Jordan Peterson: Gender Pronouns and Free Speech War

Woke propaganda has nothing on North Korea. Or like this North Korean defector says: "Even North Korea is not this nuts, North Korea was pretty crazy, but not this crazy."

North Korean defector says 'even North Korea was not this nuts' after attending Ivy League school


 
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Woke propaganda has nothing on North Korea. Or like this North Korean defector says: "Even North Korea is not this nuts, North Korea was pretty crazy, but not this crazy."

North Korean defector says 'even North Korea was not this nuts' after attending Ivy League school


That seems to be the reaction of many who lived under "actually existing socialism." E.g., Z. Janowski in his book Homo Americanus repeatedly points out that in many ways, the totalitarianism of western liberal democracies is worse and more invasive than the communist variety. For example, it goes all the way to the family and sexual interactions. (Though he does admit that communism was still 'worse' in other ways.)
 
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This is more of a Peterson exploration than related to SJW's, but I wanted to share it because it's him getting (hopefully) closer to the ideas of ponerology.
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If the argument can be presented to Peterson in a context he understands (without specific living individual/institutional used as examples) he may get it.
Thanks for the summary, RedFox. I haven't listened yet, but Malice may actually have read Ponerology - or perhaps started to. James Lindsay recommended it to him a month or so ago when he was a guest on Malice's show. As for JBP, I think such an argument can be made - I've been formulating just such an argument over the past couple months, but haven't written it down yet. Whether it will persuade Peterson is another matter, though!
 
This is more of a Peterson exploration than related to SJW's, but I wanted to share it because it's him getting (hopefully) closer to the ideas of ponerology.
He had a discussion with Michael Malice who is a self professed anarchist. One of the interesting things about Malice is that based on his background parts of his world view (the evil in power) are quite close to our understanding of it.
From a Jewish background being born in the Ukraine in the soviet era, and escaping with his parents when he was 2 (his parents descriptions of recent totalitarian history informing his views), this has caused him study of things like North Korea. He does have a bias against Russia for the same reason.
I've heard his describe ponerised power structures and the nature of psychopaths many times quite accurately (most likely from an instinctual position) without being able to describe it in psychological terms.
He has a good knowledge of history of totalitarian systems and psychopathic individuals both from recent and present history. He's anti-war and anti-state. I can't comment on his anarchist ideas though, because I don't know them well.

So the clash of someone with his well described but not specifically psychologically categorized knowledge of psychopaths was the closest we've had to Peterson having to debate with someone who had read ponerology.

I think he got Peterson to move a little bit, but I'm still trying to work out exactly how. Peterson's main objection was that describing a 'they' was too unspecific. When Malice attempted to describe an actual person, or pointed out it was the difference between an average human being and one who has no trouble sending people to die in (illegal) wars based on deception/lies/manipulation Peterson seemed stuck, or at least he was trying to refine/redefine the boundaries and couldn't quite do it.

I do think he moved though. I'm hoping they have further conversations, because I'd like to see Peterson get it. He just needs it more clearly defined in such a way that doesn't fall into the traps of to much of an unrefined argument/unclear target.
Peterson did describe how personally he takes evil (the example of imagining he was the prison guard at Auschwitz), and he does have a very good model of how people can be lead to do evil. He has said he has read and understood the literature on psychopaths too. So perhaps what he misses is how much influence the smart ones can wield against a population. Malice attempted to describe this, but Peterson wouldn't touch it without attempting to redefine the boundaries/not stray into things that sounded like conspiracy theory (perhaps rightly so, because he didn't know the history of institutions Malice was describing).

If the argument can be presented to Peterson in a context he understands (without specific living individual/institutional used as examples) he may get it.

In one of Peterson’s first videos on C16, he actually used a term like ‘psychopathic governments’. I got in touch with his wife and sent him a copy of Ponerology, but but never heard anything and he blew up soon after.

It’s a bit paradoxical as he’s perfectly well versed in understanding the antisocial personality and psychopathy, but if you haven’t had the ponerisation process laid out in black and white, I guess it’s not so simple to see in the real world what we all can see, how all the institutions, day by day, month by month, year by year, gradually change into the pathocracy that eventually destroys itself.

I think another blinder that Peterson has on is that he is quite attached to two ideas: 1) that conspiracies are less likely to be real, and accident and incompetence resulting from people working with the best intentions are actually what happens. And 2) his biggest attachment, individual responsibility. He blames what happened on the Soviet Union and Maos China to people not having integrity, swallowing lies they knew were false, and collectively creating the situation.

While there’s a lot of truth in 2), it just misses the whole pathological connection and influence. Again, without the specific concepts of the systemic ponerisation which characterises a pathocracy, it doesn’t matter how smart you are or how well versed you are in psychological literature; you’re not going to be able to look at the society and see it for what it so obviously is to those who actually are familiar with ponerology.
 
If the argument can be presented to Peterson in a context he understands (without specific living individual/institutional used as examples) he may get it.

As for JBP, I think such an argument can be made - I've been formulating just such an argument over the past couple months, but haven't written it down yet. Whether it will persuade Peterson is another matter, though!

I think it is rather clear that Peterson is very good at what he is doing, as long as he doesn't try to dabble into politics and other stuff. He simply has not the whole banana in those areas (to say the least!) and I think it is rather unlikely that he will "get it" anytime soon in regard to those other topics either. He is pretty mainstream in a lot of areas, and that is ok, as far as I'm concerned. I'm afraid that trying to formulate something to him in the hopes that he "will get it" is a rather futile idea that might even lead to the opposite effect. Free will.

Having said that, I find it interesting that both he and his wife got essentially knocked out exactly at the time all this Corona stuff started and really took hold. I'm wondering how he would have developed/viewed what happened, if that wouldn't have been the case? I think there is a possibility that he could have started to question some of those things if they wouldn't have been knocked out so hard.
 
I'm afraid that trying to formulate something to him in the hopes that he "will get it" is a rather futile idea that might even lead to the opposite effect. Free will.
Yeah, there's no point targeting something at him specifically, and with the intent to change his mind. But IMO there's nothing wrong with making a clear argument for why he's wrong in some crucial areas, and why Malice is more correct that Peterson thinks.
 
Yeah, there's no point targeting something at him specifically, and with the intent to change his mind. But IMO there's nothing wrong with making a clear argument for why he's wrong in some crucial areas, and why Malice is more correct that Peterson thinks.
Agreed. It does however perplex and fascinate me how Peterson can't seem to see it. I don't know if their is something useful to be learned here, but I keep coming back to it and it does always grab me with rapt attention.

I think another blinder that Peterson has on is that he is quite attached to two ideas: 1) that conspiracies are less likely to be real, and accident and incompetence resulting from people working with the best intentions are actually what happens. And 2) his biggest attachment, individual responsibility. He blames what happened on the Soviet Union and Maos China to people not having integrity, swallowing lies they knew were false, and collectively creating the situation.

While there’s a lot of truth in 2), it just misses the whole pathological connection and influence. Again, without the specific concepts of the systemic ponerisation which characterises a pathocracy, it doesn’t matter how smart you are or how well versed you are in psychological literature; you’re not going to be able to look at the society and see it for what it so obviously is to those who actually are familiar with ponerology.

That's a good summary. Peterson seems to be focused (fixated?) on pure personal responsibility. Through mention of Solzhenitsyn bringing down the soviet union through taking full account of/responsibility for his life whilst in the gulag, or to mentioning several times not knowing what could happen (hints of miracles) if someone took FULL responsibility for their life.
I'm sure the C's said this, but I did find a quote on the Cass site that fits:
Ark advocates that everyone should act as if the fate of the universe depends on his actions even in the most trivial of situations. To do the "right" thing requires knowledge, perspicacity, and concern for all humanity. This is the principle of non-linear dynamics that is best expressed in the story of the Butterfly Effect.
So he has a point.

The other aspect I think I see is that Peterson fixates (he appears to have a sensitive nervous system) on 'inhabiting the evil' - that he could play with the idea of being the 'nazi prison guard' (al la The Criminal Mind) and take it SO seriously I don't doubt it was traumatizing to him at some level. I don't know where his thinking goes from their - does he feel personally responsible for all the evils in the world? Does he feel 'all evil' (i.e. himself) must be redeemable (he has mentioned some criminals certainly aren't)?
Maybe it's more mundane and I'm just adding my own emotional weight to my interpretation here...
He does mention knowing and getting along with many business types/higher ups - and that he'd even label himself as one. Hence my impression that if you call out psychopaths, he takes it personally at some level.
Additionally of course is the woke idea of blaming the world/others for your problems - and then trying to bend it to your will. Maybe he just needs to untangle that?

Bret Weinstein has come face to face with the grand 'conspiracy' at the moment, and is doing an excellent job of describing the beast without labeling it. Peterson could use some of that skill I think.

Maybe a case could be made using the hyperdimensional slant that (as Peterson has said) "Ideas have (posses) people" - and that some people embody the persuasive chaotic destructive nihilistic archetypal energy so well their nature is that of a 'psychopath'?

Thanks for the summary, RedFox. I haven't listened yet, but Malice may actually have read Ponerology - or perhaps started to. James Lindsay recommended it to him a month or so ago when he was a guest on Malice's show. As for JBP, I think such an argument can be made - I've been formulating just such an argument over the past couple months, but haven't written it down yet. Whether it will persuade Peterson is another matter, though!
That's good to know! James picking it up was great, and I'm certain that Malice gets it at a gut/instinctual level.
 
I thought of this response in another thread in relation to this discussion about Peterson, especially the bolded part.
Keep in mind that while Füllmich and his "Corona Committee" are doing outstanding work (and they are great people IMO), before Corona, they were pretty much normal "mainstreamers". They took a crazy crash course during the last year in conspiracy theories, psychological issues, biochemistry etc., listening for hours to all kinds of experts. Kudos!! However, we here have years and years of "training" in very advanced ideas and concepts, have followed so many world events, science, spirituality etc. etc. and analyzed it from so many different angles, that we can and should use this knowledge to recognize where people like Füllmich might draw wrong conclusions, oversimplify things, get too conspiratorial in their thinking, miss important puzzle pieces because they don't have the information and so on.
I think this is very applicable to Peterson. He is just a few years in from possibly coming face to face with some topics and many, many people want to hear what he has to say about all topics, since many probably see him as a good source for such information, because of his C16 stand and expertise in some areas, etc. I'd imagine that he has never done a deep dive and deep research on many of those topics and likely reverts to what he thinks about them from his limited exposure to the topics.

If I remember right, after Peterson's 'Rules for Life' book came out a few years ago and the interview with the British woman where he was catapulted to fame and extraordinary recognition, he was asked and talked somewhere about how he keeps grounded and/or withstands the attacks and notoriety. I think he responded that he has a very trust group of friends and colleagues that he talks to and networks with. I'd imagine that they have many discussions about many topics and his thoughts on topics, where he is not an expert, is very much shaped by this group of people and also what these people believe, and it is possible, and even likely, that these people haven't done a deep dive on the topics and/or have biases and sacred cows for various reasons.

For some topics and understandings, Peterson is a giant of a man. For other topics and understandings, he is a child.

We here that have been learning and paying attention for many years really do have a huge advantage in terms of the 'bird's eye view' and connection of many topics and also the combined wisdom of the network on the individual topics.
 
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