—“I’m curious what you think about Jordan Peterson’s views?”—BlanketParty
[I]’ve written about it and you can find it online on the site. 1) It’s largely that he’s trying to restore a version of stoicism that’s free of new age woo-woo, but he’s still incorporating the non-european (semitic) myths which consist of primitive age woo-woo. That’s why he fails. They’re f–king evil. His work is in therapy(fixing whats broken) and his use of myth(Jung) as a means of ‘suggestion'(bypassing self-auditing) is an attempt to avoid costly, direct, cognitive behavioral therapy (Stoic Discipline). The world needs prevention (Stoicism-Epicureanism) to limit the need for fixing (therapy). And this is what we are seeing: the increasing demand for a secular means of mindfulness now that supernatural christianity is intolerable for the educated. 2) This is what’s preventing him from disambiguating Truth (True, as in Testimonial, Juridical, and Scientific decidability independent of the individual’s knowledge or preference) and conflating it with Pragmatism (true enough for the individual to feel good about using regardless of the truth or falsehood) and calling it ‘darwinian truth’. And while I find the first problem excusable because of his profession, I find the second inexcusable because of his position as a public intellectual. Because the foundation of western civilization – what separates the west from all the rest, and the reason for our law, reason, science, medicine, technology, engineering, and resulting wealth and prosperity (and genetic and cultural superiority) is our Evidentiary Testimonial Truth Before Face Regardless of Cost. Now, the west specializes in the production of commons – it’s a counter-intuitive side effect of absolute sovereignty before the law. And Truth regardless of cost is the MOST EXPENSIVE commons the west has developed – and the sole reason why the west can rely on rule of law and the rest of mankind can’t. They just can’t. If they can even comprehend western truth, they can’t perform it, with consistency, and they certainly can’t normalize it. (although I do have hope one day for India.) I’d love to discuss this with Peterson at some point because the audience would benefit from it.
—“In my opinion, Peterson’s work sums up too “How to not feel so bad while your civilisation is destroyed”— Aaron Moiler
I think it’s more a question of whether he would have to sacrifice the good he already does, and the wealth he derives from it, if he tried to do the good we want him to. I’m fully independent. I can answer the hard questions he fears to. So that’s why I do.
