Category: Commentary, Critique, and Response

by Stephen Sage:

–“Peterson does not have a sophisticated argument. His whole apologia relies on a radical redefinition of the concept of truth/being that neither he nor anyone else can consistently implement in any other field of study, or even everyday life. He’s saying, “It’s good for us to believe in (my conception of) God, therefore God exists.”

This same logical maneuver could be used to justify any number of stupid beliefs or to justify the suppression of good research. Plenty of religious people reject(ed) Peterson’s precious Darwinism not because it’s not true but because of some vague intuition that “Darwinism might be bad for us.” SJWs reject Peterson’s analysis of human nature and criticism of progressivism because “it’s bad for us to believe that.” I don’t trust people to make that kind of judgment as it influences the kind and quality of information I have access to.

Darwinism is not designed to solve metaethical problems. Peterson, being a kind of arch-liberal, seems to want to smuggle in a very non-Darwinian universalism with his concern about which things are good to believe. Good for whom, Jordan? Perhaps we should not learn how viruses work because they could be weaponized and used to hurt people. But what if I get to decide whom they hurt? Whose genetic success am I supposed to care about here?

That podcast was painful. Although I find some value in his lectures, Peterson reinforces my prejudice that Catholicism is saturated with pseudo-intellectualism, which is about as infuriating as anti-intellectualism of fundamentalist protestants. He also embarrasses himself with his constant propagandistic invocation of “the scary Nazis!”—