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> First it was Jordan Peterson, then it i was Eric Weinstein, then Chamath, the list goes on. Most recently, it’s been Peter Zeihan. These are not intellectual

> First it was Jordan Peterson, then it i was Eric Weinstein, then Chamath, the list goes on. Most recently, it’s been Peter Zeihan. These are not intellectuals, let alone public ones. They are all American and follow a 'clickbait' model to public discourse. Seems like you repeatedly fall for it and enjoy doing so. Nothing here reflects any form of intellect.

LoFiSamurai 3y ago
How is being American relevant? Also, Peterson is Canadian.
- defrost 3y ago
  ie. North American
- Barrin92 3y ago
  because rather than doing serious intellectual work they're really good at selling what people want to hear, deliberately targeting an American online audience and their anxieties (as that is very profitable). All the mentioned guys are essentially permanent guests on the US podcast circuit. Peterson and Zeihan are examples of this. Peterson has essentially monetized telling Americans what a dystopia Canada is, acting like some sort of reverse Handmaids Tale refugee, and Zeihan is the modern version of his mentor (and Straftor boss) George Friedman, whose primarily claim to fame is predicting an inevitable war between Japan and the US[1], on a crude theory of geographic determinism, "in the next two decades" in 1991. Zeihan has picked that baton up and replaced Japan with China. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Coming_War_with_Japan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Coming_War_with_Japan
  - robertlagrant 3y ago
    > Peterson has essentially monetized telling Americans what a dystopia Canada is, acting like some sort of reverse Handmaids Tale refugee I think this hyper reductive. You can watch all his lectures, at Harvard and others, online[0]. It's hard to look objectively at his life and not call it "serious intellectual work". [0] https://www.youtube.com/c/JordanPetersonVideos/about https://www.youtube.com/c/JordanPetersonVideos/about
    - mcpackieh 3y ago
      From his description, >"You can watch the incredibly popular lecture series "Personality and Its Transformations", "Maps of Meaning: The Architecture of Belief", as well as his "The Psychological Significance of the Biblical Stories" lectures for free." I won't pretend I ever watched more than a few minutes of any of this stuff, but isn't it a bunch of inane rambling about finding deep psychological meaning or universal truths in fairy tails? Nonsense along the lines of "Slimey the worm from sesame street represents the dragon, the great primordial evil which the warrior, the eternal hero, must slay to conqueror his fears..." It's the kind of analysis that right/conservative people with 'pragmatic/common sense' self-perceived alignments would usually mock college professors for, except in Peterson's case it gets lapped up because he mixes it in with things like "communism is bad because it murdered millions of people" and "If you're feeling depressed you should try not living like a slob"
      - robertlagrant 3y ago
        > I won't pretend I ever watched more than a few minutes of any of this stuff Agreed. > but isn't it a bunch of inane rambling about finding deep psychological meaning or universal truths in fairy tails? No, it's not. Some of it is illustrated through fables, but I don't think it's inane rambling, no.
    - varnaud 3y ago
      He might have done "serious intellectual work" in a distant past, like his main book were he writes in details about his grandma pubes he saw in a dream, or when in his lecture at UoT were he compares an ancient depiction of two snakes to the twin helix of DNA, but for the past few years he's been rambling about the culture war and strangely defending the fossil fuel industry.
Jensson 3y ago
That is the point of this article though, read a bit further down: "Without fail, each one of comes to dissapoint. They’re either a one trick pony, and every development in the world is analyzed through the same tired lens whether its applicable or not."
- nerdponx 3y ago
  Yeah but, one would think after spending even a couple of minutes with Jordan Peterson's corpus of output that maybe we shouldn't venerate people who happen to say one or two things that we find interesting.
  - Jensson 3y ago
    Jordan Petersen talks a lot about life being a struggle and how to get through it and make the most of it. A lot of that resonates strongly in many people, it isn't something you would find faults in after watching a few minutes. And that is within his field of expertise so it makes sense that those points are pretty good. The problem is when Jordan Petersen starts to talk about other things than that, like politics, gender roles etc. There he repeats similar talking points I've seen on online forums for 20 years now, nothing new or interesting. Edit: Sometimes downvotes amazes me. Did someone downvote this because I said Jordan Peterson said something good, or because I said he did something bad? Will never know. But I've noticed that balanced takes tend to get more downvoted since both sides downvotes them.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - hardlianotion 3y ago
      For a minority, downvoting is just a quick way to disagree with you.
    - anymouse123456 3y ago
      For me at least, there's a question as to, "which Jordan Peterson?" There is the guy you just described, who existed before his year(s?) long struggle with addiction, and then there is the apparently (to me at least) bitter, resentful and angry man who returned after. Since his return, his expressions, language, positions (and even clothing) have taken on a darker, angrier tone and there's a lot less hope in what I've seen. For me, this makes this individual different from some others who may fade away over some of issues cited in the article, but remain essentially the same person. His personality and message changed after a deep and difficult struggle. I'm not trying to criticize or defend the man, just raising the issue that he may be different from some others in the list.
m463 3y ago
Isn't Jordan Peterson a canadian university professor? I've only briefly heard him, but why is he so polarizing? He just seemed to say sort of "be a decent person and work hard".
- busterarm 3y ago
  Because he disagrees with the idea of compelled speech and that conflicts with how some people self-identify.
  - nerdponx 3y ago
    Yes, that's precisely why I don't like him, thank you for articulating it so clearly! I want to compel the people around me to speak a certain way, and I have built an identity around that, and Peterson's cutting social commentary shakes me to my core. </sarcasm>
    - s1artibartfast 3y ago
      Why don't you like him then?
      - varnaud 3y ago
        For the things he says. I'd encourage you to look for criticism of him online. He his the obligatory subject of plenty of video essayist on Youtube, it's kind of a meme at this point.
        LudwigNagasena 3y ago
        Being a video essayist is a meme. Watching criticism of Peterson on YouTube is an even bigger waste of time than watching Peterson.
- raincole 3y ago
  > "be a decent person and work hard" It's 2023. This is a very controversial idea.
satisfice 3y ago
What do you think an intellectual is? An intellectual is someone whose hobby or vocation is using his mind to consider the big questions and issues of human life. There is no certification or competency test for intellectuals. If you say you are one, then— like saying you are a “football fan”— you probably are one. I say I am an intellectual because I want people to think I am always ready to talk about any philosophical topic. Also I wrote a book about living an intellectual life, so there is evidence I do want to use my mind to consider big questions. Not that evidence matters much. I am American, too. Turns out some Americans enjoy living a life of mind.
- 000ooo000 3y ago
  I tend to be a bit repulsed by any online discussion of 'intellectuals'. Pretty much always devolves into BS a la GP. "You like Josh Joshson? He's stupid, you must be too", or "who needs intellectuals? Use your own brain"
bugglebeetle 3y ago
Jordan Peterson unfortunately is very much a public intellectual. He just also happens to be a complete and total charlatan who is demonstrably ignorant of most the works he both cites and criticizes.
altacc 3y ago
Yes, the list is basically demagogic pseudo-intellectuals. As pointed out in the article they are "pseudo" as although they might be studied in one field, they quickly start talking about other topics that they have not studied academically and simply try to enforce their model upon. A lot of "clever" people start sounding less clever the more they talk about something you know about.
d-z-m 3y ago
My definition of a public intellectual is someone who is very bright and can "think in public" about a variety of issues. Weinstein definitely meets that bar for me, probably Jordan as well. Can't speak for the other two as I'm not familiar with their output.

LoFiSamurai 3y ago

How is being American relevant? Also, Peterson is Canadian.

defrost 3y ago
ie. North American
Barrin92 3y ago
because rather than doing serious intellectual work they're really good at selling what people want to hear, deliberately targeting an American online audience and their anxieties (as that is very profitable). All the mentioned guys are essentially permanent guests on the US podcast circuit. Peterson and Zeihan are examples of this. Peterson has essentially monetized telling Americans what a dystopia Canada is, acting like some sort of reverse Handmaids Tale refugee, and Zeihan is the modern version of his mentor (and Straftor boss) George Friedman, whose primarily claim to fame is predicting an inevitable war between Japan and the US[1], on a crude theory of geographic determinism, "in the next two decades" in 1991. Zeihan has picked that baton up and replaced Japan with China. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Coming_War_with_Japan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Coming_War_with_Japan
- robertlagrant 3y ago
  > Peterson has essentially monetized telling Americans what a dystopia Canada is, acting like some sort of reverse Handmaids Tale refugee I think this hyper reductive. You can watch all his lectures, at Harvard and others, online[0]. It's hard to look objectively at his life and not call it "serious intellectual work". [0] https://www.youtube.com/c/JordanPetersonVideos/about https://www.youtube.com/c/JordanPetersonVideos/about
  - mcpackieh 3y ago
    From his description, >"You can watch the incredibly popular lecture series "Personality and Its Transformations", "Maps of Meaning: The Architecture of Belief", as well as his "The Psychological Significance of the Biblical Stories" lectures for free." I won't pretend I ever watched more than a few minutes of any of this stuff, but isn't it a bunch of inane rambling about finding deep psychological meaning or universal truths in fairy tails? Nonsense along the lines of "Slimey the worm from sesame street represents the dragon, the great primordial evil which the warrior, the eternal hero, must slay to conqueror his fears..." It's the kind of analysis that right/conservative people with 'pragmatic/common sense' self-perceived alignments would usually mock college professors for, except in Peterson's case it gets lapped up because he mixes it in with things like "communism is bad because it murdered millions of people" and "If you're feeling depressed you should try not living like a slob"
    - robertlagrant 3y ago
      > I won't pretend I ever watched more than a few minutes of any of this stuff Agreed. > but isn't it a bunch of inane rambling about finding deep psychological meaning or universal truths in fairy tails? No, it's not. Some of it is illustrated through fables, but I don't think it's inane rambling, no.
  - varnaud 3y ago
    He might have done "serious intellectual work" in a distant past, like his main book were he writes in details about his grandma pubes he saw in a dream, or when in his lecture at UoT were he compares an ancient depiction of two snakes to the twin helix of DNA, but for the past few years he's been rambling about the culture war and strangely defending the fossil fuel industry.

Jensson 3y ago

That is the point of this article though, read a bit further down: "Without fail, each one of comes to dissapoint. They’re either a one trick pony, and every development in the world is analyzed through the same tired lens whether its applicable or not."

nerdponx 3y ago
Yeah but, one would think after spending even a couple of minutes with Jordan Peterson's corpus of output that maybe we shouldn't venerate people who happen to say one or two things that we find interesting.
- Jensson 3y ago
  Jordan Petersen talks a lot about life being a struggle and how to get through it and make the most of it. A lot of that resonates strongly in many people, it isn't something you would find faults in after watching a few minutes. And that is within his field of expertise so it makes sense that those points are pretty good. The problem is when Jordan Petersen starts to talk about other things than that, like politics, gender roles etc. There he repeats similar talking points I've seen on online forums for 20 years now, nothing new or interesting. Edit: Sometimes downvotes amazes me. Did someone downvote this because I said Jordan Peterson said something good, or because I said he did something bad? Will never know. But I've noticed that balanced takes tend to get more downvoted since both sides downvotes them.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - hardlianotion 3y ago
    For a minority, downvoting is just a quick way to disagree with you.
  - anymouse123456 3y ago
    For me at least, there's a question as to, "which Jordan Peterson?" There is the guy you just described, who existed before his year(s?) long struggle with addiction, and then there is the apparently (to me at least) bitter, resentful and angry man who returned after. Since his return, his expressions, language, positions (and even clothing) have taken on a darker, angrier tone and there's a lot less hope in what I've seen. For me, this makes this individual different from some others who may fade away over some of issues cited in the article, but remain essentially the same person. His personality and message changed after a deep and difficult struggle. I'm not trying to criticize or defend the man, just raising the issue that he may be different from some others in the list.

m463 3y ago

Isn't Jordan Peterson a canadian university professor? I've only briefly heard him, but why is he so polarizing? He just seemed to say sort of "be a decent person and work hard".

busterarm 3y ago
Because he disagrees with the idea of compelled speech and that conflicts with how some people self-identify.
- nerdponx 3y ago
  Yes, that's precisely why I don't like him, thank you for articulating it so clearly! I want to compel the people around me to speak a certain way, and I have built an identity around that, and Peterson's cutting social commentary shakes me to my core. </sarcasm>
  - s1artibartfast 3y ago
    Why don't you like him then?
    - varnaud 3y ago
      For the things he says. I'd encourage you to look for criticism of him online. He his the obligatory subject of plenty of video essayist on Youtube, it's kind of a meme at this point.
      - LudwigNagasena 3y ago
        Being a video essayist is a meme. Watching criticism of Peterson on YouTube is an even bigger waste of time than watching Peterson.
raincole 3y ago
> "be a decent person and work hard" It's 2023. This is a very controversial idea.

satisfice 3y ago

What do you think an intellectual is? An intellectual is someone whose hobby or vocation is using his mind to consider the big questions and issues of human life. There is no certification or competency test for intellectuals. If you say you are one, then— like saying you are a “football fan”— you probably are one. I say I am an intellectual because I want people to think I am always ready to talk about any philosophical topic. Also I wrote a book about living an intellectual life, so there is evidence I do want to use my mind to consider big questions. Not that evidence matters much. I am American, too. Turns out some Americans enjoy living a life of mind.

000ooo000 3y ago
I tend to be a bit repulsed by any online discussion of 'intellectuals'. Pretty much always devolves into BS a la GP. "You like Josh Joshson? He's stupid, you must be too", or "who needs intellectuals? Use your own brain"

bugglebeetle 3y ago

Jordan Peterson unfortunately is very much a public intellectual. He just also happens to be a complete and total charlatan who is demonstrably ignorant of most the works he both cites and criticizes.

altacc 3y ago

Yes, the list is basically demagogic pseudo-intellectuals. As pointed out in the article they are "pseudo" as although they might be studied in one field, they quickly start talking about other topics that they have not studied academically and simply try to enforce their model upon. A lot of "clever" people start sounding less clever the more they talk about something you know about.

d-z-m 3y ago

My definition of a public intellectual is someone who is very bright and can "think in public" about a variety of issues. Weinstein definitely meets that bar for me, probably Jordan as well. Can't speak for the other two as I'm not familiar with their output.