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>”enforced monogamy” from e.g. blowhard academics Are academics advocating wholesale monogamy? That’s usually the field of organized religion.

by erric 8y ago

jjevanoorschot 8y ago
Jordan Peterson said this in a recent interview.
knuththetruth 8y ago
Jordan Peterson did in a recent interview. Although he’s a university professor, it’s probably unfair to paint him as an academic when he’s devolved into a transparent charlatan.
hh3k0 8y ago
They are referring to Jordan Peterson. He said something along those lines in a recent interview. I haven't read the interview, though, so I don't know the context.
- ChristianBundy 8y ago
  Jordan Peterson is a blowhard conservative who's had more success wooing impressionable edgy teenagers than any actual academic pursuits. I don't understand how anyone takes him or his ideas seriously.
  - dragonwriter 8y ago
    Most of the people I've seen praising and recommending him have pointed mainly to videos on YouTube; video is, in communicating ideas, very poor for informing and very powerful for emotional engagement. This isn't widely recognized (it's not something AFAICT well covered in regular education on source evaluation, critical thinking, etc.), which was mildly bad when TV news was becoming dominant, but there was still a pretty strong production and distribution barrier. In the age where every crank with a crackpot idea can, at basically no marginal upfront cost, produce videos and distribute them globally, it's one of the most important things to understand in approaching media.
    - cm2012 8y ago
      Absolutely true. This is also why documentaries are generally awful truth telling mediums.
    - deno 8y ago
      There’s a big difference between edited videos and conference/lecture recordings.
  - Reedx 8y ago
    Er, no, he's actually a classical liberal. Specifically "classic British liberal". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhEG69ZGwUI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhEG69ZGwUI In regards to academics - he taught at Harvard and University of Toronto for decades, has written books and released hundreds of hours of lectures for free.
    - dragonwriter 8y ago
      The centrist wings of both modern American conservatism and liberalism are both grounded in classical liberalism (the language is different in most of the rest of the West, where liberalism tends to be classical liberalism but widely recognized as a center-right position), so even if true, that wouldn't rebut that he is a modern conservative. Peterson, OTOH, seems to be a common modern conservative blend of elements from classical liberalism and classic conservatism with modern scientific-sounding rationalization for the classically conservative elements.
  - mjfl 8y ago
    actually, he's a tenured professor at UToronto, has 9600 citations, and ran a clinical psychiatry practice for 20 years - including some time at Harvard. So, he's had more success at academic pursuits than like 99.99% of people. The fact that the opposite of what you just said is true, and the truth could have been found a keystroke away on Wikipedia tells me that you consume information from very biased sources and don't question it at all.
- paulddraper 8y ago
  He said the phrase "enforced monogomy" (in a positive context) and everyone lost their shit. > My motivated critics couldn’t contain their joyful glee this week at discovering my hypothetical support for a Handmaid’s Tale-type patriarchal social structure > “enforced monogamy” does not mean government-enforced monogamy. “Enforced monogamy” means socially-promoted, culturally-inculcated monogamy, as opposed to genetic monogamy – evolutionarily-dictated monogamy, which does exist in some species (but does not exist in humans). This distinction has been present in anthropological and scientific literature for decades. Basically...traditional (voluntary) marriage. You know, the millenia-old religious/societal contact "to love, honor, cherish and protect him/her, forsaking all others and holding only unto him/her" Faced with the decision to interpret Peterson's phrase as dsytopian lobster-like social structure, or pedestrian traditional marriage, the author and others assumed the less plausible interpretation. [1] https://jordanbpeterson.com/media/on-the-new-york-times-and-enforced-monogamy/ https://jordanbpeterson.com/media/on-the-new-york-times-and-...
smhost 8y ago
They're talking specifically about Jordan Peterson, and he sees himself as a high priest who is a literal embodiment of Jesus Christ, rising to the top of the universal dominance hierarchy. He is signaling to his low status followers that he would redistribute sex if he were in power. If you think I'm making this up or being hyperbolic, watch his 100s of hours worth of lectures on YouTube. Even if you think this is utterly ridiculous, there are millions of people who will follow this man to their deaths.
- jrs95 8y ago
  Meanwhile 4chan & company has taken to calling him “Juden Peterstein”...so it seems his appeal is primarily limited to the kinda-sorta-far-right. Personally, seeing the guy talk makes me feel sleepy.
  - dahdum 8y ago
    Peterson is fervently pro free speech and against politically correct culture, so unsurprising 4chan is smitten. He’s not right wing himself though, he’s a classical liberal with libertarian leanings. I think of him more like Bill Maher without the comedy.
    - enimodas 8y ago
      You misunderstand, 4chan doesn't like him. Maybe also see https://www.thestar.com/opinion/2018/05/25/i-was-jordan-petersons-strongest-supporter-now-i-think-hes-dangerous.html https://www.thestar.com/opinion/2018/05/25/i-was-jordan-pete... for how his pro free speech is only on a case by case basis.
      - dahdum 8y ago
        I read that and don’t see the inconsistency with regards to free speech. If he did call for budget reductions on universities that do not protect it, that’s logically consistent with supporting free speech even if the budget reduction caused less (in his view) non-free speech. As an American I can’t wrap my head around the Canadian acceptance of criminal penalties to compel speech, based on the evolving views of an extrajudicial tribunal. It’s terrifying to have that power in the hands of the far right or far left.
blattimwind 8y ago
Emphasis on "blowhard"
redka 8y ago
Jordan Peterson, whose being referenced here explained what he meant[0] and it doesn't seem unreasonable. It's uncharitable to jump to a conclusion here without going beyond our presuppositions. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yn60-8Ql_44 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yn60-8Ql_44
- da_chicken 8y ago
  Peterson seems to have a knack for not explaining himself well and expecting people to just understand where he's coming from. He's also really bad at phrasing. He constantly seems to get into hot water for what he says, and then if you try to figure out what he says he actually said it's never for what we're told he says. I think he'd do much better if he wrote more books and had a really good editor.
  - cm2012 8y ago
    He is purposefully obtuse, so that wouldn't help. This way, hard core incels can believe he means the more extreme options, and he has plausible deniability for journalists.
    - deno 8y ago
      You’re talking about a “dog whistle.”[1] That’s quite an accusation to make without providing any evidence. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog-whistle_politics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog-whistle_politics
  - phaus 8y ago
    Peterson doesn't want a really good editor. His books are known for being intentionally vague and incomprehensible while sounding clever and insightful, but in a way where most people can never really prove that he intended to make a statement about anything.
    - da_chicken 8y ago
      "You're ambiguous therefore you're malicious"? Yeah, I don't buy that he's being intentionally vague primarily because he will explain what he means when people ask him to explain himself in more detail. It's just that everybody knee-jerks today. Every time I've seen an article about Peterson -- which, to be fair, has been all of three times so I'm not particularly well read -- it's saying he's done something or said something horrible. When I dig up what he actually said to get the context -- something that no article has ever done -- I'm usually left with a different interpretation or still being unsure what he was trying to say. When I look for Peterson's own explanations, they make sense to me and they're still consistent with what he originally said. Now, I don't agree with, well, hardly any of his points, but they're typically consistent even though the media consistently says they're not. It strikes me more along the lines of how once James Damore, the guy who wrote the Google memo, was labelled anti-left and anti-feminist, it was just accepted that everything he said was immediately wrong and his entire argument was assumed to be the least favorable position. Nobody tried to actually read his memo and address those arguments. It could be interpreted as anti-left and anti-feminist there for it must be anti-left and anti-feminist and that engineer must be ceaselessly attacked for not toeing the cultural line even if he had good points. It's like someone just gets labelled as an enemy and then it's red vs blue, left vs right, up vs down, and everybody has to be hardline anti-center lest you be labelled with that scarlet letter R or D. It's so intellectually dishonest. It's exactly what we used to blame Fox News and the religious right for doing! As someone who has been liberal and left their whole life, this recent behavior of mistaking character assassination and vitriolic reprisal for criticism has been one of the most disappointing and frustrating changes I've seen.
ggg9990 8y ago
Academics certainly study how the end of societal norms such as monogamy impact those societies, although this kind of research is pooh-poohed by the large group of people who believe that all societal norms are worthless.

>”enforced monogamy” from e.g. blowhard academics Are academics advocating wholesale monogamy? That’s usually the field of organized religion.

by erric 8y ago

>”enforced monogamy” from e.g. blowhard academics Are academics advocating wholesale monogamy? That’s usually the field of organized religion.

jjevanoorschot 8y ago

Jordan Peterson said this in a recent interview.

knuththetruth 8y ago

Jordan Peterson did in a recent interview. Although he’s a university professor, it’s probably unfair to paint him as an academic when he’s devolved into a transparent charlatan.

hh3k0 8y ago

They are referring to Jordan Peterson. He said something along those lines in a recent interview. I haven't read the interview, though, so I don't know the context.

ChristianBundy 8y ago
Jordan Peterson is a blowhard conservative who's had more success wooing impressionable edgy teenagers than any actual academic pursuits. I don't understand how anyone takes him or his ideas seriously.
- dragonwriter 8y ago
  Most of the people I've seen praising and recommending him have pointed mainly to videos on YouTube; video is, in communicating ideas, very poor for informing and very powerful for emotional engagement. This isn't widely recognized (it's not something AFAICT well covered in regular education on source evaluation, critical thinking, etc.), which was mildly bad when TV news was becoming dominant, but there was still a pretty strong production and distribution barrier. In the age where every crank with a crackpot idea can, at basically no marginal upfront cost, produce videos and distribute them globally, it's one of the most important things to understand in approaching media.
  - cm2012 8y ago
    Absolutely true. This is also why documentaries are generally awful truth telling mediums.
  - deno 8y ago
    There’s a big difference between edited videos and conference/lecture recordings.
- Reedx 8y ago
  Er, no, he's actually a classical liberal. Specifically "classic British liberal". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhEG69ZGwUI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhEG69ZGwUI In regards to academics - he taught at Harvard and University of Toronto for decades, has written books and released hundreds of hours of lectures for free.
  - dragonwriter 8y ago
    The centrist wings of both modern American conservatism and liberalism are both grounded in classical liberalism (the language is different in most of the rest of the West, where liberalism tends to be classical liberalism but widely recognized as a center-right position), so even if true, that wouldn't rebut that he is a modern conservative. Peterson, OTOH, seems to be a common modern conservative blend of elements from classical liberalism and classic conservatism with modern scientific-sounding rationalization for the classically conservative elements.
- mjfl 8y ago
  actually, he's a tenured professor at UToronto, has 9600 citations, and ran a clinical psychiatry practice for 20 years - including some time at Harvard. So, he's had more success at academic pursuits than like 99.99% of people. The fact that the opposite of what you just said is true, and the truth could have been found a keystroke away on Wikipedia tells me that you consume information from very biased sources and don't question it at all.
paulddraper 8y ago
He said the phrase "enforced monogomy" (in a positive context) and everyone lost their shit. > My motivated critics couldn’t contain their joyful glee this week at discovering my hypothetical support for a Handmaid’s Tale-type patriarchal social structure > “enforced monogamy” does not mean government-enforced monogamy. “Enforced monogamy” means socially-promoted, culturally-inculcated monogamy, as opposed to genetic monogamy – evolutionarily-dictated monogamy, which does exist in some species (but does not exist in humans). This distinction has been present in anthropological and scientific literature for decades. Basically...traditional (voluntary) marriage. You know, the millenia-old religious/societal contact "to love, honor, cherish and protect him/her, forsaking all others and holding only unto him/her" Faced with the decision to interpret Peterson's phrase as dsytopian lobster-like social structure, or pedestrian traditional marriage, the author and others assumed the less plausible interpretation. [1] https://jordanbpeterson.com/media/on-the-new-york-times-and-enforced-monogamy/ https://jordanbpeterson.com/media/on-the-new-york-times-and-...

smhost 8y ago

They're talking specifically about Jordan Peterson, and he sees himself as a high priest who is a literal embodiment of Jesus Christ, rising to the top of the universal dominance hierarchy. He is signaling to his low status followers that he would redistribute sex if he were in power. If you think I'm making this up or being hyperbolic, watch his 100s of hours worth of lectures on YouTube. Even if you think this is utterly ridiculous, there are millions of people who will follow this man to their deaths.

jrs95 8y ago
Meanwhile 4chan & company has taken to calling him “Juden Peterstein”...so it seems his appeal is primarily limited to the kinda-sorta-far-right. Personally, seeing the guy talk makes me feel sleepy.
- dahdum 8y ago
  Peterson is fervently pro free speech and against politically correct culture, so unsurprising 4chan is smitten. He’s not right wing himself though, he’s a classical liberal with libertarian leanings. I think of him more like Bill Maher without the comedy.
  - enimodas 8y ago
    You misunderstand, 4chan doesn't like him. Maybe also see https://www.thestar.com/opinion/2018/05/25/i-was-jordan-petersons-strongest-supporter-now-i-think-hes-dangerous.html https://www.thestar.com/opinion/2018/05/25/i-was-jordan-pete... for how his pro free speech is only on a case by case basis.
    - dahdum 8y ago
      I read that and don’t see the inconsistency with regards to free speech. If he did call for budget reductions on universities that do not protect it, that’s logically consistent with supporting free speech even if the budget reduction caused less (in his view) non-free speech. As an American I can’t wrap my head around the Canadian acceptance of criminal penalties to compel speech, based on the evolving views of an extrajudicial tribunal. It’s terrifying to have that power in the hands of the far right or far left.

blattimwind 8y ago

Emphasis on "blowhard"

redka 8y ago

Jordan Peterson, whose being referenced here explained what he meant[0] and it doesn't seem unreasonable. It's uncharitable to jump to a conclusion here without going beyond our presuppositions. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yn60-8Ql_44 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yn60-8Ql_44

da_chicken 8y ago
Peterson seems to have a knack for not explaining himself well and expecting people to just understand where he's coming from. He's also really bad at phrasing. He constantly seems to get into hot water for what he says, and then if you try to figure out what he says he actually said it's never for what we're told he says. I think he'd do much better if he wrote more books and had a really good editor.
- cm2012 8y ago
  He is purposefully obtuse, so that wouldn't help. This way, hard core incels can believe he means the more extreme options, and he has plausible deniability for journalists.
  - deno 8y ago
    You’re talking about a “dog whistle.”[1] That’s quite an accusation to make without providing any evidence. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog-whistle_politics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog-whistle_politics
- phaus 8y ago
  Peterson doesn't want a really good editor. His books are known for being intentionally vague and incomprehensible while sounding clever and insightful, but in a way where most people can never really prove that he intended to make a statement about anything.
  - da_chicken 8y ago
    "You're ambiguous therefore you're malicious"? Yeah, I don't buy that he's being intentionally vague primarily because he will explain what he means when people ask him to explain himself in more detail. It's just that everybody knee-jerks today. Every time I've seen an article about Peterson -- which, to be fair, has been all of three times so I'm not particularly well read -- it's saying he's done something or said something horrible. When I dig up what he actually said to get the context -- something that no article has ever done -- I'm usually left with a different interpretation or still being unsure what he was trying to say. When I look for Peterson's own explanations, they make sense to me and they're still consistent with what he originally said. Now, I don't agree with, well, hardly any of his points, but they're typically consistent even though the media consistently says they're not. It strikes me more along the lines of how once James Damore, the guy who wrote the Google memo, was labelled anti-left and anti-feminist, it was just accepted that everything he said was immediately wrong and his entire argument was assumed to be the least favorable position. Nobody tried to actually read his memo and address those arguments. It could be interpreted as anti-left and anti-feminist there for it must be anti-left and anti-feminist and that engineer must be ceaselessly attacked for not toeing the cultural line even if he had good points. It's like someone just gets labelled as an enemy and then it's red vs blue, left vs right, up vs down, and everybody has to be hardline anti-center lest you be labelled with that scarlet letter R or D. It's so intellectually dishonest. It's exactly what we used to blame Fox News and the religious right for doing! As someone who has been liberal and left their whole life, this recent behavior of mistaking character assassination and vitriolic reprisal for criticism has been one of the most disappointing and frustrating changes I've seen.

ggg9990 8y ago

Academics certainly study how the end of societal norms such as monogamy impact those societies, although this kind of research is pooh-poohed by the large group of people who believe that all societal norms are worthless.