 UTCYou make some good points. I definitely agree that the moral panic is wrong headed, and completely overblown. That said, what I saw at the school seemed at best unhelpful and possibly psychologically damaging. Of course opinions will vary, and none of it justifies the ranting of people like JP
Loki
2022-07-26 22:34:32 +0000 UTCI dunno. I think there's too much of a moral panic around this. Progressive schools have a different focal point and always have. They often want kids to focus on cooperation, trustworthiness, fairness, and lateral or creative thinking, as an alternative to just "getting the win". Children can always knock themselves out competing with each other when they get home.
Nancy Carrozza CaraDonna
2022-07-26 21:26:40 +0000 UTCGreat episode, a bit short, but I believe western civilization shell endure. Have you watched the clips of his interview with Kyle Kolinsky? There's a couple of parts were Kyle ask him a very basic question like "would you ban transition surgery for adults?" and Peterson reply "I don't know", like it's the first time he's been thinking about that. Is that just rhetoric? It seems like he's speaking with sincerity, but how can he have never thought about that, it's mind boggling. It's like with the makeup thing, it looks like a cunning way to inject reactionary ideology into mainstream outlet without being labeled, but Peterson doesn't seem very cunning.
Donkey kong
2022-07-26 20:41:46 +0000 UTCThat's just Daily Wire audience, critical thinkers need not apply.
Donkey kong
2022-07-26 20:26:12 +0000 UTCI know he got friendly when they went on speaking tours - has he at least started to distance himself more recently?
Sean Carmody
2022-07-26 08:26:54 +0000 UTCJP is the non-thinking man's intentellectual. JP reframed (lied about) feminism in a way that was very attractive to some men. He also reframed (lied about) postmodernism for people who couldn't bother to read any of the texts themselves. Now he reframes (lies about) the significance of twitter posts. That is what real Gurus do - find one trick and repeat it endlessly and hope the audience joins in with the trick
Nina Davies
2022-07-26 07:45:12 +0000 UTCI have never understood the attraction of JP. However, men that look and sound like librarians can be very charismatic apparently. Jeremy Corbyn and Sangharakshita have caused some of my friends (sometimes the same friends) to loose all touch with reality.
Nina Davies
2022-07-26 07:36:43 +0000 UTCgiggle
Steven Cleghorn
2022-07-26 05:56:18 +0000 UTCBtw if you google Schaeffer and see stuff which compares him to Peterson, that's not our guy. It's his more famous father who confusingly has a very similar name and was a HUGE name in religious circles in like the 70s and 80s.
Emma
2022-07-26 02:25:52 +0000 UTCHmm good question. Oh one guy I thought of, no idea if he does interviews, but he is an ex fundy leader himself so he has a really interesting perspective: https://frankschaefferblog.com/
Emma
2022-07-26 00:23:59 +0000 UTCI think Matt’s point about JP ‘accidentally’ falling into far-right ideology was very interesting, and deserves to be expanded on, whether in print or through another discussion. In my opinion critics who frame him as a nazi give him too much credence as an ideologically consistent or targeted thinker, which leaves the door open for his defenders to dismiss those critics as catastrophising. On the other hand, his supporters also fail to recognise the clear—albeit somewhat ignorant—manner in which his ideas lead to those conclusions. In other words I think Matt’s point about him essentially being an idiot whose ideas lead to those fascistic ends sums him up well. Presenting it more fully would make for an interesting critique!
Henry
2022-07-25 23:57:46 +0000 UTCAgreed! And yet Sam has become more complimentary as they've become more friendly...
Christopher Kavanagh
2022-07-25 23:52:49 +0000 UTCYour wish is complete!
Christopher Kavanagh
2022-07-25 23:52:41 +0000 UTCYeah, this is true he seems to be trading in his original audience for a more red meat partisan one. He's ultimately just a very odd man.
Christopher Kavanagh
2022-07-25 23:52:28 +0000 UTCYeah, we know it exists, it's people acting like it is universal amongst 'the West' that is grating.
Christopher Kavanagh
2022-07-25 23:51:24 +0000 UTCYeah, this is true. We don't know enough to analyse. Maybe we should invite someone on to talk about it. Suggestions welcomed!
Christopher Kavanagh
2022-07-25 23:50:37 +0000 UTCMaybe but if you look at the reaction to his videos, it is clear many people are not seeing through the pantomime.
Christopher Kavanagh
2022-07-25 23:49:50 +0000 UTCYup!
Christopher Kavanagh
2022-07-25 23:49:06 +0000 UTCAll very good points! And thanks for the kind words.
Christopher Kavanagh
2022-07-25 23:48:44 +0000 UTCYou are making good life choices.
Christopher Kavanagh
2022-07-25 23:48:17 +0000 UTCWe live to serve.
Christopher Kavanagh
2022-07-25 23:47:59 +0000 UTCUgh... Brendan O'Neill...
Christopher Kavanagh
2022-07-25 23:47:38 +0000 UTCYeah, I think JBP is better at being a snarling angry critic than providing any useful answers. His self-help stuff is mostly benign but his political ideas are always incredibly childish.
Christopher Kavanagh
2022-07-25 23:47:06 +0000 UTCHope you are wrong but yeah it's not good!
Christopher Kavanagh
2022-07-25 23:45:38 +0000 UTCHe's a ham!
Christopher Kavanagh
2022-07-25 23:45:13 +0000 UTCDarth Vaguer, maybe?
Paul Bowman
2022-07-25 21:20:33 +0000 UTCMy takeaway was that I agree with Matt, it's not really christianity he's pushing, the big JC in his life is Joseph Campbell, not that Jewish feller. His message to the young fellers is a lot more "hero's journey" than "imitation of christ". And yeah, his appeal "Young men, join us! Surrender your worthless individual narcissism and join the crusade to save the West by fire and sword", is distinctly fashy. Even though, again I agree with Matt, the grand irony is his total lack of self-awareness in this regard. A cluelessness not shared by the actual fash who are well aware of his potential as gateway drug. Meh. My prediction is he will grow into this role, attract a new red-meat Christian Nationalist crowd and grow ever more hystrionic and self-parodic, until the next breakdown. As a true follower of Campbell, JBP is on a hero's journey through this vale of pain and despair, following his Star Wars destiny. He knows he's a Skywalker, he just can't figure out if he's Luke or Anakin.
Paul Bowman
2022-07-25 21:18:40 +0000 UTCHad me laughing out loud like a maniac while doing groceries when you played one of the overdramatic clips. Peterson is so ridiculously over the top!
Nick Wiebe
2022-07-25 13:41:12 +0000 UTCSuper episode Chris and Matt! Peterson has gotten so much worse since you last covered him, it definitely deserved a recoding episode. IMO, It’s easy to ridicule Jordan Peterson’s unhinged rantings & laugh at his caricatures, but I find something profoundly disturbing about the new JP. If Thiel is the financier then the likes of JP, Yarvin & Douglas Murray provide the intellectual heft for the new authoritarian, pseudo right wing movement. I find it super scary! If you define your ideological enemies in such terms and frame this as an apocalyptic battle between good & “evil”, i’ve no doubt that Peterson’s ravings will inspire many a future mass shooter in the States. This is far worse than his self help stuff.
SHOUNAK SARKAR
2022-07-25 10:48:41 +0000 UTCWhich denominations is JP recommending? Where do the gay heroes go? Pamphlets? To attract younger congregants? Would that even work? Can you transform the world with a hodgepodge of gendered metaphors and archetypes? The Christian Ecofeminists tried this already. More than 20 years ago. Were they effective? So many questions for JP. Also, he sounded depressive and angry. Dangry? Is that a thing?
Lina Neild Robinson
2022-07-25 07:06:18 +0000 UTCThe strategy of finding two nobodies on Twitter who say stupid things and suggesting that this represents a significant strain of thought is common. It is a reprehensible yet astonishingly widespread and successful rhetorical technique. Other ?gurus? whom you have not covered do it all the time. Brendan O'Neill comes to mind, but I am sure there are many others.
David AS
2022-07-25 05:32:16 +0000 UTCMore JBP recodes! I can’t listen to him directly because it makes my eyes bleed but I can handle it diluted by the solvent of DTG. I work with many young men who are absolute marks for this kind of con and DTG helps me destroy them in rhetorical battle, driving them into deeper isolation, making them more susceptible to JBP’s pseudo intellectual wiles. Please help me continue this cycle by regularly reviewing his content.
Dylan
2022-07-25 04:50:09 +0000 UTCI never understood the attraction. I'd rather walk a poodle than engage with JP's stuff. Oh, and...there are so many good books to read, and I might even go go-carting again someday or watch a baseball game. Maybe I'll start reading Manga. I could collect Hoktono no Ken rags. That would be meeeeeeaaningggfullll. https://hokuto.fandom.com/wiki/Hokuto_no_Ken
Steven Cleghorn
2022-07-25 04:40:01 +0000 UTCOne of the best decoding episodes overall it think. JBP acts like a guy who was frozen in ice in the 1950s and rethawed out in the modern day in the way he talks and feels, very bizarre guy. He's feels like a bird of the feather with all the other online tradcons who fetishize postwar sensibilities and style, like weebs but they prefer bucko to baka. Something I wish could be explored with his current video series is the message directed at. He explicitly calls this a message to christian churches, and tries to provide such valuable advice as "put up fliers," but the real audience is clearly his tradcon followers. In the infamous clip related to his Twitter banning, he directly addresses Twitter and does his evil villain monologue about who would cancel who. JBP obviously didn't invent the technique. It's a pretty annoying style of rhetoric in general, but why style it that way in these videos? If it was just scripted as "here is how society is failing and what christian churches can do to help," it would feel much less sinister. But his current tone and attempts to directly address certains groups feels so vitriolic. Reminds me of movies where the villain has been cast aside by society and comes back decades later to blow up town hall or whatever. Aggressive to get attention, but off-putting to everyone but your core audience.
Nick Brouwer
2022-07-25 04:08:35 +0000 UTCGreat episode! I say this as a fellow milk-toast centrist, but Jordan's inability to acknowledge how damaging aspects of hyper-masculinity are to women is, as he'd put it "patha-lawhh-gical, man". Yes, there is an overcorrection in some circles, and it's healthy for young boys/men to do things like sports, test their limits, and go on adventures etc. More so than women, who knows? But pretending that there's no reason to be concerned about the extreme end of that spectrum is just being blind.
Will
2022-07-25 04:00:21 +0000 UTCRe. Audiance loss, I sort of agree and disagree. I think he'll lose popularity in secular circles, but gain popularity in certain religious circles. Particularly with Ben Shapiro now boosting him. Anyway just my opinion. Time will tell.
Emma
2022-07-25 03:05:57 +0000 UTCI listen to Jordan Peterson for years, and I have observed his change. You seem to not have a definitive position on whether he changed, or he's always been the same. I'll argue that he changed. I liked listening to him, he's talks were very interesting, even the biblical talks, and he's most famous book 12 rules for life is a fine book for the general public. Not written by the same radicalized JP that made this last video. . He approached religion, arguing for its usefulness, but not as a religious fanatic (like he seems to be now). In a way I understand how he argues that stories and myths are useful and an effective way of propagating culture (same kind of argument that Yuval makes), but he could make this argument without assuming himself as religious. "I act as if God exists" is a good statement, in my opinion. It just says that myths are useful regardless of being materially true or not. . He was political, but it was a minor part of his public appearances (now it's the main part). I always disliked his "slippery slope everything" like any authoritative policy leads to Hitler and any socialist policy leads to the gulags. That didn't change, it just became the main theme. In my opinion, the "slippery slope" argument is usually a very bad argument. . His pseudo profound takes were more often genuinely profound because they were about subjects that he specialized in (psychology, literature, religion, ...). Now he turned to subjects where he's as ignorant as the average person like climate change and biology (also economy, etc). He looks silly talking about those. My opinion is: JP is in fact a person with profound and interesting thoughts about his subjects. As he became more political, he seems to be willing to transpose the kind of language to subjects where he's ignorant, raising the question if he's maybe also as ignorant in his "classic" subjects and I can't see it because those are subjects that I know less about. Maybe, but it's not my opinion for now. Unless I can find some evidence that his "pre-covid" talks were highly inaccurate in some objective way. The question I'm left with is: why? For example, I think Bret Weinstein changed a lot since before Covid, but I see the financial incentives, the new world of being famous, audience capture, etc. In the case of JP, he was a best-selling author, famous and rich before. I don't see the incentives. Unless he has political plans of some sort. I think it's hard and slow for him to perceive his credibility loss. He's previous followers will continue to follow him for a while, even those who realize he's credibility is going down the drain. (like me, although I don't listen to his podcast anymore, I still follow in some ways). Probably his public will gradually change from an “average” public to a right wing, conservative, religious oriented public, giving him the false impression that his public his adhering to his new persona (rather than the public being a different public). So I think his change in persona is voluntary (the choice of subjects to talk about, must be conscious), but his perception of the effects may be erroneous.
João Barbosa
2022-07-25 02:54:30 +0000 UTCI still Stan for his psychology content, but all rambling aside, you both got the most important thing right here: once left to their own rambling and pressed to outline their actual thoughts with actionable items, some of these gurus fall flat on their face with the most uniteresting solutions proposed for the things that are outside their field. But in a certain sense this goes as a validation of the main point for free speech as outlined by the likes of JP - let people talk so everyone can see what they are about.
Timur Dunaev
2022-07-25 02:13:36 +0000 UTCThis is a good idea having a separate discussion thread. Really enjoyed this episode and secretly glad you didn't succeed in chopping it down to 30 mins only! Agree with you that JP is heading into worrying territory. I can sort of imagine him starting his own church/cult soon! Also I completely agree with you that JP's anti social justice & the environment stance is at odds with the vast majority of Christian and Catholic churches who are trying to follow Jesus's clear directions to help the poor and vulnerable. However the one piece of the puzzle which I thought was missing and I would be interested to hear about was how JP fits in with the rise of this sort of hard right ideology in certain types of fundamentalist/evangelical Christian churches (particularly the mega-church variety). As evidenced by the comments thread under the original video! Like all the younger Christian men agreeing and wishing they could find a church with a harder/tougher theology.
Emma
2022-07-25 02:12:45 +0000 UTCAnother great episode. I agree with all your takes on JP. I worked at a progressive school in a very liberal city in the USA and was pretty shocked by what I saw. The kids were not allowed to play any games where there was a winner. All forms of competition were frowned upon. I only mention this to say that this stuff does exist, despite being insanely overblown by these IDW gurus. Great show!
Loki
2022-07-25 02:10:29 +0000 UTCI found it interesting to hear JBP's arguments laid out more clearly than has been possible over the last few years (given his health issues and moves towards generic ranting over scholarship.) For me, the notable thing was how shallow his thinking is. I'm not too sure at this point who is meant to be convinced by his arguments. I have relatively normal friends who enthusiastically engaged with his pre-illness material and saw it as adding value to their lives, but now I can't imagine someone coming across this stuff and being convinced he's onto something unless they already substantially buy into his worldview. There's just too much of an obvious bias in how he describes the things he says his opponents believe for his arguments to be useful to an undecided observer.
André Alessi
2022-07-25 02:06:29 +0000 UTCI would love to see him re-decoded lol
Me
2022-07-25 01:56:31 +0000 UTCI found JP very hard to take way back when I first heard him talking to Sam Harris. Incoherent and too religious for my liking. Now he’s far worse
Sean Carmody
2022-07-25 01:46:43 +0000 UTC
