I’m sharing this article because it changed my perception of Jordan Peterson, and exposed him as intellectually dishonest at best and more likely a fraud artist. Starting with essentially his dissertation. It is a long read but it is incredibly well researched and written:
https://www.currentaffairs.org/2018/03/the-intellectual-we-deserve
This video from Some More News really highlights all of Jordans bullshit. It’s long as fuck but I enjoyed every minute of it
Here is an alternative Piped link(s): https://piped.video/hSNWkRw53Jo?si=WIrG2o3Qa5iqJwEP
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I’ve never really cared for his humor, but Some More News videos are always a good watch. I’ll have to watch this one later.
It’s hit and miss. It’s always a bit Juvenile and sometimes I find in a little detractive from the message. As in there are a lot of people I wouldn’t automatically show it to because of the humor despite how well researched and presented everything is. But I generally enjoy the schtick for what it is. This stuff would get rather dry an hard to get through without it sometimes.
The article was a fun read, but for readers who don’t have time, I believe Orwell’s essay “Politics and the English Language” describes the same problem with marginally fewer words. My favorite excerpt, though, really nails exactly the BS your article mentioned:
Now that I have made this catalogue of swindles and perversions, let me give another example of the kind of writing that they lead to. This time it must of its nature be an imaginary one. I am going to translate a passage of good English into modern English of the worst sort. Here is a well-known verse from Ecclesiastes:
I returned and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all.
Here it is in modern English:
Objective consideration of contemporary phenomena compels the conclusion that success or failure in competitive activities exhibits no tendency to be commensurate with innate capacity, but that a considerable element of the unpredictable must invariably be taken into account.
This is a parody, but not a very gross one.
Peterson’s writings are worse than Orwell’s own parodies.
Basically, he regularly violates the Maxim of Manner.
The philosopher of language Paul Grice introduced the concept in his pragmatic theory, argued such:
Make your contribution such as is required, at the stage at which it occurs, by the accepted purpose or direction of the talk exchange in which you are engaged.[1]: 45
Oh the irony lol
Pro tip, if you place > on the empty lines you’ll make one continuous quote.
Like
this.
Wild… in Sync, it reads as a continuous quote. I guess you’re using a different interface
It’s a good article. I’ll admit that Jordan Peterson is a good psychologist and knows many words and stories, he can make many people feel smart or dumb through his incantations of nonsense. But that’s it, all the rest of it is bunk.
His essays read like an anthology of writings someone made to finish a book report due tomorrow, after not sleeping for 3 days yet somehow feeling wide awake from the crazed panic.
Also see this screenshot on Firefox Mobile (Est. reading time 63 - 81min). Readers will be well-advised to skim over the copious amount of Jordan Peterson excerpts. Lol.
Here is a good short video
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One more reason to hate the education system of rating stuff according to how lengthy it is.
Eh, I think we have to recognize that many people using this site are doing things like taking the train, using the bathroom, or waiting on something. That often necessitates browsing to be short.
I didn’t mean it to be a jab at the users, but I might’ve written it too ambiguously.
Obviously in most cases it’s better when something you read on the internet is short and concise: my gripe was with a lot of news sites (and, in this case Peterson) who do the exact opposite of that to seem smarter. The “joke” was that it’s a behavior learned in school, where the more you write the better, even if you could’ve expressed the same concept in a much shorter way.
I don’t think it has anything to do with the education system. It’s simply that the commitment involved in the request is much higher than normal. I don’t read every 50-page article or 2-hour video I come across. But I can be compelled to when the value proposition is higher than normal.
I think my comment was misunderstood: it was kind of a half-joke about Peterson’s writing.
Everyone learned to make their concept as long as possible in school because they were better-received, and that’s what Peterson is doing: talking in the most convoluted way possible to make his otherwise bland ideas feel smart.
I completely disagree. Based off of your comment it seems that you did not absorb the article whatsoever.
There are many good examples in the article of Peterson presenting opinion as indisputable fact and obscuring ideas with complex language. Particularly when he is challenged based on those ideas.
Not to mention the examples of how he treats children and others. It is an absolutely wild read. Lengthy but eye-opening.
Edit: it also exposes how the ideas that his core philosophy is built on are simplistic at best and often flat out wrong or intentionally disingenuous.
Reading 12 Rules for Life recently and I’d agree that Jordan Peterson is not a good writer that he uses too much words for the ideas he’s trying to say. He’s also too religious for my taste. However it’s a exaggeration that “he has almost nothing of value to say”. There are some insights of value if you skim through his words and it appears to me that he genuinely meant good for the advice he gives. I think he just needs a better editor.
You haven’t read the linked article, because the author does adress this. They point out that Peterson specifically does hide obvious and banal ideas in his sentences, so that when people finally find some blatant truths in his word salad, it makes it seem like the ideas are much more profound than the platitudes they actually are.
Here is a quote from the article:
The inflating of the obvious into the awe-inspiring is part of why Peterson can operate so successfully in the “self-help” genre. He can give people the most elementary fatherly life-advice (clean your room, stand up straight) while making it sound like Wisdom.
And remember the author actually shows this with numerous in-depth examples from Peterson’s writings. A better editor would do nothing, because Peterson writes like that with intent, the intent being to disguise what a cultish hack he is.
I read the article and I agreed that Jordan Peterson used too much words as I said. I just don’t agree that “he has almost nothing of value to say” as I said.
I’ve watched numerous interviews with Jordan Peterson over the years, that guy is completely full of shit
You forgot the best part. Before doing that he was (and probably still is) against medicating yourself out of addictions because it’s the “easy way out”. His entire shtick is about the right way of living and then he acts contrarily to his own teachings.
For some perspective being thrust into public eye world wide and having your daughter and wife with life threatening medical issues will do a number on you. He is still a dingus but things are rarely black and white.
My favorite is when someone asked him “Do you believe in God” and he was caught between his reputation as an “intellectual” and the fact that the apes he grifts are gonna hoot extra loud and fling extra poo if he says no. Recognizing that he was between a rock and a hard place, he gave one of the most amusing non-responses I’ve ever heard in my life. What he said was, from memory, “That depends on what you mean by ‘do’, ‘you’, ‘believe’ and ‘God’.” He then blathered on for a minute about how he thinks of God as a symbol for the human capacity for goodness and he believes in that, and no one asked why the symbol for the human capacity for goodness hates trans people and needs money, so everyone left satisfied.
He’s an “intellectual” to idiots and a moron to anyone with some critical thinking capacity
He’s the perfect post-modern intellectual, which is rather funny when you consider how anti-postmodernism he is. He’s a media image of an intellectual, all big words and expensive suits, but his big words don’t really mean anything. The fucking “chaos dragon of feminity” is a hilariously stupid concept that rivals the shit Freud came up with when the cocaine was extra pure, but they eat it up. He and the rest of the so-called “intellectual dark web” provide a thin veneer of logic and rationality to the visceral hate that the alt right runs on, and it makes sense to people who really want and need it to make sense. He gives people the ability to be led around by their emotions and still feel like not only are they not being ruled by fear, but that they’re actually on a level above everyone who doesn’t accept the “cold hard truth” that we all need to be racist, homophobic, xenophobic and basically terrified all of the time.
Realising how precarious a pedestal the far right built him would be a rare moment of self awareness. He’s B-grade meat to them, so they’d Milo him in a heartbeat.
Isn’t it odd that every time anything that’s an ally of the GOP ends up in Russia of all places?
I think it remains to be seen whether he’s learned anything.
I’m not sure he’s “learned” anything. Good article otherwise!
Good article?
The comments that formed the basis of the complaints against Dr. Peterson included comments on a podcast in which he commented on air pollution and child deaths by saying “it’s just poor children…”
This quote is the most disgusting out of context character assassination I’ve seen in a long time.
I got suspicious because while Jordan does say things that women and/or trans people often find deplorable. I know that he’s a strong supporter of the poor (at least in rhetoric) and as a family man I assume of children as well.
The full context can be found on Spotify. Episode #1769 of “The Joe Rogan Experience” start from about 15:30. He’s the one that brings up how 7 million poor children die from indoor particulate pollution. Joe doesn’t believe him and gets a fact check, which eventually leads to Jordan sarcastically saying “Well, it’s just poor children, and the world has too many people on it anyway…”
It’s such an insane mischaracterization of what he said, you can’t take the article seriously. Probably would have to write off the entire website that article is from, honestly.
I think Jordon Peterson is a giant pile of shit, but you’re being downvoted for calling out a shitty article for misrepresenting obvious sarcasm, and that’s bullshit. Misinformation is misinformation regardless of whether or not it confirms our bias, if the Fediverse community doesn’t want to learn this it has no business pointing at misinformation on other platforms like Reddit.
How can we expect anyone to critically examine the media they consume if we fail to do the same when it suits us? Peterson is a flaming pile of pseudo-intellectual garbage, but there’s plenty of ways to prove that without intentionally taking sound bites out of context.
That and body shaming people you don’t like really aggravate me. Shit humans do shit things, attack that and leave the rest alone.
No, he’s being downvoted because he’s adjacently defending JP. If you don’t know how JP is human garbage at this point, and you’re willing to come to articles to defend him, you’re a fan. And therefore, a twat.
Edit: yes the article is BS but that doesn’t change what he’s selling.
Please read this: https://www.currentaffairs.org/2018/03/the-intellectual-we-deserve
Not only does Jordan Peterson say dumb inflammatory shit, but he’s also apparently an intellectual fraud.
Maybe, I don’t know. How do you know? You seem so eager to believe lies. How do you know that everything you think you know about Jordan Peterson isn’t all lies?
he’s a strong supporter of the poor (at least in rhetoric)
“Well, it’s just poor children, and the world has too many people on it anyway…”
Never mind how laughable that first quote is, it is inherently incompatible with the second, since the entire Malthusian myth is based in classist eugenics
https://www.theworldmind.org/home/2021/12/10/the-dangerous-myth-of-overpopulation
https://www.globaljustice.org.uk/blog/2019/03/how-racist-myths-built-population-growth-bogey-man/
Imagine still jumping to the defence of this bigoted useless grifter… 🤦♀️😂
Jordan is an asshole, but misinformation is misinformation. We aren’t trying to become Fox ‘News’ here
I am sorry, but I dont understand where is the misinformation? The article doesnt state nor imply that JP has said that poor children deserve to die. It stated, that that particular comment was used in a complaint against him in court. So if you are upset at the people who formed the complaint then thats fair. But why be mad at the article? They only stated what has happened, unless I misunderstood?
If we all followed the teachings of jordan peterson we would be living in a world perfectly suited to jordan peterson. I would sooner live in a world which made jordan peterson suicidal.
