5 ms·

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

by 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.
    - phaus 8y ago
      I didn't say he's malicious. I'm saying he isn't insightful or original. He has nothing meaningful to say that everyone doesn't already know. He just phrases it incomprehensibly and vaguely because he's trying to make a living selling books and giving self-help talks. You are apparently upset that everything turns into a team sport with the left on one side and conservatives on another. Well, you're the one doing that here. I was basing my opinion of him on his own words, written and spoken. I have pretty moderate political beliefs and I don't really see how they pertain to a conversation about a guy that writes self-help books.
- jstarfish 8y ago
  This is the hallmark of cult (or any organized religion's) literature. Also how therapists operate. Be vague, and let your customers project the meanings onto your words that they most want to hear. If you actually gave people answers, their quest for meaning would be complete and they wont come back next week. You lose engagement.
  - deno 8y ago
    How do you manage to put the blame on the person cited out of context instead of on the journalists, whose job it actually was to verify such things? I don’t know the exact context for the original statement, but the linked explanation video[1], which is only three minutes long, is very straightforward and exhaustive, and not at all vague as you claim. Mostly it just irks me, as I have seen many people I respect given this treatment, but it has always been by the intellectually dishonest, including in fact in cult literature, with which I unfortunately have some personal experience. The fact that this is now the new norm in mainstream press is very concerning. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yn60-8Ql_44 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yn60-8Ql_44
  - paulddraper 8y ago
    > Be vague Then it would seem Peterson is doing poorly at being a cult leader. :/ "On the New York Times and 'Enforced Monogamy'" https://jordanbpeterson.com/media/on-the-new-york-times-and-enforced-monogamy/ https://jordanbpeterson.com/media/on-the-new-york-times-and-...
- throwwit 8y ago
  My take so far (with limited research) is that Peterson is trying to evoke debate on the issues in a centrist fashion reminiscent of Plato and his cave. The ‘shapes’ of traditional societal structures are being bound to new normals on the ‘wall’ of the human condition; solving this jig-saw of a problem necessitates open debate & negotiation.
  - da_chicken 8y ago
    That seems reasonable. I think he spent so much time in a classroom that it's colored his speaking. He's too used to leading students to the point that he's trying to make and waiting for them to make the final leap of logic instead of just saying what he's trying to say.
sanderjd 8y ago
Is there a transcript or other textual artifact of his explanation for what he meant? I'm pretty tired of slogging through these tedious videos of these people pontificating at us while talking to each other.
- dahdum 8y ago
  He responded to the NYT article. https://jordanbpeterson.com/media/on-the-new-york-times-and-enforced-monogamy/ https://jordanbpeterson.com/media/on-the-new-york-times-and-...
  - sanderjd 8y ago
    Thanks for the link!
ordinaryradical 8y ago
It’s pretty interesting to see so many people in this thread repeating the claims of the NYT Op-Ed as fact as though Jordan Peterson is some far right ghoul. From what I’ve read of him, he seems pretty classically liberal and small c conservative, but because he made the pronoun thing an issue of free speech the assumption is that he’s some far right crusader. Normally I think the Times is pretty solid, but they led with this distorted claim equating enforced monogamy with female slavery (irresponsibly, I think) and seem unable to rationally parse what Peterson is saying because of his infamy for being on the “wrong” side of the pronoun debate. It’s a symptom of the age that no one wants to do the work of thinking through what people say and it’s exactly this looseness and lack of critical assessment that, ironically, permits demagogues to say and do outrageous things.

by redka 8y ago

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.
  - phaus 8y ago
    I didn't say he's malicious. I'm saying he isn't insightful or original. He has nothing meaningful to say that everyone doesn't already know. He just phrases it incomprehensibly and vaguely because he's trying to make a living selling books and giving self-help talks. You are apparently upset that everything turns into a team sport with the left on one side and conservatives on another. Well, you're the one doing that here. I was basing my opinion of him on his own words, written and spoken. I have pretty moderate political beliefs and I don't really see how they pertain to a conversation about a guy that writes self-help books.
jstarfish 8y ago
This is the hallmark of cult (or any organized religion's) literature. Also how therapists operate. Be vague, and let your customers project the meanings onto your words that they most want to hear. If you actually gave people answers, their quest for meaning would be complete and they wont come back next week. You lose engagement.
- deno 8y ago
  How do you manage to put the blame on the person cited out of context instead of on the journalists, whose job it actually was to verify such things? I don’t know the exact context for the original statement, but the linked explanation video[1], which is only three minutes long, is very straightforward and exhaustive, and not at all vague as you claim. Mostly it just irks me, as I have seen many people I respect given this treatment, but it has always been by the intellectually dishonest, including in fact in cult literature, with which I unfortunately have some personal experience. The fact that this is now the new norm in mainstream press is very concerning. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yn60-8Ql_44 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yn60-8Ql_44
- paulddraper 8y ago
  > Be vague Then it would seem Peterson is doing poorly at being a cult leader. :/ "On the New York Times and 'Enforced Monogamy'" https://jordanbpeterson.com/media/on-the-new-york-times-and-enforced-monogamy/ https://jordanbpeterson.com/media/on-the-new-york-times-and-...
throwwit 8y ago
My take so far (with limited research) is that Peterson is trying to evoke debate on the issues in a centrist fashion reminiscent of Plato and his cave. The ‘shapes’ of traditional societal structures are being bound to new normals on the ‘wall’ of the human condition; solving this jig-saw of a problem necessitates open debate & negotiation.
- da_chicken 8y ago
  That seems reasonable. I think he spent so much time in a classroom that it's colored his speaking. He's too used to leading students to the point that he's trying to make and waiting for them to make the final leap of logic instead of just saying what he's trying to say.

sanderjd 8y ago

Is there a transcript or other textual artifact of his explanation for what he meant? I'm pretty tired of slogging through these tedious videos of these people pontificating at us while talking to each other.

dahdum 8y ago
He responded to the NYT article. https://jordanbpeterson.com/media/on-the-new-york-times-and-enforced-monogamy/ https://jordanbpeterson.com/media/on-the-new-york-times-and-...
- sanderjd 8y ago
  Thanks for the link!

ordinaryradical 8y ago

It’s pretty interesting to see so many people in this thread repeating the claims of the NYT Op-Ed as fact as though Jordan Peterson is some far right ghoul. From what I’ve read of him, he seems pretty classically liberal and small c conservative, but because he made the pronoun thing an issue of free speech the assumption is that he’s some far right crusader. Normally I think the Times is pretty solid, but they led with this distorted claim equating enforced monogamy with female slavery (irresponsibly, I think) and seem unable to rationally parse what Peterson is saying because of his infamy for being on the “wrong” side of the pronoun debate. It’s a symptom of the age that no one wants to do the work of thinking through what people say and it’s exactly this looseness and lack of critical assessment that, ironically, permits demagogues to say and do outrageous things.