Jordan Peterson, from professor to personality cult leader

[Cyborg Girl]

I didn't know much about Jordan Peterson until recently. Mainly that he's a darling of alt-right and other assorted crackpots, wrote some kind of generic sounding self help stuff, and first became a celebrity with a huge "Free Speech" thing basically demanding his right to trash-talk his students about their gender. So, kind of like an extra gritty Wayne Dyer remix for Game of Thrones fans. I knew about his place as a gateway to stuff farther to the right, but not much else.

This article, by a colleague and former friend of his, paints a rather uglier picture.

https://www.thestar.com/opinion/2018/05 ... erous.html

TL;DR version, he's had creepy grandiosity issues desired a following for a while, is really bad at living up to his own standards, and abuses his own rulebook for personal gain. He sounds a lot more ambitious, and a lot less ethical, than your average crank.

[SciFi Chick]

Rebuttal to the ad hominem laden "opinion" piece you posted.

Also, he's not alt-right. And you misrepresented his stance on free speech. A LOT of transgender people have sided with him on this issue. It was an issue of free speech, and he's not the least bit interested in trash talking his students. Maybe listen to some of his videos before coming out so harsh against him, because it's pretty clear you've just gathered up talking points rather than evidence.

I've watched a number of his videos. He's well spoken and he supports his arguments. Not everyone who is slightly conservative is a raging Nazi.

I watched him defend why he was against the proposition. This pronoun thing is out of control. You don't get to force language to change. It's organic and will happen on its own. And trying to codify language requirements into law? That's beyond the pale.

[Rommie]

So, context. The Toronto Star is a paper in Canada on par for credibility on the level of The New York Times or Washington Post. The Toronto Sun is definitely a British-type tabloid, and the author of that article is the son of Conrad Black, who's basically the Murdoch of Canada except worse (served 42 months in prison for fraud and such, even more right wing politically if anything), and the entire family's done unsavory stuff like domestic violence.

Even all that aside, frankly no, I don't see that piece as a rebuttal at all (and no idea why you say "opinion" because that certainly is the original author's opinion of Peterson. like literally, that's the definition of it). It reads like a screed of words trying to sound like a rebuttal (like seriously? "Then came a drive-by ad hominem spray-and-pray, accusing Peterson simultaneously of dishonesty, deficient intellectual integrity, and of lacking common decency."), but frankly even the few citations of facts from the original article are twisted around.

But then, I thought the original piece was an honest telling of someone's experiences with a friend and colleague over the years, a friend so close that Peterson literally lived at his house for five months. Obviously that is going to have a ton of personal details, and I don't see what's wrong with such a tell-all opinion piece given how Peterson has sought and found celebrity. I do find some opinions of the original author distasteful (FFS, one old white dude strong arming another mediocre white dude over better qualified candidates is where a huge source of issues in academia come from), but overall that doesn't detract from the original piece for me so much that I will disregard everything in it.

Anyway. Peterson himself and my thoughts on him. In short, he's a blowhard. I tried reading some of his stuff on my own (because hey, UofT prof!), then read the ridiculous lobster thing towards the beginning of the book, then stopped because it's pretty obvious that this is someone who cherry picks science to support a philosophy that's really thin to begin with. He's also pretty disingenuous by saying stuff like there was a bill in Canada that would criminalize refusing to use the preferred gender as hate speech and that he was going to be sent to jail or lose his job over it. That's not at all true, and Peterson wasn't going to be sent to jail for not doing so.

There's a lot of other stuff that I find just really fucking weird about his ideas (like how he frames men as so volatile that they must be placated with regular sex in order to not go crazy... yet doesn't extend that to the logical conclusion that people who are like that really shouldn't be in charge of pretty much anything). And I don't trust anyone over the age of 12 who has an obsession for one's IQ as he does. But this has already taken some time to write, and I've got other stuff to do, so will leave it here.

[Loresinger]

I am unfamiliar with Peterson (perhaps I should be thankful for that LOL). However what strikes me most about this piece is a profound sense of sadness and even perhaps a feeling of betrayal. There is no question in my mind that the writer is sincere (i.e. not looking for 15 minutes of fame).

[SciFi Chick]

There's a lot of other stuff that I find just really fucking weird about his ideas (like how he frames men as so volatile that they must be placated with regular sex in order to not go crazy... yet doesn't extend that to the logical conclusion that people who are like that really shouldn't be in charge of pretty much anything). And I don't trust anyone over the age of 12 who has an obsession for one's IQ as he does. But this has already taken some time to write, and I've got other stuff to do, so will leave it here.

I've looked at both sides of the bill situation, and he's not the only one saying it would criminalize certain types of speech, but that's not really worth the effort of getting into.

This paragraph that I've quoted right here - what? I've watched a few of his videos with sound bites, not many, and I never heard any of this stuff about placating men with sex or an obsession with IQ. I'll try looking it up myself, but if you have a link handy, that would be helpful.

As to why I put "opinion" in quotes, I really think he had an axe to grind. You read it differently. I don't think anyone should make a decision about Peterson based on one man's opinion with no context. I really appreciate that you actually read/watched some of his stuff to form your opinion. That's the main thing I was getting at. I still think the rebuttal was pretty good, but I wasn't aware of the writer's background. I'll have to reflect on whether I consider that relevant.

[SciFi Chick]

Here is a more measured rebuttal by someone who appreciates Peterson but doesn't worship the ground he walks on.

[Rommie]

This paragraph that I've quoted right here - what? I've watched a few of his videos with sound bites, not many, and I never heard any of this stuff about placating men with sex or an obsession with IQ. I'll try looking it up myself, but if you have a link handy, that would be helpful.

Just the few I can remember off the top of my head:

- This Vice interview where he says women in the workplace who wear makeup are basically asking to be sexually harassed. Because clearly women who wear red lipstick are doing so to be sexually suggestive because lips turn red when you have sex. No word on if women who wear blue lipstick are doing so because they're mimicking hypothermia.

(It should be noted Peterson has had several complaints filed against him at UofT, surprise surprise.)

As for the IQ stuff, it's in a ton of lectures, but I'm just going to refer to this article:

To fully grasp the depth of Peterson’s belief in power hierarchies, take his commitment to IQ testing: “If you don’t buy IQ research,” he has told his students, “then you might as well throw away all of psychology.” Peterson rejects the theory of multiple intelligences (emotional intelligence, musical intelligence, and so on) and insists that all of human intelligence is biologically determined, essentially unalterable, and expressed in a single number that can be ranked. Your IQ, he says, will govern where you end up in life: with an IQ of 130, you can be an attorney or an editor; at 115, you can be a nurse or a sales manager; at 100, you can be a receptionist or a police officer; at 90, you can be a janitor.

Peterson’s defence of IQ rests on shaky foundations. While he tells students that IQ was empirically established through Charles Spearman’s factor analysis, he does not share the well-known critique of that method: factor analysis supports both of the contradictory causal explanations of intelligence (intelligence as innate versus intelligence as the product of environmental advantage). Peterson then stacks the deck in favour of biology, citing brain size and neural conduction velocity (essentially, the speed at which an electrical pulse moves through tissue) as the determinants of IQ. Again, he does not tell students that both explanations were discredited by later research.

Don't have time to address everything else right now.

[Cyborg Girl]

@SFC

Rommie already covered a bunch of stuff, but...

I didn't say Peterson was alt-right, because he at least nominally isn't. I said he was a darling of the alt-right and other assorted crackpots. Because he is. When you put out simplistic BS about postmodern neo-Marxism and the doom of Western civilization, well, Fascists are gonna become part of your fanbase (in part because terms like that are in fact modern Fascist dog-whistles).

Free speech: deliberately refusing to accept someone's preferred gender is disrespectful, and knowingly so. If you think I'm out of my mind, think about how you'd feel if a professor assumed you were a guy from your appearance, refused to stop calling you "sir" and whatnot because he felt he was correct regardless of what you said, and got pissy when you confronted him. Think about how you'd feel if he not only did these things, but started writing articles and making speeches about how "women who look like dudes" should expect to be seen as dudes, there's a Dude-Shaped Woman Agenda, ugly dude-shaped women being actually treated as women will be the downfall of Western Civilization... Think about how it would feel if someone made "SFC is actually a guy" their personal hill to die on, and actually started attracting a following who believed him.

It would be a really, really bad trip.

What he's asking for is not the right to speak freely. It is the right to *harass*, without consequences, specific mechanism of harassment entirely aside. Damn straight that is not acceptable.

"You can't force a language to change": you kinda can, and we already do. e.g. the US doesn't have hate speech laws, but a lot of discriminatory hiring practices and racist/sexist/etc workplace harassment are illegal, or legally require a company to take corrective action. It's not perfect, but it is changing things, BY incremental pressure on how people talk and behave.

This is the same deal. Making it illegal to harass students re their gender is... pretty standard, at least from my PoV in the United States. And Peterson is in Canada, which IIRC actually has some hate speech laws. This is a really stupid hill for him to die on, and that he chose it IMO says bad things about his intentions and about him.

@Rommie

LOL re the rejection of different types of intelligence. That is... so blatantly at odds with how the real world works I'm amazed he can convince himself.

[SciFi Chick]

I don't think he wants to be able to harass his students. But, I don't care that much either. Speaking of hills to die on, I'm not in here to be the great defender of Jordan Peterson, but some of what he has to say is interesting. That said, in my research since I asked Rommie to provide links, I came across this really interesting rebuttal of Peterson's theory that men are volatile without regular sex. The initial blog post rebutting it, followed by some of the comments are really fascinating. Must go eat now. Will respond to other stuff later.

https://www.quora.com/What-does-Jordan- ... d-monogamy

[SciFi Chick]

Just the few I can remember off the top of my head:

- This Vice interview where he says women in the workplace who wear makeup are basically asking to be sexually harassed. Because clearly women who wear red lipstick are doing so to be sexually suggestive because lips turn red when you have sex. No word on if women who wear blue lipstick are doing so because they're mimicking hypothermia.

(It should be noted Peterson has had several complaints filed against him at UofT, surprise surprise.)

I wish people would debate like this in real life. I really, really, really want to see conservatives and liberals debate, instead of the softball "debates" that most have. The blue lipstick thing - hilarious.

As for the IQ stuff, it's in a ton of lectures, but I'm just going to refer to this article:

To fully grasp the depth of Peterson’s belief in power hierarchies, take his commitment to IQ testing: “If you don’t buy IQ research,” he has told his students, “then you might as well throw away all of psychology.” Peterson rejects the theory of multiple intelligences (emotional intelligence, musical intelligence, and so on) and insists that all of human intelligence is biologically determined, essentially unalterable, and expressed in a single number that can be ranked. Your IQ, he says, will govern where you end up in life: with an IQ of 130, you can be an attorney or an editor; at 115, you can be a nurse or a sales manager; at 100, you can be a receptionist or a police officer; at 90, you can be a janitor.

Peterson’s defence of IQ rests on shaky foundations. While he tells students that IQ was empirically established through Charles Spearman’s factor analysis, he does not share the well-known critique of that method: factor analysis supports both of the contradictory causal explanations of intelligence (intelligence as innate versus intelligence as the product of environmental advantage). Peterson then stacks the deck in favour of biology, citing brain size and neural conduction velocity (essentially, the speed at which an electrical pulse moves through tissue) as the determinants of IQ. Again, he does not tell students that both explanations were discredited by later research.

Don't have time to address everything else right now.

That's alright. I was mostly interested in the men need to have sex in order not to be volatile nonsense, and I found some stuff on that myself. I always shy away from the IQ debate. Seems like the people most fascinated with it are desperate to prove they have a high IQ.

I guess I quit taking it seriously because, anecdotally, I tested very high at a young age and was in the "gifted" program all the way through high school. Ya just gotta love naming a program "gifted" and then all the kids with issues get called "special." Who comes up with this? :roll

I find that IQ is a very small part of someone's potential success in life. Sure. It's made it easier for me in some areas, but it's not like I'm rolling around in success due to my awesome IQ. And no, I'm not being falsely humble here. I used myself as an anecdote, but I've seen on many more occasions that sweat, blood and tears do far more than having a high IQ, so I find myself wondering why we still bother testing this sort of thing.

Thus, anytime people start harping on about it, I think they're either ignorant, insecure, racist or a combination. It might be a useful conversation in certain neuroscience classes, but it really needs to be studied in context.

[Rommie]

Well I hang out with some people who probably have some of the highest IQs on the planet, and you know how much I have to say about their alleged intelligence.

I suspect the reason people talk about IQ so much because it would be nice if we all had an innate number which measured our potential and life were that easy. Of course, it's not- there's a fascinating study where they followed the gifted and talented students in one generation in California based on their IQ tests as children, expecting to prove they grew up better off, but turns out not only were they just the same in every metric of success, the G&T group actually missed a few people who went on to win the Nobel Prize.

My anecdotal experience is frankly much more damage happens when you tell kids they're smart over not comment on it at all, because it's not good to praise people in general for things they can't control.

[grapes]

Well I hang out with some people who probably have some of the highest IQs on the planet, and you know how much I have to say about their alleged intelligence.

"Smart people look stupid to stupid people?"

I've been trying to locate the source of this quote--I swear, I did not make it up

I suspect the reason people talk about IQ so much because it would be nice if we all had an innate number which measured our potential and life were that easy. Of course, it's not- there's a fascinating study where they followed the gifted and talented students in one generation in California based on their IQ tests as children, expecting to prove they grew up better off, but turns out not only were they just the same in every metric of success, the G&T group actually missed a few people who went on to win the Nobel Prize.

My anecdotal experience is frankly much more damage happens when you tell kids they're smart over not comment on it at all, because it's not good to praise people in general for things they can't control.

[SciFi Chick]

Really insightful article explaining why Jordan Peterson is not alt-right and how he appeals to a wide variety of people.

And it's from The Atlantic so certainly not a right wing article.

[lady_*nix]

Well. Maybe he wasn't alt-right then, but he certainly is now.

https://mobile.twitter.com/thebadstats/ ... 2780472321

TL;DR he thinks Russia's war against Ukraine and the West is reasonable because we've become a bunch of degenerates. You know, the same stuff Putin and his neo-Nazi stooges say.

Was he always like this? Is it just brain damage from benzo addiction and his all-meat diet? IDK but definitely nobody should listen to him.