4 ms·

One peeve of mine is these sorts of folks complaining about the popularity of people like Jordan Peterson. Sure I agree that Peterson is confused, pseudo-profou

by api 7y ago

One peeve of mine is these sorts of folks complaining about the popularity of people like Jordan Peterson. Sure I agree that Peterson is confused, pseudo-profound, and misogynistic, but maybe if academics churned out more philosophy that spoke to the concerns of real people Peterson would have less of an audience. People like him are popular because academia produces only impenetrable walls of irrelevant jargon.

n4r9 7y ago
Is it necessarily the job of academics to have superficial appeal to the layman?
Der_Einzige 7y ago
"maybe if academics churned out more philosophy that spoke to the concerns of real people Peterson would have less of an audience" Someone did. His name is Wittgenstein. Folks just don't read him. Also, real people def experience existential dread. Camus and Sartre are great reads for trying to come to terms with the possibility of infinite (but some infinities are larger than others!) freedom Real people experience oppression, which is why most of the "postmodern neo-marxists" care so much about stopping it. Real people experience ethical dilemmas, and would find a lot of utility in exploring the thoughts of Kant, JSM, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Arendt. Out of those, Kant is the only one whose sort of difficult to understand without knowing the jargon. Really this article is about how terrible contemporary French Philosophy given that the useless jargon seems only to be in their works (since Hegel anyway)
- Apocryphon 7y ago
  Kierkegaard doesn't use academic philosophy jargon, but he came up with his own, and the English translations of his work come off as cryptic and dense.
wayoutthere 7y ago
People don’t want philosophy; if they did then there are plenty of authors from Aristotle through the modern day. Existentialism is basically “how to survive in an arbitrary world that makes no sense”. It’s a fucking guidebook for the modern world built in the years before and after WW2. People en masse want pop-philosophy that confirms their existing beliefs. Nobody reads JP to become a better person, they do it to feel better about being a shit person.
- badpun 7y ago
  > Nobody reads JP to become a better person, they do it to feel better about being a shit person. I've just watched an interview with him where he says that, when he's out on the street in basically any city in the world, he's approached roughly once every ten minutes by someone thanking him for the help they got from his lectures and books. In many cases they say that, thanks to JP, they were able to lift themselves from shitty life situation (ex. abusive family, addiction, depression, aimlessness, anger etc.) and turn their lives around. I cannot reconcile that with your comment.
- 0815test 7y ago
  The stance that "the world is arbitrary and makes no sense" is itself far from uncontroversial! Indeed, the very term "modern world" suggests that our world (in contrast with the "pre-modern" one) does derive much of its comparative success from institutions and frameworks that work (at least to some extent) in ways that can be made some sense of and understood fairly well.
- faissaloo 7y ago
  >Nobody reads JP to become a better person, they do it to feel better about being a shit person I contest this, JP is among the many reasons why I've practically 'turbocharged' my life and transformed from a scrawny pretty toxic guy into an assertive, empathetic, can-do and intelligent dad-type guy.
- sho 7y ago
  > Nobody reads JP to become a better person, they do it to feel better about being a shit person Without wishing to get into yet another discussion about Peterson, I think that's a pretty textbook example of an intellectually dishonest attempt to simply pigeonhole someone you probably don't know all that much about into the "enemies" basket. I've read and listened to JP to some extent - believe it or not, yes, as part as some kind of greater effort to better myself, as is much of my reading. I agree with some of what he thinks, and disagree with others, but I don't regret the time spent. If that makes me a "shit person" then frankly I think it's your worldview that is the problematic one.
- Fins 7y ago
mistermann 7y ago
Considering the subject matter of the article, I think this is a fair question... misogynistic: - strongly prejudiced against women - feeling, showing, or characterized by hatred of women What aspect of Peterson's "message" do you consider to be misogynistic, and with respect to which of the above definitions (or, another accepted definition)? I'd ask the same about the "confused" part, but that's even more vague. (And in the event of a possible "Please keep religious flamewar off this site" warning, I think another fair question is how a person who initially levels serious pejorative accusations is considered innocent of posting religious flamewar, but someone who merely questions them is guilty? If the actual reason is something more along the lines of "do not go against the general orthodoxy of the site because it creates a toxic environment", which is actually realistically pragmatic, then perhaps making such things explicit in the site guidelines would be helpful to reduce these sorts of problems.)
- sho 7y ago
  I am assuming this is a sincere question, so I'll give a sincere answer. Peterson has consistently made two arguments (that come to mind) that cause these accusations: - his arguments that "dominance hierarchies" naturally favour men, as they are more aggressive, more disposable, more risk-taking and less burdened by the necessities of child-rearing, and are not an invention of "the patriarchy". He supports this argument by pointing out its near-universal equivalent in nature, especially lobsters. These structural realities inevitably hinder women's achievements in the workforce, which he suggests is purely natural. - He notes that families with two parents are, on the whole, more stable and successful than families with only one, and suggests that society should make it less easy to create so many single-parent families, for example by placing limits on divorce. Both of these arguments make a, to some, very unwelcome point - that perhaps gains in women's rights have, and will, come at a huge cost to society that is only going to get worse, and that we're a couple of decades into a giant experiment that, for a lot of people, could turn out very badly indeed. This kind of thing is simply unsayable in today's climate and, not surprisingly, he's public enemy #1 in some circles. That said, I don't think his ideas are merely "misogynistic" and he just hates women. Needless to say, however, some of these ideas have been seized upon by actual misogynists to justify their ludicrous beliefs, which rightly or wrongly has not exactly helped his cause in the eyes of the twitter mob. For what it's worth, I both agree and disagree. I do think single-parent families are a real problem, and I agree that the necessities of childrearing structurally hold women back from their full career potentials. I don't, however, agree that the solution is to roll back divorce laws, or send women back to the kitchen (not that he said this, but he hasn't said NOT THIS!). Perhaps society can offer (much) more child-raising support. Maybe we need to retreat from the idea of the nuclear family altogether, and raise children in extended families or even communities (there are examples of this in different cultures). We need to do something - but I can't stomach the idea that we can just go back to the "good old days (for some)". He's right about many things, but he's also curiously stuck in the past, and very boxed-in by his own personal experiences - which has been a double edged sword. We can't simply roll back people's rights in order to solve a problem, whether that problem is real or not! His real blindness is not being able to offer palatable solutions, or to understand why people might not like the ones he has made. Anyway, that's the (perhaps unfair but anyway highly unsurprising) reason people think he's misogynistic.
dang 7y ago
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20375846 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20375846 and marked it off-topic.
- mistermann 7y ago
  I think that is a perfectly reasonable and prudent approach (assuming those who are interested can still navigate to it) - this allows these important conversations to take place without disrupting the community mood in the main thread. In the longer term, I believe strongly that with some effort (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20375985 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20375985), perhaps HN might one day be the one place where such things could be discussed in an objective manner, and perhaps once we iron out the kinks in how that can be accomplished, the outside world might even be able to learn these skills and we could finally start to discuss these topics in a reasonable manner before time runs out (as seems to be the case with many of them, such as global warming). Sincere thanks for allowing the discussion to take place. EDIT: It seems others can't navigate to it from the main thread. Dang, if you read my reply (within the disconnected thread), I hope you can start to see why I believe this phenomenon is an important problem. Society is at a point of impasse on too many important issues. Our technological capabilities have been developing at a parabolic rate, but our cultural and language/communication developments have been largely static. This imbalance is starting to become an existential threat on several different fronts, and I think it is time that people with "great" power should be starting to consider whether a moral obligation to at least try to do something comes with that power.

by api 7y ago

n4r9 7y ago

Is it necessarily the job of academics to have superficial appeal to the layman?

Der_Einzige 7y ago

"maybe if academics churned out more philosophy that spoke to the concerns of real people Peterson would have less of an audience" Someone did. His name is Wittgenstein. Folks just don't read him. Also, real people def experience existential dread. Camus and Sartre are great reads for trying to come to terms with the possibility of infinite (but some infinities are larger than others!) freedom Real people experience oppression, which is why most of the "postmodern neo-marxists" care so much about stopping it. Real people experience ethical dilemmas, and would find a lot of utility in exploring the thoughts of Kant, JSM, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Arendt. Out of those, Kant is the only one whose sort of difficult to understand without knowing the jargon. Really this article is about how terrible contemporary French Philosophy given that the useless jargon seems only to be in their works (since Hegel anyway)

Apocryphon 7y ago
Kierkegaard doesn't use academic philosophy jargon, but he came up with his own, and the English translations of his work come off as cryptic and dense.

wayoutthere 7y ago

People don’t want philosophy; if they did then there are plenty of authors from Aristotle through the modern day. Existentialism is basically “how to survive in an arbitrary world that makes no sense”. It’s a fucking guidebook for the modern world built in the years before and after WW2. People en masse want pop-philosophy that confirms their existing beliefs. Nobody reads JP to become a better person, they do it to feel better about being a shit person.

badpun 7y ago
> Nobody reads JP to become a better person, they do it to feel better about being a shit person. I've just watched an interview with him where he says that, when he's out on the street in basically any city in the world, he's approached roughly once every ten minutes by someone thanking him for the help they got from his lectures and books. In many cases they say that, thanks to JP, they were able to lift themselves from shitty life situation (ex. abusive family, addiction, depression, aimlessness, anger etc.) and turn their lives around. I cannot reconcile that with your comment.
0815test 7y ago
The stance that "the world is arbitrary and makes no sense" is itself far from uncontroversial! Indeed, the very term "modern world" suggests that our world (in contrast with the "pre-modern" one) does derive much of its comparative success from institutions and frameworks that work (at least to some extent) in ways that can be made some sense of and understood fairly well.
faissaloo 7y ago
>Nobody reads JP to become a better person, they do it to feel better about being a shit person I contest this, JP is among the many reasons why I've practically 'turbocharged' my life and transformed from a scrawny pretty toxic guy into an assertive, empathetic, can-do and intelligent dad-type guy.
sho 7y ago
> Nobody reads JP to become a better person, they do it to feel better about being a shit person Without wishing to get into yet another discussion about Peterson, I think that's a pretty textbook example of an intellectually dishonest attempt to simply pigeonhole someone you probably don't know all that much about into the "enemies" basket. I've read and listened to JP to some extent - believe it or not, yes, as part as some kind of greater effort to better myself, as is much of my reading. I agree with some of what he thinks, and disagree with others, but I don't regret the time spent. If that makes me a "shit person" then frankly I think it's your worldview that is the problematic one.
Fins 7y ago

mistermann 7y ago

Considering the subject matter of the article, I think this is a fair question... misogynistic: - strongly prejudiced against women - feeling, showing, or characterized by hatred of women What aspect of Peterson's "message" do you consider to be misogynistic, and with respect to which of the above definitions (or, another accepted definition)? I'd ask the same about the "confused" part, but that's even more vague. (And in the event of a possible "Please keep religious flamewar off this site" warning, I think another fair question is how a person who initially levels serious pejorative accusations is considered innocent of posting religious flamewar, but someone who merely questions them is guilty? If the actual reason is something more along the lines of "do not go against the general orthodoxy of the site because it creates a toxic environment", which is actually realistically pragmatic, then perhaps making such things explicit in the site guidelines would be helpful to reduce these sorts of problems.)

sho 7y ago
I am assuming this is a sincere question, so I'll give a sincere answer. Peterson has consistently made two arguments (that come to mind) that cause these accusations: - his arguments that "dominance hierarchies" naturally favour men, as they are more aggressive, more disposable, more risk-taking and less burdened by the necessities of child-rearing, and are not an invention of "the patriarchy". He supports this argument by pointing out its near-universal equivalent in nature, especially lobsters. These structural realities inevitably hinder women's achievements in the workforce, which he suggests is purely natural. - He notes that families with two parents are, on the whole, more stable and successful than families with only one, and suggests that society should make it less easy to create so many single-parent families, for example by placing limits on divorce. Both of these arguments make a, to some, very unwelcome point - that perhaps gains in women's rights have, and will, come at a huge cost to society that is only going to get worse, and that we're a couple of decades into a giant experiment that, for a lot of people, could turn out very badly indeed. This kind of thing is simply unsayable in today's climate and, not surprisingly, he's public enemy #1 in some circles. That said, I don't think his ideas are merely "misogynistic" and he just hates women. Needless to say, however, some of these ideas have been seized upon by actual misogynists to justify their ludicrous beliefs, which rightly or wrongly has not exactly helped his cause in the eyes of the twitter mob. For what it's worth, I both agree and disagree. I do think single-parent families are a real problem, and I agree that the necessities of childrearing structurally hold women back from their full career potentials. I don't, however, agree that the solution is to roll back divorce laws, or send women back to the kitchen (not that he said this, but he hasn't said NOT THIS!). Perhaps society can offer (much) more child-raising support. Maybe we need to retreat from the idea of the nuclear family altogether, and raise children in extended families or even communities (there are examples of this in different cultures). We need to do something - but I can't stomach the idea that we can just go back to the "good old days (for some)". He's right about many things, but he's also curiously stuck in the past, and very boxed-in by his own personal experiences - which has been a double edged sword. We can't simply roll back people's rights in order to solve a problem, whether that problem is real or not! His real blindness is not being able to offer palatable solutions, or to understand why people might not like the ones he has made. Anyway, that's the (perhaps unfair but anyway highly unsurprising) reason people think he's misogynistic.

dang 7y ago

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20375846 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20375846 and marked it off-topic.

mistermann 7y ago
I think that is a perfectly reasonable and prudent approach (assuming those who are interested can still navigate to it) - this allows these important conversations to take place without disrupting the community mood in the main thread. In the longer term, I believe strongly that with some effort (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20375985 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20375985), perhaps HN might one day be the one place where such things could be discussed in an objective manner, and perhaps once we iron out the kinks in how that can be accomplished, the outside world might even be able to learn these skills and we could finally start to discuss these topics in a reasonable manner before time runs out (as seems to be the case with many of them, such as global warming). Sincere thanks for allowing the discussion to take place. EDIT: It seems others can't navigate to it from the main thread. Dang, if you read my reply (within the disconnected thread), I hope you can start to see why I believe this phenomenon is an important problem. Society is at a point of impasse on too many important issues. Our technological capabilities have been developing at a parabolic rate, but our cultural and language/communication developments have been largely static. This imbalance is starting to become an existential threat on several different fronts, and I think it is time that people with "great" power should be starting to consider whether a moral obligation to at least try to do something comes with that power.