Jordan Peterson on Marxism and neo-Marxism
This is from three years ago, but it’s only gotten more relevant rather than less. The whole thing is worth listening to (it’s not very long), but I was particularly impressed by Peterson’s discussion in response to a question that occurs around 4:01:
This seems to be about two years ago:
Also recommended is the new book from Dinesh D’Souza (The United States of Socialism), in which he analyzes post-modernist identity politics, often described as Cultural Marxism, as rooted in, but significantly different from, the Marxism of the Old Left. His preferred term for the destructive politics of the current “Great Awokening” is identity socialism, which demonizes “whites, males, and heterosexuals as evil oppressors” and considers any resistance to this dogma as racist and evil (p.126).
I didn’t realize how much I miss Jordan Peterson. He’s reportedly quite ill with Covid-19. I hope, maybe even pray, he recovers. We need him.
You can predict the seduction of communism by trying to accurately image how it was living in a tribe of human primates 50,000 years ago. Go back there and put yourself in the cave and think of all the vissisitudes facing you, and you will become a communist in this mental trance.
I can’t shake the suspicion that Peterson was intentionally poisoned to get him off of the world stage.
He was getting far too popular and making too much sense.
Like most giant brains, he seems a little squirrely around the edges, and dealing with his wife’s cancer diagnosis would have had almost anyone reaching for the prescription bottle, but for someone with his clinical knowledge to develop an almost fatal chemical dependence is just hard to believe.
Now he has COVID? Good grief…
Marxist Socialism brought 100+million deaths of their own people in the Soviet Union & Red China alone (40 & 60 million respectively). Who wouldn’t long for that Equality??
Peterson’s point about a vigorous minority achieving power is exactly what is occurring and has occurred in all of Western civilization, not just the USA.
Cicero:
Yes, that’s why I highlighted it.
El Polacko:
My impression of Peterson is that he’s long been stretched to the max and has an extremely intense temperament and a very delicate physical body that is easily thrown off-kilter. For example, he has said he has a strong history of clinical depression. He was taking meds – I think for sleep and to calm anxiety – because of extreme anxiety and upset over his wife’s illness, and he had a bad reaction to them and then a bad reaction to getting off them. I don’t think he was taking drugs at a dose that involved anything unusual, but he had an unusual reaction to them.
I agree with je that a big part of the problem is properly naming this issue. When I first heard the term ‘cultural marxism’ a few years ago, I conflated it with ‘economic marxism’ and initially missed the actual intent of progressives which is to fundamentally redefine the Judeo-Christian/Western concept of human nature and the individual and thus the structure of human morality. Calling this radical reinterpretation of human nature and relationships ‘marxism’ and ‘socialism’ makes it easy to dismiss as retrograde paranoia because at this point – at least – no one is calling for nationalization of the ‘means of production’, etc., which is what most people think ‘marxism’ and ‘socialism’ mean.
Not sure that ‘identity socialism’ avoids this problem, but it does come a lot closer to illuminating what the real aims of progressives are. And making this clear in simple terms is critical as I do believe the vast majority of Americans would resoundingly reject exchanging individual identity for collective guilt.
El Polacko, I also suspect poisoning.
I’ve been all in on Peterson from early on. He just ‘boils my crawfish’. When I listen to him in the car the tears just roll down my face. Although I’m behind Trump all the way, I find him difficult to listen take by comparison to Peterson. Molly Brown’s comment is right on the money. The cultural Marxists are trying to hijack Western Civilization and completely change “the Judeo-Christian/Western concept of human nature and the individual and thus the structure of human morality.” When AOC said that she would rather be morally right than factually right, she was, I believe, coming from a culturally Marxist structure of human morality. I think that the US is quite blind to what is going on – my friends and rellies on the left believe that Biden will save American values and that Trump is destroying them. It was really important for them that Obama wrapped himself in the constitution at the DNC. Of course what people of our viewpoint noticed was the he went immediately on to say that the young people who are protesting are showing us the way forward. Forward to that very different ‘structure of human morality. I would say this. This Marxist movement is only making progress because of the weakness of Western Civilisation, but Western Civilisation will have to dig deep to stop it. By deep, I mean below the level of Enlightenment rationality precisely because we have lost touch with our cultural and moral roots. And we must dig beneath the dominant rational mode without losing our rationality. That is exactly what Jordan Peterson does. If he doesn’t boil your crawfish there is John Vervaeke – who has a series on YouTube called “Awakening from the Meaning Crisis”. The IDW (Intellectual Dark Web) is wrestling with these issues – Peterson is the major IDW figure – but there are plenty of others including members of the left like the Weinstein brothers who have real ideas to offer. The MSM is, all emotional distraction, all the time, and has little or no content worth exposing oneself to. I, of course, have no idea if Jordan Peterson was poisoned to remove him, but I don’t believe so. But I notice that he had to go to Russia and is now in Serbia because they were the only places his daughter could find him effective medical treatment. Perhaps the Petersons were just being careful in case they felt he was a target for assasination, but I think it is more likely that Western Medicine is uniform and routinized that they got the same useless answer wherever they went and perhaps had to go outside to what Samuel Huntington characterised as “Orthodox Civilisation’ to find people prepared to help in daring an creative ways. As I think about Brexit and Trump it is increasingly my conviction that Western Civilization is so sure it has reduced life to known procedures and protocols that when these Black Swans come along they just can’t take it. As we say in Australia: “They spit the dummy” ie pacifier.
This video is a bit difficult to watch if you are a Jordan Peterson fan; I am, and I have sympathy for his plight. The video is an interview he did with his daughter and they discuss what he and his family went through, an extraordinarily difficult experience that nearly killed him. He has acknowledged in the past that he has suffered from clinical depression, and there is a family history of this. Knowing that, I must admit I was not completely surprised when his meteoric rise to fame and the burdens his speaking schedule placed on him, coupled with the difficulty of dealing with his wife’s illness, eventually proved too much to handle without help. The video helps to answer the questions: Where is Dr. Jordan Peterson and why are we no longer hearing or seeing him?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GzRbEMzr0k8
I can listen to Dr. Peterson all day, and I gain valuable insight from him constantly. I sincerely hope he recovers and starts talking again. In these distressing times, we could, I think, learn a lot more about what’s going on if he had the opportunity to tell us.