Jordan Peterson - Messiah or Poseur?

by cofty 22 Replies latest social current

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  LoveUniHateExams

  I think he is the leader (perhaps by accident) of a personality cult - yeah, quite possibly.

  I came to know Peterson only because of the Cathy Newman interview, which then led me to learn about his refusing to go along with Canada's proposed compelled speech Bill. Before the Newman interview, he wasn't on my radar.

  Both of these, the interview and his refusal to accept compelled speech, made me see Peterson in a good light - here he was, talking sense whilst being hounded by deranged Leftists.

  I haven't seen many of his lectures - although I did watch one of his public tours, a debate vs Sam Harris, moderated by Douglas Murray.

  Murray did an excellent job moderating, I thought. The actual debate between Peterson and Harris was interesting. I kinda agree with you that Peterson often takes forever to say very little. His response to Sam's question 'do you believe in God?' was ridiculous.

  Is he a poseur? - yeah, probably.

  Does he like the sound of his own voice? - I couldn't say for sure.

  Is he a Messiah? - obviously not, although some people may be inclined to see him that way. I think this says more about the state of Western culture in general than it does about a few sad men.

  We're at a point in our culture where someone like Peterson can make a career out of telling men to feel good about themselves, telling them to clean up their bedroom, etc. That's rather sad, I must say.
  
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  HiddenPimo

  I loved reading his book 12 Rules for Life, An Antidote to Chaos. I don't know much about him, but I enjoyed reading the book and took some good points. Either way we all can have an opinion and it is OK to disagree. That's what makes us awesome as humans. Being an ex-born in JW it took a while to realize that since they brain wash conformity...
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  Jehalapeno

  Jordan Peterson's interviews are far better than his lectures.

  His book 12 Rules for Life is excellent. Again, far better than any of his lectures.

  I've seen CLIPS from his lectures that on their own are great points. But the long, drawn out lectures are just like you describe, Cofty.

  I would compare his lectures to the Tolkein Ents arguing over whether to go to war with Isengard.
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  Simon

  Jordan Peterson's interviews are far better than his lectures.

  I agree, we saw one of his lectures (in Calgary) and it was interesting but I liked the discussion / Q&A part with Dave Rubin better.

  As happens more and more now, I think anyone willing to stand up to the dangerous insanity that the elites are trying to force on us is worthy of support even if you don't always agree with their views or how they say it.
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  Sanchy

  I thoroughly enjoyed his book 12 Rules for Life
  
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  Steel

  Something I strongly agree with him on is how poor a job the school system has done teaching young people the horrors of communism in the 20th century.

  Selling people the idea of a utopia at any cost. Is it really anything really different than what the WTS sells.
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  hoser

  I agree with what he is saying. We have become a nation of victims. People need to take responsibility for their actions.
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  Anony Mous

  He is a tremendous intellectual that has a great amount of insight in 20th century history and how it's starting to repeat itself in the 21st century with the rise of socialism/communism and far-left (similar to Nazi and Stalinist) ideas.

  I don't necessarily agree with all his analysis but he does a decent job at explaining why his ideas are valid. He does fall into the Professor trap where he tries to over explain or treat his audience as students with a significant level of prerequisite knowledge.

  As far as his religiosity and ideas around it, as he has made clear, he doesn't want to expound on a topic that requires a good background knowledge, because he'd be taken out of context, hence he won't argue about those things because it takes a lot of time to properly explain a position. He also won't go into personal religious or "did Jesus really do miracles" because according to one interview, there is nothing to be gained in those debates because it depends on what you believe and how you define the words and which facts you accept. He does have a series of lectures on the Judeo-Christian values and ideas from the Bible.

  All-in-all, he is honest about his views, he is open for honest discussions and when it comes to people and politics, all around brilliant in his debates with journalists and sees right through when the media is trying to entrap him into a sound bite.
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  cofty

  One of my biggest frustrations with JP is his obfuscation every time he is asked a simple question about his Christian beliefs.

  Q - 'Do you believe that Jesus walked on water?'

  JP - 'Well that would depend on what you mean by 'on' and that's a very deep question. I've been studying the meaning of 'on' for 20 years and to really answer that would take a 600 page book. Walking 'on' anything references an ancient archetype that goes back 3 billion years to the beginning of life on our planet and the relationship between physical beings and the way they move through their environment. I've been giving this a lot of thought recently, in fact I've thought about nothing else day and night for months and I'm not even sure I've began to plumb the depths of what it really means to say that somebody walked 'on' water. So you see it's not something that we can properly address in a forum like this. I mean how much time do we have? And that is before we even begin to think about what it really means to 'walk'. It's a profound subject and I don't think we want to go there right now.'

  This is hardly even an exaggeration. For somebody who criticises the postmodernists he sounds more obscure than Derrida every time he is asked to commit to anything.
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  Jehalapeno

  I’ve discussed with my friends his reluctance to take a firm position one way or another about his faith or religious beliefs, and I think I know why he is this way.

  Because many times it’s not relevant to the discussion.

  “Stand up straight with your shoulders back” - faith or belief in God is irrelevant to the point he’s trying to make.

  “Don’t let your kids do things that make you dislike them” - again, the God question is irrelevant to the point.

  And I think that’s the point of him not wanting to talk about it. Especially with his opposition searching and looking for anything to criticize him about and go on an outrage news cycle. “Jordan Peterson believes in God! No wonder he hates homos!”