Jordan Peterson is ill, and his critics are happy
Ghoulish of them. But is that any surprise?:
Ironically, the anti-Petersonians now seem far more fanatical than Peterson’s most faithful fans. This became clear in recent days, when some of Peterson’s critics — including, amazingly, a professor at the University of Ottawa — went online to express satisfaction that Peterson is being treated for dependence on benzodiazepine, an anti-anxiety medication.
That’s the way social media seems to work these days. Peterson has many enemies. I haven’t read what they’ve written, but any expressions of glee wouldn’t surprise me. To them, Jordan Peterson is a dangerous man because (among other things) he is defending free speech, and doing it in a very articulate manner. Till his illness.
His illness has been explained this way:
So: a man who has been open about his struggles with depression becomes addicted to prescription benzos (e.g., Valium), and nearly dies in detox … and lots of people who hate Jordan Peterson laugh at that.
Peterson has always seemed to me to be a strange combination of fragile and steel-strong. He obviously is a very intense and exceptionally intelligent person, and such people often live on a psychological razor’s edge. In addition, Peterson has never been the least bit shy about talking of his long history of depression, which runs in his family. One of his children has had major and unexplained health problems her entire life, perhaps of an auto-immune nature. And recently his wife – whom he met and fell in love with when they both were children in a small town in northern Canada – was diagnosed with what may be a fatal cancer.
Add that to the extraordinary pressure of his public life, and the schedule he keeps, and no wonder the man was taking tranquilizers. His idiosyncratic and severe symptoms while trying to withdraw may be just another example of his especially vulnerable constitution.
I hope for a full recovery, but this doesn’t sound good at all. Please send healing thoughts and prayers for Peterson and his family.
The wokerati are certainly the most guilty of schadenfreude, although, in honesty, I can think of many leftists whose misfortune would not displease me. On the topic of SJW insanity, the ever-brilliant Amy Wax has just posted, at Law and Liberty, a devastating critique of “woke” lawyering.
That’s the way social media seems to work these days.
Academics, journalists, and people aping one or the other. What social media tells us is something many of us suspected before: that our intelligentsia and their dependents and hangers-on is composed of major jerks.
This is very sad. So much for a family to endure. And a very sad commentary on where we are as a culture. Our son is a realtor in a middle-class area of Long Beach. On Sunday he told us of an encounter with a neighbor when he left his calling card and a notepad on his doorstep. The man followed him, crumpled it up and threw it at him while cursing him. He also told us of the ugliness on the Next Door app for their neighborhood; the snark and negative comments directed at him for his marketing efforts that have been so normal and accepted through the years. We agreed that when it comes to social media it seems to be predominately frequented by very negative, fault-finding, complaintive people. Didn’t surprise me about the Next Door app. When I looked into it a couple times, I thought who has time for this? Yes to prayers for the Petersons and our society.
I have high regard for Jordan Peterson and wish him and his family the best. But flying to Russia to be treated with an induced coma is one strange story.
There is a fragility to Peterson. I half-expect him to start tearing up when I watch him. He seems to fit Jung’s category of the Wounded Healer.
Wounded healer is a term created by psychologist Carl Jung. The idea states that an analyst is compelled to treat patients because the analyst himself is “wounded”. The idea may have Greek mythology origins. Research has shown that 73.9% of counselors and psychotherapists have experienced one or more wounding experiences leading to their career choice.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wounded_healer
My first exposure to Peterson was profound and uplifting. He is brilliant. Sad to see him and his suffer so. Certainly, my prayers are with them.
I am not surprised. When Ronald Regan passed there were reports of democrats holding parties and celebrating.
One statement of Peterson’s rarely leaves my mind. He was on Dave Rubin’s podcast, and he was making a point about archetypes (which is why huxley bringing Jung up is so interesting; Peterson references Jung often), and talking specifically about Pinocchio. He talked at length about “trying to become a real boy” and the tribulations Pinocchio faced throughout the story.
And at the end, he said something about people missing the point of Pinocchio, and with a quavering voice, full of pain, he said, “The point is to get rid of your damn strings.”
I sincerely hope he recovers.
no wonder many liberals are also atheists, i would be in denial too if i knew i would be spending eternity in hell for holding such an unhinged contempt for good people. their fake compassion for marginalized groups were never about helping the disadvantaged (seriously how many people’s life were improved by Obama) but just an excuse for them to hate without reserve those they deemed as evil oppressors.
seriously, it seems like they spent way more time and energy hating the bad people than actually do something to help the poor and save the planet.
My younger sister has been on prescription Klonopin for over ten years. She takes it for anxiety and she wants to get off it and she’s reduced the prescription but she can’t quite shake it.
That’s the benzo Peterson is having trouble with.
From what I’ve read benzos are about the worst drugs to withdraw from and to quit. Withdrawal can literally be deadly.
Sad to hear about Peterson and his family. The left truly sees anyone not inside their bubble as the “other”. That gives them permission to hate the “other” and wish them misery. The announcement that Limbaugh has stage 4 lung cancer filled the left with a malicious glee. Ghouls.
From what I’ve read benzos are about the worst drugs to withdraw from and to quit. Withdrawal can literally be deadly.
Sometimes you get the impression Ivan Illich had the right idea.
https://www.amazon.com/Medical-Nemesis-Expropriation-Ivan-Illich/dp/0394712455
The anti-Petersons metaphorically dancing on his grave are the same crowd rejoicing that Rush Limbaugh has advanced lung cancer.
But why is a problem like Peterson’s not private? Medical stuff is supposed to be confidential and private—see the HIPPA law.
Have we sunk so low that everyone is a leaker?
Benzodiazepine withdrawal is just as “tough” as alcoholic withdrawal, but biologically no tougher. The DTs are treated with benzos.
I don’t want to get angry at those people attacking Dr. Peterson and I know that guys like Jocko is also trying hard not to get angry at all those little shits either. The last thing Jordan would want is things to get really nasty. So we keep quiet and keep still.
Either he doesn’t get better, whereby his enemies will attempt to sour his message, which isn’t going to happen because he’s been honest about his problems with everyone from the beginning . Or he’ll get better and his enemies will scour back into their caves pretending they did nothing wrong. Either way their schadenfreude is not worth our time.
Cicero: The minutiae of his condition are public knowledge because his attention-whoring, diet program pimping daughter isn’t averse to doing YouTube data dumps of same.
Watch them. Look at how she dresses to spruik. Imagine you are interviewing a potential employee and invoke relevant critical faculties.
I wish the guy well, but looks like family unit is a Grade A Clusterfuck. Let’s see: Wife gets terminal diagnosis and husband and daughter both ramp up their dramas. Could it be that they’re both running a Country Mile along de Nile?
Not a Pretty Sight, any of it. No excuses their having turned it into a public soap opera and extremely disrespectful to wifey who after all is the one who has to do the dying in short(ish) order.
Benzodiazepine withdrawal is just as “tough” as alcoholic withdrawal, but biologically no tougher. The DTs are treated with benzos.
Cicero: I imagine one’s mileage may vary. “The DTs are treated with benzos” is a non-sequitur which doesn’t prove anything with respect to withdrawal.
My sister has been a full-blown alcoholic for twenty years or so. She’s actually been sober most of that time, but her backslides were ferocious. She’s been sober for two years now. Fingers crossed. But she can’t kick the Klonopin.
Issan Dorsey, a gay American, became the third roshi at the SF Zen Center. He had led a colorful life in the Castro with lots of drugs including meth. But in his case it was xanax that hooked him and he found it excruciating to quit, worse than the others.
I’ve known a fair number of alcoholics and drug addicts. Whatever Jordan Peterson is going through sounds beyond anything I heard of their withdrawal stories.
I wish Dr. Peterson success, in his healing from this. We need people as good, and intelligent as he is.
It does seem that the Left does have a tendency to be filled with a white hot hate for those they look upon as their inferiors. I wonder why this is so?
I’m not a Jordan Peterson fan…We operate from different worldviews and colour me skeptical about his “Rules.” That’s ok because one day we’ll find out the full truth. 😉 But I’m one of those who’d rather him hale and healthy and restored to his family in fullness; so I pray for that.
There is no joy when anyone suffers addictions or the necessary withdrawals…not even those with whom we disagree. There is no larger demon than mental illness and the associated medical treatments that at times seem to do more harm than good.
And for good measure I am deeply saddened by Rush’s diagnosis & pray for his healing too…The Medal of Freedom was justly deserved.
Because they are temperamentally incapable of leaving anything or anyone alone and recognizing boundaries: i.e., a moral gap between their subjective urges and notions, and the lives of the others whose attention they demand.
This, because apart from self-regard, “community” is the only religion or meaning imparting framework which the sons of bitches have to their existences. In their intrinsically meaningless world, all meaning is found in inclusion, identification, and participation in the “creative” project they imagine their lives to be.
In the endless vacuum of space and time, they only exist insofar as they are noticed and appreciated – read “affirmed” or any other similar term – by others. The attention of others and the consciousness of others of them, is what makes them “real” to themselves, for whatever moments it is that they “grace” the realm of being.
They need an audience. So you join in, on their terms, or else …
That is why they are so affronted by those who are indifferent to them and to their conceits.
It looks like Sartre tried to play a variation on this theme, but wound up in the same psychological place nonetheless. Being is “real” for them, only insofar as someone is conscious of them. And since God doesn’t exist, you are going to have to do, and you had better meet expectations or else.
Zaphod:
First of all, you have no idea what the wife wants in terms of making it public or not making it public.
My understanding of the situation is that Peterson became incapacitated and basically disappeared from view. He has a ton of people who admire and care about him, as well as being used to his being a near-constant online present in terms of his videos, Those people were distraught and worried. Whoever made the decision to go public – and I’m going to assume, without knowing if it was the case, that Peterson himself agreed to do it for the sake of his followers – that person probably did it because of feeling a certain obligation to let them know why Peterson was so silent for so long.
In addition, his daughter – whatever you may think of her – is faced with the prospect of losing both parents almost simultaneously. She is only 28 years old. That’s a big big deal. Not all that many people would be able to hold it together under those circumstances. Fortunately, most people don’t have to because they are not faced with that situation.
He obviously is a very intense and exceptionally intelligent person, and such people often live on a psychological razor’s edge
for they are more aware and suffer awareness…
Doctor my eyes… was I unwise, to leave them open for so long – Jackson Browne
This makes me think of another man who we lost… and is mostly forgotten and brilliant in a different way… Spalding Gray
‘From all blindness of heart, from pride, vainglory and hypocrisy, from envy, malice and all uncharitableness, dear Lord, deliver us.’
Why the Left hates Jordan Peterson – same reason they hate conservatives in general.
https://amgreatness.com/2020/02/11/conservatism-is-the-real-resistance/
Mark Bauerlein – February 11th, 2020
“Idols” kind of undercuts his argument, but not many people use language with the same precision that Peterson does.
Ever notice that the Left sometimes attacks your food choices?
Very perceptive.
The standard scenario for every bully when the victims finally fight back.
Above, DNW wrote, “This, because apart from self-regard, “community” is the only religion or meaning imparting framework which the sons of bitches have to their existences. In their intrinsically meaningless world, all meaning is found in inclusion, identification, and participation in the “creative” project they imagine their lives to be.”
Wow. (And, remind me not to piss you off. ;-))