The Wasteland of Jordan Peterson | Big Joel
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- čas přidán 3. 01. 2020
- Are you ready for some Jordan Peterson Discourse??
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T.S Elliot Reading the Wasteland: • TS Eliot :: The Waste ...
The articles on racism I cited
www.washingtonpost.com/news/o...
www.pnas.org/content/early/20...
books.google.com/books/about/...
Jordan Peterson videos I used, in order of appearance:
• Lecture: Identity poli...
• Jordan Peterson - We D...
• Fix Yourself | 5 Minut...
• Jordan Peterson - I've...
• Jordan Peterson Calls ...
• Jordan Peterson - Gay ... - Krátké a kreslené filmy
Thanks for watching the video everyone! If you really liked it, consider checking out my patreon www.patreon.com/posts/32853294. The version I have uploaded there has a slightly different ending than this one (for copyright reasons), so check that out,, if you want to. Anyhow, onto the footnotes!
Footnote 1: While I understand that Jordan Peterson does not call himself a conservative, I’ve chosen to include discussion of him in this video for two reasons. First, the guy’s a conservative. While he offhandedly entertains the ideas of progressives, to me it seems that he constantly favors conservative talking points and makes it his mission to undermine any form of progressivism. Second, even if he doesn’t lump perfectly into the ideologies of conservatism, those are the positions I care about here. That is to say, when I respond to Peterson, I am responding to a conservative
Footnote 2: At another point in the series, Peterson talks about the Harvard Unconscious Bias test, how it doesn’t come to the conclusions the researchers originally thought it did and how the researchers refuse to acknowledge this fact. This is the same as throwing out the idea of white privilege based on one personal examination of it. To invalidate a theory, you can’t just laugh at a few articles and call it a day, you have to actually prove something. What’s more, while other forms of analysis are of course useful, the core of any sociological examination of oppression is a material analysis of how that oppression works in the real world. A topic he simply does not touch. Also, the researchers behind the study have said that the study does not allow us to come to the conclusions we might think it does, so, take that, I guess. www.vox.com/identities/2017/3/7/14637626/implicit-association-test-racism
Footnote 3: I have a lot of responses to this idea from Orwell. While I don’t see it as immoral or bad to criticize billionaires for living in impossible decadence while many others live in poverty, I do hope that these criticisms don’t mask the real purpose of social reforms and systemic changes: to make the world better for people who need the world to be better. And wherever people do not seem concerned with this central position, I think they should be.One possible solution to this problem is fairly simple. If academic leftists aren’t showing enough compassion for the marginalized, let’s give the marginalized more of a voice, not simply reject ideas that might help people. It’s relevant here that that Peterson would probably hate this solution, since he explicitly believes less educated people (like, for instance, the working class) should no more tamper with the inner functioning of society than I should mess with the electrical functioning of a car.
Footnote 4 (just another random thing): In this video, I use the word “white privilege” interchangeably with “systemic racism.” This is for two reasons. First, these ideas are the logical consequence of each other. If systemic racism exists and it impacts non white people more than white people, then it follows that white people are privileged in the sense that they do not live under systemic racism. Personally, I prefer the phrase “systemic racism” to “white privilege” since I find that it better captures the fact that fixing racism is about solving injustice, not taking away people’s privileges, but it’s fairly unimportant to this conversation since this is obviously not the problem Jordan Peterson has with the phrase. Second, Peterson rightly lumps these phrases together and also dislikes the idea of systemic racism, as you can see from this moment czcams.com/video/ofmuCXRMoSA/video.html, where he says "systemic racism" is another term he despises.
First
Second
@@daniels4209 are you having a stroke??
@@daniels4209 OoOoOo, watch out guys, "dislike will be given"
I think there is a misprint in your 4th footnote: “ since I find that it better captures the fact that *racism* is about solving injustice, not taking away people’s privileges”
I would agree with you Joel, but I'm just too convinced by Jordan Peterson and how incredibly in order his house is.
If he were a drug addicted hysteric who thought that the Chinese were milking men for their sperm, maybe I wouldn't be so convinced by him.
I'm very afraid to ask what this is a reference to.
@@snoozley853
I've seen it now.
Somebody log me out, I don't want to play this game anymore.
@@eyesofthecervino3366 during the height of the COVID pandemic he saw a fetish video that was misleadingly titled and wholeheartedly believed that the chinese were doing... that
@@eyesofthecervino3366 Peterson got addicted to what was at first prescribed benzos. Google it for more info.
It's a special kind of ignorance when you tell people drawing attention to the short comings of capitalism that they can't draw attention to the short comings of capitalism until they have excelled under capitalism.
Not ignorance, stupidity
@@nukiradio Not ignorance, nor stupidity. Malicious intent.
Thats not what he did though and you know it.
MASTER: Tell me, Slave - what do you think of the fine institution of Slavery?
SLAVE: Master, I think slavery is morally wrong. You should set me free and compensate me fully for this wrong!
MASTER: Who are you, to imagine you can possibly understand what's right or wrong about slavery? You're ignorant and uneducated. Before you can criticise slavery, you have to fix yourself. First, tidy your room. Then, work for decades in totally abject obedience until your kindly Master finds it in his heart to give you your freedom. Then, teach yourself to read and write, work hard until you've earned a fortune - and then, buy your own plantation, and plenty of slaves. Then, and only then, will you be in the impartially informed position to judge the merits of Slavery.
@@andrewclifton429 You completely misinterpreted the point and Im pretty sure you havent even watched a full lecture.
"Up yours woke moralists. We'll see who cancels who." (Statement from a man who is absolutely not salty about getting banned off Twitter.)
"Because to Jordan Peterson relinquishing brownie points from some hypothetical activist protesting poverty will always, always be more important than the poverty they protest." Man what an amazing quote I'm saving this.
Because the actions and motives of the protestor do not create the world necessary to end the poverty they protest and never actually will. Therefore the question must be asked as to what is the root of the protestors motives. This if you actually listened to JP, would convey to you that it's the result of the impoverished's decisions over the actions of the current day world over all.
@@larymcfart4034 I see you've picked up JP's way of talking, where you typed a whole ass paragraph just to say something so simple.
I don't even want to respond to this, how about, NO.
@@lifenote1943 so y respond bro. plus this is a paragraph. this is an average middle school responce.
@@larymcfart4034 Firstly you stated: "Because the actions and motives of the protestor do not create the world necessary to end the poverty they protest and never actually will."
This is not true, protesting has achieved many goals and the world wouldn't be what it is today without the protests or strikes of the past.
And while it's true that protesting exclusively 100% won't solve world poverty on its, that doesn't make it meaningless.
Next: "Therefore the question must be asked as to what is the root of the protestors motives."
So this goes back to what I said about JP (and now his fans I guess) being more preoccupied with relinquishing brownie points. Honestly if you want to know what the protestor's motivations are, they have really large colourful signs with words on them. Maybe check that out.
Finally: "This if you actually listened to JP, would convey to you that it's the result of the impoverished's decisions over the actions of the current day world over all."
Yes, he has indeed conveyed that message. JP constantly conveys that we live in a hierarchy based off of competence, essentially a meritocracy more or less. Where the most competent and intelligent people sit at the top, and the less so at the bottom. Now JP does acknowledge that there is some unfairness to the system, but that overall, we live in a just hierarchy.
And a part of that message is that the poor are poor because of their decisions/lack of competence.
To be completely honest, I really don't want to argue about this. Like I'm sorry but it's just common sense that the world in incredibly unfair, and that generational systemic oppression exists.
If you disagree with that, I don't think there's anything I could possibly say to sway your mind. I'd recommend checking out a documentary about lithium mining or sweatshops. That's gonna be better than anything I could ever say, if you're interested in learning the opposing points to your world view.
@larymcfart4034 Do you have any sources that show that activism and protesting doesn't improve the world?
I loved where he said “it’s like being against torture,” as though that’s so obvious. As though we haven’t spent years arguing whether torture is justified.
I guess since he's Canadian he gets a free pass for not knowing the most basic recent history of american politics, for instance our current PRESIDENT is actually in favor of torture, most of his cabinet and defense/military staff is, the previous administration (and supposed opposition to these people) refused to prosecute torturers and an entire torture regime, or even end a extrajudicial prison BUILT for torture... Yeah torture is definitely relegated to the distant past, and we all agree it's bad! Most def!
What strikes me about it, is the complete and utter lack of self awareness. That he stresses how obvious it is to want to help the poor and the down trodden, while simultaneously failing to meet that incredibly low bar he himself set. Maybe Jordan Peterson is the one who needs to get his house in order.
Hate it when people do that
and poverty. Some people believe in maintaining classism and a poor, working class.
The way he was saying it came off to me as if the doing it is bad, but not necessarily "wrong"
Nobody likes poverty?
Nobody likes THEIR poverty. When it comes to other people's poverty, they may or may not care to varying degrees.
@@RoddyPipersCorneas ?
@@RoddyPipersCorneas What are you talking about?
Why should I care about your poverty? Have you ever thought about it? For some reasons we like to think that people should just get out of their way to help us. The reason why rich people are rich in great part is that they sell useless goods to poor people.
@@karlalan3806 Which is the criticism we make of consumerism and the system in general, is it a good thing according to you?
@@fellinuxvi3541 it's neither good nor bad to me. If you chose the iPhone X when you have a pile of debt, is it my fault? If I chose to invest in apple company instead of buying the phone, should it be fair for anybody to take my money? And that's why people follow Jordan Peterson. Individual responsibility is a thing. People are just dumb and then they blame the world is that normal?
“No one is for poverty”
Jordan pick up a history book
He reads better then you do.
@@tomhardyy1*he reads better than you do.
@@tomhardyy1 So you think Jeff Bezos isn't for having a cheap workforce? It's fucked that he could make the lives of hundreds of thousands so much better. Yet he's against unions and workers have to work insane amounts.
Jordan is flawed. Everyone is. Accept it.
@@lucaperotti1070 i made changes mate.
@@tomhardyy1 and it's still wrong💀
Oppressed minority: “the unjust setup of the system makes it incredibly difficult for us to be successful, maybe we can level the playing field.”
Peterson: “you’re not allowed to suggest changes to the system until you’re successful.”
Amazing
Today you're not allowed to suggest changes to the system unless you are a loser. Guess you fit in.
Sounds a bit like gaslighting
But this is what happens, only the successful get to change the systems. It’s the truth…..
@@billpugh58 and yet they don't...interesting
@@LeftPhilip That's not true. The system has been changed dozens of times in itself. Otherwise we'd still have the same system as in the 1900s. We don't.
Real talk: the first three minutes explained T.S. Eliot's "The Wasteland" better than any college English course I've taken.
:-)
I think we all wish Big Joel was our English teacher
_Is_ Big Joel perhaps our English teacher?
because english teachers don't actually explain shit they just kinda sidle up to the point and hope you get it without being told
Bro exactly. My english professor explained that in 10 hours!! (She was great though)
I don't think "no to poverty" is a classic protest sign, usually protests respond to something pretty specific and the demands tend to be also pretty specific, so instead of "end poverty" it would be "raise the minimum wage," for example. On the other hand, you know who does give ambiguous platitudes and no real specific policies? Most politicians running for an election.
He must have watched Pepsi's commercial, and that was his research.
*Peterson is a charlatan and a demagogue* who disingenuously misrepresents everything he takes a stance against. He specializes in logical fallacy: straw man, red herring, slippery slope, no true scotsman ... and rhetorical abuse like fraudulent generalization, gish gallop, gratuitous name dropping (appeal to authority) without specificity or verifiability of his claim/point for naming the reference. He consistently exhibits grandiosity and narcissism.
@@fyt54321 - I'm a fan of JP too!
Raising the minimum wage wouldn't end poverty though ;) That money has to come from somewhere and seeing as wages are in most business' the biggest expense. This added expense will be pushed onto the consumer which in turn means that the prices of domestic products and services will increase in price at roughly the same rate the minimum wage is increased. The only thing that minimum wage increase do is make your own economy less competitive.
My point is the "no to poverty" is a classic protest sign, maybe not necessary in those words but in sentiment, proposed solutions and action.
@@relo999 - In fact- only a small percentage of the labor force is paid minimum wage, and they are mostly young, and for only a brief time.
it was so cool when this came out seeing u just say "i like attention and feeling smart and correct about things" out loud, you're so cool for that. the self awareness & humility rubbed off on me that day i think
How the hell is individual responsibility going to fix climate change.A small number of companies are emitting 70% of emissions.What the hell are we supposed to do?
That's just it though, JP can't be bothered to go back and actually address his supposed morals and beliefs so, a good lie is one you stick by
Exactly what they want us to do.
Nothing. Just keep paying the taxes they demand that get funneled back to the corpo rats who create the pollution in the first place.
Don't ever ask why we the people get the blame for something we cannot control, while the real polluters profit from our silent submission.
The logical answer would put me on a watch list, haha.
@@eyesofthecervino3366 Greenpeace vibes
cuz you can only control things inside your individuality. Do what you can, many people doing their part adds up. I mean to be encouraging.
As everyone knows, no politician, philosopher, artist, or activist who's changed the world in all of human history has ever had any personal or interpersonal problems whatsoever
underrated comment.
I think when your entire philosophy revolves around the idea of "Set your house in perfect order before you criticize the world", you forfeit the right to be taken seriously as a "philosopher" who should be listened to. This isn't that complicated.
@@alfiewillis4893 Isn't it a little like stoicism? I think that maxim can be rephrased to emphasize more the concept of what people do in their most immediate circles of influence. There is something to be said about neglecting what is closest to you in favor of reaching far to change the world.
@@GridironMasters isn't Stoicism highly criticized by many philosophers including the one Jordan Peterson admires the most, Friedrich Nietzsche?
I think you're taking his comments too literal. He never said that there's no way people could care about the global state of things. The problem is when we fail to acknowledge the weight of individual responsibility. There is never a one-size-fits-all solution, even less so if we're gonna avoid slipping into tyranny. In the end, you can achieve a lot more if you reflect your own decisions and act according to your own moral standards (that is, if they are well thought through).
If we were to eliminate all people who considered themselves broken and inadequate from public discussion, we would only have the genuinely unqualified remaining.
That's true af but Peterson was just saying you should be credibly experienced before you speak on a matter, not see yourself as perfect, and that's not an egregious take
Peterson does not preach that. He's simply warning against the dangers of wanting to be influential when you are inexperienced and undisciplined. Some pretty stupid legislation (like C-16) can emerge when people who are fundamentally unwise get a bit of power.
His fanboys: "Oh that's not what he meant...despite clearly saying it!!!"
@@jaZZjaZZ54 Bill C-16 just added gender expression and gender identity to the list of race, religion, ethnic origin, age, sex, etc... in the Human Rights Act. Once again Jordan Peterson being completely full of sh!t.
"The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts."
Bertrand Russell
I like how his measure of credibility is HIMSELF. He got degrees, he has a wife, he has kids, his own business, etc...
This is an underrated comment. At the end of the day he believes that the proper standard of living is intrinsically similar to his own. I can guarantee that if he grew up as a POC or a woman or a member of the LGBT in the U.S, he wouldn't be able to make the same claims he makes now. So many people, no matter how "smart" they are, are blind to their own biases and live in a world of hypotheticals that don't belong to them.
yeah, and then believes that LGBT people are doing a dis-service to their kids if they choose to have any.
Anyone forgetting how he drugged himself almost to death? What if his wife died from cancer? His children end up as orphans together, will they end up homeless? He’s just in denial of what reality is like and tries to act like there is no such thing as a system that controls everyone or a cruel unforgiving reality. He says you can excel, which is great cause I can excel, but not everyone can excel or that would break the whole system. Moreover, no amount of excelling will get rid of cancer, and his own excelling didn’t prevent him from almost dying due to an overdose. Maybe Jordan, the world is more complicated than inspirational bullshit. Maybe, the system is broken and we have a lot to do. Maybe society and people’s perceptions as a whole need to change. Isn’t that why you post your videos, to change the system and society to your whims by influencing others? Hypocrisy at it’s core.
@@popopop984 yeah, also one of his rules for life... in the book (x rules for life), was "get your house in order before you criticize the world", meanwhile he falls into a deep depression and almost over doses on sleeping pills. The same guy that made his entire career criticising others.
Just fucking hell.... Forget the transphobia, anti LGBT, misogyny, arrogance, misinformation, ableism... by his OWN metrics, he should stfu basically.
@@popopop984 stfu you are so incredibly dumb
I was asleep and this video worked its way into my dream. My dad was in it, and he was discussing politics. Thank you for that. I haven't seen him in a long time, and I miss him.
I haven't asked my dad if he listens to Jordan Peterson, but on the other hand I'm almost certain he does.
what a beautiful thing, piss apocalypse
I’m in line for morning coffee and this made me tear up
Aww
I have never in my life seen a protest sign that says "I'm against poverty"
exactly it's such a manipulative way to dumb down the arguments of activists. I guess statements such as "raise the minimum wage" "less taxes on the lower class" "stop supporting big chain businesses" "more affordable college tuition" are all statements I could potentially see on a protest sign and I guess they all fall under the "anti-poverty" umbrella, but each one of these is much more complicated than just "people shouldn't be poor". it's just very indicative of Petersons understanding of what activism is.
it's like he watches "sjw cringe compilation #23 | July 2016" and so does his audience.
@@slightlyoffensivedadjokes I mean, there's a lot of bullshit activism and lazy know it all types out there. I think he's talking more about how a lot of 'activistic' minded people don't really have a clue what they would really begin to do about these problems and only like to flaunt their beliefs, he just seemed to go for a weak strawman type argument with that example. Could have done a better job explaining it.
@@orphaneduk5672 I don't really disagree with you i do totally agree that there is a problem with shallow virtue signaling disguising itself as activism (remember black out tuesday?) and Jordan pederson will say "there's a problem with activism" and he gets a bunch of young impressionable people tricked into thinking that hes a intellectual edgy contrarian even if he doesn't give any good reasons or examples to back up his vague statements.
and also his solution isn't "root out unhealthy forms of activism because real activism is important" no he thinks "activism is something you must earn by my unhelpful definition of a good human being and most people don't deserve to advocate for themselves politically". I hope you can see the difference in quality with these assertions.
@@slightlyoffensivedadjokes i think what Jordan was trying to get at was virtue signaling
@@bug______ okay but his take is that people don't inherently deserve the right to advocate for themselves, which is incredibly problematic. its a very very bad and surface level solution that completely falls apart when you take more than 6 seconds to think about
the thing is protesting isent about "is x bad" its "should we do something about it" because yes if you ask someone if poverty is bad very few people will disagree, but if you ask them if we should do something you get a whole lot of "well thats not my problem"
Yes, they're called libertarians and Republicans, usually. And Jordan Petersons.
@@seanmatthewking This is pretty universal, actually. This is the Marxist critique of liberal individualist social structures. The apathy that atomization has seemed to lead to. I'm not making value statements, just pointing out a point.
Storywalker4 It’s not universal. I certainly view it as my problem. People left of center are far more likely to think society should get rid of poverty. It’s a matter of fundamental moral intuition. I’m sure there’s data on this. At the very least, Jonathan Haidts work suggests something along the lines of what I’m saying to be true.
@@seanmatthewking Left is way too broad a term in this sense. Plenty of social lefties would rather have peaceful stability (except when it comes to woke politics). Wine moms and conservative Dems. The economically left Millenials and Zoomers, yes. But it trails off real quick after that.
Storywalker4 Well I think it’s a spectrum. Being on the libertarian right, as far as your moral intuitions go, means you think that redistribution policies are fundamentally immoral. You’re much more likely to see poverty as a moral failing. As you move left, you see the existence of poverty as more immoral than redistributionist policies. The center left is just as close to the center right as it is the far left.
I don’t think any of this is inconsistent with what you’re saying. I think the disagreement we likely have is about what portion of people see poverty as their responsibility to handle. I think the everyone left of center believes this to varying extents, and even many people on the right believe this to some extent. All in all, most people believe this to some extent. The difference is in degree and how we aim to fix that problem. Only on the far libertarian right do you get people who have zero sense of responsibility to the poor.
I remember seeing this "lecture" ages ago and being really annoyed by this bit:
"I can't quite figure out why the post-modernists have made the canonical distinctions they've made: race, ethnicity, sexual proclivity, gender identity ... Those are four dimensions along which people vary, but there's a very large number of dimensions along which people vary. Here's some ways people differ: Intelligence, Temperament, Geography, Historical Time -- you live now, and not 100 years ago -- attractiveness (that's a big one)."
I mean, come on. Race, ethnicity, sexual proclivity and gender identity are the key things that those of a highly conservative (usually religious) background tend to discriminate on the basis of. Especially if you take gender identity to mean female identity, regardless of what was assigned at birth. Seriously, the only way you could fail to figure this out is if you're trying really hard to obscure the fact of bigotry in conservatism, especially among Fundamentalists. Additionally, to fail to recognise that the distinctions of race and ethnicity are also distinctions of historical geography -- two things which he claimed weren't in the "canon" -- is just absurd.
If he's claiming that race and intelligence are never bedfellows, he's also ignoring his own conversation with Douglas Murray on his website (and whilst I don't know when that conversation was, with respect to when the featured video was made, I don't think it's a stretch to suggest that he was well aware that the "post-modernists" are pretty anti-"race-realism"). In addition, you don't have to look far to see instances of attractiveness being tied back to race by those who are "totally not racist", like the claims that Michelle Obama or Venus Williams look like men.
So, In the space of three sentences (if you take my transcription as in any way canonical) JBP has managed to fail to understand that the dimensions along which people vary that the leftists have paid attention to are the ones that too many on the right discriminate on the basis of, feigned surprise that the leftists haven't used other dimensions that aren't the basis of the discrimination that he's ignoring, and then given five counter-examples, four of which fail because they are frequently included in the first four (and it wouldn't take much work to include the fifth -- [trait] temperament -- under race, in the same way that [trait] intelligence is).
The only reason anyone takes this guy seriously is that he spouts vaguely useful platitudes (that any number of self-help gurus could -- and have -- put forth), the only difference is that he rests on his academic background which, on the strength of this analysis, is looking pretty shaky. Maybe he should stick to counselling psychology which, if he's to be believed, he was pretty good at, and stay out of clinical psychology, let alone philosophy, politics or economics.
How's it racist to say those ladies look like men tho?
@@gabrielvalencia1287 Well, neither of them do look like men. If you have only ever seen white women and then, upon seeing a back woman for the first time, you say that they look like men... well, you do the math.
@@gabrielvalencia1287 because it’s an “observation” clearly made with race in mind that is intended to imply something about black women.
Peterson reminds me of when i was arguing something in an essay in school - I'd realize i was wrong, but couldn't be bothered or didn't have time to change it. So i went with it, and tried to argue it, even though I knew it was wrong
What is it that Peterson is rolling with that he personally find untrue?
@@binkybarns7132 -- You can't take "personal belief' as logically "true", something can be personally believed that is contradictory to what they promise.. But Peterson has contradicted himself very often.
A recent big issue is that he believes people should be protected, rights and freedoms and all that, that self-expression leads to knowing what you are.. But he is also actively anti-LGBT, including the torture of them though Conversion Therapy. He doesn't use slurs, but he does use discrimination very often.
Another issue he claims to promote is the value of men in society, but he also is a heavy promoter of hierarchy in society. He uses "these are natural things' to explain away wealth, luxury, relationships and valueing yourself which would mean he has to agree that men are classed as worthless, while saying men have to be worthwhile..
People meme'd it, bit I think it's very true.. one of the simple truths Peterson knows is personal care is important, but over his entire lifetime in media coverage, he's had falling outs with his family, claiming his daughter almost killed him on her meat only diet, he's been on drugs for quiet a while, he's spoken publicly about his suicidal feelings at the same time talking about how he thinks his wife dreams that he is Jesus and he'll save the world..
Peterson may not believe he's contradicting anything, there's always 1 excuse to have. He may genuinely believe something but simply never act on it himself and that's a valid way to live.. sometimes even he acknowledges his problems
But as a public speaker, influencer and political opinion haver, Peterson doesn't step down or change his opinion, that's also been a contradiction... he's very "improve yourself!" "Do more!" "Do better!" But at the same time he doesn't think people should try to advocate for change, if they're not doing "good enough" in life, he always tells you never to challange authority, despite authority having the same capacity to be inept.. and to this day he still tells people to give up on goals that seem "unrealistic for someone 'like you'" (of your class, of your age, of your sex or gender or so on).
Do remember that Peterson earned his living from talking, he's been a lecturer, not a teacher. He's now a public figure now, who sells self-help books. His livihood *DEPENDS* on striking a nerv. Not solving a problem.
What did he say that he was rolling with?
Lol what a stupid comment. You’re probably nothing like Peterson at all don’t flatter yourself
@@binkybarns7132 Several things. For once, he is a big advocate of individual freedoms, yet immediately limit them to sexual orientations. Like it or not, biology is *not* what we learned in high school anymore; any biologist will tell you that nature doesn't produce a binary anything and binaries works well with machines - but the truth is, the Western binary view of the simply doesn't correlate with actual reality, and current science is backing that up. The danger here is that we call "science" the "obvious" facts we all learned in middle and high school, and then people kinda stop following what science is actually up to now, while for any scientist, at today's progress rate, an information for 5 years ago is already obsolete, and from a decade, almost ancient.
So he isn't able to keep his objectivity when talking about transgender people, ironically segregating them as "mentally ill" for wanting to exert the same freedoms than gay people before them, and black people before that, and Jewish even before, etc.
I find it fascinating that such a rational and wise man seems to have a completely blind corner regarding the role of gender in society. We've discovered at least 18 societies with three genders - this is a scientific discovery. And even if you don't "agree", or argue that we can't just take some tribal societies's culture - which is debatable - as our own... you still can't say to someone, "no you're not non-binary" or "no you're not trans". Why? Because it's like saying, "I don't believe in God so you're not a Christian."
See how that doesn't make sense? Whether you "believe" in it or not, whether you're educated about it or not, you get no right to tell someone they're not the gender they are, because ultimately, even if it's getting more and more backed up by science, that's their belief.
But then that's a debate on the very definition of being, and at the core of it, there are the people who say that you make yourself and the ones who say that you're born with a specific role, destiny and purpose, and those two foundational viewpoints are almost impossible to alter in anyone.
Does he find it untrue? Probably not consciously, but it's a huge omission on his part still.
I stapled my family back together but now they're bleeding and they can't go to work, they're one immovable fleshy heap.
well at least you have your "I'm allowed to be an activist" card now. worth it.
@Binguh Bungah Could you clarify what you mean? To me it was just strawmaning someone based off their username and telling them to ignore what's around them.
@Binguh Bungah If you're just going to act like a jerk and only quote science that doesn't really confirm your point you've killed yourself in this argument. Also soylent green, is made of people.
@Binguh Bungah You never actually said how or why I used strawman wrong, just said I used it wrong. You used a paper of gay males being at highers risk for STDs to justify saying they don't need rights and are a danger to society. You've abused this paper, trying to warp and twist the very limited conclusions to fit your narrative. You've barely read 5 sentences form me but already go on and on about my character and the character of the one who made the quote. Have you seen Soylent Green? The narrative that involves the elite that have all the power and the rest only have poverty? A world turned upside down due to societal issues that people say are false today? Also for someone calling people snowflakes, you seem awfully angered by the original joke and my asking for clarification.
@Binguh Bungah It's amazing how an enlightened being such as yourself still feels the need to pick fights in youtube comments sections. I thought that by the time someone reached your IQ level and psychological stability, they had the mental faculties to resist posting a 2400 word essay in a youtube comments section.
Or maybe, if we were all as brilliant as you, there would be no "dismal woeful forceful" ignorant people to write strings of adjectives at.
Turn the lens around, pull your hand out of your pants, and take a look at yourself man.
"only the people who aren't already suffering and oppressed should be allowed to decide who gets to suffer and be oppressed" - Jombly Pombly
i cannot find the words to explain just how much reading the words "Jombly Pombly" filled me with delight
Good thing everyone suffers--just not equally, and rightfully so.
Unfair characterization. Peterson would never say it that concisely.
@@y.h.w.h. This made me cackle like an old witch.
@nosdagasdg hasdhasdgasdg he said that no one should try to have any impact on the political system around them until they're qualified and have tackled every personal issue they have in their own lives (stop fighting your brother, maintain a long term relationship are the examples he provided). Many people's personal issues are strongly effected by the political system, such as institutional prejudice they may face, or not being able to find a job that pays a living wage. These issues can't be solved without political change, but Jordan asserts that only people without these problems should try to impact the system.
This was really good. His videos will be studied for a long time as he is such of master of rhetorical construction and logical fallacy. It is amazing how he reduces everything to abstraction delivered with messianic fervor. As in your final example where he reads this amazing humanizing description by Orwell of that poor women and then obliterates her in a leap to Orwell's abstract generalization about hating rich people. He uses her to evoke emotion in the listener as a way of softening them up for the abstract generalization he really wants to imprint them with. I listen to him and can't help wondering how much of what he says his own inner struggle projected onto the rest of us.
Whether I agree with this is irreverent… I appreciate your arguments rooted in objective working 😊
Rhetorical construction and logical fallacy, indeed. I wouldn't call him a master though. He's a sub mediocre grifter. Anyone can be played by a master manipulator, but Peterson isn't one of them. Therefore when people fall for his trite, plagiarised platitudes and contradictions, I can't help but judge their IQ.
peterson really dived into the abyss when he tried to extrapolate his ideas of self help to a societal context. I think that‘s why many are „on the fence“ about him. He wrote helpful things for individuals and went completely off the scale when he started politicizing and using very narrowly defined vernacular to denounce ideas who‘s fallacies he derives from his ideas meant for individuals. In the end this is why I think he is not a relevant thinker of our time. Certainly not for „society“. I don‘t really know his academic work and don‘t know if his books were based on such, but his public carrer is really completely void of any theory.
Agree whole-heartedly, and it's a fantastic rule of thumb for engaging with his content: person-level - cohesive, cites research and clinical experience, often valuable; group/society-level - hodge-podge of abstractions and extrapolations cooked up to suit a particular audience, rarely valuable.
In his defense he has been politically attacked ever since he was on the map.
If you're interested in a breakdown of his books, you should watch Cass Eris's breakdown of his stuff.
@@ferrisbueller9991 Well then maybe he shouldn't have put himself on the map with hot takes like "activists don't really believe in their causes, they just wanna make themselves look good" and "gay people should stop whining about whether or not they can get married."
I agree. I don't think he really understand politics or economics very well, nor do I think he has much of a grasp of history, beyond a fairly comprehensive understanding of Totalitarianism in Europe in the C20th. It seems to me that much of what he writes and says about the world of politics is driven by an unexamined ideology; Left = Evil; Right = Good. Liberals are weak and stupid and conservatives only do bad things when they're trying to combat the excesses of liberals, (as if these labels, Left, Right, conservative and liberal actually mean anything at all anymore). There is no nuance in his characterisation of Right and Left, which to me is extremely suspect.
Peterson _really_ does not understand what postmodernism is. It's almost as if he's a psychology professor trying to argue about philosophy.
From what I can see and what I have read from postmodernist authors. He gets the part of were it went bad. With people like Foucault and Derrida. He doesn't seem to however research into the topics of other early postmodernist Marxist and their so called founder Gramsci and main writer on changing marxism.
You will also find that most true Marxists (I'm not one) don't believe in postmodernism and believe its a failure and doesn't truly address the issues at hand.
It's like he's is a shitty psychology professor because one of the building blocks of Psychology is Philosophy.
@@joelprovides8930 Marxism is a modernist philosophy.
@@joelprovides8930 Where it went bad? This is humorous, especially considering those two are considered some of the most important thinkers in continental philosophy. Why do you think Foucault and Derrida are bad? Or, more specifically, where in their writing is the turning point? Were they always bad? Did they go bad at some point?
As a side note, most Marxists are against post-structuralism, to be more specific than general post-modernism, because they themselves are often self-described structuralists. That said, this doesn't mean that Marxist thought is incompatible with post-structuralism, but that the formulation of dialectical relations is rebuffed by post-structuralists and in turn defended by structuralists, in this case of Marxist stripe. Further, many Marxists that emerged in the 20th century hold positions that benefit from Foucaldian thought, cultural studies that utilize Marxist apparatuses for interpretation of social conditions invoke similar themes of interpretation used by post-structuralists, hence why they are often conducive to each other. Anyways, that's my two cents on your comment.
"to Jordan Peterson relinquishing brownie points from a hypothetical activist protesting poverty will always be more important than the poverty they protest" One of the best and most accurate criticisms of JBP
Wowowowowowow
So good
That Hypothetical Activist kinda seems like the Welfare Queen. More overhyped exaggeration than any sort of reality....
Also, I recall when I was angry at Bush Jr in high school, Republicans who sound like Jordan were advocating how torture was good and poverty was simply a fact of life??? Dx
Only if you view JBP as a distorted strawman.
@@AlexReynard You watched the video right? Or at least heard his stance about same sex marriage on your own?
@@heretic1157 I saw your other comment, where you summed up his stance on gay marriage using heavily-clipped sentence fragments. I always dismiss any attempt to convince me someone is bad using that technique. There's no reason to remove so much context, unless that context would complicate the message of 'You can tell this person is evil because of this one thing they said, and you shouldn't listen any further.'
When people take the off-the-cuff musings of someone trying to explore a subject from all angles by questioning it, and act like that's their hardline stance, that's deliberate dishonesty. That's a clear sign that the person started from 'This guy is bad' and hunted for anything that they could use to justify continuing to think that.
JBP is completely right that, sometimes activists will take a good, beneficial thing, and use it in bad faith to compel obedience. "You're not against gay marriage, are you? You're not a BIGOT, right? So you have to be on OUR SIDE, RIGHT!?" A good example is PETA. I am very much in favor of animal rights, and of humans doing whatever they can to not cause needless suffering. PETA shares this goal. But their tactics are so preachy and naggy and insane that I am in opposition to them. It doesn't matter that we have the same goal. I'm against them for their behavior. So yeah, I'm so demonstrably in favor of gay marriage that I helped my two best friends get married, and they bought a house, and they invited me to live here with them. But I'm also against any activists who use LGBTQ issues to threaten people with "You're either with us or you're against us." *Because those type of people aren't actually fighting for the cause they claim to fight for; that's simply the tool they're currently using to bully people with. They're fighting because they want to bully people and convince themselves they're doing good.* I've seen activists like that show their true face and engage in the most disgusting victim-blaming, slur-calling, and cheering for violence, if the minority being oppressed happens to be on the opposite political side.
I'm watching this a day after Jordan Peterson accused the official Elmo Twitter account of being allied with Hamas.
He did fucking what now
You're kidding right?
I'm not as successful as Ronald Reagan or George W Bush, but I protested things they did, and I still think I was right to do that. I don't think I needed to wait until Jordan Peterson thinks I've earned having an opinion.
That's really it, isn't it? The idea of the "in-group" (whether it's wealthy people, high IQ, the "master race", etc) merit opinions by right of might / divine providence / whatever.
What is "success" anyway?
💯
@@Supahdave1000 It reminds me of misogynists posting BS like, “Why is it always fat ugly chicks who protest abortion bans?” Since when do women have to give you a boner before they’re allowed to advocate for human rights and gender equality?
It's not that you aren't as successful as those you criticize that invalidates your criticism, it's the fact that you aren't competent enough to function at their levels of success, and therefore any criticism you may have is not relevant.
I’d like to remind everyone that the musical Cats was based on poems by TS Eliot. TS Eliot is responsible for Cats(2019). That is all.
LMFAO
"We all create the thing we dread"
- Ultron (From Avengers 2)
it was based on the musical cats, very very loosely based on the poems.
Well... TS Elliot is responsible for a collection of cat themed poems using unusual names and slang to entertain through absurdity. Andrew Lloyd Webber is responsible for turning it into a stage show meant to be surreal and theatrical for entertainment’s sake without much substance or internal logic. Film studios who think musical movies are a safe cash cow turned *that* into a shlocky mess that was too safe for its own good and rife with bad decisions (mainly asking a lot of animators and then not giving them enough time to get it done, forcing them to rush out a lower quality fix that took even more work, and then blaming *them* for how bad the final product looks). Cats 2019 is a horrible disaster of a film but Mr. Elliot doesn’t deserve blame for that.
Phew 😅! That should be my daily dose of over-explaining the truth behind an off-hand joke.
Man, I just realised his greatest rhetorical trick:
p1) you can't argue unless you're an expert
p2) everything is rooted in personal psychology
p3) I am an expert in personal psychology
c) nobody is ever allowed to disagree with me
Yup, sure looks like he's doing this primarily to prop himself and his ideas up. It's not like he actually cares about other people's personal development or achievements. He can succeed better and deal with his own issues by exploiting the misery of others. It makes perfect sense to wave off anyone trying to change the status quo that gave him this opportunity.
Statement 2 is the part where you just laugh at him and walk away
So you are saying ......
@@maisumthiago8615 You forgot to have a compelling counter argument.
@@alexsmith2910 cathy newman will not agree with you.
This was such a good take, I live in a third world country and Jordan Peterson helped me A LOT to improve myself, he has very compelling lectures on why we should step up. But lately I've been struggling and putting all my problems on my shoulders as personal responsibilities, but then I started to realize how much my country and economy is affecting my well being, my relationships, etc. I do think that no one is going to solve my problems for me, and that even if the context is really the cause of many of our personal suffering, we can't solve them in any other way than through what we can control (which usually is just ourselves).
Your video made me feel better though, as having ownership of the solution shouldn't be confused with being the source of the problem.
Thanks for sharing this video and your personal experiences.
I know you posted this a while ago, but you said this so eloquently. You seem to have a, in my opinion, wonderful mindset about improving ourselves. I hope things are getting better for you
Also man don’t be afraid to ask other people for help. We’re social creatures by nature and it’s not ‘weak’ to think that you’re the only person who should deal with your problems
@@BugCatcherGwen Nobody except you cares about how long ago a comment was posted. This isn't Reddit; comments don't lock after an arbitrary time limit.
y so hostile@@HOTD108_
when living in the UK for most was worse than a third world country the workers united on your own you can do very little, UNIONISE then you have a chance perspective in the 1850s manchester was the richest city in the world and had 17 families in eachtown house cellar with open sewage that ran into those cellars when it rained which is very often in manchester UK changed through unionisation you wont hear right wing commentators blaming anyone but you, in the UK the right says if you are poor its your fault but is it really ? Mad as it is in the USA as elsewhere the right has found ways to get the poor to vote for people who only care about the rich
The irony of the total human mess that is JP lecturing others about how life is to be lived while also saying that you should basically be a perfect person with no problems before you start "tinkering" with the world is absolutely hilarious to me
None of the people who changed the world for the better I can think of off the top of my head had their life in order when they did so, yet they made the path to acheiving a fulfilling life easier for millions. The world doesn't go into timeout while you're fixing your life, things are still shitty.
I can only imagine the even more giant mess Jordan Peterson would be without the socialized medicine and cheaper education that he's benefitted from in Canada. If he was raised American he would be 10 times worse. Scary thought.
@@isildursbane6443 you know the whole family moved because the healthcare in Canada is so bad, and as for the cheap education? He had a private practise. He taught because he enjoyed it not because he had to.
@@ajmaclean351 Because the Peterson family are the judges on how good or bad a healthcare is right?
@@MM-vs2et how did you get there? I was referring to a comment about how bad Peterson would be without socialised healthcare… a silly comment as he received his treatment elsewhere. Did you even read the thread?
Great video man, I'm a 24 year old white dude who's a fairly big Peterson fan. I'm not very academic and working class so I guess I probably fit exactly into standard Peterson fan demographic. This has been great for helping me take what he says with a little more nuance. He helped me massively with my own life and I think there is a load of value to what he says. But I'm starting to see that those words that helped me so much as an individual don't necessarily translate into helping society the same way.
Keep on questioning things folks, 99% of us are way more fucking stupid than we think 😂.
I think it's really impressive that you're able to look critically at something that benefited you personally. That will also help you learn more about yourself. Critical thinking is always good.
But it's also ok to find helpful something that's not helpful necessarily overall. Although, even though I really don't like or agree with a lot from Peterson, I think that his initial books can be helpful. They aren't groundbreaking, but they appeal particularly to their intended audience, and that's a good thing. Or his might just be the first self-help book of that type that some young men might have come across.
If you liked this video, you might enjoy ContraPoints work on Peterson, though her sense of humor is a bit different than Big Joel's. :)
It's always good to be questioning everything, just because, let's say a car, took you from point A to point B doesn't mean that car is going to take you everywhere you want, whenever you want. Take the best of something and move on to the next.
I don't understand how he is helpful to anyone and I can't believe he was a psychologist and a even a therapist. He basically says that all men are trash unless they work off their bottoms sacrificing themselves for the good of a society all while keeping their room clean. Women have an easier route in life as they can provide life if they would want to fall back into that role. That's just pure boomer mentality though. Earlier in history women were just as much involved in work life and people just did their thing having had no great set of choices. His lectures promote the basics of Calvinism. I just think people should be free and not having to struggle for being worth anything.
Yeah, Peterson is clearly educated when it comes to psychology, so things related to that have value. But anything outside of that realm his words become less and less founded and thought-out.
@AK KD I think that creates a whole bunch of other problems. I think you've all mistook Peterson for what he's actually not said. He never said there isn't inherent value or that people shouldn't acknowledge it. I honestly don't know how people got that idea of him. He's a realist. In the real world, there is no such thing as inherent value if it cannot be manifested adequately. The fact of life is, there is a need to prove yourself, not to other people necessarily, but a proofing nonetheless, sometimes even to mother nature. Say you live stranded on an island without any other humans. Well, you've still got to prove yourself, in order to survive. It's got nothing to do with society acknowledging individual value. The reason why many people fail in their lives isn't necessarily due to society or other people, not really, but the unrequited need for the soul to see itself made manifest. Unrequited because they don't know or have the tools or habit to practice their craft, to apply themselves. This isn't a big revelation, but to some young folks it is helpful to have this described to them.
Sorry to hear about your dad. I'm about a year too late, but I recently lost my own father, who shared a lot of the characteristics you've described in your own. Best wishes.
Sorry to hear about your dad
@@icequeen5551 Thank you! I appreciate it.
Sorry about your dad
May he rest in peace
That’s terrible. Im sure you’re going through so many emotions right now. I know I did when I lost my dad, but I can’t pretend to know your emotional state. So I’m just going to send you empathy and an invitation for you to get in touch if you’re interested in talking about what you’re going through. I wish you all the best and I promise, through lots of introspective work and patience and being kind to yourself, the grief will become easier.
I’m very sorry about your dad and I hope you’re doing okay ❤️
Beautiful video that captures the essence of JP in a (longish) nutshell.
My favorite quote about Peterson
"He is someone who confuses verbosity for profundity"
Keep up the good work
John
Indeed. And his opinions for facts.
Yes, using the substantially less popular term "sexual proclivity" in place of "sexual orientation" is totally justified!
When you realize Peterson's point is that anyone who isn't powerful and influential should shut their mouths and let the powerful people rule, you'll see him for the waste of propaganda dollars he is.
It's funny, because he seems so fundamentally invested in making sure that everything stays exactly as it is and never changes. You'd imagine someone in that position would reach it because they're happy, but he projects such desperation that he can't possibly be.
Why dont you want thinks to change, Jordan? You don't even like them as they are!
I.e. when you're literally brainwashed into seeing Jordan Peterson for something he's 100% not even close to, you fail to understand how much Peterson fundamentally understands how people and you get to just write him off as some idiot who isn't worth listening to.
So according to Peterson (14:30), only those who've bought in (or sold out?) can criticize the system.. 🤔
@@flourishingoctaverye According to Peterson if you're young and haven't yet put your own life together, or even had the chance to, it's safe to say you may not understand (as crazy as this sounds) how massive political and economic systems work. It's really not that wild of an idea, simply stating that life experience tends to sharpen ones ideas a bit. What he's saying, it's pretty mild and reasonable. You're taking one example he's giving and equating it to his entire message. He's spoken about this hundreds of times. Telling people to do thier best to tell the truth and take care of themselves the way you take care of others, isn't a bad thing. It's strange to me how so many ppl can criticize someone so harshly and just dismiss them as some terrible person while not knowing a real thing about them. Just watch a few of his videos or interviews, start to finish. If you dare! Lol
@@GrooveisKing You don’t have to have a great deal of “life experience” to see that climate change is a huge issue and needs addressing. No matter how much personal change an individual enacts in their own life without systemic changes the problem will never be addressed.
My major issue with JP is his good ideas are so trite it’s hardly worth giving him credit for. “Live your best life and be nice to people” wow what a guru. The rest of it is just conservative nonsense praising traditional hierarchies. However it can never be acknowledged that these hierarchies have real effects on peoples lives or their ability to actualise their best life. Empty, vapid garbage that preys on the cognitive dissonance of disaffected young men who are waking up to their adult life not being what they imagined.
That argument about who's qualified to "mess with the system" makes me wonder where Peterson stands on voting in democracies
He probably stands with the Enlightened American colonialists of 1776, who thought only property-owning white men should vote.
@@Dorian_sapiens litterally, that's aristocracy.
or if he thinks that the people who are constantly found to be pedophiles or have broken homes are suited to be our representatives.
That was my first thought too. "Staying in your lane (to the exclusion of any social responsibility)" seems wholly incompatible with the arguments why democracy might be a good way to distribute power.
@@y.h.w.h. because people like peterson don't think democracy is good.
I relate to that.. “finding the words that will heal” me
My dad passed away over a year ago and I'm still pretty fucked up about it, trying to be a better man, a better person, but the struggling is an everyday battle. Sorry for your lost, man. Great video, BTW.
Stay safe and don't push yourself too hard
Hemmingway said something like: "All men die twice. First when they are buried in the ground and the last time someone speaks their name. In some ways, men can be immortal."
I hope you are doing well. Very little in this world offends me anymore other than suffering and death. And I can share that burden with you slightly, and I do truly wish you well right now.
Peace.
Almost teared up thinking of my own parents. Hope you're doing better now, wherever you are
positive of parents dying you get over the death of everyone else very quickly or the death of others hardly bothers you. you just accept we all die and you'll be next soon enough. death of your parents especially if you're under 30 can be tough, but it makes you very see every subsequent death for what it is, completely normal and a part of life.
@@u235u235u235 thanks, messiah.
As a retired Canadian university professor from Toronto I can say that Peterson has never been sane nor competent
Everybody who actually knew him in Canada says the same thing.
Sorry to hear about your dad man. My mom passed May 2010. The month I graduated high school. It gets better man. Stay strong.
Yea man, i teared up when he started telling us about that... :(
God Bless! Stay strong, stay safe and take care of yourselves! Wishing everyone the best!
"No. Within the story of this lecture, the woman's plot is left dangling. In essence, she's still standing there, in that coal mining town in northern England. And you can almost picture Jordan Peterson, reading by a lamp that her work helped to fuel. You can imagine him reading the words: _'Datta, dayadhvam, damyata._ Give, sympathize, control.' And maybe, Peterson is comforted by those words but... I don't know if I can be anymore."
Me too, Big Joel.
Me too. :(
For real: that conclusion was so powerful, it got me to watch the video over. I appreciated all the personal framing that led into it too. Big Joel was right. He isn't the only one who finds something to mourn in the death of their Wasteland.
@@AstraIVagabond :(
@@AstraIVagabond I don't know if the conclusion necessarily renders The Wasteland dead, but moreso argues that a search to fix one's self and one's world are not mutually exclusive, and that to work for the latter may unintentionally lead to the former. Although I guess that does kinda lead to the death of the idea of the individual as a wasteland, so that's a whoops from me :p
@@leiram8833 This will be a lengthy comment so I apologize. But I think, to put it simple, it can be narrowed down to the fact that we're currently living in a period of transition which makes is difficult to find your inner centre or purpose. We live in a time where 20th century beliefs and structures clash with what ever is looming up around the horizon and will shape up this new era but is not yet clear enough to tell what it is. People sometimes describe it as a conflict between the generations, like with climate change and Fridays for future. But this conflict is even experienced by those in the middle, the 30 to 50 years olds and not just 16 and 60 year old people. And it is much broader than just the question about climate change. The values and principles we had as underlying basic being the fabric of our societies, specifically in the US and Europe are starting to near their end. They might become obsolete somewhere in the future and make room for what ever comes after it. Our economic model, our policies, the guidelines that served to our political systems, the way we understand this world. Many of those principles we take for granted show more and more that they are inadequate to the challenges ahead of us. And this of course leaves us also somewhat in disarray I believe.
Just to name a few examples. Our economic model has for the last 60-70 years carried the promise that everyone can experience a live in prosperity if he puts the necessary work in to it. But the ecological damages to the environment now challenge this view to the core. It makes us question what this prosperity is and the materialism and consumerism coming with it could very well destroy the prosperity of future generations. So there is a foundation that's shaken to the core.
Then you have labour and the idea behind it being questioned. Right now a large part of our lives is oriented about our jobs and careers. From the kind of education you chose to the decisions you make in live. People move form one area to another to get certain jobs, they often follow the jobs of their parents they often form friendships at work. Many people identify them self with the jobs they do. Coal miners, carpenters, programmers. But automation, better artificial intelligence, higher productivity and increasing digitalisation force us to question our position as human beings though and our definition of labour. If a machine, even in theory, could do almost everything a human does better, faster and cheaper, than what purpose do humans actually have left in such a society?
And this question of fundamental principles can be found in many areas. It's a los of identity so to speak. So with saying this, but that's just my opinion, don't be afraid. I think we are just experiencing the dawn of a completely new age. Of course something like that is confusing. But I have hope that something great will come out of this all. Eventually.
@@redrooster3420 Thank you...! I hope the same for you.
I spent years in therapy but I came to the realization that unfortunately I like who I am and that what makes me depressed is the state of the world and the magnitude of dislike I have for it. And that I am stuck feeling this way until either the world or myself changes so completely as to be something or someone else.
Me too.
The Human Condition... and then we all want to hang out at Walden Pond.
It’s easier to change yourself than the world but no amount of therapy can help if you refuse to help yourself.
I hate having to rely on therapy though so don’t have a valid opinion. When it comes to the advice of others since I could do it myself if I wanted to
therapy should be about learning how to deal with that constructively not not liking who you are or having to change
@@darylingoteborg3178 but why? just accept the help and prosper instead of insisting you can do it yourself. Humans arent solitary animals , you aren't supposed to do things 100% by yourself and all the things you have experienced and enjoyed by now were made by others unless you literally invented fire and electricity
I really appreciate that Joel takes time from his career as a fisherman to speak to us in these video essays
I find it embarrassing that Peterson thinks his no need to protest about people being poor was such a zinger he's used it multiple times 🤦♂️
I’m pro-pay2win, loot boxes, and South Korean mobile games, and I find your username offensive SMFH
"Who's for poverty?" Uhhh... All the politicians and CEO's doing everything in their fucking power to arrange it for as many people as it possible, they would be "for it". Fuck Peterson is such a fucking donut.
@Altin Gashi Maybe scratch the surface just a single layer deep and you might be able to make a cohesive point.
Altin Gashi considering that the jobs are generally for shit pay no, they are not keeping them out of poverty.
@Altin Gashi so you think without CEO's no one will have jobs... are you this stupid.
If you actually scratch more than one layer deep you'll see how, moronic you sound. Seen as you are stupid enough to try and claim people choose that job and not forced into it out of a desire to not die, shows how little you know about this topic it's utterly pathetic. So I have little wonder why a man giving you such a simple reductive explanations is the only thing you can get.
This logic Jordan Peterson uses is very common in Christian churches: "don't sin or else". You WILL "sin", whatever religion you use as a lense to analyze your life... If you feel guilty enough, you will think every bad thing that happens to you is because of your "personal choices". People stop thinking about themselves as part of the world when their priest say that "you should be above the world and be the best you can individually".
His logic is familiar to us because most religions use it to read the world.
This makes me sad idk :(
P.S. Your username is sweet! All the best, Grandma.
as a roman catholic, the suffocating cloud of "you have sinned" was hanging above me for a lot of my childhood. as any minor foible made me think i was a step closer to going to hell. it sucked. my mental image of god nowadays is of the lesson of love, to be good to one another as thats the most important thing
The Confiteor which is spoken at nearly every Catholic Mass says "I confess...that I have gravely sinned." The assumption that one will eventually sin is baked into the liturgy.
It’s very easy to stand for nothing the way Jordan Peterson does. It makes you the smartest, most rational, agreeable person in the room. But pure logic has no soul and no meaning. I feel like he stands for nothing so that he never has to be wrong. You may stagger away from his lectures feeling like he won an argument, but you learn nothing meaningful about him or the world
Oh he stands for something, he's just not honest about what it is.
THANK YOU FOR HELPING ME UNDERSTAND WHY HE BOTHERS ME SO MUCH
Don’t call your intro long and annoying ): I’m sorry for your loss. I hope in the next life he will find his answer
You suck idiot fucking liberal a war has not caused destruction and we do not have to fix ourselves. The world has never been a fucking paradise, and you can’t take 1 quote by T.s. Eliot and make it better. It takes being constantly aware of what is happening around you, good and bad is always happening. It is about ignoring the bad and looking for the answers and not looking for a way to escape reality.
@@captaincookieandmilk6142 bro WHAT 😂
@@captaincookieandmilk6142 don't think I'm taking your side or anything like that
@@captaincookieandmilk6142 the way you talk actually does make it sound like you've got a lot to work on yourself. We should be constantly seeking to better ourselves and that is in fact something that I agree with Jordan Peterson on despite not being a big fan of his. To not seek to better the self is to basically give up on ourselves. In the Meditations I believe the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius said to get actively involved in your own rescue. It's a good line to take for the new year. Peace.
Parasocial relationship alert
“And that’s when Postmodernism was invented.” The single stupidest sentence in the English language.
The man was coming off as a straight up conspiracy theorist around that point.
really makes you wonder how the fuck an artistic and philosophical movement came from a goddamn sociopolitical movement that had very little to do with art at all, directly, not just indirectly inspiring it XD but see, Jordan Peterson's got that big brain we can't understand
BLACKIESBOY What I really want to know is why the inventors of postmodernism didn’t have the good sense to copyright their work. They must have forgotten to do it because of their unresolved emotional traumas 😂
Guess it makes him sound smart to stupid people 🤷 Those on the right like to accuse others of "making words up" while essentially doing that themselves by giving existing ones new meanings that are not only strawmen pulled right out of their asses but also actively harmful to certain groups of people :)
@@cookiebandit18 He is. Blaming the worlds problems on postmodernism and cultural marxism is a literal Nazi conspiracy.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankfurt_School#Cultural_Marxism_conspiracy_theory
I think you did a great job demonstrating both why Peterson has connected to so many young people and his glaring faults. Back when I was in high school and Peterson was starting to get traction online I thought he was great. I thought a lot of his points were valid in a time where radical social justice warrior types were cool to argue against. I think it was only a year into watching his videos that I realized that outside of his videos criticizing others, his own personal beliefs were kind of strange and not at all in line with how I thought. For one, when I found out how incredibly religous he was I thought it was pretty contradictory to his statements about being evidence-based. Like on the one hand he criticizes 'cultural marxists' from pushing their failed beliefs on the population and on the other hand he pushes his very conservative views based on a modern interpretation of a book written 2000 years ago.
Then I heard his stance on climate change and gay marriage. At that point everything he said sounded incredibly hypocritical and so I stopped watching his videos for years. Now after watching your video I have come to a conclusion about Peterson that you seemed to highlight. His content is trying to convince young people not to vote or be civically involved. That is why his argument is about 'working on yourself first'. The idea that one has to have a perfect life before trying to change their situation is so backwards. Does he think our leaders have their shit together? Trump cheated on his wife more times than my fingers can count. Now that may be an extreme example, but even the best leaders throughout history had some pretty glaring personal issues and yet they were still able to accomplish incredible things. I think activism bothers Peterson so much because he has never needed to protest anything. I mean the closest thing to a political issue he protested was that bill about gender pronouns. Do some people protest for issues they don't understand? Yes. Are some people 'showing support' out of a self centered desire to appear like a good person? Absolutely, I think a lot of us know someone like that. Are those two people enough to make the entire purpose of the protest invalid? I sure fucking hope not.
Meh, I haven't read his book. But I never got the impression that he advocated for having your life in 'perfect' order before you were able to rail against the machine. And I don't know why you make the leap that that must then mean he's pushing an agenda for people to be civilly disengaged (far from it from the vids I've seen!).
The problem with protesting as I see it: if you live in a liberal democracy like the US, in Western Europe, etc., you have it made relative to more than 90% of the people on the planet. That many privileged people (i.e. citizens of these societies) protest things that are questionable at best (eg gender discrimination) comes across as immensely tone deaf and narcissistic (victim culture), and is ultimately insulting to people who legitimately have a raw deal.
Yes, no doubt there are injustices in US, etc., but it's overblown. JP's point as I interpret it: Stop whining and sort your own shit out (the best collective course from a generation/population perspective).
@@matster77 Do you think the protests over police brutality were 'tone deaf'? Western nations may have advantages over others, but that doesn't mean we have perfected society and in my opinion the moment you start to just accept the status quo is the moment the people lose a voice in their society. I am not the only person who thought this, it is why the founding fathers made the right to protest the first amendment to the constitution.
@@LFPAnimations 'tone deaf' was an incorrect term used by me for many instances.
I agree protesting is a pillar of living in a great society. But it should be proportional. There will always be something to protest, but if you find yourself spending literally all your time being an activist it just comes across as obnoxious (nothing is ever right, wah wah wah... all while being in a place where things are actually not too bad).
@@matster77 I don't know if you realise that, but we are organised into countries... You are somewhat suggesting that because something is worse at the other end of the world, I should do nothing in my country, that is rather odd and pushing for us to wait for the whole world to be completely f*cked up before we try to do anything about anything. Or yo uare suggesting that we should directly take care of problems in other countries, but that would be somewhat imperialist so I suppose that is not what you are saying...?
I also don't get where your magical scale to measure the "correct proportionality" of a protest comes from. In my experience people are always very biased when they assess if something is "proportionate" for these matters. You talk about gender discrimination, when I was young it was very invisibilised so it didn't look like a huge problem, then social media appeared and people finally started having a way to present the reality they lived and that many of us ignored, and guess what...? It's not so "shallow" when it's about sexuel harrassment, rape and such.
Anyway, the way you have, along with many (usually somewhat conservative) people to try and shame others for being politically active, by deciding for them that they have "already everything they need", I find it extremely paternalist and distasteful... Just my personal opinion though.
@@Kyrielsh1
There is no gender discrimination in western society. That false claim is just a divide and conquer strategy.
It’s interesting coming back to this video, because here Joel argues against Peterson in an incredibly sensitive and sympathetic fashion, because most saw him as a genuine good faith intellectual back then. Now Peterson’s completely lost any semblance of nuance, moral code, and even sanity. But then one asks, was he different before, or just better at hiding it?
The latter. It's very obvious.
I dig this. Telling marginalized people that they can only be critical of a system that excludes them once they've been successful in it is the definition of privilege
no such thing as white privilege
very insightful response to the comment....
@@LolLol-ok4lr i made a claim, if he wanted to respond he could
@@mikemanners118 Do you know what is white privilege?
this is such a massive strawman
Hearing you talking about your dad is... uncanny. My father wasn’t exactly like yours, but was scarily similar. He loved poetry, specifically I remember him liking Edgar Allan Poe, and indeed thought the world was pitted against him. He was brilliant, and tried to impart that brilliance on me. I vaguely remember him explaining communism to me when I was young, although I don’t remember if he was pro or against it. He only ever wanted me to be educated, and to think critically about things. He was not a particularly happy man, either. At least not in the last five years of his life. His divorce from my mom was difficult for them both in very different ways. He died about a year ago now.
I’m sorry for your loss. Your father sounds like a good man.
I've been really intrigued by JBP's point in his "Fix Yourself" PragerU video (referenced in this video around 12:45). In summary, a patient says she hopes that her suffering is her own fault, the psychiatrist asks why, and she responds that then she can do something about it. Obviously Dr P is using this as a contrast to the libs who blame all of their problems on society.
But there is a very important hidden assumption in this: that suffering being her own fault means she necessarily can fix it. It's not hard to imagine scenarios where this is not the case. If I drunkenly drive my car into a tree and can no longer walk, then my suffering is my fault but I can't do much about it. (I can quit drinking to prevent future suffering, but it does not help me with being in pain and impaired. I cannot fix myself.) Likewise, it's not hard to imagine suffering that one can remediate or at least mitigate, even when someone else is at fault. If my neighbor is listening to music too loudly at night and keeping me from sleeping, there are still things I can do to address this problem: ask them to not, wear earplugs, passive aggressively blast my own music, adjust my sleep schedule, organize with my neighbors to establish a noise ordinance, and so on.*
We can basically imagine two binary dimensions by which to evaluate a problem: the source (me/not me) and the solution (me/not me), yielding a graph with four quadrants. Dr P's hidden assumption ignores the two odd quadrants (source not me+solution me and source me+solution not me), which allows an interesting sleight of hand. Let me demonstrate: If you ask people whether they'd rather be responsible for their own misfortune or not, most people would like to not be responsible. But, if you ask them whether they'd rather have their problems be solvable by them or not, most people would prefer that their problems be solvable. By implicitly linking the less preferable choice in one dimension and more preferable choice on the other, Dr P creates the illusion that the clearly preferable outcome (their problems being solvable, even if their own fault) seem like a hard truth rather than just plainly obvious. It also leaves only one other option: "my problems are not my fault and therefore I don't need to do anything about them". Giving us only these two options not only makes self-help seems noble (there's a point to be made here about a guy who sells self-help also peddling an ideology where self-help is the best/only solution to your problems), but also makes activism seem disingenuous or even insidious.
The irony is if we consider all the quadrants we can see that activists are not "doing nothing" but are trying to solve a problem even though the problem is not their fault. It's hard to not see activism (source not me+solution me), then, as the far more noble than self-help: spending one's effort to solve problems that are not one's fault. Dr P is correct that most people have problems in their lives that they could more easily and directly solve than large social problems which might not change in their lifetimes. Dealing with personal problems would bring more immediate happiness than activism; the point is actually so obvious as to be utterly banal ("hot take: it's easier to change yourself than the world"). The only surprising thing then, is that Dr P is able to paint activism as an act of laziness or cowardice instead of a conscious sacrifice to help others instead of oneself.
* Some might say that if a person is able to solve a problem, then they are at fault because their inaction is allowing the problem to continue. This idea is pretty common in self-help and is difficult to argue against because it is tautological. But I ignore it here because, at least in this case, Dr P rejects it as well. Without the recognition that a problems source and solution are separate, the patient would have simply said: "I hope that my problems are within my capacity to solve", a pretty uninteresting point that can't be used to moralize anyone else's arguments. So the possibility of suffering from problems not one's own fault must be presented, but just as quickly Dr P reduces a problem's source and solution to a single dimension.
A defender of Western values asks you to focus on your personal life problems and leave the larger political and social issues to those who are supposedly sufficiently competent; that is, to be/become/remain what a big chunk of ancient Greeks called "an idiot". I always thought that the notion of public and political engagement, the way how Greeks phrased it, is one of the distinctive features of Western civilisation, reverberating later, coupled with individualism and respect for private life (e.g. Constant's liberty of ancients vs of the moderns), in the rise of protestantism, broadly-understood liberalism (in its 19th century meaning), and allowing for the concepts of free speech and open society. For me, it is one of those few things, for better or worse, that differenciate "the West" from other civilisations. That public engagement is something one needs to learn by actively participating in public life, as at least some folks claim that the participation in politics is primarily a matter of practice, not a learnt science, so discouraging most members of society from actively engaging in politics is puzzling, at the very least.
We have had Plato's wise-authoritarian tradition in the West, sure, but that doesn't seem to be a predominant aspect of the West, the way it is a key feature for Marxism-Leninist, Confucian, Sunni, Maoist and Putinist approaches to society. Maybe the defender of the West, individualism and free speech is not only a closeted postmodernist, but also a collectivist authoritarian ... as long as there is no Marxist label visibly attached?
But there is perhaps no dissonance here, as long as you spin the vague notion of Western values in such a way that fits your particular debating requirements, to win the discussion and own the libs.
I actually have a lot of admiration for activists with broken lives. The strength they deploy to go beyond their personal tragedies and fight for the group is truly admirable.
You don’t think it’s a form of separation and just projecting your problems outwards instead of doing something beneficial that can benefit them now to benefit others later when they are mentally fit to maybe be an actual lawyer to free the black people that are genuinely unfairly persecuted by the us
So you admire people who don't even have the basic human trait of being able to control themselves, instead they seek out a group to do that for them? Alright, but if that's your company, watch your back.
@@rockytom5889 no I despise that ideology actually you made the complete wrong assumption and my comment says that idk what you read. I said that you need to be mentally fit to be a good lawyer that free innocent people you don’t need to be mentally fit to go out and protest one takes more control and personal agency and actually creates change the other (being protesting) imo is an example of projection onto the world while also correctly seeing a problem but simply applying that issue to your self and making it the focal issue in your life instead of seeing it as one facet of issues, and that you have very little to do with solving the larger societal issues you unless you become mentally fit enough to make change therefore Peterson’s idea stands tend to your personal garden than grow it out to the world at large
@@mftoeless1687
I was aiming for the OP, not you...
@@rockytom5889 nah, it’s about how they are able to tend to their own issues while tending to others. Sometimes there isn’t anything to do about ur own personal issues, but being able to still fight for other’s issues is the beauty in it. That’s how we as humans have survived. We are a communal and sociable species, it’s literally our biology and the hatred towards it will get us nowhere
The only qualification needed to “mess with the system” is to be a part of said system.
Did the citizens of France need degrees in politics to overthrow their tyrannical government?
The Pope I think it’s argued to be helpful to the success of a movement before it gets to that point. I’d say it’s a plan vs a reaction. Mutiny is typically blamed on both the mutineers and the ones in charge.
So the French Revolution reign of terror is your idea of the sort of "activism" we should encourage in present day?
Publius Velocitor the reign of terror wasn’t initiated by the French civilians, it was initiated by their overlords
So actually, yes! Our overlords are still engaging in a reign of terror. You think the Portland kidnappings were a fluke?
@@ethanpister Those were nothing NOTHING compared to the truck driver who was mercilessly beaten to a state of unconscious by savage confirmed BLM protesters. So yes, both your French revolution and all the leftist attempts to re-create it especially here in America are bullshit. I can't wait until these vile human beings are put in prison where they belong.
Pound ver Magnuson
In every riot you’re gonna have people who take it too far, this isn’t exclusive to lefties.
Did you just forget about Charlottesville, the Boogaloo Bois, the more than 50 right-wingers who’ve driven into groups of BLM protestors, did you forget about the hundreds if not thousands of black men and women killed by the hands of cops with an unchecked sense of authority?
I don’t condone the killing of any innocent people, and I agree that perpetrators both on the left and right should be imprisoned. But if have any sensibility and self-respect left, you’ll redirect your anger towards the actual oppressors here. So get your shit together, and toss that reactionary Fox News dumbassery out of here.
I was lucky to have grown up under Christopher Hitchens to be wary of people who rationalize being mean and cruel to others with 'facts', so Jordan Peterson didn't take long for me to decipher what he is all about. Even Dawkins had me going there for a while until, well you know, *FACTS DONT CARE ABOUT YOUR FEELINGS*. I can't abide to that. Empathy rules.
Yeah Jordan is rife with issues, lot's of moral shortcoming's and low life behaviour, dressed up in garbage disguises, it's a good thing his rationalisations are garbage and easy to see through, it's a bad thing so many people can't see through BS.
I really enjoyed your perspective on JB. It's interesting, initially I really enjoyed his work and I thought there was some valid points in 12 rules for life and lots of his lectures but is time is gone I found more and more trouble with those ideas. For example, many of the great artists, scientists and engineers made incredible work in their youth, specifically because - one could argue - of their naivete. To tell kids to get their own house in order while they watch the corruption and cronies destroy their future is a tough call.
Well by the point you made about the great people who was able to formulate ideas because they can argue their naivete. I think some people are born genius. And about the keep the house in order, JB basically means before you speak about something, you have to make that something is true or nothing. To get every details about that things and when you feel confident, you speak up about that thing. Idk much more but i think he is referring that. And another things is we know there is a whole bunch of chaos out there in the world and telling the kid to keep the house in order not going to change things. From my perspective, i think JB meant that when you clean your room, you get a positive emotion to get things done. From cleaning the room , you figure out to rearrange your desk or anything in the room. You just made the room look productive. From that, you get motivation to do more things. And it goes on beyond that. To keep your house in order basically means to reorient yourself in such a manner that you don't fall into pit and to make rational decisions. It's somewhat related to positive emotions. The thing you talked about keeping the house in order doesn't affect external things is not the whole point. You are looking at this in different spectrum.
Big Joel doesn't spend much time on Peterson's "protesting poverty" joke, probably because the arguments against it are obvious and only distractions from his overall point, but I just have to break it down:
1) it's an obvious strawman. Peterson calls it the "classic protest sign" but I've never seen a protest sign simply state "I'm against poverty." I have seen similarly simple statements on protest signs but only within the context of a larger gathering that is arguing something more tangible. A person holding a "I'm against poverty" sign at a rally arguing for a change in housing laws is probably just adding their voice to the more specific effort, and is using a simple statement because it fits on a sign and most observers can understand the context.
2) "Everyone is against poverty." That's not true. While almost everyone would probably say that, given a choice, they would rather remove poverty than keep it, there are many people that are neutral on poverty, they truly do not care one way or the other about the impoverished. The thinking is usually "Poverty sucks, but it usually happens to people that deserve it, so whatever." Basing their thinking on the myth of meritocracy.
3) "I'm against torture. Well so is everyone!" That's also not true. There are many people that agree with the use of "enhanced interrogation." Sometimes they think torture only happens to people that deserve it, others think its a necessary evil. It seems necessary to protest it.
4) Even if everyone was against torture and poverty, how is that an argument against protesting them? He seems to argue that people that protest are only seeking attention and "brownie points." His argument is that such moral statements are so obvious they don't even provide brownie points and so protesters should stop doing it since they will not receive their desired outcome. That is, assuming the desired outcome is receiving brownie points. But of course, it's not. The outcome these protesters desire, go figure, is the end of torture and poverty. But he cannot conceive that protesters' motivations are pure, or that there are impoverished people in the protest groups that are fighting for their own betterment.
5) Even if he conceded that protesters motivations are pure, he implies that everyone in society already agrees with the moral statement "torture/poverty is bad", therefore making signs that make these moral statements redundant and unhelpful. The protests he alludes to are not usually meant to change someone's mind on an issue, but instead to energize them on the issue. Most people are probably against torture, yes, but nobody is willing to do anything about it. Protesting motivates people into calling their representative or donating money to good causes. But he acts like these protests are no more than a reddit forum where people are simply shouting their beliefs into the void for egotistical purposes.
Funny that those that are pro poverty are the ones in power, people he would consider "successful" because they have degrees, a business, because they have solved their problems.
Very well said, thanks for spelling it out!
This should be a pinned comment
I think Petersons point is that protesting doesn't do anything to actually help solve the problem. Protesting is a way of spreading awareness of a problem not solving it.
I think these arguments miss the real point here:
Peterson that says nobody is "for poverty", and it's true that nobody is for poverty directly. But there are people who *accept the existence of poverty* and those who don't. Someone who is anti-poverty wants to do something about it, and (especially) believes that something can be done about it. Peterson doesn't believe that anything can be done about it because his imagination is tiny (and constrained by capitalism), so he has to also believe that "everyone is against poverty", but he's smart because he doesn't want to actually do anything to fix it and the protestor is naive for thinking they can fix it.
Interesting how he doesn't have an issue with activism when done by anyone pushing traditionalism, Christianity, or white conservative identity politics.
Ah but tradition isn't activism, it's just the natural state of things. Activism to _change_ things is what needs scrutiny on philosophical principle, which coincidentally lines up with Peterson's politics.
@Graknorke: While I agree that the activism to change things needs scrutiny from a philosophical context, this does not line up with anything that comes from Jordan Peterson. Perhaps you believe that it does because you agree with Jordan Peterson's apathy & his sense of moral superiority, that he obviously has, purely because he talks condescendingly to and about people. It is that apathetic drone mentality that has made him a darling of the alt-right and it is his embracement of white supremacist fascism, i.e., that cultural marxism is a real threat to the world, that has people believing that what he says should be listened to with thoughtfulness & care, believing that his knowledge & wisdom can lead us to better future. He's a pseudo-intellectual catering to other pseudo-intellectuals.
Jordan Petersen is a disgusting fraud.
@@Graknorke To stand up against change for the better is activism. We are always making an active choice.
The concept of conservativism as the absence of change is fallacious.
What conservativism really means is to have strict limitations on how such change should be possible to happen.
Progressivism is the opposite. It is the openminded approach to change.
If you have clear values then it doesn't matter how you move from point A to B for as long as you know you get closer to those values.
If you have clear values and always follow them then there is no risk that you violate them.
For example me with socialist values: It doesn't matter how I get from now to a society where everyone is living a better and more equal life.
Because if I step on people getting there I would fail to get there. It would result in a paradox and hence be unrealistic.
Jordan Peterson fears progressive change and tries to instill the same fear in others to protect him self.
If everyone fears the dark then everywhere you go there will be street lights and other lamps.
If you are alone to fear the dark then you are pushed to face what you fear.
To Jordan societal change is the darkness he fears.
He has heard stories about what can be lurking in the dark.
He is being irrational about it.
Because THOSE motives are PURE, you see! Regardless of how dysfunctional the people shoving them down everyone else's throats... XD
@@MegaBanne where is your evidence of this?
Hi Joel! I watched this video when it came out two years ago, and it stayed in my mind for a long time. now I am much wiser and feel I can intellectually engage with Peterson himself and the arguments you raised with much more nuance. I felt compelled to write this goddamn essay in the comment section, which you should take as a compliment of my high regard for your persuasive capabilities and engaging style. seriously, I cannot overstate your impact on my college studies thus far! anyways, I hope you get the chance to read this. you rock
one can only assume, after hearing Peterson's stance, that he himself has overcome his own moral and behavioral failings and therefore situated himself in a position where he is qualified to diagnose societies problems. we have lost sight of tradition, of religion, that we no longer place appropriate emphasis on the sphere of the private life. "be the change you want to see in the world", clean your room, don't fight with your girlfriend.
(these determinations, in my mind, bear no real difference from the determinations he criticizes, i.e. "capitalism creates a toxic power imbalance", "the patriarchy creates an unfair power imbalance", because the ends his ideology and these ideologies seek is the same. change your behavior, encourage other people to change their behavior, and end up in a better, more just world. the ideologies that Peterson despises has room for Petersons own ideologies--ive never met a leftist unconcerned with improving their mental well-being or strengthening their personal relationships. in fact, I'd argue that such personal adjustments are imperative to creating a healthier society. his ideology, however, does not have room for these seemingly converse, more material and organized movements. I think this shows a real lack of empathy on his part--a refusal and inability to look beyond his own material conditions and take up another point of view.)
the thing is, he totally had not overcome his own moral and behavioral failings. he got addicted to benzos after he force-fed himself meat and greens for too long, a cause-and-effect that points to some deeeeeeeep issues with control, emotional regulation and management, etc. and yet, he continued to make appearances and write articles that continued to comment on what people ought to do, how the world ought to be. working within his own ideology, his control of his diet and subsequent addiction made him unqualified to make such determinations, and the ethical and morally just thing would have been for him to completely stop his media appearances, lectures, etc. until he had fully worked through the mental conditions that altered his life in such a way. his house was not in order.
at some level, he knows that his insistence on perfecting your life before trying to fix the world is unsustainable. he knows that had he ground to a halt, his career would have suffered and therefore his material conditions would have changed, along with his mental condition. philosophy and self help is his passion--he would have had to stop doing what he found important, what made him happy, what inspired him. this is why his refusal to accept that collective action to change the material conditions of others is so frustrating. as you said, his framing of his argument leaves you with no leg to stand on. Whether or not material conditions affect your life, and if it is a good thing or a responsibility to change those conditions (for yourself or others), aren't even a part of the argument. instead, he baits the viewer with platitudes about how your problems are your own and you can fix them on your own without acknowledging the material conditions that might bring these problems about. in his ideology, collective action and self betterment are two separate and competing forces with no room for overlap, and the importance of the latter is used to invalidate the former. which makes no sense.
but why??? like, what is with his refusal to even consider that the private and the public life might work together in tandem??
this part is guesswork, but I have a suspicion that Petey is projecting his own moral failings onto the sjw cultural Neo marxist woke mob. he perceives them as trying to make him feel some guilt for being comfortable with the status quo. so, with no real understanding of the ethics and philosophy that make up communism (anticapitalism, anti colonialism, etc), he automatically assumes that those who believe in these ideologies have some sort of moral failing that they are compensating for. and yet, his moral failings (which he has been admirably open about) have no effect on his ideologies.
ok, so he diagnoses the sjw commies with bad person syndrome and insinuates that once they "make a life for themselves", or whatever, (a life that, as you mentioned, is very narrow and confining [and I would go further by saying that really just falls into the metrics of success dictated by capitalism]) that they might have a different view of it all. like... yeah? probably! here he literally admits that our material conditions influence the way we think, and then refuses to follow that to its logical conclusion: that his point of view might be influenced by his relative success within the dominant economic and social structure. he knows that collective action against such a structure would put his success as a professional grifter in serious jeopardy, and so anyone that this system doesn't work for must be not disadvantaged but morally decayed. such a distinction is the only way that he can hold up his frankly beneficial focus on the fixing of your private life against his classist, racist, misogynistic worldview and his obsession with the status quo.
Well said. I think you've put your finger on something about Peterson that really bothers me -- he tends to attribute to just about any egalitarian movement the hidden motivation of being resentful and embittered and wanting to tear others down. That's not a viewpoint you can really justify without believing egalitarianism would be tearing people down, now is it? I believe inequality hurts all people involved -- patriarchy hurts both men and women, large wealth inequalities hurt both rich and poor, racism hurts both the aggressor and the victim. Obviously they hurt the different parties to different degrees, but the fact remains when I seek greater equality for people I'm doing so out of love for everyone. So saying I'm acting out of malice is a bit of a self-report, isn't it? It's him telling people he views equality as an unfair, hurtful thing.
Absolutely brilliant! Thank you for saying so eloquently and well what so many of us have been struggling to put into words.
Something that I think is pretty interesting and annoying is that Peterson has this very sympathetic perspective of millennials and Gen Z that is entirely based on how pathetic they appear to him. He seems to think that we’re all bad at personal responsibilities and care way too much about what others think about us. But his solutions to these personal problems are image based. We need to make our bed before we talk about how low our self esteem is, if we talk about it at all. And our self esteem issues are our fault because we should have spoken up when our parents berated us for having B instead of an A in high school algebra. He seems to think that if we made our bed we’d feel a sense of worth and in some cases, that’s true. But for some of us it couldn’t matter less because making the bed doesn’t erase the bruises or cuts on our arms. He’s very, fake it til you make it, but doesn’t consider the fact that for some faking it is what is breaking us. And even if we have a successful job, good hygiene and a healthy love life, personal problems don’t stop appearing because if you’re an emotionally mature person you don’t stop growing as a person once you have your finances and family in order. Then there’s the fact that for minority groups, politics are personal. Gay marriage or whatever effects gay people’s well being and it is extremely intimate. For POC people, being shot by police causes a fuck ton of emotional distress and social anxiety. The only solution for these problems are in activism and it’s not about impressing friends, it’s about survival. Me going to police violence protest is personal because my friends being at risk on city streets causes me emotional distress and I get depressed knowing they’re unsafe.
So like, his philosophy is very biased because it doesn’t work for people that aren’t like him. Also he’s pretentious as fuck using special lingo to explain shallow solutions that don’t work for the vast majority of the human population
I think that there is not anything wrong with sharing an effective brand of self-improvement, and sharing ideas that attempt to help a person grow up to find and distill meaning within themselves and within their lives. Peterson suggests, not demands, that individuals use their agency to first build themselves up in order to then take on the world with matured and veteran vigor, I think you would be hard pressed to find a moment at which Jordan calls any young man pathetic, but rather think you would be lost to escape instances in which he encourages young men in the ways which the world has not.
@@joelennon-phillips8132 I think that Peterson thinks we’re pathetic, I don’t think he says it. I get this impression from the way he describes our motivations, desires, and actions. Peterson seems to be very good at taking quick glances at what leftists believe and do then deciding why they are that way. He seems to not have a grasp on what compassion and empathy are. It’s a very capitalist mindset that contradicts social work at its core. Like, it’s not about you, it’s not about success and efficiency or legacy.
The media is very into tearing down old beliefs that center white men right now so it’s not a good time to be online unless you’re secure in your identity. Peterson has created a safe place to be traditionalist so many men can build up their egos instead of confronting social constructs and connecting with their humanity/emotions. Peterson’s philosophy doesn’t help anyone because it’s built on treating symptoms instead of the actual illness. It might feel good for a little while but it will not help men have any type of true intimacy which will leave them desperately lonely in the long run.
@@cedarmoss7173 you state that Peterson creates a safe space for men to build up their egos instead of confronting social constructs and connecting with their humanity. Is it possible, at all, that he instead, at least in some circumstances, creates a safe space for men to help build themselves up IN ORDER TO CONFRONT SOCIAL CONSTRUCTS AND CONNECT WITH HUMANITY rather than to run from it? Is it possible that perhaps, Jordan Peterson, believes and teaches that in dealing with the responsibilities within, you then also become the most capable of handling responsibility without? Is it not true that certain traditional ideas ought remain and all should be scrutinized? Is there nothing in tradition? Surely we must do the work to divine what traditional ideas need stay and need go, but if we were to discredit all "traditional" ideas, wouldn't we negate the possibility of cumulative thought? Jordan Peterson is flawed, but for you to claim that it doesn't help anyone is total and utter shit, He saved my damn life and has directly enabled me to strive for better and become a better person; still growing. Jordan Peterson also is not as politically active or politically inflammatory as you make him out to be.
@@joelennon-phillips8132 I think Peterson is being used to uphold the status quo whether he knows it or not. No, I don’t think he in any way wants anyone to confront social constructs or connect with their humanity. But hey, it looks like he still somehow achieved that since he saved your life and you’re open to civil debate on the subject. I will admit that Peterson does teach a version of masculinity that is healthier than the one society pushes onto male born bodies. The fact that he asks men to confront their intentions and pasts at all is better than the “control, don’t feel” that society expects of men.
I think tradition importance should be based on culture, not just because it exists. A lot of tradition is based on oppressive power dynamics, not the good of society. Sure, manners or good intentions are weaved in but that’s so those traditions can be justified, not because they’re good. Mothers are treated badly in the work place and are depended on in the household despite doing the majority of the work. Instead of having a husband that works just as hard, tradition gave us bleeding hearts and Mother’s Day to make up for it. Most of the healthy traditions were in the Native American tribes that cared for the land and animals and had less restrictive gender roles but European invaders destroyed their languages, food, murdered their story tellers and separated their families, and forced them into Christian family models and social roles. European traditions are largely based on Christian values that were created and dictated by white men who sought power. When looking all of this, what tradition is actually worth it? Most western traditions go against what most people find that actually want and need. Woman want to chose their careers and children want to be heard, people of color want to be treated fairly, gay people want to love and have sex without be disowned or abused, trans people want health care and to feel comfortable in their bodies. Most traditions in the western world have only benefited white men and those very traditions are the ones that force them into roles where they can’t safely feel and express their emotions or heal from past traumas they may have suffered. And when forced into these traditional roles, we all suffer because our wants and needs go against tradition requires us to call “natural.” Are all traditions unhelpful? No. Some are neither good or bad. But the ones Peterson advocates for are mostly if not all oppressive to those with less power inside our current social structure. I’m fine if a man holds the door open for me or offers to carry my books (as long as he doesn’t steal them) but I am not at all fine with him talking over me or not allowing me a spot in the work place.
And no, we don’t need to take care of the without to deal with the within. I can go to therapy wearing my pajamas and still talk about my abusers. Now I can’t wear pajamas forever. But it’s so uncomfortable inside, why should I be uncomfortable outside too? I’m not here to be attractive, I’m here because no one will let me die. Therapy and medication can get me to a place where I can make my bed and exercise or whatever, but exercising and making my bed will not make me happy about living. Because my unmade bed and unmoved limbs are not what’s making me hate living.
@@joelennon-phillips8132 btw, I don’t hate living so much anymore. That was more like two months ago. But I was alluding to the various times I felt that way
I’ve never seen a sign that says “I’m against poverty” before. Not sure why JP thinks they are so ubiquitous.
Semaphore he has to Straw Man the opposing point to make it easier to attack
Jonathan Haidt has some good research on this phenomenon your comment encapsulates. Liberally minded people often think conservatives don't care about poor people. However, conservatives operate on 5 moral channels whereas liberals operate on 3. The result being: liberals can't steelman the conservative perspective because they can't think like one. I see so many people commenting like moral authorities instead of giving their political opponents the benefit of the doubt that they're good people.
I think this is a key component in Peterson's and "anti-SJW" thinking.
You witness a specific ridiculous opinion or action that a misinformed individual has (twitter is a gold mine) and put it in your "SJW" folder. And gradually create this "SJW" group, who's principal characteristic is that they have ridiculous opinions or actions.
And if a right-winger feels particularly bold that day, he'll claim "see?! THIS is what the left is!!".
So you've created a group which exists in the confines of your skull, by selecting anything that random individuals say that makes you angry. And you think you have a point when you screencap a tweet with 2 likes, and show how ridiculous are this "leftie Postmodern Neo-Marxist soy-boy SJWs"
It's basically a problem of extrapolation of individuals into groups.
Check mate libtards.
@@JerseySlayer You're funny in your delusion.
@@TheLummer66 Except that he provided evidence and you provided none.
love going back and seeing how calm he is in the older videos compared to now. glad you've unleashed your inner goblin, king.
As someone who is on the fence about Peterson, I found this video interesting. You're right that we cannot in practice separate the problems people have from the society in which they live. The idea that you should put yourself in order before criticizing society assumes that your problems are not due in any way to society. To the extent they are then putting yourself in order includes criticism of society. It's certainly true that many activists are poorly educated, lack understanding, and may end up making things worse. It's true that many would benefit from working on themselves. But Peterson seems to assume that their problem can't be due to society. And that's the assumption he's making, which is probably just wrong.
If you listen to Peterson long enough, you'll realize he is more than willing to admit that the world can be harsh. He is just saying to do what you can with what you have before you point your finger at the world
@@RacharyZogers Yeah, this. From what I've seen he says that sure our society has problems, but that as it stands it's the best one people have experienced within the scope of history so far, and just because some elements are corrupt doesn't necessitate tearing the whole structure down.
Clearly you haven't listened ro Peterson in the least.
He acknowledges that there are social problems but instead of coddling people and tell them that it's ok and they are just victims, he encourages them to take control and change in order to have the strength and means to fight for their place.
That doe NOT exclude in the least participating in social change through activism, and it does NOT exclude that some problems are due to society. Although we should address how much truth there is in that statement, separately.
However listen to how he destroyed Katy Newman: he demonstrated that she is the embodiment of his philosophy. She's tough, extraverted and assertive (if not outright aggressive) which brought her to where she is in life (a pretty good position), despite the fact she's a woman. Then he mentioned he works with his patients on building such attributes so they can succeed in life.
And hear this: those attributes are CRUCIAL in fighting for social, collective change.
The "clean your room" is a metaphor to say that one should start from what they can control first. Learn to crawl before you walk, learn to walk before you run. If you can't carry out a simple exercise such as keeping the room clean, hardly any task will be easy.
@@Icewateronskin "Clearly" you're malicious and rude. This person stated they are on the fence about Peterson and are sharing their thoughts. Perhaps they aren't interested in spending hours of their life listening to lectures.
Please offer people a little patience and refrain from accusations as your first talking point, people tend to stop listening. Elucidate rather than incriminate.
Otherwise I agree with what you said. Just the first line sucks.
@@YaktSanta I am not malicious and I pointed out a fact: that what this person says is entirely not true.
If pointing out a fact means being rude, then we cannot have a truthful conversation.
By the same logic is really difficult having a truthful conversation with JP about politics in general or philosophy, because he has some ideas but far from the whole picture - I don't have the full picture, and even I understand that.
Sometimes I think JP should know better and avoid certain topics. Probably this person should have known better and just read the chapter first (the pdf of the book is easy to find for free) - it did not take me hours to understand the concept that problems can be tackled from both the individual and the collective fronts.
i know this is anecdotal, but for what it's worth, getting involved in activism saved me from depression because i was finally acting on what i believe to be true. i am now a happier person who has found some purpose, helping me gradually "get my house in order"
You got involved in tribalism. You found a tribe of like-minded children to play with.
We are social creatures. That's what cured you.
@@whynotdean8966
did you really have to throw in "children"? being an activist doesn't mean you're immature.
@@bonniejunk Not inherently no. They're not mutually exclusive either. Especially not in this forum.
But I used it in the context of "playing". As in "people gathering and performing social activities together". Which is something children are known for.
@@whynotdean8966
i found the whole comparison to be a bit demeaning. what's so "playful" about protest?
@@bonniejunk Of course you did. Picking words out of context and getting offended by it is basically a national pastime now.
If you read my comment again, you'll see I didn't say protests were playful.
One of my favorite aspects of Big Joel's videos is that his cadence and mellow tone perfectly appeals to my autism.
@gebbletook incredible, every single word of your reply was just a copy paste of any smartass proto-fascist "argument" against "liberals". It's so devoid of originality anyone already know what you're about to say by just reading the first six words of it lmao.
My guess is you copied this from some Ben Shapiro video comment section
Big MOOD
gebbletook ah yes, an “argument”
Lol, same bro
Lovely heartfelt presentation. I named my cat Shanti after the last 3 words of this poem. My own life in fragments when my friend rescued her as a kitten from an evil man on the way to the dumpster, she remained with me as a continuous symbol of hope (and playful exasperation). Much appreciated. I try very hard to achieve a level of dispassionate fairness but in JP's case I have failed. I had a prof who was wonderful; I committed time and again the error of confusing the dancer with the dancer, e.g. Baudelaire was manifestly a shit so I didn't need to assess his poetry in Fleurs du Mal. My prof arbitrarily stuck a pin in the collection and simply said, report next week. Love to read your paper. There was a hidden trap there. The 19th century romantics did indeed cultivate the image of Byronic defiance and visions (Kubla Khan seen in dreams). The prosaic reality was 2 percent inspiration and the rest ... hard work and being immersed in the writing of others who had gone before. But immersed is the operative word. I fail to see any true thought processes in JP's sudden adoption of simultaneously, Nietzche (sp) and some garbled account of the bible delivered as if they were Moses' tablets in the holy land. It's a nonsense. He has failed to grasp the essentials of what poetry, or art in general can offer; a window into a wider world. To me his world was ever smaller and made a mockery of what i valued in my career in academe and everything my father instilled in me regarding personal and civic life, very simple, rights and responsibilities. He was a brave man, morally and physically, shot in the back while rescuing someone during WW2. It never occurred to him that my existence as a female of the species depended on my ability or indeed, obligation to breed ... it was an abomination and my relationship with this wonderful human being who ultimately succumbed to late onset Alzheimer's and to whom I was able to pay a huge debt of love and gratitude in no way resembles JP's rhetoric.
Once again, tx for your presentation and insights.
I don’t understand most of what JP says and I dont understand most of what you said. But you seem much more likeable so you win.
"No ones for poverty"
Me, a early industrialist making a fortune by employing people on poverty wages to work in potentially lethal conditions while also owning slave on a plantation in southern United States making them produce a fortune and resiving none of it.
"Y-Yeah definitely..."
And this is why the left can't meme
an*
They still seeing themselves as someone give them bread and purpose. Even a sociopath don't pro powerty. They jsut don't care that's all but not fighting for it :D
@@petercselik5674 it's 100% deliberate they just don't understand what it means to be poor
Have you figured out yet that an industrialists don't own plantations? Because agrarian and industrial are kind of exact opposites in the context of slavery. Huge industrial machines make slavery obsolete, as one of them does the work of hundreds of men. So you clearly have no idea what you're talking about. Slavery is evil. Want to know who doesn't think so? A huge chunk of the world, right now. Would you like to find out what it's like to live in Sudan? Y-Yeah definitely not.
Be born into wealth, inherit a business from your father, hire people to keep your house clean and BOOM, you're ready to run the world. So simple.
Thats not really what he is telling. You still can be a shitty human being. Ranting about jews and penguins as the causes of your misery. Can't organise yourself and die as cocaine addict and pointless in young.
It’s hypocritical to ignore where the generational wealth started from and just focus on the “wealthy kids” part. You think money drop off from the sky? 🤡
Is wealth inequality intrinsically immoral?
@@ArcaneAnouki wealth inequality isnt intrinsically immoral. but having to scrounge in a slum day by day while talentless hacks are born into the top is a bad scenario, especially when those hacks can freely oppress you in the system.
What a crock. Most work for what they get. Stop using that as an excuse for yourself
holy fuck this was like the most beautiful political commentary i have ever seen im truly in awe
Makes me wonder, that remark about mending your broken family, how much Jordan Peterson is projecting.
Come to think about it my aunt who's pretty well off despises Welfare program because it allows her cleaning lady to ask for a raise without fear of not feeding her child. So yes, some people are for poverty, specially if they seek cheap labour and it's not only the mega rich.
Well I cannot read your aunt's mind and I don't know if you can in order to know that "because" clause or if she outright told you that was her reason for despising the welfare program.
As for me, I despise the welfare program because it keeps the cleaning ladies as cleaning ladies. It does NOT motivate upward mobility and actually incentivizes staying poor and improverished because if you better yourself too much you will get cut off from benefits. Take it from a poor person you fucking prick.
@@LilJbm1
Take it from another poor person that social programs are the best for upward mobility. When people know that some needs are going to be meet that means they'll put more time into their education, or learning helpful skills. People want to better themselves because they dont want to always be poor and living on the edge. Take it from a poor person you fucking prick.
LilJbm1 I don’t know about your country, but in my country unemployment is below your income 55% and welfare (in my province) is Below the income of full time minimum wage job, yes after tax income of course, and my province has one of the lowest minimum wages in the county. Also it requires you to prove you either can’t work, which I mean let’s be obvious here that should be a given, or you are trying to find work. Maybe the problem is you either have it or you don’t, so maybe it should be slowly reduced as you gain income. Also easing wages would be a good idea, they haven’t risen much in decades adjusting for inflation. It always seemed weird to me that someone sees a problem with a generally good idea and rather then thinking how to fix it they say I hate the system that tries to ensure a basic standard so unemployment doesn’t drive you out onto the street. It’s like saying after a corruption scandal with elected officials that I despise democracy.
@@genieglasslamp5028 "People want to better themselves because they dont want to always be poor and living on the edge."
Quite a few people poor people I know disagree with that.
Some want to better themselves and become more valuable to others. Some just want to get their monthly check and be glad they don't have to work for it.
On top of that welfare programs don't help people that don't actively seek to better themselves. It doesn't promote upwards mobility, it promotes dependency. There is no better incentive to try to become better than losing your income, but it's also no bigger wall than losing your income if you have become to good for it.
Exactly
just rewatched this and finally figured out what upsets me so much about JP: everytime i hear him talk he just seems so devoid of kindness and compassion. he seems like he can't ( or doesn't want to) entertain the possibility that some (if not most) people partake in activism because they genuinely want to build a better world for themselves and others, because they are afraid of the future or because they want to help those in need. instead of acknowledling that activism can come from fear, compassion, hope, etc (all natural human emotions that need to be dealt with) he tries to discredit it by assuming that people protest, demand change, etc out of selfishness. coupled with him opposing gay marriage purely out of spite and not even considering the humanity of gay people and their desire to be treated equally just makes it incredibly bleak and depressing to listen to him speak.
What makes antifa , blm or you , qualified to be an activist ?
"most" people are definitely not activists for a cause. They are activists for attention and social gathering. They couldn't give less about the cause. See 60s and 70s hippies. Almost all of them are silent slaves to the system now. How did that happen?
Saying fact that A LOT of people are activists out of pure selfishness is a bit weird. 99 out of 100 journalists have basically become partisan activists. They don't care about newsworthy reporting since a long time. All they (want to) do is stir up drama and hate.
People who are afraid of the future have no faith in their own actions. If they would, they wouldn't be afraid of the future. Activism out of fear is the worst activism someone could find and will result in disaster.
I think I understand where you're coming from, but I can't help but disagree with the point about him being devoid of compassion. He literally cries in interviews every time the topic of young people being depressed comes up. He's always absolutely devastated by, as he says, "how little encouragement it takes for people to get better, and most just never get even that little"
He can be accused of being too reckless sometimes. Talking without thinking. Quick to anger, maybe. Stubborn, certainly. But never of lack of compassion.
He opposes gay marriage? That's insanely ironic from one of the biggest advocate of true individual freedom. Survivorship bias is a hell of a drug ™
@@easternlights3155 He doesn't lack compassion for most people but he still cherry pick which people are right to be who they are and which aren't.
I agree with most of what you say. I've got a masters degree, and worked in a University, realizing that titles and education really mean very little in terms of understanding and being able to articulate constructive ideas to alter society. I'd like to see a video with you interviewing Vlad Vexler about these topics.
"Pseudo-moralistics stances" kinda sums up the good doctor's entire metier.
Old Daoist saying, "When someone points to the moon, don't look at the finger, look at the moon".
Those who know do not say; those who say do not know.
Yeah if there’s a goat comment it’s this.
Rishi Eastwood other comment was Jordan Peterson is the white girl “I’m different “ of politics. 700 upvotes lol. Someone commented that it was the goat comment, but no it’s this one :)
Edit- the other was just too sad not to mention lol
@Rishi Eastwood It's a reference to the main point of Big Joel's video. That when an activist says that there is a problem with the world, the correct retort is not to discredit the activist by implying that they are channeling their personal failures into a faux virtue signaling. That is looking at the finger and not at the moon.
@Rishi Eastwood it means focus on the problem rather than the person that brought it up.
"Do I do this just because I'm pure and care? No. I like attention and money." Honesty and self awareness is pure enough for a new subscriber, good sir.
Poo
If he isn't dedicated to improving the planet, he should quit. He seems like a adolescent.
@@jaZZjaZZ54 this planet is fucked anyway, you have a world full of people in it for themselves what do you think happens lol
I appreciated this part. I know he's largely kidding, even if there's truth in this little bit. Big Joel comes off as so much more sincere, open, and empathetic than Peterson, who likes to shake his finger at people but would never admit it. And alongside any desire to talk for "attention and money," he knows how to construct good arguments, and he examines individual struggles in a multidimensional way, unlike Peterson.
But so many of my internal issues are a direct result of the policies he pushes me away from..??? It's infuriating that he thinks societal problems are disconnected from policy when most are a direct result of those policies he says not to worry about.
Also jordan YOU WERE ADDICTED TO BENZOS so it's almost like you should be speaking into a mirror when you say your life must be perfect before you have the audacity to confront these issues
Aka libebalism, the root of all modern evil.
Peterson is the very definition of sophomoric. He says a lot of things that sound good on their face because they follow our intuition, but if there's one thing I've learned in the STEM field, it's that human intuition is absolute garbage at figuring out how things actually work. Scratch beneath the surface of JBP's rhetoric though, and you'll quickly see all the cracks and flaws in his logic. There's a quote that I read once that really stuck with me because it's pretty much emblematic of these right wing pseudo-intellectuals: "Wisdom may make you wise. Cleverness may make you clever. Just the wrong amount of each though, and both may make you a fool."
No, being clever makes you clever. Stfu low iq peasant.
@@Viroh Wow, the saying went so far over your head that you couldn't even see it. I'm not even mad at the insult. I just pity you.
@@albeon_draken using sayings makes you a brainlet by default
"You are fucking dumb" -Sun Tzu
@@Viroh It's okay if you don't understand them. I won't say there's no shame in being an idiot, but it's clearly all you're capable of, so please, continue doing it to the best of your extremely limited abilities my tragic little snowflake.
@@albeon_draken yea you should not be ashamed of yourself, even though you are obviously living with a major brain defect
"Everyone is against torture..." I guess George W. Bush, John Aschroft, Donald Rumsfeld and John Yoo didn't get the memo.
God rot them.
Most of Jordan Peterson's examples of the 'evil left' as he call them are mere caricatures. Torture is utilized even today by governments all around the world, many people protest it - Jordan's take: "Oh derrrr, yeah of course nobody wants torture. Go clean up your rooms!".
Maybe he should take some of his own advice, get back to managing his own problems before he tries to tell society how to behave - get on top of his benzo addictions and see a psychologist about his narcissistic personality disorder.
And Jack Bauer and the writers from 24
And Gina Haspel who did the field tests... She's the head of the CIA at this time.
@@aralornwolf3140 It's scandalous and depressing there is so little press interest in this. Torture is against the law. A soldier in Vietnam was found guilty of water-boarding his Vietnamese captives and got 20 years for it. Gina did the same and got promoted head of her agency. And then Obama commissions his torture report but doesn't prosecute anyone, apart from John Kiriakou, the CIA officer who blew the whistle. He got 30 months in maximum security. Way to go Obama!
"Just keep your head down and worry about yourself" is the worst of all takes. Standing up for something for "impure" reasons is better than not doing it at all.
Kant would argue that corrupt motivations undermine all intended benevolence.
@@andrewsav4865 Like so many things Kant said, he has a good point but taken too literally can result in a purist refusal to do things. I think that OP's point, rooted in how humans are thinking and acting in a century that Kant could have never foreseen, should be taken more seriously than maybe it would have been in Kant's time.
@@andrewsav4865 benevolence is unnecessary if an action has a positive impact despite it.
Peterson is just a more palatable, hip reinvention of Limbaugh conservatism (or more generally an extension of Ayn Rand) and the myth of the self-contained individual. It's a powerful way to get people to trade their personal agency, and maintain support for the status quo/social heirarchy, in exchange for a feeling of belonging to a special group that has a monopoly on "personal responsibility".
@@commbir5148 I see what you mean but I'm also wary of the egoism inherent in the pursuit of self-aggrandizing virtue. I think we can agree that good derived from corrupt motivations is still ultimately good. However, I think the problem is when you virtue signal or "stand up for impure reasons" you're being rewarded for quite literally nothing. What's concerning is, you may not even realize your motivations are impure if you aren't actively self-reflective. Imo, that's at the heart of JP's message.
Anyone can say "white privilege bad" and get a pat on the back but that mentality doesn't make for productive conversation. If anything, it tends to stonewall attempts at more nuanced and considerate conversation. The reinforcements of simple but virtuous ideas prevents the genesis of more complex solutions.
Then again, the same can be said for those who get rewarded for outright rejecting the notion of white privilege as neomarxist propaganda. I guess my point in all this is, a careful and well thought out perspective is not nearly as socially rewarding as sloganeering.
26:54 "It's like racism. People are kinda racist... Or maybe people prefer their in-group"
There's a word for when people favour their in-group (in this case, their race) over all the others. It's called racism.
Nobody will ever be perfect. And I doubt anyone will ever meet up to Peterson’s standards of “qualified”. But you don’t need to be in order to see the injustice of the world. Anyone can make a difference, and everyone can become a movement for good. The power of the people is stronger than the evil of a single person. Nobody should ever be told to stay in their lane. Stand up for what you believe in. Stand up for equality and justice.
Sorry about your dad.
So, because some people hate the rich we shouldn't help the poor?!
There's a real determination to see any attempt to focus on a systemic issue as an attempt to remove individuality. We're all still people with different likes/dislikes etc. but these problems exist!
@brandon roberts yes absolutely, just using his phrasing
Madeleine Swann Even the archetypal liberal capitalist, Milton Friedman, supported a universal basic income. Yet if you say that these days to any American Republican, they'll call it socialism. It's ridiculous.
@@IntrusiveThot420 everything other than absolute wealth hoarding is communism to them
brandon roberts they don’t wish to eat the rich out of malice, but out of hunger.
Warcrimes incarnate that’s becusse they don’t know what socialism is. Social programs exist to preserve democracy and capitalism. It placates the fascists and communists.
Also want to point out how he focuses on self-improvement, but fails to warn of its twisted brother - ego-centrism. Once someone makes their bed, will they move onto the social issue or laugh at those who havent made their bed yet and “arent working towards the social issue” because their beds arent made yet?
I think you should read more of his literature, he writes a lot about ego centrism you just need to find it.
@@orionstar3310 I think this is a great point. This is one of the flaws of being a public intellectual. JBP could be a great person, but the idea of what he represents for many people is questionable. The most readily consumed content will be the content by which we base our assertions of the speaker off of. It is indeed possible that a fan of JBP could provide a better critique than someone who is neutral, if they can stave off personal bias. JBP could be a great person (I say that because I don't know a lot about him), but the idea of what he represents for some people is questionable.
@@orionstar3310 Well whats the point of him writing about it when he wont address it in his talks - the much more seen and popular part of him
@@sandshark2 because their are more important things to be said and time is limited
@@mikemikel1629 more important things to be said? Like what - the cultural Bolsheviks are gonna mess your room up?
I go back to this video a lot. I’m a very anxious person in general and I don’t really know what I’m doing with my life at any given moment. While living abroad my mom always used to tell me “nobody had their shit figured out”. Knowing you’re not alone, everyone struggles with their rooms being dirty or not knowing what the future holds is the key I need to work through my things. Jordan Peterson always asks you to fix yourself first before trying to engage in politics or calling out for the humanity of others. It’s comforting knowing you don’t have to be perfect to engage with the world around you and I have my mother to thank for that in large part.
22:30: Excellent term you coined, my man. But may I suggest Heidegger's Dasein and Mitsein?
Phenomenal video. This is great.
I think Jordan Peterson's entire point of view is founded on the assumption that everyone feels the same way about things as he does, whether they know or say it or not.
So all the times when he's talked about serial killers wanting to destroy the goodness in the world were imaginary?
The reality is everyone is broken in someway. So if we weren’t allowed to do anything until we were perfect nothing would get done.
Imagine thinking someone is wrong just because they are being hypocritical..
'That guy said heroin is bad, but he does heroin so it must be good!'
We all do be broken but Peterson wasn't saying perfect, he was saying credibly experienced
@@BruceNJeffAreMyFlies Imagine thinking there is an equivalence between these two things. Essentially what JP is saying is "Don't tell anyone to quit heroin until you quit yourself,' as he ties up and prepares to put the needle in his arm.
@@reptarhouse That's one filter to see it through...."Don't lobby against needle exchange programs until you have a working knowledge of the social and economic impacts, both primary and secondary"...is a, somewhat tangential, example of a different filter you could choose to perceive Peterson through.
Reading what you wrote it occurs to me that you are assuming that Peterson is advising an all-or-nothing approach (don't take action until you are an expert on the subject) when my perception is that he's merely reminding us to "first do no harm".
Yes it’s the idea of the “wounded healer”. Goes back in history. Can’t imagine how this next gen will get along begging the government to do everything.
I enjoyed this video, which links to things I have been thinking about. I am very sympathetic to the wasteland/fisher king view of the world - though actually I think it is more to do with the challenges of the human condition than our specific cultural location. My problem with Jordan is that to my mind he has simply taken some that is important, and extending it beyond its legitimate bounds. Of course the fisher king must put his own kingdom in order, but surely an important part of doing so is fixing the relations between his kingdom and those of his neighbours. It is a bit like someone taking the old adage that charity starts at home, and interpreting that as entailing that it also stops there. The truth is, life is not simple and there is no single way of looking at it that captures it in its totality - we need to be able to look at it from different perspectives to get a more complete understanding of it than any single perspective can provide.
JP criticizes idealism, but his idea, that people should be competent and organized, should have their lives in order and have endless relevant experience before making any critique of society or offering any solutions, to me is idealistic to an insane degree. If we expected this much of people before they can participate in the changing of society, our society would never change. His prescription is one that fails to account for the limits of human cognition and psychology. It's one that advocates unironically for every person to be the perfect version if themselves BEFORE accomplishing any other task.
It’s all just a weasely long winded way to imply the status quo should be maintained and discredit any attempt to change it by those not in power.
Maybe Peterson has simply forgotten an implacable truth: *We live in a society.*
Does living in a society mean we abandon all individuality? No.
@@MrSquidd88 Did he say that? No.
@Emma Shalliker
He likely greatly implied it. As a society in this case, a joker quote, labels you and dismissed you as a group identity which people love to cling to at their own expense.
@@MrSquidd88 we dont abandon all individuality but we dont abandon all dividuality either
Uncle Go-rilla
But it does mean we live in one, and that you are kind of dependent on everyone for your survival.
Fun Fact: the “lobster” study that jordan peterson cites isn’t even about lobsters, it’s about crayfish. He couldn’t even be bothered to correct himself on this very basic fact about one of his most famous talking points.
Truly an intellectual thunderdome.
This time of situation seems to flood every single one of Petersons ideas.
a crayfish is a type of lobster...
Federico Hosiasson Yeah, this seems more like semantics than anything else
Federico Hosiasson crayfish are related to lobsters, but they are most definitely not lobsters.
WOWWWWW. you made a video essay into a beautiful artistic essay spanning personal anecdote, critique, some literature review, philosophy, and in the end a motivational call