Jordan Peterson

[Matt Gregory]

After the Solway and Trump thread I started looking more into right-leaning news and opinions (and actually paying more attention to current events, since Trump kind of demands that from all of us). It was uncomfortable at first, but after about a month I started enjoying it like I enjoyed Jon Stewart and that kind of thing in the past. I especially like Jordan Peterson. Kevin recommended him on that thread (and Kevin's recommendations are always amazing, honestly), so I've been getting massively hooked. Definitely the sharpest, most passionate university professor I've ever seen. I'd say he's a master teacher, and dare I say incredibly wise?

I watched his 2017 Maps of Meaning lecture series on YouTube and it's absolutely amazing. It filled in so many gaps in my education. I've been having a hard time describing it in a nutshell, but I think the best way is to say it's about good and evil in the human heart and how to live with it. He talks a lot about how to take advantage of culture as a means for learning the greatest lessons that have survived through the ages, because they have survived for that reason. He describes the Bible as a history of Western civilization, written in archetypical stories, the collective efforts of man to draw life lessons out of consciousness that he's unable to fully articulate. The first lecture is actually an thorough overview of the all the content of the course, including all the conclusions he comes to.

What do you guys think of him?

[jimhaz]

I'm a fan. I've described him as my new intellectual hero. Great to listen to, when in the mood.

I have not listened to the Maps for Meaning lectures - but I have most of the Personality ones.
Maps for Meaning will be next.

I think Peterson will have a massive impact on society over time. To me he is the moderate center in the current left/right, fathering/mothering war.

[Matt Gregory]

Hey Jim, good to see you!

Yeah, I definitely wouldn't call him left because he's not PC, and he can't be right because he's not ...well, I don't actually know what the right is anymore. Fundamentalist Christian? Libertarian? Definitely wouldn't call him fundamentalist Christian because he's so objective with his analyses of the Bible. I actually don't know if he's libertarian.

What about you? Aren't you left-leaning? Do you believe in socialism?

[Diebert van Rhijn]

Wow Jim crazy man.

Matt's prophecy perhaps is just coming true or is this just all nostalgic cameo with the basement dwellers soon latching on?

I really miss the good old days when it was active and dramatic. I think it was actually the best when we had crazy men trying to stop the evil QRS and their horde of mindless syncophants :D

they saaaayyyyy they're out there.......out in those very woods.......waiting......

[Diebert van Rhijn]

Okay now about Peterson. Last year I did listen to a few rather long video's and also read some other material from and about him. It's quite good overall and much of it is clearly inspired (by his own admission) by thinkers who have inspired my own path as well: Jung, Joseph Campbell, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Taoist authors among others. So it comes absolutely as no surprise to me that this cocktail combined with his grounding practice as therapist becomes a powerful narrative, one that many young people seem really hungry for. However.

Of course there's a big however! And it's important to understand the problems here despite all the wonderful elements.

A few times I've caught him making really stupid or at least dangerously uninformed statements. For example how the Toronto killer Alek Minassian would prove the need for strict monogamy. But ignoring the particular issue of this man which has little to do with his chance to interact with or date available women. And it's all there in the autobiography -- no need to guess!

“He was angry at God because women were rejecting him,” Peterson said of the alleged Toronto killer. “The cure for that is enforced monogamy. That’s actually why monogamy emerges.”

The schizophrenic core of "Petersonism" comes across like wanting to inspire culture as well as counter-culture. It wants to praise rebellion within the psyche and yet at the same time promote the good old Empire like some kind of proper ancient order. Together with Nietzsche he desires to boldly move forward and burn a lot of the old but yet at the same time, almost sounding panicked, rebuild the same old stability and give away free museum passes. So is one for the core ideas of Nietzsche or against them? It's confusing at least to me. So perhaps Peterson is just an interesting gateway drug. It's strange, I found myself encouraged by his existence as a popular speaker and yet also disappointed by his attempt to put some ordinary conservative, religious sounding wrappings around it all.

Generally I do think his intellectual understanding of Marxism, biology, gender science and postmodernism remain extremely shoddy. So bad that it's too easy to turn him into a laughing stock for those who know better. These are very technical discussions though so he usually gets away with it. But I do notice many of his biggest and loudest fans are also the laziest in terms their own self-development in this respect.

In the end ones intellectual and philosophical development turns into a personal one, after all the generic forming years. Latching on to Peterson could be a bad idea for those struggling with the masculine. The masculine essence is to venture "dangerously", not accepting anything from anyone. Especially not just copying the hard thought of anyone else and think one is the wiser. Inspirational, yes, but Peterson is too much of the therapist in his approach. He still wants to teach, to save, to challenge like he's on some mission to convince, like he's onto something religious (the curse of all things psychoanalytical). But I wish him the best!

There's way more to say, positive as well as negative but I'll save that for any conversation unfolding here.

[Matt Gregory]

Okay now about Peterson. Last year I did listen to a few rather long video's and also read some other material from and about him. It's quite good overall and much of it is clearly inspired (by his own admission) by thinkers who have inspired my own path as well: Jung, Joseph Campbell, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Taoist authors among others. So it comes absolutely as no surprise to me that this cocktail combined with his grounding practice as therapist becomes a powerful narrative, one that many young people seem really hungry for. However.

Of course there's a big however! And it's important to understand the problems here despite all the wonderful elements.

Yes, that is actually what I would like to discuss!

A few times I've caught him making really stupid or at least dangerously uninformed statements. For example how the Toronto killer Alek Minassian would prove the need for strict monogamy. But ignoring the particular issue of this man which has little to do with his chance to interact with or date available women. And it's all there in the autobiography -- no need to guess!

“He was angry at God because women were rejecting him,” Peterson said of the alleged Toronto killer. “The cure for that is enforced monogamy. That’s actually why monogamy emerges.”

That quote is a condensation of quite a lot of his theory.

If I can flesh it out a little, he's saying that someone who turns to such destruction as murder and suicide is expressing the hatred of existence itself, which he calls God.

Socially-enforced monogamy evolved in human culture because we don't have obligate monogamous behavior that other primates have and polygynous cultures tend to be more violent due to higher aggression in the men that don't have women.

I'm not really sure what he means by "cure". Enforced monogamy would certainly reduce the phenomenon of batshit-crazy men who are possessed by collectivist ideologies like incel.

If he's making any mistake, it's with the idea of "enforcement". Ideally, everyone would voluntarily work hard to procure and maintain monogamous relationships, so "encouragement" might be a better word, but when things get tough for people, constraints in leaving a relationship might prevent premature termination of relationships that could actually be saved. I think the idea has merit, but figuring out how to implement it is another thing.

The schizophrenic core of "Petersonism" comes across like wanting to inspire culture as well as counter-culture. It wants to praise rebellion within the psyche and yet at the same time promote the good old Empire like some kind of proper ancient order. Together with Nietzsche he desires to boldly move forward and burn a lot of the old but yet at the same time, almost sounding panicked, rebuild the same old stability and give away free museum passes. So is one for the core ideas of Nietzsche or against them? It's confusing at least to me.

He's exactly like Nietzsche in that he points out the postmodernist undermining of the old order, an order which has proven itself, and the fact that we need to replace it with something or civilization will collapse into totalitarianism. I think both he and Nietzsche believed that postmodernism is not an effective replacement.

So perhaps Peterson is just an interesting gateway drug. It's strange, I found myself encouraged by his existence as a popular speaker and yet also disappointed by his attempt to put some ordinary conservative, religious sounding wrappings around it all.

It might sound religious, but it's not conservative, it's not ordinary, and it's certainly not superficial. It's the cornerstone of his whole philosophy. It's much like Kierkegaard's Christianity (if not identical to it), where he goes directly to the purpose of it, the primacy of the individual. But I think what's powerful about him is that he lives by what he teaches.

Generally I do think his intellectual understanding of Marxism, biology, gender science and postmodernism remain extremely shoddy. So bad that it's too easy to turn him into a laughing stock for those who know better. These are very technical discussions though so he usually gets away with it. But I do notice many of his biggest and loudest fans are also the laziest in terms their own self-development in this respect.

I don't know much about his fans, but I haven't been able to confirm his views on those things you mention because I'm not familiar with the literature in those areas. But I also have yet to see anyone turn him into a laughing stock because I haven't found any critic that can actually understand his views well enough to criticize them effectively. I don't think Peterson can be understood without watching his Maps of Meaning lecture and/or reading his book of that title, and it's quite an investment for someone who's not really interested in what he has to say.

In the end ones intellectual and philosophical development turns into a personal one, after all the generic forming years. Latching on to Peterson could be a bad idea for those struggling with the masculine. The masculine essence is to venture "dangerously", not accepting anything from anyone. Especially not just copying the hard thought of anyone else and think one is the wiser. Inspirational, yes, but Peterson is too much of the therapist in his approach. He still wants to teach, to save, to challenge like he's on some mission to convince, like he's onto something religious (the curse of all things psychoanalytical). But I wish him the best!

There's way more to say, positive as well as negative but I'll save that for any conversation unfolding here.

I'd like to know where you think he goes wrong on Marxism.

He criticizes Marxism for being a theory penned by one person as opposed to democracy, which evolved over centuries, and that every attempt at a Marxist system has failed and devolved into totalitarianism and furthermore that the conditions created by Marxism lead to totalitarianism by logical necessity.

He says that the primary pillar of democracy is the belief in the divinity of the individual, which leads to the valuing of each individual no matter how degenerate or evil they are. Therefore, criminals are locked in prison rather than, for example, executed. I think the important part of this is that the individuals are respected even if their views are not, so it breeds diversity in viewpoints.

On the other hand, the primary pillar of Marxism is the group, so, because groups can never be equal to each other, they have no choice but to resent each other, which leads to social justice and eventually genocidal type of stuff.

This is a gross oversimplification of his views, but I'm trying to keep it brief. He says Solzhenitsyn fully explains these arguments in The Gulag Archipelago, but I have not read it yet.

[jupiviv]

Hi Matt. I'll explain my view of Peterson (in one word, jaundiced) via a response to your last post.

“He was angry at God because women were rejecting him,” Peterson said of the alleged Toronto killer. “The cure for that is enforced monogamy. That’s actually why monogamy emerges.”

That quote is a condensation of quite a lot of his theory.

If I can flesh it out a little, he's saying that someone who turns to such destruction as murder and suicide is expressing the hatred of existence itself, which he calls God.

This statement of yours is analogous to a lot of Peterson's stuff. I mean that it sounds insightful - even profound - but on closer analysis turns out to be either false or so nebulous that it could be interchanged with hundreds of other statements about the same general topic.

What is "existence itself" and why call it "God"? How can one hate existence itself and why is that even relevant to rejection by women and its "cure"? It's all bs, but if one allows oneself to make various "silent" assumptions it takes the form one desires. Like "God" and "existence itself" refer to some underlying reality which in turn somehow connects to blue balls perhaps experienced by oneself. The solution of course being a reintegration within/fuller understanding of/etc the underlying, essential something via all-purpose new year's resolutions.

Socially-enforced monogamy evolved in human culture because we don't have obligate monogamous behavior that other primates have and polygynous cultures tend to be more violent due to higher aggression in the men that don't have women.

The fact that Peterson places so much importance upon monogamy and the romanticised "traditional" (i.e. American 1950s) male-female relationship worshipped by adherents of US-type conservatism is proof enough for me that he isn't wise. Marriage and sexuality of any kind has nothing to do with "wisdom" as that term is defined on GF. In fact these historically ignorant fantasies about marriage and sexuality are dangerous (as Diebert adumbrated) even for people who aren't interested in wisdom; especially Peterson fanbois who mostly seem to be millenial single whore mammy larvae with more than enough issues to begin with.

He's exactly like Nietzsche in that he points out the postmodernist undermining of the old order, an order which has proven itself, and the fact that we need to replace it with something or civilization will collapse into totalitarianism. I think both he and Nietzsche believed that postmodernism is not an effective replacement.

Nietzsche understood that nihilism was the denial of reality once it becomes undeniable yet cannot bring one happiness. His great realisation was that the solution to that lies not, as all prudent men of every age (including Peterson) assert, in changing oneself to fit the mold of the nearest convenient piece of that reality, but rather in turning inwards and digging until one finds it.

So perhaps Peterson is just an interesting gateway drug. It's strange, I found myself encouraged by his existence as a popular speaker and yet also disappointed by his attempt to put some ordinary conservative, religious sounding wrappings around it all.

It might sound religious, but it's not conservative, it's not ordinary, and it's certainly not superficial. It's the cornerstone of his whole philosophy. It's much like Kierkegaard's Christianity (if not identical to it), where he goes directly to the purpose of it, the primacy of the individual. But I think what's powerful about him is that he lives by what he teaches.

For Kierkegaard the primacy of the individual meant standing alone before God's judgment, which is the individual's honesty before and about himself. For Peterson it means that SJWs and Cultural Marxism are the major evil forces in a civilisation by and large refusing even to be honest about the conditions that have sustained in its century-long sugar high. And since his claim to fame was a non-sequitur - he successfully convinced millions of people that imposition of speech related to minority groups on employees is an unprecedented move towards fascism - he certainly "lives by what he teaches".

He criticizes Marxism for being a theory penned by one person as opposed to democracy, which evolved over centuries, and that every attempt at a Marxist system has failed and devolved into totalitarianism and furthermore that the conditions created by Marxism lead to totalitarianism by logical necessity.

If every attempt at a Marxist system has failed, then how can Marxism lead to totalitarianism by logical necessity?

He says that the primary pillar of democracy is the belief in the divinity of the individual, which leads to the valuing of each individual no matter how degenerate or evil they are. Therefore, criminals are locked in prison rather than, for example, executed. I think the important part of this is that the individuals are respected even if their views are not, so it breeds diversity in viewpoints.

This is feel-good bs. Democracy, or what is accepted to be such, only works when the differences between most viewpoints are trivial and people have more than enough resources for themselves to not have any reason to blame others for their problems. All powerful democracies are in reality capitalist state-corporate autocracies (instead of capitalist state autocracy or communism), and what democratic institutions they contain would not exist without fossil fuel -powered industry or the ability to exploit the populations of resource-rich nations bereft of the same.

To conclude then, Jordan Peterson is a voodoo therapist who became famous by misinterpreting a law as a move towards leftist totalitarianism, which stirred up a lot of seething resentments in a society which has chosen ecstatic confusion over miserable honesty about itself.

[Santiago Odo]

The fact that Peterson places so much importance upon monogamy and the romanticised "traditional" (i.e. American 1950s) male-female relationship worshipped by adherents of US-type conservatism is proof enough for me that he isn't wise. Marriage and sexuality of any kind has nothing to do with "wisdom" as that term is defined on GF. In fact these historically ignorant fantasies about marriage and sexuality are dangerous (as Diebert adumbrated) even for people who aren't interested in wisdom; especially Peterson fanbois who mostly seem to be millenial single whore mammy larvae with more than enough issues to begin with.

A few thoughts on the phenomenon of Peterson before a comment or two on Jupi’s post and the selected statement. In my view, to understand an intellectual phenomenon like Peterson seems to be, one could look to the phenomena of ‘dance crazes’ in culture, certainly in N American culture (I assume Canada had them). As I have expressed in other places, when the individual finds himself in an untenable and difficult psychic condition, due to internal and external factors, he is forced to act *desperately* and through his desperation to quickly grab hold of something that provides, at least, the illusion of confort : of bolstering of the self as-against hostile forces. A culture-wide condition of what is termed *nihilism* will, naturally, produce many such reactions. And reactions they are. In order to understand our present a great deal of above-looking-down research is needed. That is, one requires a position, a platform, a viewing-perch from which to see it. But who has it? I suggest that when one begins to ask that question, one quickly dicovers that one is, onself, in a rather desperate position, and one is having a difficult time dealing with it, but that in a larger scale the surrounding culture, having lost its *foundation* and having been knocked off its foundation, lunges around in nihilistic desperation, seeking alleviation.

It is wise as one consideres the general conditions to consider this factor of *desperation*, and as I often say — it is crucial to say it again and again — to see the Founders of GF and their *desperate actions* in a similar light as we might see Peterson : lunging about for solutions to very profound problems which, unhappily, are not seen in their entirety. This is what I call ‘seeing through a chink’. Having a limited view of oneself, one’s context, one’s culture, one’s civilization; of meaning & value, and certainly of God and Being. One must, in my view, begin from the predicate of understanding what it means to be *lost* when it comes to understanding the really important things. But even right there — *really important things* — one has entered into a definitional mine-field! What is really important? Who knows? On what basis have they established their knowing?

In any case, I draw a comparison between the phenomenon of the Rationalistic Neo-Buddhism of GF (putting a term to it is fun, but also strange, because it is so bizarrely distorted!), and the intellectual dance-craze of a man like Peterson. Instead of judging it and them harshly there is more to be gained from a cool, distanced analysis and consideration of their *tenets*. But much more importantly it is crucial to gain *metaphysical distance* and a substantial position from which to make judgments. And that is a long-term and very demanding project. I suggest that no one on this forum now has the circumspection to make any larger assessments and judgments and that they give evidence of, quite precisely, the desperate lunging about which I am talking about. They *mirror* what DD&K began and the wheel rolls on. . . That is my impression, and the impression leads to the statement, if only to myself, that a great deal of work remains to be done. It must be mature work, not the *work* of youngish boys with exaggerated wills.

In relation to Jupi’s contribution, quoted above, one must immediately state that if a man cannot make his way with women, if there are no women in his life, if he does not know what *woman* is and what she stands for, nor what his relationship is to be to women, that man is in a terrible and difficult — and dangerous — position. One of the most essential and necessary definitions in life is that of a man in relation to woman and women. It is fundamental to life. It cannot be avoided. If a man avoids his responsibility, I suggest, he avoids one of the most important aspects of manifest life. But if a man creates a neurotic fib as to why he avoids women, and why he has no relationship to them, what he does in that is similar to what the homosexuals do : they try to establish an alternative, but parallel, culture in which they can live and carry on. Unfortunately, GF is founded upon this strange, ambiguous territory : men who have no relationship with women and who attempt to establish a parallel world in which to live. A substitute really in which their faggotry is disguised. This *faggotry* is best seen (felt really) in the *cattiness* and the bizarre emotional-intellectuality of certain of its denizens who will not be named. In short, having suppressed their responsibility in relation to women, they fall into a pathological denial of something essential to themselves. I have written about it so much, directly and indirectly, that there is no need to spell it out again.

In the recovery of ourselves in desperate conditions, the most important element of recovery is that of the relationship to a woman. It also means being able to handle women, and no one would likely disagree that we are in radical times in which women assert themselves because (in my view) men have abandoned their responsibility. How this happened, of course, must be understood in detail and that is another project of research.

Humankind ‘places so much importance’ on man’s relationship to woman that it cannot now and will not ever be avoidable. The relationship to women and a woman, that is as a wife and as a mother, is right at the very foundation of all major considerations. If a man avoids it, he is either a rogue, a child or a faggot. And to end up a faggot and in various other offered perverse alternatives is in no sense of the word a ‘success’. To uncover the neurotic lie in the man who represents his solitary faggotry as *spiritual*, is simply false. It must be confronted at the root.

Traditionalism trumps ‘conservatism’, obviously, and in the project of self-recovery (in my view) one recovers the essentialist definitions, not the least being a man’s relationship to woman and family. While it is true that the American attitudes of the Fifties are, in their way, shells and mirages, it is not true and will not ever be true that *therefor* the essentialist definition of a man’s relationship to woman can be denied. A closeted faggot can deny it, this I admit, but this cultural disease must be addressed. Therefor, to recover a man’s relationship with women and with a woman is part-and-parcel of general recovery.

We definitely must confront, intellectually, any particular ‘millenial single whore mammy larvae with more than enough issues to begin with’.

Let’s get right to work!

[Pam Seeback]

Alex your belief that a man must handle a woman is the dangerous view, not that she might 'abandon her role as prescribed by the Paternal Christian God called Alex et al for the sake of her Self.

This one statement explains so much.....

[Santiago Odo]

Alex your belief that a man must handle a woman is the dangerous view, not that she might 'abandon her role as prescribed by the Paternal Christian God called Alex et al for the sake of her Self.

This one statement explains so much.....

It surely does explain much. And it is intended as such with zero modification. Yet you will have to keep in mind, and accept, reject or modify, that I am making the effort to speak in what I understand to be 'traditionalist' terms, and as you are aware Greco-Christian terms, and constantly making reference to a *metaphysic* that has been at the root of European formation.

And you also know that I speak in terms of *European Renovation* and spiritual renovation, and a renovation that occurs at a somatic, existential level. Further, you know that I see DD&K as having begun such a restoration-project, or to have responded to the need of it, but to have soundly and roundly failed it. They failed because they did not -- could not for reasons of blind-sidedness and immature will -- establish correct predicates. They rushed forward boldly to *insist* on a structured plan, but they did not establish a proper foundation, thus their creations, as many of the people they attracted, were and are distorted. Nihilism thus attempted to correct nihilism, and one wound up in a graver, more possessive, nihilistic swamp.

Man very definitely establishes structures in which woman, whose role in certain specific senses has been determined by an over-arching Reality, is held. True indeed it is imperative that women (and a given specific woman) recognize and surrender to this aspect of her fate. Similarly, or co-joinedly, a man has specific responsibilities which his own condition prescribe. He thus has a very important role to carry forward and if he deviates from it, tremendous destruction results.

It is the man, overall, who is *protector* of spaces, of bodies, but also of larger definitional structures. If he distinguishes these correctly -- i.e. if his *seeing* corresponds to truth in relation to what I describe as *metaphysics* -- he can succeed in establishing himself and his actions correctly. But if he allows himself to be seduced from strict definitions, if he becomes weak and essentially effeminate, he cannot fulfill his responsibilities. And if he comes under the influence of a perversion of his own nature through effeminization, or surrenders his defining role and power to women who have become rebels in a metaphysical and physical sense, one disaster follows another.

The entire Woman Definition Project of GF is based on a distortion and a perversion and what it does to a man is just as you observe here: it turns him into a cattish, argumentative, willful chump with homosexual tendencies. All this must be seen and reversed.

Because we all exist in, perceive from, organize our understanding, within a hyper-liberalized circumstance (the term hyper-liberalization does require special definition) we tend to have embodied all manner of different erroneous views. They *careen out of control* and pull us along with them. To correct this, as a start, one must establish proper foundational definitions.

One must certainly come under the influence of a *properly foundationed woman*. In fact, such a woman is in my view what man must ultimately serve. Man does, in fact -- in a certain ultimate sense -- serve woman. His life revolves around *woman* (as QRS pretentiously uses the demonstrative).

As a result of confronting DD&K, their bizarre doctrines, and the denizens attracted to them, I have reversed, if you will, their errors. In point of fact man's *project* takes place within *woman*. (And all this requires explication). Once one sees how they went off the tracks, and once one understands what results from it, one can begin the counter-construction.

[jupiviv]

Alex your belief that a man must handle a woman is the dangerous view, not that she might 'abandon her role as prescribed by the Paternal Christian God called Alex et al for the sake of her Self.

This one statement explains so much.....

Do you see Alex? Women have rejected you! It's time to decapitate yourself some hot chicks.

The most important thing to know about the relationship between man and woman is that man will disappoint himself if he idolises woman. Women like to be adorned with men's fantasies, but they don't like to pay for them (and rightly so). They will hate you if they sense that your traditionalist ideal involves any responsibility on their part.

Man's love or hatred of women is his inconsummate love or hatred of himself. In the nobler, more honest expressions of this onanism, which want their own down-going, the self is bled out upon the altar of Madonna or Babylon. Cruder expressions are fairy tales about spiritual moiety like yin-yang or "traditional" marriage. The end result is always a paltry and palpable lie about what is not understood. Women are stupid enough to believe such lies and mold themselves accordingly - ambitious seductress exercising the "power" of dat ass, serene matriarch, enema woman etc. They believe them so completely that the liars themselves become unimportant - fantasy-squirting dildos. Chad or Tyrone awaits if they want a man they can love and respect, but even there the lie persists.

Basically women only respect dead men, whether dead or alive. Although, as David Quinn demonstrates, women can raise the dead.

[Santiago Odo]

Man's love or hatred of women is his inconsummate love or hatred of himself. In the nobler, more honest expressions of this onanism, which want their own down-going, the self is bled out upon the altar of Madonna or Babylon. Cruder expressions are fairy tales about spiritual moiety like yin-yang or "traditional" marriage. The end result is always a paltry and palpable lie about what is not understood. Women are stupid enough to believe such lies and mold themselves accordingly - ambitious seductress exercising the "power" of dat ass, serene matriarch, enema woman etc. They believe them so completely that the liars themselves become unimportant - fantasy-squirting dildos. Chad or Tyrone awaits if they want a man they can love and respect, but even there the lie persists.

I see this as an extension, a reworking really, of the basic mis-perception that DD&K began from. Taking it apart involves a psychological analysis, always somewhat problematic.

But it is written by a man who knows nothing of what he speaks. It is entirely theoretical. It is, in itself, a 'fantasy', a projection of what I can only understand to be internal misconstrue-ment. It is something for an adolescent in a given moment, perhaps, but cannot be an attitude for a mature man. It is this -- this right here -- that needs to be seen, exposed, and then worked on. But the hard thing about *neurotic constructs* such as this, is that the subject himself will resist the effort tooth and nail. Why? The neurotic mis-perception is part of his essential structure-of-view, a prop to being, the result of desperation (as I have explained). In this sense the prisoner (prisoner of a mistaken imposition on reality) locks his own cell and closely guards the key. With elaborate and high-faluting prose he defends a position that cannot, not ever, be defended, except in an environment where the neurosis can be shared.

In any case, this is how I began to see the basic posture of QRS. The realization led, of course, to counter-propositions.

The larger point though is not a specific critique of just one neurotic mind, but rather to see how in so many different categories, today, one begins to notice the effect of people *knocked off of their foundation*. This thread began with a look at Jordan Peterson. A man seen as *distorted* in certain ways. It continues into a look at other forms of distorted view, and one backed up by arrogant willfulness. They do not seem to understand what has happened, nor how it happened, and they cannot see their own (if you will permit the term) neurotic reaction. So, they are victims of themselves, and at the same time they uphold what has made them a victim.

[jupiviv]

@Alex, the "internal miscontrue-ment" you refer to would be my perspective of the unrealistic notions of women, marriage and relationships (and attempts to realise the same) as they occur amongst immature men of the modern era. These are, as I say, cruder expressions of the same desire which sometimes leads to a more conscious and rarefied ideation of erotic love. Actual marriages/relationships are a topic for a related but different discussion which no one posting in this thread is interested in having.

[Pam Seeback]

Alex: Man very definitely establishes structures in which woman, whose role in certain specific senses has been determined by an over-arching Reality, is held. True indeed it is imperative that women (and a given specific woman) recognize and surrender to this aspect of her fate. Similarly, or co-joinedly, a man has specific responsibilities which his own condition prescribe. He thus has a very important role to carry forward and if he deviates from it, tremendous destruction results.

What you describe here is the life of animals, not of thinking men and women who accept full responsibility for their individual lives. In relation to the OP, it sounds as if Jordan Peterson and you might get along just fine. Having said this, I do understand the desire to return to the old ways, to try and control the mess humans have made of their world with familiar structures or defined prescriptions for living, but death of dynamism and spontaneity is the proven result. From the perspective of Being, familiarity does indeed breed contempt.

[Santiago Odo]

Alex, the "internal miscontrue-ment" you refer to would be my perspective of the unrealistic notions of women, marriage and relationships (and attempts to realise the same) as they occur amongst immature men of the modern era. These are, as I say, cruder expressions of the same desire which sometimes leads to a more conscious and rarefied ideation of erotic love. Actual marriages/relationships are a topic for a related but different discussion which no one posting in this thread is interested in having.

Yet you wrote:

Marriage and sexuality of any kind has nothing to do with "wisdom" as that term is defined on GF.

[Santiago Odo]

What you describe here is the life of animals, not of thinking men and women who accept full responsibility for their individual lives. In relation to the OP, it sounds as if Jordan Peterson and you might get along just fine. Having said this, I do understand the desire to return to the old ways, to try and control the mess humans have made of their world with familiar structures or defined prescriptions for living, but death of dynamism and spontaneity is the proven result. From the perspective of Being, familiarity does indeed breed contempt.

I think differently, and radically so. But everything I think these days requires explanation. I often assume that you have a certain background which, as it happens, you don't seem to have. I mean that when I use certain phrases or broach certain ideas I figure that they would be understood. It is fine that you don't but I just note that we seem miles apart.

An animal cannot make any choice or decision and exists under the control of Nature. Man, and his choices, to greater or lesser degrees, are thoughtful and intelligent impositions on Nature, or against Nature as the case may be. If I speak of a woman realizing who she is, at a somatic level, within the givens of Reality, but then adding the *high* cultural element as decoration to the hard form, that cannot in any sense be said to be 'animal'. If we are to speak of what reduces man (men and women) to the 'animal' it is that which destroys culture: the culture of ideas, of defined values, and of intelligent service within and from out of the shell or structure we have and inhabit. I am not speaking of a retreat into the past, but rather a fuller actualization arising from a full appreciation of a whole.

I am very definitely making reference to the acute necessity of 'accepting full responsibility' but I seem to have a different view of 'individual lives'. If by that you mean unconstrained choice, or 'free rein', or perhaps even license, then I must disagree with you. A really conscious woman, and a really conscious man (it seems to me) will make proper choices within the categorical parameters I'd outline. But you call this 'return to the old ways' and indicate that it results in death. I believe I understand what you might be referring to, but I would have to disagree. In the sense that I mean it any 'return' is to one of sobriety and level-headed self-consciousness.

[jupiviv]

Alex, the "internal miscontrue-ment" you refer to would be my perspective of the unrealistic notions of women, marriage and relationships (and attempts to realise the same) as they occur amongst immature men of the modern era. These are, as I say, cruder expressions of the same desire which sometimes leads to a more conscious and rarefied ideation of erotic love. Actual marriages/relationships are a topic for a related but different discussion which no one posting in this thread is interested in having.

Yet you wrote:

Marriage and sexuality of any kind has nothing to do with "wisdom" as that term is defined on GF.

I don't see any inconsistency if that's the connotation. Obsessing with the non-existent intellectual/spiritual dimension in marriage is precisely what the "unrealistic notions" refer to. They are a product of wanting women and relationships without sufficient experience or knowledge of those empirical phenomena, not to mention ability or desire to acquire either. A hollow lustfulness filling itself up with "metaphysics".

[Matt Gregory]

Hey Jupiviv,

Hi Matt. I'll explain my view of Peterson (in one word, jaundiced) via a response to your last post.

“He was angry at God because women were rejecting him,” Peterson said of the alleged Toronto killer. “The cure for that is enforced monogamy. That’s actually why monogamy emerges.”

That quote is a condensation of quite a lot of his theory.

If I can flesh it out a little, he's saying that someone who turns to such destruction as murder and suicide is expressing the hatred of existence itself, which he calls God.

This statement of yours is analogous to a lot of Peterson's stuff. I mean that it sounds insightful - even profound - but on closer analysis turns out to be either false or so nebulous that it could be interchanged with hundreds of other statements about the same general topic.

What is "existence itself" and why call it "God"? How can one hate existence itself and why is that even relevant to rejection by women and its "cure"? It's all bs, but if one allows oneself to make various "silent" assumptions it takes the form one desires. Like "God" and "existence itself" refer to some underlying reality which in turn somehow connects to blue balls perhaps experienced by oneself. The solution of course being a reintegration within/fuller understanding of/etc the underlying, essential something via all-purpose new year's resolutions.

Well, I apologize for being vague. It's been awhile since I've participated in discussions like this.

I'm reading two basic things from that statement of his: 1. Someone who kills innocent people and kills himself has a big existential problem, and 2. monogamy reduces violence.

For #1, you can express it however you want, I don't think it matters. I don't know what else I can say about it, other than mass killings are a phenomenon that is on the rise. At least I think that's true.

For #2, I think he's arguing that monogamy was a pillar of the construction of our free society, it evolved over thousands of years because that reproductive strategy is what works the best. The labor of child rearing is spread over the most people, and a man who is married is less aggressive, among other reasons. But if most men were able to get married, then there would be less male aggression in society overall, and presumably he believes it would be enough to reduce or possibly eliminate that numbers of mass killings.

I think what he is really aiming for is education on how to successfully date and manage a monogamous relationship, because most relationships fail due to simple mismanagement, and he has a lot of advice about that. For example, you don't try to resolve an argument by threatening to leave the relationship. That just destroys any trust you could have.

Socially-enforced monogamy evolved in human culture because we don't have obligate monogamous behavior that other primates have and polygynous cultures tend to be more violent due to higher aggression in the men that don't have women.

The fact that Peterson places so much importance upon monogamy and the romanticised "traditional" (i.e. American 1950s) male-female relationship worshipped by adherents of US-type conservatism is proof enough for me that he isn't wise.

He backs up all his findings with science and reasoning, though, and you just seem to be backing up your views with prejudice because you don't seem to be offering any arguments.

Marriage and sexuality of any kind has nothing to do with "wisdom" as that term is defined on GF.

Sure it does. A stable society has lot more potential for wisdom than a violent society.

In fact these historically ignorant fantasies about marriage and sexuality are dangerous (as Diebert adumbrated) even for people who aren't interested in wisdom

What's dangerous? I don't think anyone has explained what it is.

; especially Peterson fanbois who mostly seem to be millenial single whore mammy larvae with more than enough issues to begin with.

There, there. Let it all out :P

He's exactly like Nietzsche in that he points out the postmodernist undermining of the old order, an order which has proven itself, and the fact that we need to replace it with something or civilization will collapse into totalitarianism. I think both he and Nietzsche believed that postmodernism is not an effective replacement.

Nietzsche understood that nihilism was the denial of reality once it becomes undeniable yet cannot bring one happiness. His great realisation was that the solution to that lies not, as all prudent men of every age (including Peterson) assert, in changing oneself to fit the mold of the nearest convenient piece of that reality, but rather in turning inwards and digging until one finds it.

"...it sounds insightful - even profound - but on closer analysis turns out to be either false or so nebulous that it could be interchanged with hundreds of other statements about the same general topic." :P

So perhaps Peterson is just an interesting gateway drug. It's strange, I found myself encouraged by his existence as a popular speaker and yet also disappointed by his attempt to put some ordinary conservative, religious sounding wrappings around it all.

It might sound religious, but it's not conservative, it's not ordinary, and it's certainly not superficial. It's the cornerstone of his whole philosophy. It's much like Kierkegaard's Christianity (if not identical to it), where he goes directly to the purpose of it, the primacy of the individual. But I think what's powerful about him is that he lives by what he teaches.

For Kierkegaard the primacy of the individual meant standing alone before God's judgment, which is the individual's honesty before and about himself. For Peterson it means that SJWs and Cultural Marxism are the major evil forces in a civilisation by and large refusing even to be honest about the conditions that have sustained in its century-long sugar high. And since his claim to fame was a non-sequitur - he successfully convinced millions of people that imposition of speech related to minority groups on employees is an unprecedented move towards fascism - he certainly "lives by what he teaches".

Yeah, underneath all that leftist slant, I think that's more or less accurate. Groups are completely arbitrary constructions of mass imagination, and to make laws that aim to prevent the offense of one of these groups by chipping away at our fundamental rights is bullshit. It's not going to work and it's going to have far-reaching negative effects, not the least of which is the further erosion of our rights.

He criticizes Marxism for being a theory penned by one person as opposed to democracy, which evolved over centuries, and that every attempt at a Marxist system has failed and devolved into totalitarianism and furthermore that the conditions created by Marxism lead to totalitarianism by logical necessity.

If every attempt at a Marxist system has failed, then how can Marxism lead to totalitarianism by logical necessity?

Because it's a political philosophy with a flat organizational structure. But humans don't organize themselves in flat structures. We organize ourselves in dominance hierarchies, historically speaking. The problem with it is that it's not a social contrivance, it's a biological phenomenon that's not easily altered. I don't think he's arguing that we can't make a flat political structure, but identity politics is a very crude and insufficient philosophy to get it done. It's really just tribalism manifesting itself in our modern society. In order to make it flat under tribalism, you would have to have only one tribe, which implies wiping out the other tribes. And because we organize ourselves in hierarchies, a leader would emerge to get this done.

He says that the primary pillar of democracy is the belief in the divinity of the individual, which leads to the valuing of each individual no matter how degenerate or evil they are. Therefore, criminals are locked in prison rather than, for example, executed. I think the important part of this is that the individuals are respected even if their views are not, so it breeds diversity in viewpoints.

This is feel-good bs. Democracy, or what is accepted to be such, only works when the differences between most viewpoints are trivial and people have more than enough resources for themselves to not have any reason to blame others for their problems. All powerful democracies are in reality capitalist state-corporate autocracies (instead of capitalist state autocracy or communism), and what democratic institutions they contain would not exist without fossil fuel -powered industry or the ability to exploit the populations of resource-rich nations bereft of the same.

I think you're not going back far enough in history. Fossil fuels weren't even valuable when the United States was formed, for example. They made fossil fuels valuable through technological innovation.

To conclude then, Jordan Peterson is a voodoo therapist who became famous by misinterpreting a law as a move towards leftist totalitarianism, which stirred up a lot of seething resentments in a society which has chosen ecstatic confusion over miserable honesty about itself.

He didn't misinterpret it, and he might be stirring up resentment, but I don't think it's resentment that isn't there already.

His philosophy is that rather than identifying with some oppressed group and blaming some oppressors while you wait for them to solve your problems, it's more effective to take responsibility for your own problems. That's how Western civilization became successful. Because the fact is, even if you're in a shitty situation, you can always improve it little by little if you make the effort. Sitting around bitching about other people just isn't as effective. Even if you get them to solve the problem you're bitching about, the chances of them solving it to your satisfaction are exactly zero. So the cycle of bitching starts all over again and never ends.

I think the root problem is that people just don't realize that this is how it is. Especially when the schools and universities are teaching them the opposite and suppressing the correct view. The correct view is actually pretty difficult to understand, and its suppression is just due to that the fact that teachers take the easy way out and teach the easiest thing, because that's what people in general do, not because I'm singling out teachers. This has happened over decades to the point where people don't even understand our government anymore. All they see now are a bunch of greedy white men whose life goal is to steal money from minorities. If that were the whole picture, then, for example, blacks could just rise up by oppressing whites, which is actually what a lot of them are trying to do, but unfortunately for them, that doesn't work. That's not the winning formula.

[Santiago Odo]

His philosophy is that rather than identifying with some oppressed group and blaming some oppressors while you wait for them to solve your problems, it's more effective to take responsibility for your own problems. That's how Western civilization became successful. Because the fact is, even if you're in a shitty situation, you can always improve it little by little if you make the effort. Sitting around bitching about other people just isn't as effective. Even if you get them to solve the problem you're bitching about, the chances of them solving it to your satisfaction are exactly zero. So the cycle of bitching starts all over again and never ends.

I think the root problem is that people just don't realize that this is how it is. Especially when the schools and universities are teaching them the opposite and suppressing the correct view. The correct view is actually pretty difficult to understand, and its suppression is just due to that the fact that teachers take the easy way out and teach the easiest thing, because that's what people in general do, not because I'm singling out teachers. This has happened over decades to the point where people don't even understand our government anymore. All they see now are a bunch of greedy white men whose life goal is to steal money from minorities. If that were the whole picture, then, for example, blacks could just rise up by oppressing whites, which is actually what a lot of them are trying to do, but unfortunately for them, that doesn't work. That's not the winning formula.

I have only limted experience with JP only having watched some of his talks and observed his encounters with so-called Leftist journalists (those videos held up as cause for celebration among the Right-leaning or ‘Conservative’ crowd). But I would mention a few things which I think have relevance within our present — a present that is on the verge of certain commotions and upsets that at times looks like verging social conflict.

I have gotten the impression through a study of so-called conservatism that this conservatism only acts as a sort of brake on liberal and liberalizing processes. That is, it is the liberal processes which have the authority, both moral and temporal. It is these liberal ideas that dominate our present and they simply go on doing what they always have done and perhaps can only do : taking down the structures on which all hierarchies are built.

You say that all groups and all identifications are ‘arbitrary’, but if that is true any action that enforces a given ‘hierarchy’ would also have to be seen as similarly arbitrary. So, it seems that even in your thinking (which is really our thinking given that liberal forms of thought are ubiquitous and regnant) one can observe the liberal foundation. It is simply not possible nowadays to think in *conservative* terms, and much less possible to think in radically reactionary terms. That is, in terms that might confront a regnant liberalism. I would be interested to hear your impressions of this statement.

The backdrop of our present — that is, the American Present — is the Civil War. Meaning that it is the Lincolnian policy and the advent of Lincolnian radicalism (a form of liberalism obviously) which began a process of attacking the hierarchies on which the structures of the US had been built. The radical liberalism that took form, then, is still expressed now but in mutated, somewhat perverse, form in the notion and the action of ‘nation building’. For example, the recent invasion and occupation of Iraq which has heralded a group of wars is, I suggest, an extension of the same motivation that led to the North’s invasion, occupation, and ‘reconstruction’, of the South. And it is an attack against ‘hierarchies’.

Because so-called ‘conservatism’ is only a sort of brake against on-going and radical change, with each decade it finds its anchor pulled along with the advancing liberalism which, as I say, dominates and determines all discourse. I suggest that Peterson, if he is a Conservative (he may not define himself) can only be seen as such a ‘brake’. But I wonder if he can really have a solid position, and when I say that I mean a solid position on a foundation of ideas which exists independently of regnant liberalism, though I prefer the term *hyper-liberalism* because I feel it is more illustrative.

It is with tremendous difficulty, both intellectual and moral, that one attempts to construct a *truly conservative ideology* or a philosophical platform. In American history, and certainly in American ideas, it is nearly impossible to defend a structure of ideas that could oppose the hyper-liberal, and radical, Lincolnian program. Lincolnianism does represent, in this sense, a new *estate* : a radical shift with tremendous consequences. Through it an *American Civil Religion* was formed, and I suggest that it is these ideas that inform every American whether he is aware of it or not, and through Americanism and the Americanopolis, that these ideas have influenced the whole world (or infected it you have a jaundiced view). In order to defend an *old hierarchical view* one would have to turn back to the social and political philosophy of the Confederate South and, somehow, renew and restore radical hierarchical views. That is, views which do not start from the humanistic a priori of ‘equality’ ‘sameness’ : ideas which have swept the planet and have *infected* all thinking.

Your first paragraph describes what I see as a classically brake-like position. The motion of hyper-liberalism and liberal radicalism is pushing forward like an unstoppable wheel and everyone feels and understand it and what it does. They have no ways nor means to stop it or to oppose it. But they can, meekly, complain about the speed of transformation. That is what Peterson is essentially doing. He has no position from which to critique radical liberalism (he is likely a radical liberal *in essence* as so many of us are), so be builds a small position where he can hunker down, protected, for a mere moment. He has no idea structure that could support a countervailing ‘conservative’ position, and if he did, and if he began to talk about it, he would be cast out into the outer darkness as a Nazi. It is impossible, in our present, to define any position that is ‘hierarchical’ in a grounded, philosophically trenchant sense. One only cedes ground, one does not establish or reclaim ground.

In order to establish a radically conservative program one would have to ground it in idea-structures which are so foreign to our present thinking that, in fact, it is *unthinkable thought*. To think in such terms is to place oneself in a territory outside of the pale of consideration. If you followed David and Dan’s astounding display and their defense of ‘Hyper-Liberalism’ (my term of course, not theirs) you might have noticed the power of such liberalized ideas, even among men who had been attempting to establish a proper, conservative, foundation for their metaphysics. Thus, and as I see things, they showed that they are totally captured in the current of liberalism and while swept along by it simply sing its tune, like a jingle from a TV commercial.

To define a *true conservative platform* is to turn radically against certain foundational ideas which have become so pervasive as to function like water for the proverbial fish. It requires a bold turning back toward a style of thinking and seeing which is no longer (at all) popular. In fact, it involves what I have come to see as a *radical imposition* of a contrary mode of thought, grounded in different and contrary values.

You speak of *correct view* as if you could refer to some established view or doctrine where it is elucidated. I would be very interested in hearing what you think it is or could/should be.

There are only (IMO) opinion-sets which might be described as *slightley anterior* to the radical positions of the Present, but there is no philosophically foundationed *correct view*.

But are *views* merely constructs? That is, imaginary and arbitrary? Or are they grounded in some idea-set that is *real* and *constant*?

[Diebert van Rhijn]

Alex your belief that a man must handle a woman is the dangerous view, not that she might 'abandon her role as prescribed by the Paternal Christian God called Alex et al for the sake of her Self.

life of animals, not of thinking men and women

Yes he's missing the mark as if he never met a thinking woman before and survived. It's about the philosopher and the woman, the thinking men & women against the unthinking gender game of domination, undermining, hollowing out, infantilizing and basis instincts to protect the nest & the blood in some given cultural context.

Alex speaks from the position of a man still holding on to beliefs put in place there as to submit to feminine priorities, then defended to be about life but end up being about culture mostly, the propagation not of DNA but of idea. This is the danger and the genius of the way the "feminine" is being addressed by some of our godfathers. And he predictably ends up putting all his energy in defending a type of culture supporting the dated idea of the feminine roles, which supports also the idea of masculine role as provider, defender and savior towards the egg factory business as a whole. A man has to hold on to something I suppose.

[Diebert van Rhijn]

If I can flesh it out a little, he's saying that someone who turns to such destruction as murder and suicide is expressing the hatred of existence itself, which he calls God.

Socially-enforced monogamy evolved in human culture because we don't have obligate monogamous behavior that other primates have and polygynous cultures tend to be more violent due to higher aggression in the men that don't have women.

I'm not really sure what he means by "cure". Enforced monogamy would certainly reduce the phenomenon of batshit-crazy men who are possessed by collectivist ideologies like incel.

Yes but my point was that Peterson assumed that the problem of Alek Minassian was somehow born out of frustration on self-reported unavailability of women. But what I say is that by simply reading a few paragraphs on the self-reported life history of this Alek, it becomes rather clear a whole other problem is there even before women become a factor. And deeper psychological problems always surface when puberty hits, more complex social relations form, more pressure is given by life. Peterson is a clinical psychologist and to skip over these basics just to make a point over the heads of the dead is rather bizarre.

I think the idea has merit, but figuring out how to implement it is another thing.

Yeah, a bit like communism you mean ;-)

I think both he and Nietzsche believed that postmodernism is not an effective replacement.

Nietzsche actually addressed the nihilist outcome of modernity and "modernism" if you will. The link between nihilism and postmodernism is a word game. Nihilism as consequence but "post" really means what comes after or opposes it perhaps.

And of course, "modernity" is already a very complex target, "postmodernity" has moved beyond meaning already simply because it can mean so many things to many people. But one can see it as attempt or wish to move beyond modernity. Or oppose and analyse it from "something else than modernity" and yet can also include the analysis that this simply it not happening. See also Nietzsche's ideas on slow decline and decadence -- of modernity, of whatever thought package peaked in the 19th century and multiplied or overproduced inside the 20th.

It might sound religious, but it's not conservative

Well he surely attempts to formulate a conservatism of the future, some 21s century model. And lets face it the "classic British liberal" as he called himself is not seen as left or liberal exactly. In any case, come on Matt, wake up. Jordan keeps on harping about tradition and authority, institutions, values, and norms like any other conservative. Also sees the bible as some foundational document of Western civilization/value/morality without any, to my ears, larger historical understanding of major Greek, Indian, Jewish and Persian influences in most of government, science and art. Christianity is always happy to claim on faith not on fact. In any case, here's an article showing how conservatives see him as conservative: Jordan Peterson Claims He’s No Conservative[

But I also have yet to see anyone turn him into a laughing stock because I haven't found any critic that can actually understand his views well enough to criticize them effectively.

He has simply not entered those discussions yet. It's the "rock star" syndrome, one plays for crowds of fans or media stages, but he doesn't seem to venture in direct debate with other thinkers on the topics he cherishes. Or at least I haven't seen those yet.

He criticizes Marxism for being a theory penned by one person as opposed to democracy, which evolved over centuries, and that every attempt at a Marxist system has failed and devolved into totalitarianism and furthermore that the conditions created by Marxism lead to totalitarianism by logical necessity.

Well Marxism is not a political system but more of a theoretical method of "socioeconomic analysis" working out of Kant and Hegel, coming to a "pure" materialist interpretation of history and human nature. From Marxist theory the conclusion was drawn that communism would the necessary outcome of capitalism and systems or interpretations arose to "facilitate" the transition people started to believe were happening (workers movement, socialism, unions etc). The development did happen of course but we call it social-democracy now, a more hybrid system with incredibly complex balances of power. It's still seen as somewhat true that modern society cannot exist with well defined classes and a certain level of inequality in place.

And even then, democracy as we know it now seem like the end of many bumpy roads and has shown to just as easily develop into totalitarianism when a major crisis does happen or some movement sweeps the country and turns the ballot boxes into one color or name. Citizens are guided by feeling and not by information? That would completely invalidate the democratic faith.

On the other hand, the primary pillar of Marxism is the group, so, because groups can never be equal to each other, they have no choice but to resent each other, which leads to social justice and eventually genocidal type of stuff.

This does not sound like Marxism but more like socialism and communism where the community indeed owns the means of production. but pure Marxism would promote the individual as owning his own means but practically, like a factory, a social group has to still share the whole thing as a group. But there's no owner in terms of state or entrepreneur.

Jeez, where's that psychopuppy Shen for that rare case when you actually need her? In any case for me this is just one instance where Peterson makes the rather typical mistake of overreaching and oversimplifying just to score another goal. And it's always the same when started on Marxism, communism or postmodernity. Or simply any real complex term which is not just misunderstood but turned into some oppositional imaginary to create some contrast inside ones own narrative. And exactly there it starts to break down and reveal a more populist self-serving streak. In general though, and I have not decided on Peterson yet.

[Santiago Odo]

Yes he's missing the mark as if he never met a thinking woman before and survived. It's about the philosopher and the woman, the thinking men & women against the unthinking gender game of domination, undermining, hollowing out, infantilizing and basis instincts to protect the nest & the blood in some given cultural context.

Alex speaks from the position of a man still holding on to beliefs put in place there as to submit to feminine priorities, then defended to be about life but end up being about culture mostly, the propagation not of DNA but of idea. This is the danger and the genius of the way the "feminine" is being addressed by some of our godfathers. And he predictably ends up putting all his energy in defending a type of culture supporting the dated idea of the feminine roles, which supports also the idea of masculine role as provider, defender and savior towards the egg factory business as a whole. A man has to hold on to something I suppose.

But it is right there, in fact, that a large part of the problem resides, as I understand things in any case. One would have to stop and dwell on what this term *philosopher* actually means and how the philosopher came on the scene. But I think I may mean the philosopher as he developed in the post-17th century and not, as it were, the Platonic and Aristotelian variety.

In the last 4-5 centuries *philosophy* has become a rebellious state of mind and, I suggest in this context, that such a state of mind is the source for radical movements in ideas that, essentially, destroy hierarchies. This late philosophy developed in reaction to the Schoolmen and scholastic metaphysics. It may have been *necessary* but it also involved what I think can be fairly stated as rebellious resistance. It is as if they are mechanisms (acids) that are compelled to eat away at structures. And since this is part of my general critical position — that we all come under the influence of destructive *acids* and become actors-of-destructiveness — I think we have to stop and examine this particular aspect of *philosophy* but also something about the will and the mind that become, as I say, unmoored and unfettered. Now, one can simply careen forward in the current of such *philsophy* but also of ever-increasing liberalizing trends. But at one point or another one has to arrive at definitions in relation to which one will live.

And that leads, of course, to the notion of woman-as-rebel, or the radical feminist woman who reacts not essentially against ‘patriarchal structures’ (the Paternal Christian God is the term Pam used and may be telling of where she stands within the gender-political conflict) but really against Nature itself (or herself). The greatest lament and the more intense rage of woman is not against man but against her biological condition. Without man and without the power to oppose Nature in the sense I speak of no woman would ever be able to know any level of freedom outside of her natural condition. It is not therefor woman that liberates woman but really man who provides the tools to do so. And if an *unmoored* and *untethered* philosophy gives her rebellious tools to arm her fight against Nature, well, it seems to me that this leads right into certain very important questions and issues of our present.

It is true, I do not think I would try to avoid the label, that I am trying to work within ‘traditionalist’ categories, but as I said a few posts up it is more a question of addressing and countermanding certain rebellious and destructive tendencies. I would say that, in this sense, the position enunciated by the GF Founders is not a traditionalist position, and not one based in a conserving metaphysics, but rather an expression of their essential hyper-liberalism (and all this came out, starkly, in that now famous thread).

All that they had been able to do is to resist ‘woman’ (as they sharply defined her) and their method was complete avoidance and rejection. That is, to become separated from woman eternally. To draw other men into a sort of homesexual rebellion against man’s basic responsibility. It corresponds as I see things to radical feminist segregation from men. It is pathological therefor. I suggest that such an attitude is a negation of responsibility and as such cannot lead to *freedom* but rather a false and self-deceiving sense of disconnectedness. If what I say is true then it posits a need — a requirement — for a definite change in the way that woman and family are viewed. And it does also, quite clearly, connect to both *life* and *culture*. These are inseparable categories.

Jeez, where's that psychopuppy Shen for that rare case when you actually need her?

Um, back in your radical interventionist meddling moderator phase you essentially pushed the poor woman out. I have been advocating, plaintively, for her return ever sense.

Leila, you are loved. Be well wherever the Wind of Fate has carried you!

[Diebert van Rhijn]

All that they had been able to do is to resist ‘woman’ (as they sharply defined her) and their method was complete avoidance and rejection. That is, to become separated from woman eternally.

You're still not understanding anything of the topic, the history of the forum, its founders and visitors in that regard, I'm afraid.

Jeez, where's that psychopuppy Shen for that rare case when you actually need her?

Um, back in your radical interventionist meddling moderator phase you essentially pushed the poor woman out. I have been advocating, plaintively, for her return ever sense.

You're just faking interest: you completely missed her re-appearing and posting. And ignored my pointing that out last time you were faking that interest. Yawn.

[Santiago Odo]

The opposite is the case : I understand more fully their position and a good deal more than most as to how it came about. I suggest, with nearly obsequious formal humility, that you are captured (seduced as you might say) by a *story* about it and this obviouly indicates that — you too — share the basic problem.

I heard that Jufa and Leyla are seeing each other. I am happy for them.

[jupiviv]

@Matt, I have nothing against you personally, and the "larvae" bit wasn't directed at you.

Someone who kills innocent people and kills himself has a big existential problem

Most human beings haven't killed anyone, yet they have big existential problems. Just because those problems aren't expressed through violent actions doesn't mean they are less significant. My issue though is with making serial killers germane to a discussion about young men in the first place. That is precisely the sort of exercise in misandry which has become quotidian in feminist (not necessarily SJW) circles.

I think he's arguing that monogamy was a pillar of the construction of our free society, it evolved over thousands of years because that reproductive strategy is what works the best.

The real pillar of human civilisation is the extended family, with a flexible combination of monogamy and polygamy depending on ability to sustain a large household (=monogamy for the majority of men and their wives). That is what "works the best" in historical and practical terms. It is nonsense to assert that monogamy within the context of modern nuclear families has evolved from monogamy within the context of extended families. Indeed assertions of this kind are invariably made by those who covet praxis of a romanticised version of the former, and are desperately searching for a rationale.

I think what he is really aiming for is education on how to successfully date and manage a monogamous relationship, because most relationships fail due to simple mismanagement, and he has a lot of advice about that. For example, you don't try to resolve an argument by threatening to leave the relationship. That just destroys any trust you could have.

If you are living in a society where arguments can end a marriage, it doesn't make sense to enter one to begin with. Moreover, in such societies, men can be and are legally deprived of their assets, income, children and freedom by the government in case such a relationship ends, which is statistically likely to happen. This state of affairs is in direct opposition to the only reliably demonstrated function of marriage. That being the rearing of children to eventually replace parents' roles in localised economies comprised of large families and their collectively-owned and -operated (usually agrarian) assets.

In industrialised societies, the function of marriage need not, and indeed cannot, happen efficiently within the *only* environment which has proven itself suitable for it. There are better ways to ensure both parents participate in and are responsible for the rearing of their children without the risks (for men) and contradictions which have thus far accompanied attempts to preserve what is in effect a distortion of real marriage. Valid attempts are already being made, for example shared parenting laws in the country of Europe.

On an unrelated note, Peterson is saying nothing remotely new or groundbreaking here. The average agony aunt probably offers a less agonising edition of the same narrative.

Marriage and sexuality of any kind has nothing to do with "wisdom" as that term is defined on GF.

Sure it does. A stable society has lot more potential for wisdom than a violent society.

This is an obviously problematic and flawed argument if evaluated on empirical grounds i.e. sociologically/historically/etc. I'm guessing you intend a broader/more philosophical context. While a degree of free time and the fulfilment of basic needs are essential to the pursuit of wisdom, most functioning societies can offer those. And to reiterate, theories about proper sexual relations have nothing to do with wisdom, which is the categorical rejection of all delusions.

Attachment to women and sex is the most common and powerful of all delusions. The way in which that attachment manifests itself i.e. stable, chaotic, pseudo-philosophical fantasy, monogamous, heterosexual, transtesticle etc., is *totally* irrelevant to wisdom itself. There are differences in rationality in certain instances (*actual* vs make-believe traditional marriage, for instance), but such differences are trivial in light of the fact that any rationality (instead of pretense to that effect, which is usual) is severely stunted by the inevitably pervasive irrational elements. If thirsty young men interested in wisdom are told that implementing conjugal fantasies, and even the real thing, will increase the number of wise people then the opposite shall transpire. None of this is to say that wisdom and sexual reproduction are so mutually opposed they cannot at least cohabit (they do and have), or even watch movies together once in a while. There are hard limits though, like everything else in life.

Nietzsche understood that nihilism was the denial of reality once it becomes undeniable yet cannot bring one happiness. His great realisation was that the solution to that lies not, as all prudent men of every age (including Peterson) assert, in changing oneself to fit the mold of the nearest convenient piece of that reality, but rather in turning inwards and digging until one finds it.

"...it sounds insightful - even profound - but on closer analysis turns out to be either false or so nebulous that it could be interchanged with hundreds of other statements about the same general topic." :P

Really? I pretty much nailed the problem with your characterisation of Peterson as a sage in that single paragraph. Nietzsche, Kierkegaard and other wise men define the "I" as the only thing which has to be understood. For Peterson it is already understood - the sacrosanct unit of the "free society" in theory; a vessel for desperate mythologies in practice.

For Kierkegaard the primacy of the individual meant standing alone before God's judgment, which is the individual's honesty before and about himself. For Peterson it means that SJWs and Cultural Marxism are the major evil forces in a civilisation by and large refusing even to be honest about the conditions that have sustained in its century-long sugar high. And since his claim to fame was a non-sequitur - he successfully convinced millions of people that imposition of speech related to minority groups on employees is an unprecedented move towards fascism - he certainly "lives by what he teaches".

Yeah, underneath all that leftist slant, I think that's more or less accurate.

What is this leftist slant?

Groups are completely arbitrary constructions of mass imagination, and to make laws that aim to prevent the offense of one of these groups by chipping away at our fundamental rights is bullshit.

Groups are just a distinction. A distinction may be rational or fantastic to varying degrees. Laws are based on distinctions, and in some cases laws which seek to prevent the abuse of distinctions are rational. Bill C-16 added transtesticles to the list of people whom it is illegal to discriminate against. Most extant legislation against discrimination around the world implies the restriction of language, so that is nothing new.

Support for or opposition to various degrees of free speech is a political issue and has nothing to do with wisdom. Only freedom of thought is necessary for wisdom. On second thought, one could philosophically address the sense and extent to which free speech exists or can exist, but that is a different discussion.

If every attempt at a Marxist system has failed, then how can Marxism lead to totalitarianism by logical necessity?

Because it's a political philosophy with a flat organizational structure. But humans don't organize themselves in flat structures. We organize ourselves in dominance hierarchies, historically speaking.

A flat organisational structure is a contradiction-in-terms. Marx wasn't stupid enough to conceive of such a thing. Marxism is a classical economic theory rather than any kind of ideology, its central tenet being that labour creates wealth or surplus energy+economic "value". Business ownership of financial, manufacturing and distribution infrastructure allows them to capture labour’s value-added surplus for themselves. Solution: a system whereby workers own the means of production and keep the surplus. Marx's critique of industrial capitalism is overall excellent and relevant for both the 20th & 21st century. He falsely believed (qua Hegel) that "rational" solutions are possible within a "rational" historicism, and posed said belief as "science".

The essential fallacy of Marxism is identical to that of capitalism, i.e., "production" is real. It is an abstract concept - there is only transformation and consumption. All industry is a form of consumption, and its products are trivia, i.e. waste and entropy. More energy and resources spent producing trivia-->more entropy generated faster.

There are only two economic systems which can maintain industrial societies, a> globalised state-corporate capitalism b> globalised state capitalism. Both systems (in the real world, various permutations of them), in slightly different ways, channel surplus energy & resources gained from the extraction/transformation of the same to processes which consume them. Processes which are deemed likely to lead to more consumption are favoured over those which are not, because they justify increasing both scale and intensity of current extraction via a combination of decreased surplus, more efficient consumption (here innovation is relevant) and reduced consumption elsewhere. This in order to mitigate against the problem of diminishing returns, which appears once the current most cheaply extractable resources are consumed. Such a phenomenon is commonly known as the creation of debt, and has worked so far because the costs of extraction could always be shifted away in the manner described above. It is a mathematical certainty that, ceteris paribus, it will stop working at some point of time, which is likely to be within the coming few/several decades.

And you didn't answer my question.

I think you're not going back far enough in history. Fossil fuels weren't even valuable when the United States was formed, for example. They made fossil fuels valuable through technological innovation.

Technology doesn't create value, if value is defined as energy. It expends extant energy to achieve a desired result. There wasn't and isn't any energy source other than fossil fuels which technological innovation could have expended to create industrial civilisation. The region of the United States was, and to a lesser extent still is, a uniquely abundant store of fossil fuels and other resources. Some European nations were lucky enough to find it and consequently deliver it from the occupiers. The US was formed by and for a liberal elite who wished to retain the wealth generated by that region for themselves. It became more democratised with time because motivated consumers were needed for consumption to match and justify the expansion of resource discovery & extraction (see Jackson & Manifest Destiny).

His philosophy is that rather than identifying with some oppressed group and blaming some oppressors while you wait for them to solve your problems, it's more effective to take responsibility for your own problems. That's how Western civilization became successful. Because the fact is, even if you're in a shitty situation, you can always improve it little by little if you make the effort. Sitting around bitching about other people just isn't as effective. Even if you get them to solve the problem you're bitching about, the chances of them solving it to your satisfaction are exactly zero. So the cycle of bitching starts all over again and never ends.

That is a bad philosophy, if it can even be termed a philosophy. It seems the very common ethical principle for personal responsibility (actions, livelihood etc.) has been retrofitted into a bog-standard conservative perspective of western culture and capitalism. The most obvious problem with that is neither individuals nor historical phenomena can be understood or judged solely on the basis of whether people are responsible in their personal lives, and I mean that in both the philosophical and empirical sense.

Presumably we are more interested in the philosophical aspect. There is no inherent conflict or affinity between wisdom and most of the things which may be included under the definition/category of personal responsibility. Some of those things - say diligence or moderation - are *means* to wisdom but only within a certain context as in "a dose of disgust with life" or a yearning for the essence despite all suffering and stumbling around. Others, like being employed, being healthy, not being broke, not taking drugs etc. are fully *compatible* with wisdom but may not always accompany it and don't mediate it on their own.

Also the broader context of *starting* to take personal responsibility is *necessarily* very narrow and mundane. If one wishes to get a job as the first step in realising an ideal of metaphorical housework, the most rational and successful approach would be getting the first job available without thinking about much else, including the point of the job itself beyond things like income or settling into a routine. Wisdom simply doesn't enter the picture, and if it does the logic of the context may dictate it should be forced out. Understanding and rectifying one's failings/situation in everyday life is more *prudent* than not doing so, but not *wiser* per se.

Then there is an obvious (hence not explaining unless asked to) internal inconsistency in the premise that any standard or notion of truth must follow and be created by the act of assuming responsibility - at least in spirit - for a very catholic definition of one's life/problems. Noteworthy too are the predictable ironies which ensue whenever kerygma of said premise is attempted.

But now I'm having deja vu of the QRS Schism Debate and attempts to make sense of Q's 1000 year old "progressive movement" which is apparently making everyone enlightened in baby steps. I'm probably about to get called pessimistic and cynical as well. But wait, a fragment of what is bound to be an Alexian sutra has just caught my eye: "There are only (IMO) opinion-sets which might be described as *SLIGHTLEY anterior* to the radical positions of the Present, but there is no philosophically foundationed *correct view*." The unnerving bluntness of this insight rends my stupor! What strident squamous sorority of trans-muses could have coaxed such alt-gibberings my opinion-set to fancy foundationed? Repentant and subjewed, henceforth I am and must ... *only* construct!