Mother. of. god. That is a fantastic article. To actually see one of his colleagues come out with an article this deep is lovely. I love the "behind the scenes" on that guy.
As cliche as Nietzsche quotes probably are by now, I am reminded of the classic "“He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster . . . when you gaze long into the abyss the abyss also gazes into you.”
The author nails this by describing Peterson as the true totalitarian. How on Earth can you rail against chaos when chaos has never been friendly to anyone seeking a totalitarian government? He also describes the left as "anarchical". Forget about the rules of your country (laws). Rules for life?
Peterson's time is up. Check the IAmA he's doing on Reddit right now. He has some severely downvoted comments on there. The crowd is turning against him much like Jesus Christ, except this time he won't be remembered fondly after being nailed to the cross.
Peterson is an artist. It might be better to challenge him by being public figures ourselves and communicating the exact opposite vision rather than writing articles debunking him.
Oh, Nietzsche runs antithetical to everything Peterson believes. I love it. He's said things about embracing chaos and quite literally proclaiming the death of god.
I don't know if all of Peterson's followers are zeroes though. They are in the sense that they're weak, but there seems to be two categories here. You have your standard consumers who agree simply due to political affiliation. Maybe they are the zeroes. These people are stubborn and unreachable. His self-help fans on the other hand, I mean, they are the opposite of cocksure. They're just lost in life for whatever reason, and are so desperate for an answer that they think maybe spending $30 will solve it. Completed individuals do not require self-help. You hear the life changing anecdotes and think, really, this guy changed your life? People who are really depressed are willing to do anything to make the pain go away, and if pop-culture is promoting a public intellectual with "the answers" they might be willing to listen. Any program seems superior to total nihilism at that point.
I think that's what I was trying to get at in my post. There are people that are stubborn but they mainly fall into the first category. The second category includes a lot of people unable to make up their mind about anything and therefore they can potentially be engaged. These are the same people who "bounce" from thinker to thinker. Actually saw a dude saying his favourite thinkers are "Carl Sagan", "Jordan Peterson", "Mr. Rogers" or something along those lines in their Tinder bio. How can you not realize the internal inconsistency in all those views?
So there needs to be an alternative perspective that can get people out of that depressing nihilism without all of Peterson's baggage. I don't know what that might be. The affirmation of art as Nietzsche does is interesting, but I don't know if that will work.
From the outside, there is way to much ressentiment in Peterson's following for Nietzsche to be a good substitute. You're never going to sell those guys on Nietzschean affirmation.
Plus Angry Young Men tend to take all the wrong lessons from Nietzsche.
- How can you not realize the internal inconsistency in all those views?
There may be no inconsistency. Adopting ideas selectively is not a sign of cognitive dissonance or intellectual clumsiness.
I admire Peterson's (early?) lectures on YouTube. They showed me the road of life a little better. "Find meaning in your life". "Things won't come to you - you have to work for them". "Be the best version of yourself". "Make the best version of your opponents point of view - and then argue against it". Great ideas - not simply in the sense of splendidness but also in grandure.
That I admire those ideas doesn't mean I accept everything the man says. I had my doubts about the gender pronouns. I was somewhat willing to go along with the idea because I respected the man's psychological perspective on things that seemed, until then, covered in mist. I wanted to know how life works, and he gave that to me, so I reluctantly followed his other ideas.
It doesn't make me a social darwinist, or a conservative, or a misogynist. I think it just makes me a clueless yet curious young man with no authority figure to provide the necessary knowledge.
I think life is beautiful, and I even get to enjoy the idea sometimes. Depression is a bitch; otherwise, I think I would've enjoyed being kind to people far more often. Or maybe not, 'cause maybe my desire to be kind is fueled by the misery I feel and 'cause I don't wanna see people around me frown like I do. The dark well, and so on. Still, I think life is beautiful and is worth enjoying. I think people need to be more open about their feelings, especially to each other, and I think people need to stop worrying about being inadequate so damn often. We're all just walking each other home.
- So there needs to be an alternative perspective that can get people out of that depressing nihilism without all of Peterson's baggage.
I'm a big fan of Jordan Peterson. I was interested to read this article and see what I may be missing. But it is behind a paywall. I will have to subscribe to an irrelevant newspaper from a country I've never been to, to know what this article says. So that will never happen. I hope that there wasn't anything important written in the article.
At the risk of sounding edgy religion has existed as longer than homo sapiens have, to a big extent I think religion holds the same place of helping people feel the have life figured out that people like Peterson do. I don't think it'll ever go anywhere, which isn't a bad thing necessarily, maybe an emphasis on developing your own worldview from multiple sources will come into fashion someday.
edit: The article was a good read and something I think should be read by people who hold his work in high esteem, the traits of egotism described in the article are at odds with the place of pure rational thinking he portrays his message as coming from.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_religion
There's evidence of burial rituals for Neanderthals, that's not a clear proof and since it pre-dates written history it's impossible to know for sure but the argument is that there isn't a pragmatic reason for burials so it signifies a religion of some sort.