1. Really horrible interview (re: the interviewer) 2. Somehow, an even worse article - is the Atlantic like Medium now, where pretty much anyone can post things? 3. I feel kind of bad for Jordan Peterson. He's definitely got some opinions I disagree with, but he's a fairly moderate, well-reasoned speaker, and I always at least understand where he's coming from and how he gets there. That being said, his fans can be pretty terrible - I think that a large part of the negative associations with him are due to his shit-eating fanboys (and, it should be noted, fangirls as well - my GF listens to a ton of his lectures, albeit partly just to see what the fuss is about) posting snippets of his lectures as "factz-based" told-you-so's to bleeding heart liberals. I think both sides tend to lose the nuance, and just skip to the parts that help prove whatever point they're trying to make, regardless of his larger arguments. Idk, I am generally not a big fan of people who hold the scientific method above literally all else in life, but I think that's more of a problem with his fans than with him. Also not too pleased with Psychologists doing the work of social scientists, but that's another thing entirely.
I understand the interviewer's attitude towards getting to the truth: that one has to bite their teeth into what they think is right. It doesn't exclude trying to see what the other person has to say. She was arguing from her perspective, which is fairup to a certain point — and she stepped right over it when she continued to question Peterson about "But don't you think women being mistreated is wrong?". Journalism needs people who, like her, could stand her ground. Journalism also needs people who, unlike her, are willing to see what others have to say on the matter.1. Really horrible interview (re: the interviewer)
The Atlantic has been on a downward slope since, hell, 2004? When they shit themselves when Kerry lost? The guys at The Daily Kos had a spat with them at the height of the Dean run for President, but I cannot recall why. Medium? Yea... As for point #3: He is not really saying anything that would have been radical in the 90's. He is a middle of the road, left-ish leaning academic who found some buttons to push and rake in Patreon dollars. He was making 45K a month just in donations for a while, but it now looks like that total is hidden, but he said in an interview last year he was making more in Patreon than as a professor. His biblical stuff is interesting, but not radical or revolutionary. The issue I have with conversations around him is that he saw fame and fortune in the outrage mob and now everything he does, IMO, is wrapped in that frame. We no longer have politics in the US or even Canada to an extent; we have competing, warring mobs of religious fanatics tearing at each other and trying to score "gotchas" instead of talk and solve problems. Peterson is not going to help fix the problem. And I don't need to be told to "clean my room."2. Somehow, an even worse article - is the Atlantic like Medium now, where pretty much anyone can post things?
After struggling with financial hardship and a series of ownership changes since the late 20th century, the magazine was reformatted in the early 21st century as a general editorial magazine. Focusing on "foreign affairs, politics, and the economy [as well as] cultural trends," it is now primarily aimed at a target audience of serious national readers and "thought leaders." In 2010, The Atlantic posted its first profit in a decade. In profiling the publication at the time, The New York Times noted the accomplishment was the result of "a cultural transfusion, a dose of counterintuition and a lot of digital advertising revenue."
I feel kind of bad for Jordan Peterson.
He's not talking to you, then. He's talking to the young and lost in the world, unsure of what they want or need. To the people who had everything about them taken care for by their parents, so without their frame of the world they're incapable of finding their way. It's why he's a university professor and not a life coach. He made his audience clear: it's the young men and women attending his classes who are most often as lost as he antidotes against.And I don't need to be told to "clean my room."