Comments on: Surprise! The New Yorker has a mostly positive article about Jordan Peterson

By: Ymar Sakar

Ymar Sakar — Fri, 02 Mar 2018 16:54:32 +0000

I interpret JP’s inner voice as being equivalent to Socrates’ daemon/muse (an elohim basically, a non physical or non human entity), which is equivalent to the Christian Holy Ghost.

Those 3 things have something in common. They always adhere to the truth, will despise lies/self deceptions, and will steer the human towards the divine truth.

Whether the actual entity in question is the same or not doesn’t matter for us so much as what kind of behavior it inculcates in us.

The behavior that is in common amongst all 3 sources, is the sheer stubborn unwillingness to submit to this reality’s lies in order to avoid negative physical consequences. JP does it with Leftist indoctrinated thought police patterns. Socrates refused to bow down and submit before the Athenian death assembly, thus receiving a death sentence rather than a slap on the wrist. And the disciples of Jesus the Nazarene is already famous (or infamous) to the West.

By: Tatterdemalian

Tatterdemalian — Thu, 01 Mar 2018 16:55:55 +0000

Peterson seems to be one of those rare showmen with morals other than “power for me, servitude for thee.” With more people being swayed by feelings instead of facts than ever before, it will take libertarian propagandists to have any hope of defeating the organization of authoritarian propagandists we call the mainstream media.

By: AesopFan

AesopFan — Thu, 01 Mar 2018 16:46:17 +0000

Ymar Sakar Says:
March 1st, 2018 at 7:19 am
.. new era thinkers like JordanP fulfill a demand. Often times the result of a combination of reactions to the Leftist ideology as well as the anticipation of solutions.

Mike K Says:
March 1st, 2018 at 9:34 am
… He seems capable of reaching people who are of a very different ideology.

..talk only to the part that was not crazy. Never get involved in the patient’s delusions. It was exhausting but some psychotic patients became more lucid and able to discuss matters more sanely.
* * *

I think you are both describing the underlying problem with the Left’s victim-group tribalism, and the enabling of “snowflakes” and the gender multi-verse.

They are eroding the “part that is not crazy” in so many people who might otherwise be able to work their way out of their delusions, if enough people helped them see that they WERE delusions, instead of confirming their warped view of reality.

The suffering of the mentally confused (whether from physiological or ideological sources or both) is real, but true compassion sometime requires a treatment that temporarily “hurts their feelings” until they become more firmly grounded.

“To ward off mental breakdown, he resolved not to say anything unless he was sure he believed it” –JP

People who are sure of what they believe fall on all sides of the political / ideological spectrum, and aren’t necessarily correct (aligned with reality) even if they are confident.
However, I think that some of the inconsistency / hypocrisy on the Left (and some of the Right) stems from a subconscious recognition of that internal ambiguity in belief.
Those that are doubtful to some extent can be reached through the part that is still unsure (“not crazy”), which may be what Peterson’s own assurance, and clarity, is doing.

By: Mike K

Mike K — Thu, 01 Mar 2018 14:34:56 +0000

I sent a copy of “12 rules” to my leftist, but very bright, daughter wondering if she would even read it. She called me three days after she got it to tell me how much she loves it. He seems capable of reaching people who are of a very different ideology.

His comments about talking to paranoids remind me of my days as a medical student working in a VA psych hospital. I could talk to psychotics and, as my professor told me, to talk only to the part that was not crazy. Never get involved in the patient’s delusions. It was exhausting but some psychotic patients became more lucid and able to discuss matters more sanely.

By: Ymar Sakar

Ymar Sakar — Thu, 01 Mar 2018 12:26:04 +0000

To ward off mental breakdown, he resolved not to say anything unless he was sure he believed it; this practice calmed the inner voice

Apparently he is not the only one that hears such voices.

By: Ymar Sakar

Ymar Sakar — Thu, 01 Mar 2018 12:19:04 +0000

JP’s advice exemplifies my own choice when I came upon the ultimate crux of the issue.

Do you want to change the world or do you want to change yourself.

Upon that choice, the destinies of individuals and nations dwell.

Just as Milo was to the college generations, and Sam Harris was to the new era of thinkers on atheism or beliefs, new era thinkers like JordanP fulfill a demand. Often times the result of a combination of reactions to the Leftist ideology as well as the anticipation of solutions.

http://www.bookwormroom.com/2018/02/27/believe-god/

http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2018/02/jordan_peterson.html

Well, much of the population may well be paranoid by now, given the state of our government and culture.
But then, are you actually paranoid if “they” really are out to get you?

Aesop: People have been calling me paranoid since about 2007, online. I’ve gotten used to being out of the mainstream.

People walk around with masks and human deceptions while pretending to be valid. This is called human nature. A potential enemy, eh.

The ironic part is that wannabe therapists like the NYT, think it’s the paranoid people who have issues with masks and exterior and interior conflicts. All of humanity is living in a kind of simulated reality or Matrix, and they think paranoia is a mental problem. If anything, paranoia is the beginning of waking up to the Matrix, the paranormal, and the supernatural.

By: huxley

huxley — Wed, 28 Feb 2018 22:05:57 +0000

I once answered the phones after midnight for a suicide hotline. Not what I expected. Most callers were odd, lonely people in no particular crisis who just wanted to talk to someone who would listen and the hotline was a lot cheaper than therapy. Some called every night.

However one night I found myself speaking to a bright articulate woman who believed her father and brother were following her from city to city, spying on her. I’ve forgotten the details but it wasn’t hard to conclude she was paranoid.

It was an interesting dance to discuss her delusion and occasionally probe just a tiny bit while maintaining rapport. She wasn’t crazy-crazy at all. She was calm and lucid but her ideas about her father and brother were immovable.

By: huxley

huxley — Wed, 28 Feb 2018 20:55:49 +0000

So, when gentiles, not having the Law, still through their own innate sense behave as the Law commands, then, even though they have no Law, they are a law for themselves. They can demonstrate the effect of the Law engraved on their hearts... --Romans 2:14,15

By: AesopFan

AesopFan — Wed, 28 Feb 2018 20:45:54 +0000

NY: His many years of study fostered in him a conviction that good and evil exist, and that we can discern them without recourse to any particular religious authority. (1)
This is a reassuring belief, especially in confusing times: “Each human being understands, a priori, perhaps not what is good, but certainly what is not.” No doubt there are therapists and life coaches all over the world dispensing some version of this formula, nudging their clients to pursue lives that better conform to their own moral intuitions. (2)
The problem is that, when it comes to the question of how to order our societies–when it comes, in other words, to politics–our intuitions have proved neither reliable nor coherent. (3)
The “highly functional infrastructure” he praises is the product of an unceasing argument over what is good, for all of us; over when to conform, and when to dissent. We can, most of us, sort ourselves out, or learn how to do it. That doesn’t mean we will ever agree on how to sort out everyone else. (4)
* * *
The most critical part of the article, this reveals the author’s leftist mind-set, which is a topic in and of itself.
(1) I think Peterson would agree that many religious theologies include the recognition that people can discern right and wrong; they then add that God makes the distinction explicit, and dispenses advice on how to act on that distinction, with reward and punishment based on one’s behavior relevant to that recognition.
(2) very much so, and liberals even favor that nudging, so long as the person’s “own moral intuitions” line up with their dogma.
(3) “Our intuitions” have been good or bad depending on whose were implemented; the results are usually mixed, but the main contention between Left and Right is who the “our” is going to be: elite experts with dictatorial power, or individuals acting on their own behalf.
(4) See number 3. Maybe we shouldn’t be in the business of sorting out everyone else at all.

By: Ann

Ann — Wed, 28 Feb 2018 20:40:02 +0000

There's also a recent article on him in The Chronicle of Higher Education that has some interesting stuff, like this:

What you can’t help noticing when you walk into Jordan Peterson’s unassuming row house in central Toronto are the paintings. There is Soviet propaganda everywhere, including on the ceiling. He has more than 200 such paintings: Lenin addressing a crowd, a portrait of a Soviet agronomist, Russian soldiers during World War II. In the early 2000s, Peterson began buying these paintings on eBay because the irony of bidding for communist agitprop on the most capitalist marketplace ever devised was too delicious to resist. But he also bought them to remind himself of how glorious utopian visions often descend into unspeakable horror.

The article says that "health problems that have long plagued him, including bouts of debilitating fatigue, have resurfaced." Not surprising, I guess, because he always seems very tightly wired to me, even when his surface demeanor looks somewhat relaxed.