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Though Peterson is often characterized as alt-right, I think that's quite unfair. He's often grossly mistaken about things, but doesn't believe in bigotry, nat

Though Peterson is often characterized as alt-right, I think that's quite unfair. He's often grossly mistaken about things, but doesn't believe in bigotry, nationalism, etc..

api 9y ago
I'm not sure if he makes the leap, but it's not hard to go from his soft biological determinism to "well then this is the way things should be." For example if women "don't want tough careers" then it follows that claims of discrimination by women can be dismissed as without merit. I do definitely see him as an apologist for aspects of the status quo. That being said that does not mean I'm a fan of all his detractors. There's a totalitarian strain of liberalism I don't much like either. Also... his Twitter feed contains enough alt-right material for me to see him as at least sympathetic.
- brucephillips 9y ago
  I haven't seen his twitter feed, granted. To your first point, to make that leap would be to conflate "is" and "ought". Yes, many people do make that error, but you can't accuse him of doing it when others do.
  - api 9y ago
    The is/ought issue is one of the core philosophical issues under the surface here. It goes to the heart of what it means to be a liberal (broadly defined) or a conservative. To be a conservative is to tend toward deriving "ought" from "is," or at least skepticism toward attempts to change the status quo.
    - brucephillips 9y ago
      Sure, but you can't accuse him of doing this unless he actually makes these arguments. Doing so equates to the same fallacy that intelligent design adherents make, which is that since evolution yields ugly, selfish behavior, it must be wrong, or at least we should keep our mouths shut abou tit. Peterson is just pointing out how things are, not how we should design our policies. I think he should probably be more responsible in qualifying his statements to prevent his simple minded followers from jumping to the wrong conclusions, but that's about as strong of an indictment as I think one could make against him, at least in this context.

Though Peterson is often characterized as alt-right, I think that's quite unfair. He's often grossly mistaken about things, but doesn't believe in bigotry, nationalism, etc..

api 9y ago

I'm not sure if he makes the leap, but it's not hard to go from his soft biological determinism to "well then this is the way things should be." For example if women "don't want tough careers" then it follows that claims of discrimination by women can be dismissed as without merit. I do definitely see him as an apologist for aspects of the status quo. That being said that does not mean I'm a fan of all his detractors. There's a totalitarian strain of liberalism I don't much like either. Also... his Twitter feed contains enough alt-right material for me to see him as at least sympathetic.

brucephillips 9y ago
I haven't seen his twitter feed, granted. To your first point, to make that leap would be to conflate "is" and "ought". Yes, many people do make that error, but you can't accuse him of doing it when others do.
- api 9y ago
  The is/ought issue is one of the core philosophical issues under the surface here. It goes to the heart of what it means to be a liberal (broadly defined) or a conservative. To be a conservative is to tend toward deriving "ought" from "is," or at least skepticism toward attempts to change the status quo.
  - brucephillips 9y ago
    Sure, but you can't accuse him of doing this unless he actually makes these arguments. Doing so equates to the same fallacy that intelligent design adherents make, which is that since evolution yields ugly, selfish behavior, it must be wrong, or at least we should keep our mouths shut abou tit. Peterson is just pointing out how things are, not how we should design our policies. I think he should probably be more responsible in qualifying his statements to prevent his simple minded followers from jumping to the wrong conclusions, but that's about as strong of an indictment as I think one could make against him, at least in this context.