No one gets away with anything, ever

Tuesday, January 23rd, 2018

Jordan B Peterson is a strange mixture of theologian, psychologist, conservative, liberal, wit and lay preacher, Tim Lott explains, writing in the Guardian:

He’s a powerful advocate of the scientific method who is not a materialist. He can go from cuddly to razor sharp in a beat. His primary concern, however, which underpins nearly everything about him, is the defence of the individual against groupthink, whether on the right or the left.

“Your group identity is not your cardinal feature. That’s the great discovery of the west. That’s why the west is right. And I mean that unconditionally. The west is the only place in the world that has ever figured out that the individual is sovereign. And that’s an impossible thing to figure out. It’s amazing that we managed it. And it’s the key to everything that we’ve ever done right.”

Peterson’s worldview is complex, Lott notes, but 12 Rules makes a heroic attempt to simplify it:

It might be encapsulated thus: “Life is tragic. You are tiny and flawed and ignorant and weak and everything else is huge, complex and overwhelming. Once, we had Christianity as a bulwark against that terrifying reality. But God died. Since then the defence has either been ideology – most notably Marxism or fascism – or nihilism. These lead, and have led in the 20th century, to catastrophe.

“‘Happiness’ is a pointless goal. Don’t compare yourself with other people, compare yourself with who you were yesterday. No one gets away with anything, ever, so take responsibility for your own life. You conjure your own world, not only metaphorically but also literally and neurologically. These lessons are what the great stories and myths have been telling us since civilisation began.”

Comments

  1. Ross says:

    He’s a rare and great soul. Some of his recent lectures on communism, the loss of belief and what happens when everyone in a society begins to lie to themselves were absolutely riveting.

    His new online test at http://www.understandingmyself.com is a great deal and professionally constructively and empathetically delivered.

  2. Gaikokumaniakku says:

    “He’s a rare and great soul.”

    He seems to be a rare and great intellect. His mind is energetic, educated, and expressive. I see nothing in his history or his conduct to justify the claim that he is spiritually superior to anyone else.

  3. Gaikokumaniakku says:

    “Some of his recent lectures on communism, the loss of belief and what happens when everyone in a society begins to lie to themselves were absolutely riveting.”

    If Peterson resents the mass murders done in the name of Communism, I and many others will join him in that resentment. However, I don’t think Peterson has any answer for economic inequality. I am very leery of holding him up as a role model; he strikes me as very similar to various wealthy Christian megachurch pastors. These preachers – whether they preach Jesus or psychology – teach poor people to focus inward and to neglect the external struggle for economic fairness.

    Peterson frequently defends rich people who earn vast monetary rewards because he claims that they have competed for their rewards. That’s true, but it does not mean that their rewards are proportional to the value that they add. Peterson boasts that he has taught negotiation to brilliant female lawyers. He does not address the question of whether lawyers are too rich, too powerful, and too lionized in Western society.

  4. Ed M. says:

    Gaikokumaniakku, why the $#@! should rewards be proportional? Who will be the decider of what is fair?

  5. McChuck says:

    Gaikokumaniakku: You fail to grasp the point. There is no such thing as economic equality. Not even in full Communism. Humans are not inherently equal, except in death (which communism delivers in abundance). Some are older, some are taller, some thinner, some more attractive, some work harder, some are more successful. We call this diversity. You’re not against Diversity, are you? You’re not against Science and Nature, are you?

    We have a name for”the external struggle for economic fairness.” That name is communism, which delivers only poverty and death in the name of equality and fairness.

  6. Gaikokumaniakku says:

    “why the $#@! should rewards be proportional?”

    Dr. Jordan and I both think that rewards should be “proportional,” but he and I mean different things by that word.

    Dr. Jordan says that the rich are rich because they have great talent, and their rewards are proportional to their talent and effort.

    I say that a society that concentrates the wealth too far will collapse, and that rewards should be proportional to population to prevent society from collapsing — or else that rewards should be proportional to value added, which is more difficult to arrange. But if you think you can concentrate the wealth indefinitely and society will continue to function, go right ahead and try that out. I’ll write a postmortem after your society collapses.

    “Who will be the decider of what is fair?”

    Dr. Jordan apparently believes that he can decide what is fair and he can explain his notions of fairness at great length. Again, he is welcome to preach his doctrines, and I’ll write up my postmortem after his society collapses.

  7. Sam J. says:

    “Your group identity is not your cardinal feature. That’s the great discovery of the west. That’s why the west is right. And I mean that unconditionally. The west is the only place in the world that has ever figured out that the individual is sovereign. And that’s an impossible thing to figure out. It’s amazing that we managed it. And it’s the key to everything that we’ve ever done right.”

    He’s right but the people who choose group identity and work as a group are chewing the rest of us operating as individuals up. The individual is losing.

    That’s why I’m a White Nationalist. It has nothing to do with wanting to march around on uniforms or be superior or any of that. It’s just survival. The individualist are dying off and are the losers.

    Individualism is great for humankind but is noncompetitive for those that are in the West acting under the precepts of Western Civilization. Sad but that’s the way it is.

  8. Slovenian Guest says:

    Except that people do get away with it, and even live happily ever after. Only boy scouts like us believe differently, or in sportsmanship. Yes, life may be an endless series of games, Peterson, but it ain’t the Olympics!

  9. Auntiegrav says:

    Who gets to decide what’s fair? The team that put you on top (and the individual who chooses to support a team). That team consists of yourself, your work and home family, the society and infrastructure, and the physical resources.

    The opposite of capitalism (money worship) is not communism; it’s sales tax. Your usefulness to the future of the whole team should be of real value. Money determines price. Most people with extreme wealth have gotten there by making everyone else into cheap seats at the game and by devaluing money and labor (forcing competition through overpopulation). The stock market is not the economy, and axholery is not individualism.

    I’ll add to Peterson’s rules:

    Evil: an action taken based on unquestioned belief.

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