MacCruiskeen » Tue Mar 13, 2018 5:41 pm wrote:It was Project Willow who first acquainted me with Jordan Peterson, with a video in the Gender thread last year, where a gaggle of students were accusing him of "transphobia" for refusing to use "their pronouns". (What's the next demand? Their own adjectives? Their own verbs?) I found his stance, and his patience, impressive, as did Willow.
Just wanted to clarify why I started this thread. After Willow posted that video, I barely thought of JP and knew nothing at all of his professional work, nor had I any great interest in finding out more. Life is short. Then suddenly, a month ago or so (after his book came out), Peterson's name was all over the msm; he was, or so these wise journos were warning us, a huckster, a phoney, a shameless recycler of banal & boring self-help nostrums, an opportunistic Trumpite nonentity interested only in making a quick buck, a publicity hound, and -- worryingly -- a dangerous, because increasingly influential, "alt-right" guru. (These were the "dozen crappy reviews" I referred to in the post under the OP, the McLeans screed being among them.).
So I was surprised to find those two interviews with Brand and McGilchrist, two very different Brits whose work I admire and like and respect. McGilchrist and Brand weren't fascists, or Trumpites, or idiots, or reactionaries, or nobodies! (Or journalists.) So why were they giving Peterson the time of day? Then I watched those two videos and realised why. This man is certainly no fool, nor is he obviously a bastard, nor is he an evasive or dishonest slimeball. Whatever you think about Jordan Peterson, at least he doesn't hide behind the Ignore Function. And he is a man of very considerable professional accomplishments.
That I started this thread is
not -- and it gets really boring to have to emphasise this every time I post anything here -- a blanket endorsement of Peterson's opinions, of which I still know very little, and nearly all of that second-hand.
"Ich kann gar nicht so viel fressen, wie ich kotzen möchte." - Max Liebermann,, Berlin, 1933
"Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts." - Richard Feynman, NYC, 1966
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