Open season on Jordan Peterson
Jordan Peterson has become so effective a messenger—and not just in Canada—that it was inevitable that the MSM, the left, and academics (but I repeat myself) would put forth effort to discredit and discount him. So if you’ve been paying attention you’ll have noticed a recent spate of articles and statements saying just where he went so grievously wrong, how he draws his support from bigots and alt-righters (and/or is one himself), and fails to understand this or that or the other thing on which the critic/writer is an expert. Here’s a recent example of the latter (hat tip commenter Artfldgr), and there are plenty more of the former as well such as this one from NBC.
Watch that last video; it’s less than two minutes long, and it’s instructive—not about Peterson, but about the way the MSM approaches the topic of “explaining” him. Most of these hit pieces are relatively subtle, as is this one (“Who is Jordan Peterson, favorite figure of the alt-right”), which hardly talks about what Peterson actually says, gets some of that wrong when it does (beginning with saying he refuses to be pigeonholed and then offering as an example of that him speaking about an entirely different subject, his refusal to automatically use left-dictated pronouns for transgendered people), but quickly delivers its main message of “bigots love him, therefore he’s tainted.”
The goal is quite clearly to make him persona non grata to people who’ve never watched a video of his or read anything he’s written, making him so toxic that they will pigeonhole him (“alt-right bigot”) and never indulge whatever curiosity they might have by going to the source, Peterson. These pieces are not meant to actually inform; they’re meant to block any desire the listener might have to inform him/herself. After all, life is short, we have a finite amount of time here, and why waste it listening to a bigot or a figure beloved by bigots?
Pieces such as that first one I linked have a slightly different approach. They are ostensibly more “academic” and purport to debunk Peterson on those grounds. Their authors don’t necessarily have a clue what they’re talking about, but they do have some academic credentials to wave, and most readers don’t know squat about the topics involved and therefore have no way to evaluate what they’re reading and know whether it makes sense.
But such pieces are not necessarily meant to be read; it’s their headlines that really count, and maybe the first paragraph or two. If the reader goes off bored after that, even better, because the person will already have gotten the basic message, which is contained in the title of that piece: “The Tragic Folly of Jordan Peterson.” Who wants to pay attention to someone like that? Don’t waste your time—and few probably will.
Peterson is a frightening figure to the left. Handsome, articulate, charismatic, knowledgeable, intense, and dedicated to getting a message out, he’s been way too successful for the left’s comfort and must be stopped. Since his speech can’t entirely be banned (at the moment, anyway), this is the next best thing. Of course, it runs the risk of giving him more publicity than he had before, and therefore driving more traffic to him, but if it’s done carefully—once his fame has reached a certain critical mass anyway—the calculation is that these sorts of pieces will be effective at stopping the spread of his message.
“Peterson is a frightening figure to the left. Handsome, articulate, charismatic, knowledgeable, intense, and dedicated to getting a message out, . . .” [Neo]
I offer a two-fer that fits this description: Jordan Peterson and Camille Paglia
The link:
https://jordanbpeterson.com/transcripts/camille-paglia/
The Daily Caller author has a PhD in translational theology. I’m not impressed, but now am aware that there is such a thing. The author didn’t care for Stephen Hicks and his book on postmodernism either, enough said; he/she/it appears to be another credentialed loon.
Correction: The Daily Caller hit piece author’s credential is a PhD in translational theory. Double plus good! and a Mocha Venti latte for you too. /S
Vox Day a true altrighty debunks JP on his blog as a fraud
The Left is going full Stalinist on anything and anyone they don’t approve of.
Relentless dishonesty is the tactic of choice.
And they have the means and the band width to do this.
All ideology all the time.
All character assasination all the time.
To be sure, they are discrediting themselves, but just to what extent will not truly be known until push comes to shove (or the November mid-terms), whichever comes first.
And then there is the Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania professor who decided that Peterson is an INCEL and posted it on twitter. Not too bright.
http://dailycaller.com/2018/06/15/jordan-peterson-lawsuit-threat-professor-incel/
Whatever “translational theory” is, Dass has Peterson just about right.
Despite his being hated by the left, Peterson is nowhere near the alt-right. Some on the alt-right hate him because of the errors & misleading verbal gymnastics Dass details. Peterson’s had his 15 minutes.
Oh…FTR – I have watched his videos & a few interviews. Won’t buy his book…if it comes to the local library I may check it out.
Oddly enough, I find Ms Paglia infinitely more dangerous to the left because she’s one of their own. She’s also a genius even if we disagree on many points. Peterson, not so much.
Oh noes, not Vox Day! As if Jordon Peterson has ever claimed to be of the alt-right. The left says it over and over, but saying a thing doesn’t make it so.
Peterson took some flack in a post Cindy Newman interview when the “journalist” pulled up a photo of Jordon Peterson with two white males who were holding a Pepe the Frog poster. It was the best they’ve got, pathetic.
Peterson is not alt-right by any stretch. He is simply in the large category of non-leftist. Therefore, he can be beaten with whatever stick is at hand.
Argument by insinuation is ancient. Iago comes to mind. In modern times, one can find GK Chesterton exploding such tripe in his own day. It works because 1)people are intellectually lazy, and want someone to do the work for them, and 2)because many people choose their beliefs on the basis of the self-esteem they generate, not truth. I contend that liberalism is largely held aloft by eye rolls, tones of voice, and sneers.
You want to be one of the Smart Set, don’t you?
“Vox Day a true altrighty debunks JP on his blog as a fraud”
Vox Day’s extreme jealousy of Peterson is transparent, vile and disgusting. He shows his true colors as an envious mental midget who is in love with only his own vapors.
Basically, like the rotted pulp stuff he cranks out, he’s a comic book.
The first treatment is pretty much the ‘Rush Limbaugh is a big, fat liar’ approach. This is how the Left/MSM have always depicted him, only rarely quoting him (and when they do, it’s edited to mischaracterize what he’s said).
Limbaugh & Peterson are alike in that way: both speak such truth – in their own unique styles, of course – that the best approach is to prevent people from listening to them. Once you’ve seen that the Left’s ideas are akin to the emperor’s new clothes, it’s difficult to go back.
“The horrible thing about the Two Minutes Hate was not that one was obliged to act a part, but that it was impossible to avoid joining in. Within thirty seconds any pretence was always unnecessary. A hideous ecstasy of fear and vindictiveness, a desire to kill, to torture, to smash faces in with a sledge hammer, seemed to flow through the whole group of people like an electric current, turning one even against one’s will into a grimacing, screaming lunatic. And yet the rage that one felt was an abstract, undirected emotion which could be switched from one object to another like the flame of a blowlamp.”
The first treatment is pretty much the ‘Rush Limbaugh is a big, fat liar’ approach.
–Lizzy
I remember seeing a PBS Frontlines documentary on Rush Limbaugh back when I was still a progressive activist.
But after viewing it, I couldn’t figure out why I was supposed to consider Limbaugh a terrible monster, which was obviously the intent of the piece.
I didn’t see any fangs or green saliva. He just seemed like another imperfect human being with different stands and opinions. I didn’t see anything to hate about him.
I guess that lack of insight made me ripe to become a neocon after 9-11.
I’m glad the #MeToo alligators got Al Franken, author of “Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot.”
The fear and hate by the Left is in proportion to effectiveness. Recently, the son of Susan Rice, of Benghazi was due to the video fame, has been in conservative news. It turns out he is a conservative. He says he ‘converted’ from his family’s left views by listening to Rush Limbaugh while riding in his father’s car on the way to school. Apparently, the father, a producer for ABC news IIRC, liked to listen to Rush so he could disagree with him. The son decided Rush made more sense and started educating himself. He progressed to Mark Levin who would quote John Locke, which led to reading Locke and other liberal in the classical sense of the word texts. Son is now at Stanford and is an effective conservative activist. Rice was asked about her son’s views and she intelligently said that as a mother she loved and supported her son.
I remember the Sanity Squad podcasts. They were helpful in constructing a background information level for more advanced comprehensive research later on in human nature.
But for the most part, conservative psychiatrists weren’t exactly a thing back some odd years ago. Psychological warfare, psychological manipulation, and mental health was more of a government Leftist controlled box. The Germans had the Stasi and the Frankfurt schools on sexual normality and equality. The Soviets had their own version of “sane asylums”.
Vox Day’s extreme jealousy of Peterson is transparent, vile and disgusting. He shows his true colors as an envious mental midget who is in love with only his own vapors.
is that the same VoxDay that liked Sarah Palin, lost hope in US elections, left for Italy, started up his publishing business, and hit back 100x as hard against Tor publishing house?
I warned him on his blog that his white race… oh sorry, white nationalist religious dogma would not be in his best interests.
The author of the Daily Caller piece appears to be a conservative, not a leftist — see another article he wrote there saying Peterson has an anti-Christian vision:
John, the chance that ANY successful (in the public eye) figure has an IQ >140 is virtually NIL.
Peterson and Paglia have IQs of >127 and <137.
That's the magic band that produces virtually ALL of the leading personalities in society.
Do not conflate great erudition with genius.
http://polymatharchives.blogspot.com/2015/01/the-inappropriately-excluded.html
True geniuses are not comprehended by the mass audience, even when that audience would seem to be quite bright.
The numbers in the Bell distribution fade off too quickly for a genius to have an economically viable audience.
You just won’t find them in mass publication or broadcast for that reason.
Christianity is not the Federal Reserve or the Vatican banks, where undermining it is illegal and will be paid in Blood and Authority.
In fact, if Christianity is ever used in such a fashion, it should be destroyed and remade, since State Religions always end up like Soviet communism and North Korean personality cults.
It is like Sharpton and Jackson talking about Martin Luther, while hijacking and doing everything against Luther’s own philosophy. These organizations that call themselves as being loyal followers of C, never actually obey C or get any commands from C. The very definition of “hijacked”.
Whether it was John the Baptist, Jeremiah, Isaiah, Enoch, Adam, Abraham, Isaac, or any other religious leader, human beings have always preferred face to face contact and relationships. In that vein, J P follows the same mold. That’s not his problem, just as Trum’s problems aren’t his. It’s the supporters that have unnatural exhibitions and demands on their leaders. If people are wondering why gurus and religious/political leaders are worshiped over the idols and images of a cross and some Not In House Father and Son… the answer is pretty obvious. Why isn’t the Divine in the House? They don’t live in unclean Houses and Churches obviously.
Ann:
The author can say whatever he wants but I take more stock of what Peterson has said, and Peterson has not said he is anti-Christian. Peterson has not claimed to be a theologian, or Christian apologist. Other theologians are huffy about Peterson, for instance the Orthodox Christian David Bentley Hart.
The Doors of the Sea: Where Was God in the Tsunami?
Book by David Bentley Hart
Vox Day “always doubles down.”
Just wanted to point out that the criticism of Peterson is not solely by those on the left.
Peterson and Paglia have IQs of >127 and <137.
They seem slightly shining to me, but generally nothing they say is anything I haven’t thought up or researched years before. It’s nothing new, to me. To others, I comprehend that they seem as bright as Sirius and Polaris…
Perhaps due to the internal light I bear, all other gems and stars seem weaker in comparison.
Listening to Peterson on a podcast, preparing to write a comment, and reading Hebrew translated into English is something I can do at the same time. If Peterson’s concepts were dramatically difficult and complicated for me to grasp, I would need to focus on it for an hour or so.
To me, people’s articles and thoughts in the Prometheus Society and Mensa are more interesting. Although some of it I already figured it on my own…
There’s quite a number of 1% people with unique capabilities on youtube these days. Most of them are probably above average, but that 1% is quite useful. Their concepts are actually new. Their thesis work is actually at the vanguard of human progress and not just copy cat like most other credentialed humans do.
Ann:
You’re correct that it’s not JUST the left criticizing Peterson (I listed “academics” as part of it, for example, and they’re mostly on the left but not all on the left). It is overwhelmingly the left, however, but some of the right (or sort of on the right) get into the act as well. And it’s not that Peterson is perfect and beyond criticism. But it is the left that far more often uses the criticism in the way I described, and I’ve read plenty of articles of that “academic” anti-Peterson type by people on the left.
The people on the right who don’t like Peterson generally don’t like his stance on religion. They perceive him as using religion in some general way but not necessarily believing in it. At least, that’s what I’ve gleaned so far from what I’ve read from them.
VD would reply in his modern now a days snarky and high IQ way: Of course white nationalism wouldn’t benefit me, I’m with red nationalism.
Same conclusion in the end would be my counter to the counter.
As for geniuses who are too far, it is often times a matter of communication. In order to obtain and have a leadership position, one must gain the trust and belief of various factions in an organization. Some may be your friends or colleagues or comrades or some other special relationship. Others would be strangers and would only obey you because they are deriving a benefit from the organization or from your resources.
This is the epitome of office politics. For humans that have begun to break the constraints of human wisdom and knowledge, the whole point of progression is to get out of the stupidity box of human nature and affairs. But in order to maintain one’s leadership position, one must break down and rotate down and severely cripple the far reaching visionary traits and mal adaptive it to basic human natures and averages. To put it another way, the person with 2 legs must cripple his one leg to ensure his goon squad of 1 legged hoppers, can keep up with him. He does this for power, esteem, whatever humans like these days.
For geniuses that want to transcend the limitations of human knowledge and wisdom, having to cripple one’s own cultivation progress for the slowness of the common masses, is counter beneficial.
The longer a person thinks in terms of the group and masses, the better he adapts to the social norms and rules: the better he is able to play the game and climb the social ladder.
Often times, the advice of the wiser individual is truer and more accurate, but people will prefer the chain of command and the stability of organizations. I have noticed that sub leaders and leaders in various human organizations are dramatically dumb, at least compared to my analysis, strategies, and tactics. But to everybody else, these are tantamount to gods that provide content and discipline and purpose. Rather than try to oust the leader via a coup de tat or office politics (too much stress), it is much easier to advise the leader on how to adopt the better ideas and let them run on it. Even though they won’t really understand those ideas. The only way to do that job well, though, is to do it yourself.
The formation of personality cults is not good for the cult, the non members, or the leaders in it.
It corrupts and warps the energies of all humans involved or standing by and watching.
It creates the crab bucket and then provides a Brownian Mass energy to pull everyone in it and keep them there. The crabs keep the crabs down. The humans keep each other down .Everything works as intended.
This works for human psychiatrists like J P as well as politicians in District of Columbia.
Thanks blert…I appreciate the clarification. I was speaking hyperbolically as I’m sure you recognized. I just have more respect for Ms Paglia & have for years. Peterson…meh…today’s news tomorrow’s fish wrap.
And yeah…VD hits him pretty hard 😉 but even a stopped clock is right now and again; for whatever that’s worth.
Pax vobiscum.
Lizzy Says:
June 18th, 2018 at 4:11 pm
…Once you’ve seen that the Left’s ideas are akin to the emperor’s new clothes, it’s difficult to go back.
* * *
Serendipitously, I found a video last night of a man who discovered that himself, and is now running a project called #WalkAway (from the Left and the Democrats).
(I’m copying over part of the comment I left at Sarah Hoyt’s blog post “This is not a post”, beginning with the video that started my research.)
He hasn’t put his name in a visible location on his FB page that I can find, but I located it via Wayne Dupree’s show*: Brandon Straka, who also uses the stage-name Brando.
Apparently he is a musician/actor: I found an entry on IMdB for one show he appeared in, and he made a rock-movie-video on the same subject, with an interesting conversion story that directly fits the Emperor fable.**
This is The Video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Pjs7uoOkag
This is a link to a transcript of The Video, copied below, but the speaker gives a very powerful delivery of his work, and I recommend listening to him:
https://www.facebook.com/usminority/photos/a.449421025478868.1073741828.449290955491875/498769040544066/?type=3
I’ve read so many comments about me being hired by the Koch brothers- and also that my video was written by Breitbart and that I’m an incredibly stupid actor who delivered the lines without understanding what I was reading. 😂😂😂
First of all, if you knew how sad and trifling my checking and savings accounts are I think that would dispel the great Koch brothers payoff myth. I am however an actor… but not a stupid one. I wrote this script 100%, from the passion that I feel in my heart for what I was saying.
Some have requested having a transcript for the video. Here you are….
Once upon a time I was a liberal. Well, to be honest, less than a year ago I was still a liberal. I became a liberal because I felt I’d found a tribe whose values aligned with my own.
I staunchly reject racism of any kind. I reject the marginalization of any human being based off of their gender or sexual orientation. I reject tyrannical groupthink. I reject a system which allows an ambitious, misinformed, and dogmatic mob to suppress free speech, create false narratives, and then apathetically steamroll over the truth. I reject the acceptance of junk science and superstition to advance ideological agendas. I reject hate.
These are the reasons I became a liberal.
And these are the same reasons why I am now walking away.
For years now, I have watched as the left has devolved into intolerant, inflexible, illogical, hateful, misguided, ill-informed, Un-American, hypocritical, menacing, callous, ignorant, narrow-minded, and at times blatantly fascistic behavior and rhetoric. Liberalism has been co-opted and absorbed by the very characteristics it claims to fight against.
I have watched for years as people on the left have become anesthetized to their own prejudices and bigotry and the prejudices and bigotry of those around them who echo their values.
I have watched as formerly sensible people, who claim to reject racism, have come to embrace the principles of hating and universally blaming all of societies problems on all people who have white skin.
I have witnessed the irony of advocacy for gender equality morphing into blatant hatred and intolerance of men and masculinity.
I have seen the once-earnest fight for equality for the LGBT community mutate into an illogical demonization of heteronormativity, and the push to attack and vilify our conventional concepts of gender. These same self-proclaimed victims of intolerance now turning on the gay community that they attached themselves to to further their agenda- now calling gay people “privileged” and themselves “victims” of injustice.
I have watched as the left has willingly allowed themselves to become hypnotized by false narratives and conclusions, perpetuated by social justice warriors who intentionally misrepresent and misconstrue facts, evidence, and events to confirm their own biases that everybody who does not comply with their prejudicial conclusions and follow their orders is a racist, a bigot, a nazi, a white supremacist, homophobic, islamophobic, xenophobic, misogynistic- an “alt-right extremist”.
And I have watched as they used these heartless and carelessly assigned labels to intimidate, threaten, bully, silence, attack, unemploy, black list, and destroy anybody who dares to fight back.
They’ll come for me… and then they’ll come for you.
And worst of all, The Democratic Party and the liberal media has embraced, affirmed, aided and abetted this cult ideology. In an effort to gain voters and maintain power the Democratic Party that I once loved has joined forces with the extremist left. The Democratic Party and the liberal media now believe their own ill-gotten conclusions and have ominously decided that they and only they know the remedy for society ills.
The left has decided that the solution to problems with race relations in America… is MORE racism.
The left believes that attacking, insulting, and dehumanizing one group of people elevates another.
The left now believes that there are no boundaries when telling lies, omitting the truth, or misrepresenting facts while reporting the news, because their end justifies their means.
The left has decided that it’s point of view is the only acceptable one; and that suppressing, censoring, and banning open dialogue and debate is virtuous and progressive.
The Democratic Party has adopted a deleterious belief system, happily and without skepticism, separating people into groups based of off identity and organizing them into camps of victims and oppressors. If you are a person of color, an LGBT person, a woman, or an American immigrant, the Democratic Party wants you to know that you are a victim, and destined to stay that way.
They will insist that you are a victim doomed to exist within a system that is rigged against you.
That you are a victim of systemic oppression.
That you are a victim of your circumstances, and that no amount of hard work or motivational action will ever allow you to overcome your victimhood or the privilege of those around you. This is perhaps the Democratic Party’s greatest and most insidious lie.
But if you are a minority in America today the liberal media and left wing politicians don’t s want you to ever discover this lie. So they bombard us with stories designed to reinforce the narrative that you are in danger, that you can not succeed. They manipulate your fears and concerns by telling you that you are disadvantaged, disempowered, and disposable… to everyone except them.
They will tell you that you need them. They will tell you that you are only safe under their supervision. They will promise to liberate you from all that chains you. And then… they will do absolutely nothing for you.
Once upon a time I was a liberal. But liberalism has changed, and I will no longer be a part of an ideology or a political party that represents everything that contradicts my values of unity, equal opportunity, personal empowerment, compassion… and love. So I am walking away. And I encourage all of you to do the same.
Walk away.
* * *
* I don’t know Dupre either, but here’s the vitae from his website) 2017 Top 50 Black Republican; NDC for Trump Board Mbr; 2015 Blogger Of The Year; 2014 Podcast of the Year
and his interview with Brandon
https://www.pscp.tv/WayneDupreeShow/1MnxnZYDLbmxO
**from the rock-movie on YouTube; the explanation is better than the video IMO:
The Unsilent Minority
Published on Mar 7, 2018
RESIST: A Rock Revolution is a show I wrote dealing with the presidential election of 2016 and the fallout from it. I myself was a lifelong liberal. I voted for Hillary Clinton. I cried after Donald Trump was elected President of the United States. So I initially sought to write a reactionary show from a place of anger- and a rallying cry to other liberals that we would band together and fight back. As I wrote my show, I began to interview Trump supporters in an effort to understand their position. I wanted to try to grasp how anybody could make such a DEPLORABLE choice. And then something remarkable began to happen. I began to hear the stories of people across the country whose lives and communities had been so negatively impacted by the presidency of Barack Obama. I began to hear about the hope the was reignited in the hearts of so many forgotten Americans. And slowly but surely the veil was lifted for me regarding the unconscionably dishonest liberal media. I saw the narratives they had created- calling his supporters racists, sexists, homophobes, islamophobes- I saw that these things were untrue- and the narrative of my show had to change. So, RESIST: A Rock Revolution is a musical journey into my own experience which has led me out of liberalism and away from the Democratic party. I want to use my show and my voice to let all people know, especially racial and sexual minorities, that we HAVE A CHOICE. We do NOT have to align ourselves with liberals and democrats just because we are expected to. The media wishes to keep us uniformed and afraid.But we no longer have to be.
IMO, only Donald Trump is perceived by the Left as a greater threat than Jordan Peterson.
Trump’s unapologetic assertions and actions frightens the Left because they act to focus opposition to the Left’s agenda.
Peterson’s intellectual intensity frightens the Left. Most of all because Peterson doesn’t just understand their perversities, he articulates that understanding in a way that leaves them with no substantive rejoinder.
Recent attempts to Nazify Jordan are a sure confirmation that they can’t intellectually challenge him.
Peterson and Paglia have IQs of >127 and <137.
That's the magic band that produces virtually ALL of the leading personalities in society.
blert: That must be my problem!
A frenemy, who got a glimpse of my high school records, said my recorded IQ was 138. However, he claimed his IQ was four points higher.
Knowing my sort-of friend, he might have reversed our numbers or made mine up to suit his needs.
On the other hand I did better than he did, so maybe he was right. He’s still living in a rent-controlled apartment, waiting for the modern art world to declare him a genius and shower him with Benjamins.
I’m too dumb to consider that a possibility.
“When you’re one step ahead of the crowd, you’re a genius. When you’re two steps ahead of the crowd, you’re a crackpot.” Rabbi Shlomo Riskin
Geoffrey Britain Says:
June 18th, 2018 at 9:36 pm
IMO, only Donald Trump is perceived by the Left as a greater threat than Jordan Peterson.
huxley Says:
June 18th, 2018 at 9:51 pm
Peterson and Paglia have IQs of >127 and <137.
* * *
Maybe JP is the secret love-child of Trump and Paglia.
Geoffrey Britain Says:
June 18th, 2018 at 10:01 pm
* *
You have given me an opening to quote from my favorite books – The prototype of Game of Thrones, but with real history, much more likable characters, and not quite so much perversion.
https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/8361.Dorothy_Dunnett
“Versatility is one of the few human traits which are universally intolerable. You may be good at Greek and good at painting and be popular. You may be good at Greek and good at sport, and be wildly popular. But try all three and you’re a mountebank. Nothing arouses suspicion quicker than genuine, all-round proficiency.”
Kate thought. “It needs an extra gift for human relationships, of course; but that can be developed. It’s got to be, because stultified talent is surely the ultimate crime against mankind. Tell your paragons to develop it: with all those gifts it’s only right they should have one hurdle to cross.”
“But that kind of thing needs co-operation from the other side,” said Lymond pleasantly. “No. Like Paris, they have three choices.” And he struck a gently derisive chord between each. “To be accomplished but ingratiating. To be accomplished but resented. Or to hide behind the more outré of their pursuits and be considered erratic but harmless.”
― Dorothy Dunnett, The Game of Kings
AesopFan:
That’s pretty funny. Trump and Paglia would have to have had a teenage romance, though.
In Canada.
“When you’re one step ahead of the crowd, you’re a genius. When you’re two steps ahead of the crowd, you’re a crackpot.” Rabbi Shlomo Riskin
Um, no. David Lifton, James Fetzer, and Morgan Reynolds are crackpots, and not because they’re two steps ahead of anyone.
John, the chance that ANY successful (in the public eye) figure has an IQ >140 is virtually NIL
Richard Nixon had an IQ of 143. No, he wasn’t particularly profound nor was his worldview esoteric.
Y:
We never had a clue until you informed us, that you are a genius. Mensa huh? .
Vanderleun:
Basically, like the rotted pulp stuff he [Vox Day] cranks out, he’s a comic book.
Amen. As is the alt-right in general.
So some people here don’t think an IQ in the 130s is all that high?!? My personal opinion is that IQ points above 120-130 or so are not very useful unless you are an actual rocket scientist. Then other qualities come to the fore: leadership, organization, creativity and diligence (i. e. plain old hard work) among others.
Art Deco,
Obviously real crackpots are not ahead of anyone. The good rabbi is referring to the difference between a crowd’s reaction of “that’s brilliant!” and a reaction of “that’s nuts!” when the ideas advanced are in fact valid.
In the first case, the idea was unforeseen but instantly grasped as valid. In the second case, the validity of the idea is not easily grasped with an explanation needed which still may not convince, especially if counter intuitive or contradicting established ideas of what is ‘possible’.
An example of the second is Albert Einstein’s reaction to Quantum Mechanics; “God does not play dice with the universe!”
This is a good description of Peterson and why he’s such a threat to the progressives.
https://twitter.com/davereaboi/status/1005296433023549440?
Does is matter if he’s labeled a genius, or whether he’s considered a conservative, classical liberal or libertarian? I think what matters is that he is having a huge effect on a younger generation who is open to, maybe even craving, an alternative to toxic progressivism. He provides a defense of Western civilization, and for that, I am grateful.
What amazes me is the number of people willing to let others think for them. You have to let other people interpret things when the source material is lost to history or in a different language or other reasons but there’s no reason to do that in this case. Every single person can make up their own mind there are thousands of hours of videos and still so many people are content just to let other people do all their thinking
Vox Day’s extreme jealousy of Peterson is transparent, vile and disgusting
VD put up several detailed posts about JBP and GvL’s response to all of it is “he’s just jealous”. And you call Vox Day a mental midget. Pathetic.
An obviously decent, kind, and committed man, Peterson thinks that modern life has become hollow, and he tries to help people in their quest for meaning. The left discredits itself with every attack on him. I do worry about his health, though.
Certainly it is NOT only the left which criticizes Peterson. From a right-leaning perspective, too, there are some things “out-of-plumb.”
Vox Day, I think, is correctly aware of this. (But Vox Day’s tone in reacting to them is over-the-top, disproportionate.)
Here’s how I break it down:
I think everything Peterson opposes is something that needs opposing. But his reasons for opposing them are sometimes not well-grounded. He knows what ought NOT to be; but I don’t think he has any clear idea of what ought INSTEAD to be.
If Peterson had his way, the fascist strain of leftism, currently ascendant, would be defeated. That’s good. But I think Peterson’s idea of an ideal replacement would be a slightly kinder-and-gentler version of the same moderate-left-globalist worldview: Less oppressive towards opposing speech, but otherwise unaltered.
Now, a less-oppressive leftism is obviously preferable to a more-oppressive one! But I and other right-leaning persons would rather have something else even better: A rollback and reversal of the left’s conquest of the culture and its institutions. A new set of cultural norms restoring the best of Judeo-Christian, Greco-Roman, and Anglophilic patrimony.
Let me describe what that might look like:
1. Most of the population could recognize (with love) nearly any significant quote from the King James Bible or Shakespeare.
2. Most of the political class could quote the Founding Fathers and Lincoln at will; but also Cicero or Seneca; and Plato’s Republic or Augustine’s City of God were commonly cited texts, also. Your average college graduate had never heard of Howard Zinn, but could quote F.A. Hayek.
3. Half the population had experience in some kind of entrepreneurialism, and most of those who worked as employees retained a side-business of some kind.
4. Two thirds of all men had experience in woodworking, electrical work, and small motor repair.
5. More than half the population abstained entirely from sexual relations prior to marriage; and this was viewed as the ideal and a good thing.
6. The divorce rate dropped to 10%, and marital infidelity was equally rare.
7. Remarriage after a divorce (rather than reconciliation or remaining single) was looked at as “bad form,” certainly if there were children involved.
8. The term “gay” was perceived as the Orwellianism it is, and the culturally-accepted (and more clinical) term became “affected by SSAD (Same Sex Attraction Disorder).” At the same time, no person with SSAD was mistreated by others, any more than a person with pica would be. Persons with SSAD had no fear of discrimination, let alone abuse. Gay “marriage” was understood as a contradiction-in-terms and had no place in law, but contractual rights of inheritance, survivorship, power-of-attorney, next-of-kin status, etc. could be obtained by anyone, with anyone else, easily.
9. The typical number of kids for a couple who enjoyed good health and good household incomes, by the time the wife reached menopause, was six.
10. The mix of public-schooling, private-schooling, and homeschooling was roughly 34%/33%/33%.
11. The Aristotelian-Thomistic tradition of philosophy became the dominant tradition in American universities.
12. Stalinism and other forms of leftist oppression were taught in schools and in popular culture/media as evils worse than Nazism, with Nazism being rightfully labelled as a member of the spectrum of left-leaning government.
13. The “three transcendentals” of Goodness, Truth, and Beauty were taught as the motivating ideals of The Arts. Postmodern art trends of the 20th century were looked back upon with disgust and shame.
14. Around 50% of all households included at least one firearm owner, and the cultural expectation and popular image of firearm owners was “law-abiding, sober-minded, and competent.” Americans would routinely trounce all other countries in Olympic shooting sports, because shooting sports were a common passtime of the whole population.
15. Leftist sinecures like BLAH-Studies and BLAH-Criticism became virtually unknown at American universities.
16. Capital punishment existed, but was uncommon. Euthanasia was outlawed, although “suspension of extraordinary measures” was lawful. Abortion was outlawed, and the norm for single mothers was to carry-to-term and then have the child adopted by a married couple.
17. Race-whores of the Jesse Jackson/Al Sharpton variety were roundly ignored. King’s formulation of judging not by the color-of-skin but the content-of character was the norm. 20% of all marriages were interracial; but, because all the involved persons were culturally American, the only real “cultural differences” between persons whose ancestors came from different continents were culinary.
Now, you can quibble with the details, the percentages; you can modify some of the characteristics. But what I’ve just described (however fanciful it may seem in our current state of cultural decay) is a vision of How Things Ought To Be which most persons on the right would describe as, “WAY better than what we have now.”
And I don’t think Peterson’s there, just yet.
He’s very clear that postmodernism is bad, that leftism occupies a religious, even jihadist, role in the psychology of the left. He sees that society is sick. But apart from opposing compelled speech, he doesn’t have a vision of what a healthy society would look like. So he defaults back to the status quo, minus a few of its evils. He is roughly where Alasdair MacIntyre was in 1975.
Having said all that, I should add: I like Peterson. I hope that all the things he opposes are defeated.
But I wouldn’t want to pick him as the architect for what replaces them. I don’t think that’s his strong suit.
And you call Vox Day a mental midget. Pathetic.
OK, how about someone with a grossly inflated sense of himself as a Renaissance Man? My last exchange with Day was about 8 years ago when he was rebuking me for my lack of understanding of Austrian economics and it’s insights. He was all about peddling Austro-crank predictions of an coming catastrophe (which, you may have noticed, have never emerged). There’s a reason few academic economists are Austrians (much less bastardized Austrians).
We never had a clue until you informed us, that you are a genius. Mensa huh? .
That’s not me, but Gringo and Assistant Village Idiot in Prometheus Society. I am not part of the high IQ societies, I just perceive them from outside.
The high IQ societies rate on mathematical IQ and normalization for specific single core performance. I’m on the polymath, parallel core, side more, which often scores in Mensa Raven tests as being under 97% of the population. Mensa only accepts the top 3 or 2%. And Prometheus and other societies, accept only greater than 1/1000, which is to mean less than 1% of the population.
Polymaths are not so much born as constructed through self programming and change, via the utilization of multiple language cores. In computer terms, it is the difference between having 4 cpu cores that run at 1000 mhz, vs having a single super cooled cpu core that runs at 4500 mhz. The 4 cores are more stable and flexible, and doesn’t overheat as often. While the child and genius autistic prodigies, tend to have severe overheating and other min/max issues.
People in mensa, if we exclude their human flaws, are only slightly better than average from what I’ve seen. Their rate of data absorption is quite high, but that is also seen in children for gifted programs. It is not particularly something you humans should feel proud of being or not being in.
(But Vox Day’s tone in reacting to them is over-the-top, disproportionate.)
VD learned his tactics and philosophy from Alinsky. I told him he was selling his soul for not much.
VD when he wrote about that conservative radio guy’s prescription drug addiction problems, actually sounded kind, moderate, and so on. I know, a complete surprise: this was decades ago. Autistic min maxers such as VD or our own Art, tends to learn a lot of things, some good and some bad. THeir rate of absorption is high, but that isn’t necessarily a good thing when they encounter Leftists.
1. Most of the population could recognize (with love) nearly any significant quote from the King James Bible or Shakespeare.
When I retranslated much of the Bible from Greek and Hebrew original sources (or the most ancient or Qumran feasible), I found that almost every other line in the King James only version had a translation issue. And it wasn’t merely due to the Masoretic Text or the weird King’s english they were using either.
But apart from opposing compelled speech, he doesn’t have a vision of what a healthy society would look like.
Which is fine with the non totalitarians and non fanatics of the Alt Right. For the fanatics and panicked youths, they want another Mao to tell them how to fix the system. I am suspicious of these Maos that come up with entirely new and “better” revolutionary systems.
I think Vox Day sees Peterson as a competitor for the same audience.
Nirmal Dass elevates minor academic differences of opinion and interpretation to evidence of Peterson’s lack of rigor and incompetence. It’s shameful. He’s a smartypants who revels in showing it.
Peterson has shown time and again that he’s always willing to learn, and always willing to exchange ideas openly and generously with reasonable people.
Curiously, Dass describes himself for the purposes of the piece as a PhD in something he calls “translational theory.” But his CV indicates his PhD is in “Critical Theory.” Is he trying to hide his connection to the single most destructive literary theory in history?
“People in mensa, if we exclude their human flaws, are only slightly better than average from what I’ve seen. Their rate of data absorption is quite high . . . .” [Ymarsaker @ 10:03 am]
This brings up an interesting point. It seems to me that we, as a species, have a tendency to see intelligence as an ability to know data; i.e., to know this or that fact and be able to mentally access it. This may have been crucial at earlier stages of civilization, when data information and retrieval was not a simple keyboard activity. Today, however, it makes one simply an organic computer. An extreme example of this was a fellow student I knew who could instantly recite the birth and death years of virtually any historical figure, no matter how obscure. So what? (This, BTW, is just like our tendency to confuse being credentialed with being intelligent.)
Intelligence, OTH, seems to me to be more the ability to 1) know where to look for necessary facts and 2) how to use and interrelate them for some beneficial outcome. In contrast to the student above, Einstein didn’t discover any new physical reality, he was able to discern certain new rules to a reality that already existed.
George S. Ohm (Ohm’s Law)
Ohm’s initial publication was met with ridicule and dismissal; called “a tissue of naked fantasy.” Approx. twenty years passed before scientists began to recognize its great importance. See M. Schagrin, “Resistance to Ohm’s Law,” American Journal of Physics, #31 pp536-547 1963.
http://amasci.com/weird/vindac.html#j22
Ohms the unit is taught in engineering school as preparation for AC circuits later. The story of the person, not so much. This is the reality and truth of “scientific peer review”. When all your peers are retards and copy cats, you aren’t going to get much of a high review if you actually find something new. V=IR
You got to wait awhile for the Old Guard to die out.
The myth told and sold by popular science, is that the moment some scientist in a white lab coat breaks the barriers of current human knowledge, he gets funding, money, esteem, fame, peer compliments, and the Noble and various other prizes. The reality doesn’t quite work like that.
Another current example is how gravity doesn’t obey the inverse square law and thus cannot be Unified by physicists such as Michio O, in the Grand Unification Theory being pursued. It is also why classical Newtonian and Einstein relativity based physics, is far cruder and more inaccurate than quantum physics. Einstein wasn’t smart enough to “get” quantum physics. That required more out of the box thinking apparently. As for proof the masses and those who think themselves peers of the elites, look up quantum locking. From a polymath perspective, that resonates and confirms many other research fields in other specialties. From a classical physics pov, quantum locking is equivalent to some WIZARD MAGIC right there. It’s beginning to harp on the Perpetual Motion machine problem as well. Which would be a semi perpetual motion machine.
In retrospect, I should have added a third level to my last paragraph (@ 10:30 am, above):
JBP’s statement of his religious beliefs may be of interest here. From an AMA at reddit last year:
“You got to wait awhile for the Old Guard to die out.” [Ymarsakar @ 10:38 am]
Reminds me of Isaac Asimov noting that the most important words ever uttered in science are/were: “Hm. That’s interesting.”
It seems to me that we, as a species, have a tendency to see intelligence as an ability to know data; i.e., to know this or that fact and be able to mentally access it.
Some of that is due to the stupidity and primitive teaching methods of public education (indoctrination) where regurgitating knowledge is very useful in that limited environment. And leaders and elites need a lot of people who can regurgitate information on demand or they Are Fired.
Intelligence was rated on the battlefield very easily. The army with the better commander, tactician, and strategist, wins and therefore the dead guys are the dumb ones.
Pretty simple.
The rate at which we can unlearn bad things is as critical as the rate at which we learn new things.
For example, physicists trying to resolve the “gravity” issue are stuck. That’s because they learned in school that the gods of physics was G(ravity), and thus Newton or Einstein.
When data communication is so quick due to the internet research methods, what matters most is how fast people can Unlearn incorrect theories. Until they do that, humanity is frozen and blocked from progressing. This isn’t all that different to those who learn a skill such as martial arts or battlefield strategy. Generals fight the last war after all.
Our own Art and VoxDay as his unique high IQ self, tends to deal badly with “competition”. Meaning people at their level or above.
That is because in almost their entire life experience, their competitors were the backstabbing humans who played office politics well. They learned not to respect these people and to deal with them as enemies. They didn’t learn how to use rivals and competition to improve like less imbalanced min maxed individuals. That’s unfortunate, but if they consider themselves geniuses, then let us see if the genius can change themselves. That’s a human nature problem, not an IQ problem.
Geniuses are replete in humanity. Just look at how many are in the 6-7 or 8 or 9 billion humans that exist right now. Why would I wanted to be labeled the same as other humans? I am unique, one in 7 billion, not 1 in 5000… that’s way too low.
Wow, today we learn that science isn’t a strawman caricature and that Einstein didn’t explain or know everything because he wasn’t
“smart enough.” How profound. Not.
ymarsakar:
Re: the King James:
Well, yes, sorry, I was writing to a broader audience, using “The King James” as a cultural symbol in the word-picture I was “painting.” I didn’t expect anyone to come at it from your level of qualifications!
I like the RSVCE, but whatever I’m reading I’m careful to make comparisons with Young’s and read commentaries by the earliest-available Church Fathers, or even dig into the mishna a bit, to better keep track of, uh, “framer’s intent.” And I admit I’m not up to doing my own translation, as you’ve done. I can probably average ten words a minute in Greek, at best; and my few experiments learning Hebrew didn’t get far!
Still, I get what you’re saying about King James’ “Authorized Version.” It always had serious deficiencies; why then, did I mention it as a “cultural symbol?”
Well, because I was envisioning a society that had stopped being amnesiac about the Judeo-Christian tradition. I think it’s tragic that half the population can quote the hilarious Solipsism McNuggets of pseudo-wisdom that George Lucas put in the mouth of Yoda (“do, or do not; there is no try”); while probably only 1-in-20 university students can even recognize the 23rd Psalm, let alone say it from memory!
Now one of the obstacles producing a culture that can quote the Bible is that all the competing translations make it hard for people to memorize it the same way. The last time that most Americans were able to recognize Psalm 23 — over 80 years ago, I’d guess — it was the King James version they had in their heads: “The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.” So when I imagined a radical restoration of widespread conversance, the once-ubiquitous KJV came to mind.
There is also the problem of the inappropriate, wooden clunkiness of certain modern versions. When the glorified Christ presents himself to John in the Apocalypse and says, “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End,” I like seeing the Constitution-style capitalization. I don’t like it when a modern translation reads, “I am the A and the Z, the start and the finish.” Sorry, but for me, that loses something!
So, for all its problems, I’d rather have a situation where the KJV was the most widely-recognized/quoted translation (provided that folk made accompanying mental notes about places where that translation was misleading), than have our civilization muddle through the mud with nothing but The Message. And while there are much-better options than the King James; I just didn’t think a broad audience would have heard of them. I was mainly trying to convey an openness Sacral English, and reference an earlier time when vastly more people could recognize a quote from the Bible as such.
T, I like your definition of intelligence, and this is why I think Jordan Peterson is effective: he is turning people who have been immersed in progressive think on to a new way of perceiving the world. He is a mental ‘gateway drug’ to exploring these new ideas (to them) about western civilization. This is why I don’t worry about Peterson providing the perfect alternative system to progressivism, him not being a Christian, him not being a conservative. He’s a change agent.
Exactlyy so, Johann.
But as for this brief belch by one Tully Bascombe
—–
quote “Vox Day’s extreme jealousy of Peterson is transparent, vile and disgusting”
VD put up several detailed posts about JBP and GvL’s response to all of it is “he’s just jealous”. And you call Vox Day a mental midget. Pathetic.” endquote
First, the aptly named “VD” did not put up “several” posts, but many many one… and they were not “detailed” unless you favor the flavor of his spume-flecked blather.
Second, I am not here to demonstrate at some interminable length the midgetry of his mentality, nor to please a pifflepuff such as you.
These are “comments” and not “essays.” That is the province of neo. (One notes here editing for length one long time contributor here.)
To indicate that one’s remark is not as long or as “detailed” as the blatherfests at VD merely evinces a, dare I say, virulent small mindedness.
Whitney Says:
June 19th, 2018 at 6:36 am
… Every single person can make up their own mind there are thousands of hours of videos and still so many people are content just to let other people do all their thinking
* * *
It’s not a matter of being content; it’s a matter of psychological survival.
There is a phenomenon called “rational ignorance”*: most people just don’t have, or won’t spend, the time to access those thousands of hours, and thus they pick a “trusted source” (by experience and after an initial “trial run” to test validity; or by default or compulsion, like most everyone) to mediate the information for them.
I spend 6-8 hours a day just reading political blogs, news, and interesting side-bars from the internet, and could easily spend 24/7/365 — and I still default to the analyses of people like Andy McCarthy and JE Dyer because I don’t have the background and training that they do.
*Rational ignorance is refraining from acquiring knowledge when the cost of educating oneself on an issue exceeds the potential benefit that the knowledge would provide.
Rational ignorance – Wikipedia
“Some of that is due to the stupidity and primitive teaching methods of public education (indoctrination) where regurgitating knowledge is very useful . . . .” [Ymarsaker @ 10:54 am]
To carry that point one step further, rote memorization is an important foundation (elementary school) for intelligence. To be able to quickly access (e.g.) that 2 x 2 = 4 is a basis for understanding higher math. However, one must reach a certain point where the ability to associate ideas becomes critically important.
As you imply, instead of universities teaching students HOW to think they have become indoctrination centers for teaching WHAT to think, and, to our shame, that process does begin at early levels.
Aesop Fan,
Let’s make a distinction here. I agree with you’re comment on rational ignorance, but I think it needs to be refined.
You rely on Andrew McCarthy for legal analysis because he has proven himself to be a credible source. Yet, McCarthy does not venture with published opinions in other fields (e.g., climate change, economics) because he doesn’t have the same expertise there.
Take, as an opposite example, Leonardo DiCaprio. He may well be a good actor, but it seems that he believes that his expertise in front of the camera leads to a concomitant expertise in global warming.
So, there are those, like yourself (and I suspect most commenters here), who will make that distinction with credible sources, and there are those for whom the Gell-Mann effect applies.
ymarsakar may feel better about the personality cult question after reading Peterson’s answer to that question.
This is an answer to a question posed to Jordan Peterson at his Indianapolis appearance a couple nights ago. (Worth clicking through to read the whole post at Chicks on the Right, because Peterson saved a life at his appearance in Indianapolis, too.)
One that was particularly amusing was the one from someone who asked (I’m paraphrasing), “How do I know, as I follow your lectures and videos, that I’m not getting sucked up into a cult?” I loved his answer to that one.
He said everyone should be skeptical of ANYONE they follow for all sorts of reasons, but that we could all rest assured we weren’t part of a cult, because:
He’s not an authoritarian figure
He doesn’t encourage or suggest that people only associate with other Jordan Peterson followers.
He doesn’t discourage independent thinking — in fact he does just the opposite.
He doesn’t encourage a dissociation from your closest family and friends by asking you to place more value on his teachings than you do on them.
It was a funny question, and he approached it with humor, but he also kindly recognized the legitimacy of it, given how easy it is for people to become star-struck and sucked in by people who they view as larger-than-life.
First, the aptly named “VD” did not put up “several” posts, but many many one
Ha! “VD”, as in venereal disease, you’re so clever!! No wonder people flock to your website. Serious question, are you trying to sound like Ioawhawks’s T Coddington Van Voorhees or are you just that untalented as a writer?
I see Tully has felt the sting and the stark fist of removal.
Tully:
VD – verbally deficient, or vastly derisive, or verily disingenuous. VD – he’s yo daddy.
T Says:
June 19th, 2018 at 11:54 am
..
So, there are those, like yourself (and I suspect most commenters here), who will make that distinction with credible sources, and there are those for whom the Gell-Mann effect applies.
* * *
As with most things, “credible” means different things to different people, but your point is well taken.
Sadly, almost everyone succumbs to the G-M effect at some point…including Gell-Mann himself 😉
Marian Booker Says:
June 19th, 2018 at 1:17 pm
…
This is an answer to a question posed to Jordan Peterson at his Indianapolis appearance a couple nights ago. (Worth clicking through to read the whole post at Chicks on the Right, because Peterson saved a life at his appearance in Indianapolis, too.)
* * *
Thanks for the link; he gave an answer — a very good one — to another question: “I plan on taking my life very soon. Why shouldn’t I?”
AesopFan –
Thanks for following the link. I think those who are on the fence or perhaps anti-Peterson probably haven’t impacted a person’s life so positively in so few words, ever.
So, there’s that.
And I admit I’m not up to doing my own translation, as you’ve done. I can probably average ten words a minute in Greek, at best; and my few experiments learning Hebrew didn’t get far!
With computer software, it isn’t necessary to become fluent in Ancient Greek or Hebrew. In fact, translation is easier without certain language misconceptions. For example, Shakespeare’s Old English sounds and even looks, some spellings, like American or British English. But people kind of know after reading a few lines that they aren’t even talking about the same thing anymore. Different culture, different political system, etc.
To give an example, I learned to recognize much of spoken Japanese just by listening to it. Sometimes a word I thought I understood, would be used in an uncommon context and then I would realize that my perception was misconstrued and lacking the “Japanese cultural” context. The word x is translated as “forgive” 95% of the time into English, but the other connotations it had was “allow”, “permit”, and “tolerate”.
In English, idiomatic expressions have certain similar pitfalls. Why did Ford make a lemon? To someone that does not understand the context of which the word lemon is used, they might think Ford was making fruits. A lemon is normally not translated as “car”. Thus a minor misconception in the textual context and lack of knowledge about modern American culture, would lead to a translation issue.
The same problems exist with the Hebrew concept of “chasid”. How do we even know what they used it as? The most we can do is reverse engineer it from the text itself, but if we misunderstood any of the textual context, we would get the concept itself wrong. So when that context was translated into Greek in the New Testament, the word humans used at the time was “agape”, the Greek conception of intellectual love and respect, instead of bodily lust or brotherhood etc. It is why Jesus said “those that follow him should hate their mother and father”. Mistranslation!
I don’t want to look up what people thought hate meant back then, but the original context was something slightly different.
In order to re translate anything, one needs to have a system that knows the vocabulary and grammar. We have websites now for that. The person, though, still needs to think in ideally two parallel paths: English and the other language core. That way they can parallel think in two different languages at the same time and compare whether the concepts match the context and denotation/connotation definitions. Then, we can begin parsing out the “grammar” and writing style. Some people do it the reverse, which is fine. Isaiah has a certain “style” to it which does inform how one reads his wording.
It is much easier to be able to parallel process languages 3 at a time, 4 at a time, and 8 at a time. That is because each additional core allows you to run your own operating system independent of the cultural and modern misconceptions, allowing the possibility of the true definition of the wording to be exposed. I usually run 2 language cores at the same time, and sometimes 3 or 4 now. It helps to cross reference the meanings by comparing it to relevant practices and usage in other cultures as well. Hebrew to Greek was not merely a language issue, it was a philosophical and cultural issue as well.
Much of what we read and study about in what is called the Protestant Bible, is missing the cultural context clues of the ancients. It is like reading Shakespeare thinking the writer was a Roman centurion writing about Caesar. Oops, not the right timeline or culture, there.
and my few experiments learning Hebrew didn’t get far!
it is easier for me to read Hebrew since Japanese also writes from Right to Left. Although reading Hebrew isn’t necessary all the time, just at certain times when I read the English and it makes no sense. That’s usually a sign of a mistranslation or some other related issue. The real problem is reading Hebrew letters and then reading the English translation below. It’s one thing to read two language lines at the same time that writes from Left to Right, quite another thing when the top line must be read Right to Left and the bottom Line reads Left to Right but the sentence structures goes backwards…
I think it’s tragic that half the population can quote the hilarious Solipsism McNuggets of pseudo-wisdom that George Lucas put in the mouth of Yoda (“do, or do not; there is no try”); while probably only 1-in-20 university students can even recognize the 23rd Psalm, let alone say it from memory!
Hah, that reminds me of something. Somebody went to the boonies of Africa where they didn’t have electricity and asked them if they Knew what the Force and Star Wars was. They did. When asked if they knew about this book called the Bible… nope. It may not have been the Bible but some other spiritual work.
I was mainly trying to convey an openness Sacral English, and reference an earlier time when vastly more people could recognize a quote from the Bible as such.
Some things in the Western canon has been left alone because universities don’t want to deal with it. For example, Caves of Qumran validates the First Book of Enoch. Enoch was read as scripture during the New Testament, but was later removed from the biblical canon by Ecumenical Councils and the Roman bureaucracy.
Even well read Westerners have lost a significant amount of classical readings, whether because they don’t understand Socrates’ or Plato’s Greek or their English translations, or somebody just decided that we shouldn’t need to read 1st Enoch and the other texts that was available. A literary generation like ours that have access to the internet, but we have not read even half of the things the Apostles in primitive World Era with no electricity had read? Ridiculous.
I would be satisfied if people read the original work in the original language. I wouldn’t even have a bias towards one religion or philosophy vs another. The Indian scriptures, the Sumerian histories, the Koran, read it in some other language and the benefit will be enormous. That’s how Westerners got smart to begin with, they forced themselves to become Renaissance by reading new languages, teachings themselves new skills, and so on. We have lost much of that with the public education system.
Just memorize this Greek Latin Grammar and vocabulary, and we will pass you. Hah, as if that actually makes people think in a language core. How about people study a puzzle written in English and then think of it from the Greek perspective, and then do it at the same time to solve the puzzle from both directions. How about people do what I do and read English and think in English, while listening to Japanese audio talking about the same or more complicated different topic. Humans don’t need to be limited by the Western concept of “liberal arts education”. It is why so many prodigies burn out when being educated by these so called smart people.
Marian Booker Says:
June 19th, 2018 at 1:17 pm
ymarsakar may feel better about the personality cult question after reading Peterson’s answer to that question.
The phenomenon I am thinking of was probably closer to the logical fallacy by believing in Authorities. That is part of a cult issue, but people can have problems without being bound by a human organization. Which is to mean, Hollywood’s problem is with their Authorities and their faith in them, not because they joined Scientology or Demoncracy or some other group that may or may not be a cult.
The problem is in the weakness of the person in finding credible Authorities to tell them what to do. As Aesop and others mentioned, this is on one hand rational, as a way to save time, but it can lead to very irrational results. The More J P is sucked into the demand, the more he will have to conform to a system that is cult orientated, simply because of the Sheer Demand. But of course, the same may be said of Hollywood celebrities and authors.
This is not his personal problem nor is it particularly a political problem. It’s just a human nature problem that can’t be gotten rid of. It can be ameliorated by rationalizations or rationality or planning, but that is not guaranteed. The FBi and the Park Rangers were our gods and servants and protectors… until people stopped believing in their Authorities.
As with most things, “credible” means different things to different people, but your point is well taken.
I use my own personal customized methodology of triangulation: 3 sources that are independent, not reliant on each other, that confirms the validity and accuracy of each other source.
i didn’t realize until a few years ago that someone else had already come up with a similar system: The Bible’s 10 Commandments concerning number of witnesses.
Two independent witnesses were required to determine the guilt/innocence of people under Law, Divine or human. Of course the system can be gamed by creating false witnesses and testimonies.
I won’t listen to just one source. I’ll hear them and put it on the backburner, one of my reserve logical cores, for a later day. Sometimes it is years later that I find a secondary source that validates it. Then I can accept it as true. The accuracy rate of this process is about 100% give or take my own personal human flaws.
I almost never have needed a THIRD source however. That might take decades and centuries.
ymarsakar,
JP talks with several people whose job it is to help him keep his head out of his nether regions. I trust they will help return him to his true path if he begins to stray.
Ymar – I think one really big mistake the Protestants made was to take Daniel’s story of Susanna and the Elders out of the canon. There seems to be some question about its provenance, since it is not in the Tanakh, but I think we lost a lot by not having this fine example of jurisprudence (and women’s rights?) as scriptural doctrine.
I read this blog because Neo and most of the commenters here start with politics and go more deeply into the cultural roots. The late Breitbart famously said that politics is downstream of culture. Jordan Peterson would say it is further up the iceberg – meaning politics is further away from the depths than culture. He is operating on both a political and cultural level. Glen Reynolds got it right in my opinion when he linked the headline “Open season on Jordan Peterson”. with the quip “But he has them surrounded”. Glenn is right because Peterson has a deep understanding of culture and the left does not. They are weak and brittle. That is one thing we have learned from the advent of the Donald. All they can do is screech and manipulate. If Peterson can found a new university and solve the accreditation problem, as he puts it, then the middlebrow academic bureaucrats (as Paglia called them in conversation with Jordan) will be finished. If you don’t know the story of Lindsay Graham check it out. She is 23 – just wee slip of gel. She showed a clip to her class of Peterson being interviewed on the Canadian equivalent of PBS, and got hauled in front a a kangaroo court at Wilfred Laurier University. She recorded it an published it on the net and sent the bullies scurrying for cover. Check out her interview with Mark Steyn. They – the whole elite structure of the West – control the apparatus of culture and politics but they are cowards, and hopelessly shallow. The jihadis have them completely cowed, Trump has them losing sleep and nursing delusions of putting the toothpaste back in the tube, and Peterson is cutting the ground from beneath their feet, by restoring meaning and purpose to life, in YouTube after YouTube, in city after city, one young soul at a time.
This is only tangentially about JP, but is relevant because he is being attacked by the left as a threat to their causes & agenda. They lie about him, or misrepresent what he says, in order to negate his credentials and moral authority.
Here are two cases where the virtue-weighting is totally unbalanced, in that negatives in the past (in the view of the Left) totally cancel out any positives.
I can understand attacking Toby Young, who threatens their control over education (aka indoctrination) of children, but what do they have against Einstein?
Maybe it has something to do with the multiverse thing, because we all know that the Left dwells not in the same universe as the Sane.
What intrigues me most is that both of these authors reach pretty much the same conclusion about the neediness of the people pushing the attacks.
http://thefederalist.com/2018/06/19/calling-einstein-racist-perfect-cant-compete-accomplishments/
[Knights of Akshully is a word-play on the frequent use of claims like “Actually, George Washington and Thomas Jefferson owned slaves.” “Actually, Abraham Lincoln was racist.” ]
“Their goal is not to eliminate injustice. If it were, they’d spend their time fighting against the slavery, oppression, and racism that still run rampant in the world instead of attacking historical figures who were increasingly less guilty of perpetuating slavery, oppression, and racism.
Likewise, it’s hard to believe they’re seeking a genuine debate about how much a man’s moral failings ought to affect his legacy, since the answer is always the same: “Terminate with extreme prejudice the one with extreme (or modest) prejudice.” Rather, it seems the Knights of Akshully’s goal is to devise an ethical system that gives them bragging rights over the far more accomplished figures of history.
Self-righteousness, jealousy, and laziness is a bad combination, but it’s an increasingly popular one. It’s the official cocktail of those who want the favor of God and the world and are envious of those who appear to possess it, but are unwilling to do any real work to merit what others have. So, to gain righteousness without breaking a sweat, the Knights of Akshully have developed an ethical system rigged in their favor.
“If you hold very progressive views on race, that alone makes you righteous and you don’t need to do anything else,” the Knights of Akshully insist. “Likewise, if you don’t hold progressive views on race, you are unrighteous and nothing else you do matters. Ever so conveniently, we hold very progressive views on race, so, actually, we’re more righteous than all the great figures of history who didn’t, despite the fact that we’ve never done anything that warrants mentioning in a history book.” ”
https://www.nationalreview.com/magazine/2018/05/28/toby-young-comments-pc-mob-smears/
“In today’s world, actually doing things to aid the disadvantaged counts less than making dumb jokes. If you’ve done the latter, you’re no longer allowed to do the former. As Young puts it, “Virtue-signaling is more important than being virtuous.” “
” As Young puts it, “Virtue-signaling is more important than being virtuous.” “ [Aesop Fan @ 3:11 am]
You reminded me of a quote from Robert Hughes’ The Shock of the New from the 1970s-1980s (I’m paraphrasing from memory here):
This is the same observation. We are dealing with a problem that is not new, but endemic to our modern times (again credentialed but not educated) but which is now amplified by the bullhorn of the twitterverse and the internet.
“If you hold very progressive views on race, that alone makes you righteous and you don’t need to do anything else,” the Knights of Akshully insist. “Likewise, if you don’t hold progressive views on race, you are unrighteous and nothing else you do matters. Ever so conveniently, we hold very progressive views on race, so, actually, we’re more righteous than all the great figures of history who didn’t, despite the fact that we’ve never done anything that warrants mentioning in a history book.” ”
it is just human crabs pulling each other down because they can’t lift themselves up.
To Marian B, psychologists and psychiatrists usually have a second observer looking over their behavior to tell them when they are going off the rails (from listening to people with problems, can result in integrating those problems). I am not merely assessing Jordan P’s life time, but his organization’s second generation progress. Usually a guru will come and while he is alive, everything runs well. When he dies and the second generation takes over, then it goes to hell.
Martin Luther died and Jackson/Sharpton took over as the heirs. Alexander the great produced a bunch of fractured generals fighting over each other and killing his heir.