I'm sure there are more opinions people have about him than people who've read his books, but that's not unusual, or even bad. There's a million assholes with books, and they don't all need to be seriously engaged with in order to be judged.

Peterson is a garden variety conservative personality, only notable for how slippery he is about his views to non-far right sources. On Fox News and with fans he'll go into the bog-standard "men are natural leaders and feminism is bad, western civilization is superior and shouldn't be diluted, people trying to oppose racism and homophobia are trying to censor and silence you, the problems with the world aren't religion and capitalism, it's post-modern neo-Marxism, which isn't a real thing so feel free to insert Jews, gays, liberals, Muslims, or whoever else you want to label an enemy in there. And also whatever the popular fad diet/workout routine for angry young white men is, I'll endorse and try to make money from. All meat diet? Yeah sure, that." Everywhere else he'll pretend he's speaking from academia and is neutral and skeptical. But it's just traditional religious social conservatism that sounds smart to people who want their biases reaffirmed and don't actually know any philosophy or psychology.

Someone once described Jordan Peterson as simultaneously overrated and underrated; that's the best explanation for his work that I've seen.

On the underrated side, he does the professor thing and attracts auditoriums filled with people. The Chronicle of Higher Education wrote an article about Peterson where they mentioned there were students who cried on the last day of his lectures because they couldn't take any more classes with him. Students were doing this before he became internet-popular, and at Harvard, where students usually don't even come to class. That's some next level shit. Students only cry in my classes when they find out about their grades. I've spent hours watching Jordan Peterson's stuff to see if there's a way to incorporate some of his skills into my classroom. There isn't. It's too specific to him. He approaches everything like it's sacred while I approach everything like it's a joke.

On the overrated side, Jordan Peterson spends a lot his time discussing Jungian psychology and Evolutionary psychology. Those are two topics that allow you to basically say anything about anything. I respect them as little as I respect area-studies, and for the same reasons. I'm not sure how Peterson making shit up with no rules is supposed to be better than a critical race theory professor making shit up with no rules. The eternal internet slap fight between Jordan Peterson and the people who can't write a paragraph without using the word 'fraught' is a fate they both deserve. When Peterson discusses things based in actual science he does a great job, but you could get all that without the bullshit from someone else.

In conclusion, if you're having a positive or negative emotional reaction to Jordan Peterson you're using the internet incorrectly.

I'm way past done with false equivalency and enlightened centrism. "Well on one hand he leads a cult of personality where he tells angry and disillusioned young men that misogyny is valid and scientific, incels are right, promotes conspiratorial thinking that dehumanizes others with anti-Semitic language, and makes up wild lies to promote hatred and fear of trans people and Muslims. On the other hand, he's popular with fans and did a good interview, so really, people who criticize or praise him are both the same. Thanks God I'm above that by not caring about the consequences of radicalizing the alt-right. They don't have any power, right?"

I'd love to ignore Peterson. While he's published legitimate work, all his political alt-right advocacy is just psuedoscience and fear-mongering. But he's a popular figure who is treated with legitimacy by mainstream sources, and the kind of young men on the internet who'll say things like "Well he had a good interview with Joe Rogan about how men shouldn't compete in women's sports", who then don't question how he's just going through a list of garden variety white nationalist talking points and pretending it's got a scientific basis. It's not like that shit is globally having consequences. That telling people racism isn't a real problem, women aren't responsible or smart enough to control their own sexuality, and trans people are dangerous and trying to silence and oppress people through law all as part of a sinister anti-"Western" and anti-men agenda by (((marxists))) would ever have an impact on his audience and how they treat black trans women. The ones still alive anyways.

It's not clear to me what's responsible for the global rise of populism or the fact that I live in a country that's decided to give Donald Trump access to nuclear weapons.

It's very clear to me that it's not Jordan Peterson.

>>>I'm sure there are more opinions people have about him than people who've read his books, but that's not unusual, or even bad. There's a million assholes with books, and they don't all need to be seriously engaged with in order to be judged.

But what will judging him get you? As an icon in the culture wars, it's what gives him his power.

He seemed pretty reasonable to me on the Jim Jeffries show, though I didn't always agree with him. But the comments were shit city. They were mad about the way the piece was edited. The most annoying things about Redditbabies is the way they confuse editing with censorship.

In that interview, Jeffries gets Peterson to admit that he may have been wrong about something. I think admitting you may have been wrong is a fine thing. It was a good moment for Peterson, but one of the lefty blogs I subscribe to played it up like it was some kind of scandal.

Not to go all Kanye/Brawndo, but liberal bullying is a thing. Shirtgate (google it) is when I came to realize that feminists can be bullies, too. Ever been to "WE HUNTED THE MAMMOTH" I was there not long ago, posting in the comments, and before long I had people searching my social media accounts for tidbits they could use against me. Because I had transgressed somehow

Liberal bullying is a thing, but it's usually not a very serious thing. If someone accuses you of white privilege on the internet, and at heart you're not racist, and your intentions are good, okay, I guess that is an injustice. But in the scheme of things, it's not a very serious injustice. But it's time for you to suck it up... like women and minorities have been doing every day since forever.

Do I

I'm not convinced that Jordon Peterson is as bad as the left makes him out to be I'm not convinced he isn't. I DO feel like I would need to engage more seriously to judge him, and I have other things to do.

But here's the thing: when the tail is wagging the dog, you pay attention to the tail.

I guess what I'm saying is I don't give much thought to anything Jordan Peterson says, because he's 95% style. If you asked him if pancakes or waffles are better, Western civilization would hang in the balance.

Considering he also claims to have gone 25 days without sleep, I doubt he's actually sticking to his suicide diet.

The diet is actually because his daughter tried the diet and found it alleviated some auto-immune issues she'd been having. She convinced him to try it. (1, 2) So yeah, he's so terrified of appearing feminine that he follows lifestyle and diet advice from his daughter.

Seriously people, it's not just people you don't agree with who distort the truth for a political agenda. Stop being so fucking credulous.

(1) https://torontolife.com/city/life/qa-mikhaila-peterson-daughter-jo rdan-peterson-beef-diet-dads-overnight-fame/

(2) https://www.theguardian.com/food/2018/sep/10/my-carnivore-diet-jor dan-peterson-beef

He still claimed to have gone 25 days without sleep.

Handy troll cheat sheet: if you want to derail a comments thread, just invoke Jordan Peterson

tl;dr wypipo