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What is often lost since Peterson became "famous" after the whole gender pronoun controversy is the quality and depth of his thinking and lecturing that was alr

What is often lost since Peterson became "famous" after the whole gender pronoun controversy is the quality and depth of his thinking and lecturing that was already available on YouTube. This article starts with that, and explains his popularity as a teacher at Harvard and Toronto. I had been watching his lectures for about a year before the pronoun issue, and his ideas are fascinating and deep. They tie together many disparate fields and ideas into an original and interesting synthesis. But that synthesis is complex, nuanced, and requires a lot of time to think about. There are problems with it, and it deserves to be criticized (Peterson would be the first to agree). There are also profound insights that can help elevate your thinking if you can incorporate them. Lots of people don't have the intellectual background or ability to do so. But everyone can form a 2 second hot take on one of his more recent controversial statements, so that is what gets discussed.

stcredzero 9y ago
But that synthesis is complex, nuanced, and requires a lot of time to think about. You can think of Jordan Peterson as going just a bit farther than Sam Harris, when Sam Harris says that we should learn from religion by practicing things like meditation. Jordan Peterson comes from the position that things like myth and religion co-evolved with human beings and human society. Even if the literal epistemology of religion and myth is dead wrong on the conscious/rational/scientific level, it still contains insights into the nature of human beings' self regulation because of that co-evolution. Often, these things operate at below the level of consciousness, as we would expect such things to, given that they co-evolved with us from a time before sentient consciousness.
mywittyname 9y ago
I was quite surprised to discover that the alt-right venerate him. I got the impression that he was pretty liberal. I mean, I support LGBTQ rights, but don't agree that people should be forced to use appropriate gender pronouns. I thoroughly enjoyed his old lectures, but I've avoided watching any of his newer stuff for fear of finding out if he's begun to pander to his (largely) awful followers.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- krick 9y ago
  It's not as much "alt-right venerate him", as his ("alt-left", I guss?) opponents like to mark him "alt-right" for no reason other than he is not as "left" as they are.
  - mywittyname 9y ago
    Based on the recent YT comments on his videos (and the titles of clip compilations of his lectures), the alt-right definitely appear to hold him up as some figure head. I definitely get frustrated when I hear people on the left call him dangerous. I feel like these aren't even "alt" left people either, it sounds like they are largely plain old liberals who never heard of him, and blindly toss him in with the like of Steve Bannon.
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
    - qbaqbaqba 9y ago
      You may find some "alt-right" comments on some of Slavoj Žižek 's videos.
- jnbiche 9y ago
  > I thoroughly enjoyed his old lectures, but I've avoided watching any of his newer stuff for fear of finding out if he's begun to pander to his (largely) awful followers. I think he did pander a bit, but then realized how far to the right many of those followers were, so drew a clear line in the sand that pissed off and alienated all the fascists and racists (something about ethnic nationalism being an "idiotic ideology" or words to that effect). Peterson is no alt rightist. However, if you look at places like /r/JordanPeterson, most of his followers were more alienated centrist and liberals than the alt rightists even before he made clear exactly how he felt about the far right/alt right.
nicolashahn 9y ago
For those interested in his non-gender identity content: His series on the Bible: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f-wWBGo6a2w&index=1&list=PL22J3VaeABQD_IZs7y60I3lUrrFTzkpat https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f-wWBGo6a2w&index=1&list=PL2... is generally regarded (by those I know, at least) as Jordan at his best. He goes through the first few stories in the Bible and tries to bring meaning to them, not from the fundamental Christian lens of "this is absolute truth," but more like: "Here are some archetypal patterns about the world and how to act in it that our ancestors have discovered over thousands of years and distilled into stories. Maybe they hold truth that isn't the 'word of God' truth, but observations about the world that have utility to us even as a modern, rational, scientific civilization. I'll back this up by tying it to studies on psychology, neuroscience, evolution, and animal behavior, and show that variations of the same archetypal stories appear in non-Judeo-Christian societies all over the world." You can be a hardline atheist and still get tons of value out of these lectures. I also found his 2017 Maps of Meaning lectures particularly interesting, and personally more relevant: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I8Xc2_FtpHI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I8Xc2_FtpHI He does a similar thing with the story of Pinocchio instead of the Bible for the first few lectures, which might be more palatable for some. There's a lot of overlap with the Bible series as well.

stcredzero 9y ago

But that synthesis is complex, nuanced, and requires a lot of time to think about. You can think of Jordan Peterson as going just a bit farther than Sam Harris, when Sam Harris says that we should learn from religion by practicing things like meditation. Jordan Peterson comes from the position that things like myth and religion co-evolved with human beings and human society. Even if the literal epistemology of religion and myth is dead wrong on the conscious/rational/scientific level, it still contains insights into the nature of human beings' self regulation because of that co-evolution. Often, these things operate at below the level of consciousness, as we would expect such things to, given that they co-evolved with us from a time before sentient consciousness.

mywittyname 9y ago

I was quite surprised to discover that the alt-right venerate him. I got the impression that he was pretty liberal. I mean, I support LGBTQ rights, but don't agree that people should be forced to use appropriate gender pronouns. I thoroughly enjoyed his old lectures, but I've avoided watching any of his newer stuff for fear of finding out if he's begun to pander to his (largely) awful followers.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
krick 9y ago
It's not as much "alt-right venerate him", as his ("alt-left", I guss?) opponents like to mark him "alt-right" for no reason other than he is not as "left" as they are.
- mywittyname 9y ago
  Based on the recent YT comments on his videos (and the titles of clip compilations of his lectures), the alt-right definitely appear to hold him up as some figure head. I definitely get frustrated when I hear people on the left call him dangerous. I feel like these aren't even "alt" left people either, it sounds like they are largely plain old liberals who never heard of him, and blindly toss him in with the like of Steve Bannon.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - qbaqbaqba 9y ago
    You may find some "alt-right" comments on some of Slavoj Žižek 's videos.
jnbiche 9y ago
> I thoroughly enjoyed his old lectures, but I've avoided watching any of his newer stuff for fear of finding out if he's begun to pander to his (largely) awful followers. I think he did pander a bit, but then realized how far to the right many of those followers were, so drew a clear line in the sand that pissed off and alienated all the fascists and racists (something about ethnic nationalism being an "idiotic ideology" or words to that effect). Peterson is no alt rightist. However, if you look at places like /r/JordanPeterson, most of his followers were more alienated centrist and liberals than the alt rightists even before he made clear exactly how he felt about the far right/alt right.

nicolashahn 9y ago

For those interested in his non-gender identity content: His series on the Bible: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f-wWBGo6a2w&index=1&list=PL22J3VaeABQD_IZs7y60I3lUrrFTzkpat https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f-wWBGo6a2w&index=1&list=PL2... is generally regarded (by those I know, at least) as Jordan at his best. He goes through the first few stories in the Bible and tries to bring meaning to them, not from the fundamental Christian lens of "this is absolute truth," but more like: "Here are some archetypal patterns about the world and how to act in it that our ancestors have discovered over thousands of years and distilled into stories. Maybe they hold truth that isn't the 'word of God' truth, but observations about the world that have utility to us even as a modern, rational, scientific civilization. I'll back this up by tying it to studies on psychology, neuroscience, evolution, and animal behavior, and show that variations of the same archetypal stories appear in non-Judeo-Christian societies all over the world." You can be a hardline atheist and still get tons of value out of these lectures. I also found his 2017 Maps of Meaning lectures particularly interesting, and personally more relevant: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I8Xc2_FtpHI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I8Xc2_FtpHI He does a similar thing with the story of Pinocchio instead of the Bible for the first few lectures, which might be more palatable for some. There's a lot of overlap with the Bible series as well.