Jordan Peterson is the pop philosopher of greatest interest in the US right now. His thought is of interest for that reason, especially for those who like staying au courant. But his is more important in the large picture for why he is regarded as important, especially in a culture in which philosophy is held in low esteem and Ayn Rand is actually considered a notable thinker by serious people in politics.
I submit that a major reason for Peterson's popularity is his worldview, rather than any of his particular views. The national dialectic in the US now, and to some degree internationally, is the tension between traditionalism and liberalism that came to the fore in the Renaissance with the rise of science and interest in classical literature. Peterson addresses this tension in a popular fashion that a lot of people can relate to.
The liberal wave began its crest in the Enlightenment, when the replacement of dogmatic theology and the alliance between church and state power declined, as theology was being replaced by naturalistic philosophy, and law based on religious dogma was being replaced by positive law based on natural law.
Traditionalism is based on the great chain of being worldview. Liberalism is based on scientific naturalism. The link between them is the understanding of "nature" and "natural" based on the Western intellectual tradition that began with ancient Greek thought.
This rise of liberalism and scientific naturalism resulted not only in an intellectual transformation in cultural worldview, but replacement of the traditional order by the liberal order as feudalism collapsed, sweeping away monarchies and empires, replacing them with democratic republics based on liberalism.
But classical liberalism was bourgeois liberalism based on property ownership. "All men are born equal" — sort of, that is. This "sort of" has lead to many paradoxes of liberalism that add to paradoxes that arise from combining liberalism and traditionalism. These paradoxes appear as contradictions that result in cognitive-affective dissonance.
In dialectical progression in contrast to strictly linear progression, the past is brought along into the present and continues to influence the future in a way that is far more complicated and also complex than physical processes. This is called variously "path dependence," "hysteresis," "historicity" and social and cultural embeddedness." Biological phenomena exhibit this more than purely physical, and social phenomena more than biological, e.g., owing to cultural embeddedness and institutional rigidity.
The result is that many Americans are suffering from a "split personality," torn between traditionalism and liberalism. This is especially the case with people that are religious (traditional) and also committed to individual freedom (liberal). This is not to say that this affects only Americans, only that Americans have their own characteristic "brand" of it owing to their history.
This results in paradoxes as apparent contradictions. An appeal of a thinker like Jordan Peterson is to offer a worldview in which those paradoxes can be resolved, reducing cognitive-affective dissonance. But in doing so by the route he has set on, Peterson has become a controversial figure.
So the question arises, how sound is his position? Paul Thagard, Canadian philosopher and cognitive scientist, responds.
Psychology Today
Jordan Peterson’s Flimsy Philosophy of Life
Paul Thagard | Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at the University of Waterloo and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, the Cognitive Science Society, and the Association for Psychological Science
See also
Human evolution is still happening – possibly faster than ever
Laurence D. Hurst | Professor of Evolutionary Genetics at The Milner Centre for Evolution, University of Bath
11 comments:
I've been looking at those of his videos and the right love him. He churned one feminist liberal woman up, and yes, she was full of contradictions, but he was only able to tie her in knots because she had empathy and guilt and he didn't.
I ignored Peterson until a few weeks ago when several people mentioned him in this blog. After that, I tried to watch several of Peterson’s videos, but they were meaningless gibberish. Useless.
As for the article, it says that Peterson’s notions of ethics are grounded in Christianity. If that is true, then Peterson has no notion of ethics, since (for me anyway) all organized religions are manifestations of depravity and mental illness. For example the biblical book of Joshua has Jews slaughtering every man, woman, and child in the city of Jericho because the city inhabitants were not Jews.
The article concludes with, “Peterson’s allusive style makes critiquing him like trying to nail jelly to a cloud.”
Agreed. Peterson is a lousy speaker and writer. He is pretentious, bombastic, and nonsensical. The only reason he is popular is that Peterson seems to be able to talk back to hate-filled feminists, plus militant LGBTQXYZ freaks, and so on.
On the surface he seems to rebut the mutants, but in reality he babbles incoherently.
Because average people are so sick of militant man-bashing liberals, people imagine that Peterson's unintelligible mumbo-jumbo constitutes "reason and sanity."
I tried being a Christian once, but then I started reading the Old Testament and it turned my guts-inside-out and that was the end of that.
Peterson is a Canadian psychology professor who refused to use nonsensical gender pronouns. He has a traditional Christian background and is fond of classic traditions. His fame is accidental. His appeal is understandable. His twelve rules are appealing to traditionalists. Like him or not, his audience is huge and he has respect from an eclectic group of “dark intellectuals”. Dave Rubin, Eric and Bret Weinstein, Joe Rohan, Ben Shapiro, Bari Weiss- liberals, conservatives and libertarians. The non PC folks who have been burned by the media thought police. If you like him, you like him. If not, he is not in anyway a threat to western civilization. He’s like listening to your uncle or grandfather. Now go clean your room and make your bed!
I’m finding Jordan Peterson’s longer videos provide me a deeper framework. His shorter videos tend to be clips of his longer videos where he scores a philosophical ‘knock out’ against an opponent often a female, which many will find offensive given his stern tone. His longer videos take a bit more effort to absorb.
I have a background in systems, not social sciences so am no expert on the validity of the social positions he takes. He seems to have a coherent, systematic framework of history as well as current affairs which appears to be based on the latest studies in the social sciences.
Paul Thagard’s article seems very much an attack on a caricature or straw man, easy to do but hard to defend. I saw no comment section so not sure how he expects to approach a greater truth through a free debate.
"I tried being a Christian once, but then I started reading the Old Testament and it turned my guts-inside-out and that was the end of that."
My understanding is the old testament was the torah + extra books written before Christ. From my perspective the old testament has little to do with being Christian, more to do with being human or Jewish or perhaps even at times, Muslim. The books are included so that Christians don't naively ignore the history of the human condition.
but then I started reading the Old Testament and it turned my guts-inside-out and that was the end of that. kv
Your problem is that you did not finish it.
If you had, then you'd realize that God puts up with an extreme amount of provocation until He finally judges.
And what angers Him? Oppression of the poor and the weak are way up the list.
Therefore I do not understand why non-Jews pay any attention to the Old Testament. Konrad
Christians are obliged to pay attention to the Old Testament - by the New Testament.
That's not to say that Christians are under the Old Testament Law but that:
All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work. 2 Timothy 3:16-17 New American Standard Bible (NASB)
I'd like to express my appreciation for Tom Hickey's analysis of Jordan Peterson. Often I read what Tom writes without fully grasping what he is getting at, but with repetition his framework becomes more clear.
Given Tom's exposure to MMT and philosophy, he would be ideally situated to expose Mr. Peterson to the ability of finance fo influence social outcomes, including the ability of society to find the 'greater truth'.
My wife intuitively does not trust Jordon Peterson's framework. She senses a bias especially when he talks about unequal pay for women. I see that Jordon Peterson takes the position that pay is unequal because women choose occupations that the 'marketplace' just doesn't reward whereas my wife sees women choosing professions that finance (not our society) just doesn't value. Personally I think his framework could accommodate MMT, but his economic framework is too traditional, conservative or neoliberal to argue for more egalitarian ideas.
I see his philosophical framework being claimed by libertarians. Is it that libertarians are just more open to new ideas so are first to latch on (being an incoherent movement searching for a foundation) or do they really have a monopoly claim?
Would MMT be better with Jordon Peterson's philosophical foundation?
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