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Jordan Peterson has made a few great videos on postmodernism. If anyone is interested, "Postmodernism: How and why it must be fought" [0] is fairly short and to

Jordan Peterson has made a few great videos on postmodernism. If anyone is interested, "Postmodernism: How and why it must be fought" [0] is fairly short and to the point. I try to apply the scientific method to my internal beliefs. I've changed my mind many times when presented with a sufficiently strong argument and evidence to back it up. I'm wrong about stuff all the time, and one of the main ways to find out and fix it is to talk about it! This is a large part of why I'm opposed to silencing people, instead of letting them talk and honestly engaging with them. Righteous indignation might make you feel good, but it probably won't convince anyone to change their views. You can change someone's mind by being polite, doing your research, and chatting with em. Daryl Davis shows us a prime example of this: How One Man Convinced 200 Ku Klux Klan Members To Give Up Their Robes [1]. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cf2nqmQIfxc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cf2nqmQIfxc [1] http://www.npr.org/2017/08/20/544861933/how-one-man-convinced-200-ku-klux-klan-members-to-give-up-their-robes http://www.npr.org/2017/08/20/544861933/how-one-man-convince...

paulpauper 9y ago
hmm Peterson's analysis of postmodernism may be reductionist. It's only a single facet of postmodernism, but postmodernism is more like a 'condition' that can affect both the 'left' and the 'right' . For example, both the left and the right question whether modernity is always an unalloyed 'good' http://greyenlightenment.com/defending-postmodernism/ http://greyenlightenment.com/defending-postmodernism/ Likewise, many on the far-right oppose ‘Whig history’, a historical narrative that posits the inevitability and desirability of liberty and enlightenment values, culminating in modern forms of liberal democracy and constitutional monarchy. The same for Francis Fukuyama and the inevitability of liberal democracy, what he called ‘the end of history’. Peterson says postmodernists don't engage in debate but that is also false. There is footage of Foucault debating Noam Chomsky.
- danielam 9y ago
  Petereson appears to be confused about the subject matter (e.g., I don't understand how he relates Marxism to postmodernism). Furthermore, he himself draws on postmodernist ideas. I don't think he's a good source for philosophical insight, even if we can broadly agree with him about what are the worrying trends, e.g., on campuses, in politics, etc, even if for reasons other than his. Also, agree w.r.t. the right/left distinction being meaningless where this phenomenon is concerned. For example, the whole "post-truth" condition is now very pervasive across the political spectrum. Someone who remembers their Socrates and his spat with the sophists will recall that bullshitting (understood in the Frankfurtian sense as not really caring if something is true or false as long as it brings about the desired result) to get your way is not really something new. Therefore, to make postmodernism the ultimate source of such activity is wrong. If postmodernism did anything in this regard, it was to contribute to making sophistry respectable again. It is important to note that a rejection of (at least part of) modernism does not imply an embrace of postmodernism. Much of our modern, liberal sensibilities draw on Locke and Locke himself had difficulty in reconciling liberty with knowledge.
  - edco 9y ago
    (e.g., I don't understand how he relates Marxism to postmodernism) you can look at the originators of critical theory (the frankfurt school which was neo marxist)
mrkgnao 9y ago
Without taking "sides" -- I don't have a horse in the "is postmodernism true?" race -- it bears pointing out that afaict Jordan Peterson doesn't really know what he's talking about when it comes to 20th-century philosophy. Most of his views on postmodernism, and philosophy in general, make absurd claims without actually referring to any philosophical literature. He doesn't even refer to much literature critical of postmodernism (and there is lots of this). In fact, this pattern of not really knowing what he talks about could be stretched to cover basically everything but clinical psychology (which is what he works in). To quote the man himself[0], in a recent Deepak Chopra moment: > Proof itself, of any sort, is impossible, without an axiom (as Godel proved). Thus faith in God is a prerequisite for all proof. Most of his knowledge about postmodernism isn't from actually reading the texts he so dislikes; he just gets it[1] from a self-published/vanity-press book (Hicks' Explaining Postmodernism) that ... just isn't very good. From a review of the book, which could very well be applied to Peterson's videos: > Second, although it accuses (rightly I think) postmodernism of being too polemical, Hicks' text is itself an extended polemic. Instead of disproving postmodernism, Hicks dismisses it; instead of taking postmodernism seriously and analyzing it carefully on its terms, Hicks oversimplifies and trivializes it, seemingly in order to justify his own prejudice against postmodernism. If postmodernism is in fact untenable, which it very well might be, Stephen Hicks has unfortunately not demonstrated that. A quick search for his name on /r/askphilosophy will turn up a ton of reasons (from people actually working in philosophy) why anyone is -- to put it charitably -- better served engaging with other critics of postmodernism. His current popularity is largely due to the controversy around him bravely "sticking it to feminists" by daringly refusing to call trans people by their preferred pronouns. Another reason is his conspiracy-theorizing on "cultural Marxism", > 'Cultural Marxism' in modern political parlance refers to a conspiracy theory which sees the Frankfurt School as part of an ongoing movement to take over and destroy Western society.[2] both of which find favor with a section of the right today. -- [0]: https://twitter.com/jordanbpeterson/status/405200126236311554 https://twitter.com/jordanbpeterson/status/40520012623631155... [1]: https://www.reddit.com/r/askphilosophy/comments/6n6rhg/why_are_jordan_petersons_philosophical_opinions/dk797lw/ https://www.reddit.com/r/askphilosophy/comments/6n6rhg/why_a... [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankfurt_School#Cultural_Marxism_conspiracy_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankfurt_School#Cultural_Marx...
d--b 9y ago
Postmodern thinkers are not preventing anyone from speaking, are they? You don't have to like Derrida today, and it's perfectly fine to disagree with Deleuze, Guattari or Fanon... What's this about? This sounds to me that Peterson is pissed because people in humanities tend to oppose capitalism. But I think that's mostly because people in humanities have a role in criticizing the system in which we live, instead of trumpeting to the world that what Western societies have achieved is the best thing humans have ever created...
- lliamander 9y ago
  > Postmodern thinkers are not preventing anyone from speaking, are they? You don't have to like Derrida today, and it's perfectly fine to disagree with Deleuze, Guattari or Fanon... Depends on who you include under the definition of "postmodern thinkers". I don't hear a whole lot of noise coming from Academic Philosophers per se, but the intellectual heirs of the postmodernists as expressed in the social sciences and various intersectional "studies" programs certainly seem to make a big deal of deplatforming people these days. > This sounds to me that Peterson is pissed because people in humanities tend to oppose capitalism. No. he tells you why he is mad, why invent reasons? He is mad because of the lack of gratitude at the improvements in absolute standard of living (even though he admits that relative inequality is a problem). As a clinical counselor for many years he has seen the harms caused by persistent resentment. He is mad because his colleagues in the humanities and social sciences have, in recent decades, consistently opposed the free exchange of ideas on college campuses. He is far from the only academic to voice such concerns[0]. He is mad because of the dearth of good scholarship in the humanities and social sciences. [0]https://heterodoxacademy.org/ https://heterodoxacademy.org/
raldu 9y ago
The speaker in the quoted video miserably fails to provide a balanced stance. It's full of reductionist rhetoric, hostility and provocation where his angry comments are greeted with applauses. So both the listeners and the speaker already seem to have a "view" on postmodernism. How could such an hostility be a "great" video on postmodernism?
daptaq 9y ago
Peterson is one of tre most repulsive figures in modern (political/philosophical) discourse, in my eyes. His strawmen only make sense if you either know nothing about any most modern theorists or philosophy in general or if you need some narrative to sustain your beliefs that (((something))) went wrong. In short, besides being absolutely no authority on the issue, extremely emotional most of the time, he's constantly trying to push the story that "his side" is the rational, sane and logical , while everyone he opposes can be put into a nice linear group from Marx over Lenin & Stalin to Derrida and the rest of the "post modernists". And at the risk of being dismissed as a paranoid, I'm going to point out that there is a certain anti-semitic undertone to all of this, just like with the "cultural Marxism" conspiracy, that has surprising parallels to Peterson's story. It might not be his main point, or any point part of his actual argument at all, but his proud fanbase of "Kekistanis, Pepe memers, alt-right Nazis"[0], sure might. And regarding this said fanbase, the fact that they're de facto paying him ~$60.000 a month[1] to play their intellectual "red piller", will probably not help him become more objective, if you ask me. As a great antidote I'd recommend Rick Roderick's lectures[2], since already back in the 80's the same arguments were being put out against these alleged horrible post modernists, treating them as some destoryers of civilisation. In short, he's a hack. [0] https://twitter.com/jordanbpeterson/status/871940438546157569 https://twitter.com/jordanbpeterson/status/87194043854615756..., http://kekistan.wikia.com/wiki/Jordan_Peterson http://kekistan.wikia.com/wiki/Jordan_Peterson [1] https://www.patreon.com/jordanbpeterson https://www.patreon.com/jordanbpeterson [2] http://rickroderick.org/ http://rickroderick.org/

paulpauper 9y ago

hmm Peterson's analysis of postmodernism may be reductionist. It's only a single facet of postmodernism, but postmodernism is more like a 'condition' that can affect both the 'left' and the 'right' . For example, both the left and the right question whether modernity is always an unalloyed 'good' http://greyenlightenment.com/defending-postmodernism/ http://greyenlightenment.com/defending-postmodernism/ Likewise, many on the far-right oppose ‘Whig history’, a historical narrative that posits the inevitability and desirability of liberty and enlightenment values, culminating in modern forms of liberal democracy and constitutional monarchy. The same for Francis Fukuyama and the inevitability of liberal democracy, what he called ‘the end of history’. Peterson says postmodernists don't engage in debate but that is also false. There is footage of Foucault debating Noam Chomsky.

danielam 9y ago
Petereson appears to be confused about the subject matter (e.g., I don't understand how he relates Marxism to postmodernism). Furthermore, he himself draws on postmodernist ideas. I don't think he's a good source for philosophical insight, even if we can broadly agree with him about what are the worrying trends, e.g., on campuses, in politics, etc, even if for reasons other than his. Also, agree w.r.t. the right/left distinction being meaningless where this phenomenon is concerned. For example, the whole "post-truth" condition is now very pervasive across the political spectrum. Someone who remembers their Socrates and his spat with the sophists will recall that bullshitting (understood in the Frankfurtian sense as not really caring if something is true or false as long as it brings about the desired result) to get your way is not really something new. Therefore, to make postmodernism the ultimate source of such activity is wrong. If postmodernism did anything in this regard, it was to contribute to making sophistry respectable again. It is important to note that a rejection of (at least part of) modernism does not imply an embrace of postmodernism. Much of our modern, liberal sensibilities draw on Locke and Locke himself had difficulty in reconciling liberty with knowledge.
- edco 9y ago
  (e.g., I don't understand how he relates Marxism to postmodernism) you can look at the originators of critical theory (the frankfurt school which was neo marxist)

mrkgnao 9y ago

Without taking "sides" -- I don't have a horse in the "is postmodernism true?" race -- it bears pointing out that afaict Jordan Peterson doesn't really know what he's talking about when it comes to 20th-century philosophy. Most of his views on postmodernism, and philosophy in general, make absurd claims without actually referring to any philosophical literature. He doesn't even refer to much literature critical of postmodernism (and there is lots of this). In fact, this pattern of not really knowing what he talks about could be stretched to cover basically everything but clinical psychology (which is what he works in). To quote the man himself[0], in a recent Deepak Chopra moment: > Proof itself, of any sort, is impossible, without an axiom (as Godel proved). Thus faith in God is a prerequisite for all proof. Most of his knowledge about postmodernism isn't from actually reading the texts he so dislikes; he just gets it[1] from a self-published/vanity-press book (Hicks' Explaining Postmodernism) that ... just isn't very good. From a review of the book, which could very well be applied to Peterson's videos: > Second, although it accuses (rightly I think) postmodernism of being too polemical, Hicks' text is itself an extended polemic. Instead of disproving postmodernism, Hicks dismisses it; instead of taking postmodernism seriously and analyzing it carefully on its terms, Hicks oversimplifies and trivializes it, seemingly in order to justify his own prejudice against postmodernism. If postmodernism is in fact untenable, which it very well might be, Stephen Hicks has unfortunately not demonstrated that. A quick search for his name on /r/askphilosophy will turn up a ton of reasons (from people actually working in philosophy) why anyone is -- to put it charitably -- better served engaging with other critics of postmodernism. His current popularity is largely due to the controversy around him bravely "sticking it to feminists" by daringly refusing to call trans people by their preferred pronouns. Another reason is his conspiracy-theorizing on "cultural Marxism", > 'Cultural Marxism' in modern political parlance refers to a conspiracy theory which sees the Frankfurt School as part of an ongoing movement to take over and destroy Western society.[2] both of which find favor with a section of the right today. -- [0]: https://twitter.com/jordanbpeterson/status/405200126236311554 https://twitter.com/jordanbpeterson/status/40520012623631155... [1]: https://www.reddit.com/r/askphilosophy/comments/6n6rhg/why_are_jordan_petersons_philosophical_opinions/dk797lw/ https://www.reddit.com/r/askphilosophy/comments/6n6rhg/why_a... [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankfurt_School#Cultural_Marxism_conspiracy_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankfurt_School#Cultural_Marx...

d--b 9y ago

Postmodern thinkers are not preventing anyone from speaking, are they? You don't have to like Derrida today, and it's perfectly fine to disagree with Deleuze, Guattari or Fanon... What's this about? This sounds to me that Peterson is pissed because people in humanities tend to oppose capitalism. But I think that's mostly because people in humanities have a role in criticizing the system in which we live, instead of trumpeting to the world that what Western societies have achieved is the best thing humans have ever created...

lliamander 9y ago
> Postmodern thinkers are not preventing anyone from speaking, are they? You don't have to like Derrida today, and it's perfectly fine to disagree with Deleuze, Guattari or Fanon... Depends on who you include under the definition of "postmodern thinkers". I don't hear a whole lot of noise coming from Academic Philosophers per se, but the intellectual heirs of the postmodernists as expressed in the social sciences and various intersectional "studies" programs certainly seem to make a big deal of deplatforming people these days. > This sounds to me that Peterson is pissed because people in humanities tend to oppose capitalism. No. he tells you why he is mad, why invent reasons? He is mad because of the lack of gratitude at the improvements in absolute standard of living (even though he admits that relative inequality is a problem). As a clinical counselor for many years he has seen the harms caused by persistent resentment. He is mad because his colleagues in the humanities and social sciences have, in recent decades, consistently opposed the free exchange of ideas on college campuses. He is far from the only academic to voice such concerns[0]. He is mad because of the dearth of good scholarship in the humanities and social sciences. [0]https://heterodoxacademy.org/ https://heterodoxacademy.org/

raldu 9y ago

The speaker in the quoted video miserably fails to provide a balanced stance. It's full of reductionist rhetoric, hostility and provocation where his angry comments are greeted with applauses. So both the listeners and the speaker already seem to have a "view" on postmodernism. How could such an hostility be a "great" video on postmodernism?

daptaq 9y ago

Peterson is one of tre most repulsive figures in modern (political/philosophical) discourse, in my eyes. His strawmen only make sense if you either know nothing about any most modern theorists or philosophy in general or if you need some narrative to sustain your beliefs that (((something))) went wrong. In short, besides being absolutely no authority on the issue, extremely emotional most of the time, he's constantly trying to push the story that "his side" is the rational, sane and logical , while everyone he opposes can be put into a nice linear group from Marx over Lenin & Stalin to Derrida and the rest of the "post modernists". And at the risk of being dismissed as a paranoid, I'm going to point out that there is a certain anti-semitic undertone to all of this, just like with the "cultural Marxism" conspiracy, that has surprising parallels to Peterson's story. It might not be his main point, or any point part of his actual argument at all, but his proud fanbase of "Kekistanis, Pepe memers, alt-right Nazis"[0], sure might. And regarding this said fanbase, the fact that they're de facto paying him ~$60.000 a month[1] to play their intellectual "red piller", will probably not help him become more objective, if you ask me. As a great antidote I'd recommend Rick Roderick's lectures[2], since already back in the 80's the same arguments were being put out against these alleged horrible post modernists, treating them as some destoryers of civilisation. In short, he's a hack. [0] https://twitter.com/jordanbpeterson/status/871940438546157569 https://twitter.com/jordanbpeterson/status/87194043854615756..., http://kekistan.wikia.com/wiki/Jordan_Peterson http://kekistan.wikia.com/wiki/Jordan_Peterson [1] https://www.patreon.com/jordanbpeterson https://www.patreon.com/jordanbpeterson [2] http://rickroderick.org/ http://rickroderick.org/