Jun 22, 2018 at 2:59 pm

He didn’t have notes, or, seemingly, any idea what was going to come out of his mouth next.

Comments

1

Glad to see you finally get a seat at the intellectual darkweb table that you've been striving for.

2

So, basically his talks are the contemporary equivalent of that scene from "Monty Python's Life Of Brian" where Brian admonishes a large crowd: "You've got to think for yourselves! You're all individuals!" and they dutifully repeat back his exact words in-unison, except here his followers are just internalizing their response instead.

4

"So, basically his talks are the contemporary equivalent of that scene from "Monty Python's Life Of Brian" where Brian admonishes a large crowd...."

You mean the same Pythons the intersectional left attack nowadays for complaining about PC culture, like John Cleese?

5

If you want actually analysis and not just bland bullshit, look up the BibleReloaded's on YouTube. They have a very new series on Peterson that really gets down to the nitty gritty and uncovers just how much shit this guy is actually spewing.

6

@2

John Cleese on the PC left and 'easily offended' culture:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukisoucFIk4

7

The Peterson incels sure are out in force making multiple sockpuppet accounts.

8

God.
Now we will be flooded by JP fans again and we will NEVER get our HTML tags back.

9

""who burst into international fame through a massively popular series of YouTube lectures""

Not sure whether its a correction that matters or not,

But the reason he 'went viral' wasn't for his lectures, so much as videos of his engagement with protesters @ U Toronto in Oct 2016

e.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7P_9jLhtTGc

There were multiple protests, and i believe he spoke @ one, and in other cases simply talked to a number of student-protesters 1-1, but event generated dozens of clips, which were widely circulated.-

I think the reason he generated so much appeal was his (comparatively) patient and systematic deconstruction of the arguments being made against him. Thus was born the "Peterson DESTROYS SJW on [insert any topic]"-genre.

The second popular video you mention, where he testified in front of the Canadian Senate Committee on Legal Affairs, did no so much "make him famous", but was widely viewed because of his pre-existing popularity. It was too-long and far too dry to have generated much enthusiasm by itself

But the initial appeal wasn't his academic stuff; it was his "pwning the sjws"

12

7

Nah, it's just our very own Bubs/Denali/Rushmore/etc etc etc etc

13

Wait a minute, Katie Herzog got to do a whole interview with Jordan Peterson and she never thought to ask for his views on hyena feminism?!

14

@11: Oh are we going to pretend to be channeling the spirit of Emmett Watson now?

15

@11: I mean a more socially antediluvian version of course.

16

@10: That's pretty much it in a nutshell.

18

Thatā€™s assuming both accurate perception and rational actors.

Which is why I point and laugh harder at the debt of the psychotic vessels of drugged up bullshit.

19

I tried being a ā€œmale feministā€,thinking Iā€™d get laid more. Drank a sh*t ton of chamomile tea, went to college protests and tried ā€œlisteningā€ to some serious nonsense from very unattractive, fat women. Didnā€™t work.

Bought a motorcycle, leather jacket, starting drinking whiskey and stop giving a sh*t and was knee deep in blowjobs, and non of them with a BMI above 24.

Try it lads, women like actual men.

20

@17 Sorry about that Ken. Might I suggest porn, or hookers?

21

Katie, I was also at this event last night and I want to thank you for publishing a well grounded review of it.

In some ways, I feel a bit sorry for Peterson because heā€™s mischaracterized by both the left and the right. The left vilifies him based on strawman argument conjecture and the right tries to prop hin up with hyperbole as ā€œtheir guy.ā€

His viewpoints, to me, are part Nathaniel Branden and part Joseph Campbell although not exactly congruent to either.

He seems like the archetypical cranky mildly eccentric prof whose class was most likely among the more entertaining to attend but who suddenly found himself cast in the political spotlight and a bit out of his depth in his sudden, controversial fame.

He mentioned in his talk last night how stressful the past few years have been and how much he needs to self-police his own words given how often theyā€™re taken out of context.

I went for many of the same reasons Katie says she did and to see what the big deal was. I first saw him on Bill Maherā€™s show and thought he sounded articulate and interesting in that segment. I later picked up on the fact that heā€™s comsidered controversial. Iā€™ve read his book ā€œThe 12 Rulesā€ and found it pragmatic and entertaining but not life changing for me (Iā€™m older and consider much of Petersonā€™s conventional wisdom to be old hat).

I enjoyed seeing some diversity in the crowd last night and confess to being apprehensive prior to the show at both the idea of being surrounded by an ā€œalt-rightā€ crowd and by being seen as ā€œone of themā€ by any protesting antifa (there were none ā€” zero disruptions or drama; well done on civility Seattle).

Iā€™d take exception to being called an ā€œincelā€ simply for being there (Iā€™m a middle aged married guy with kids in high school) and noticed a lot of couples, a few single women, and some single guys who at least dress and carry themselves well enough to at least not appear to be involuntarily celibate. Sure, there was a comicon element there but it wasnā€™t a flaming rage banned from reddit crowd meet-up by any stretch.

I didnā€™t see any MAGA hats or hear any casual hate speech among the audience. At the meet and greet, Peterson seemed delighted when a woman or person of color approached to shake his hand. I suspect (but donā€™t know if) he feels validated to see that his audience isnā€™t completely homogenously white males.

While some questions from the audience (mostly from women) at the VIP Q&A attempted to tease out poltical topics, Peterson mostly stuck to the self help psychology track throughout most of his narrative.

I get a sense that Peterson wants to be liked and maybe the approbation he got early on from the alt-right influenced him but I believe heā€™s course corrected in disavowing the alt-right and by being more cautious about being manipulated by partisan media.

I actually wish him well and if he can temper some of the millennial (mostly) male angst with old fashioned ā€œstand up straight and try to be decentā€ advice, then all the better.

22

Yeah 19, meth does keep em thin.

24

33

Dunno. I donā€™t get ā€œurbanā€ white American girls, but I get to play the god in western Europe.

Probably why Iā€™m not married.

When I was 18-22 or so I readily admitted to myself that basically everything I did was to impress girls.

Turns out they were just smiling and nodding the entire time.

25

23 Peterson voiced an interesting idea that males, rather than females subconsciouly select the male status hierarchy from which straight women strive to mate hypergamously.

Iā€™d say sex is only part of it. The stability of monogamy for men comes from the responsibility of having a family to care for vs the mere availability of a sex partner. Think about all of the incarcarated straight men who have fathered children or otherwise were successful with women.

If it were just sex, Dan Savageā€™s idea of legalized sex work would be a panacea. I agree with Dan that sex workers also shouldnā€™t be a human shield against male social frustrations (and Iā€™m unclear as to how he reconciles those ideas). I disagree with him that itā€™d really solve the shiftless single male crime problem, though.

26

@21 Are you sure thatā€™s what you saw? Comte swears it was like the Nuremberg Rally but for pickup artists.

28

Peterson is a self-help guru huckster. And that's okay if you want to make a dollar and a cent. But there's really nothing there beyond the standards mantras you'll find in any PUA and self-help books. All he does is wrap it all up in pseudoscience and Jungian/Reichian junk before applying a healthy dollop of cultural conservative boilerplate. If it helps people, fine I guess. But his rep, good and bad, is overblown. Quite frankly, it's pretty laughable to watch lost boys find empowerment in what amount to the rightist version of Oprah/Dr. Oz sloganeering.

29

Peterson is a self-help guru huckster. And that's okay if you want to make a dollar and a cent. But there's really nothing there beyond the standard mantras you'll find in any PUA or self-help book. All he does is wrap it all up in outdated science, pseudoscience and Jungian/Reichian jargon before applying a healthy dollop of cultural conservative boilerplate. If it helps people, fine I guess. But his rep, good or bad, is overblown. Quite frankly, it's pretty laughable to watch lost boys find empowerment in what amount to Oprah/Dr. Oz-style sloganeering and anti-feminist broadsides. But hey, that Patreon account isn't gonna fill itself.

30

I don't know if this will ever get read, but I want to say two things.

One, is that people may at first try to adopt Peterson's value system, a natural step when someone/s are trying to take someone as a role model. This may eventually lead naturally in to true original thinking as an emergence of responsibility.
Second, his stance of, "not contributing to problems," or more being personally responsible, may have the effect of changing societies, going so far as to require equitable taxes, et al. I am neither left nor right, but some combination of both, probably and maybe other ideologies that don't necessarily get a lot of airtime at the moment. That being said, I think the left makes the mistake of thinking that the government can fix problems, this historically has led to a top heavy system that gets corrupted. This is kind of evidenced in our current systems.
I don't know too many people who would argue that either the left or the right have the monopoly on corrupt politicians, it seems endemic to the system/what human society has been so far. I think the right tends to be a bit optimistic about what traditional values can accomplish. I like to think that Peterson is closer, important word here, closer, not necessarily exactly on, when it comes to a moderate view. Individual responsibility can lead to a society with smaller government that is responsible, i.e. less of a system of oppression, while allowing great freedom for the individual. It probably won't work if government tries to fix problems that are endemic to society itself, treating the symptom but no the disease. Change generally has to arise because people want it. I think Peterson is trying to appeal to what is most natural, peoples desire to improve their own lives. Fortunately, when done right, and most naturally, this also aligns with making a better society.

I think that people who view folks like Peterson negatively miss that whether he is right or wrong, it is likely that we must talk and think about these things. I don't entirely agree with Peterson, I take him with a grain of salt. But, I respect him. I think we have been misled into the idea that we need to think one way about something, when the truth is more complicated. This complication allows us to meet the complexity.

I like that the author seemed to respect Peterson's self-humor. This self-humor is what allows one to not see one's views as absolute. I wish I heard more, "I don't know, ultimately, but currently I think," in the public dialogue.

31

If Peterson want to sell a rugged masculine version of The Secret that's fine. People like easy answers. And if she doesn't want to call people by their preferred pronouns that's fine too. It's not like anyone is holding a gun to her head.

32

" It's not like anyone is holding a gun to her head."

Good, then you won't need "bias teams", "campus language codes" and rules and laws forcing us to call "women" with testicles "she". I'll do it voluntarily, because as mental illnesses go transexuals are pretty benign, but force me to do it?

Go f*ck yourself sir.

Sorry, "madame".

33

@32: Sorry toots, but Peterson had better get used to being handed back what she's dishing out. The Husband had a similar situation at work. A co-worker insisted on calling him by a diminutive of his given name despite being asked not to. That stopped after the Husband started referring to said co-worker as Barbara. Turns out as a male identified person said co-worker wanted to be called by his correct name! Go figure!
Not really rocket science Punkin.
Now if you (and/or Peterson) want to be a flaming asshole you can go right ahead, but remember Barbara, it works both ways.

34

It must have been difficult writing about somebody you don't understand. I don't follow JP, but it doesn't require much thought to suppose there must be reasons that aren't shallow to account for his popularity. To brush him off as one having insignificant opinions means you lack understanding.

Also, you said JP's response regarding the problem of Seattle was to stop contributing to it, but then you wrote that his telling people to make their beds wouldn't actually solve Seattle's problems. You're essentially saying that you weren't really listening.

So people should feel like they understand JP more from your article for what reason? You spoke to the guy and didn't understand. Are you saying he confused you?

35

" but remember Barbara, it works both ways."

You can call me Barberella for all I care, after all that was when Jane Fonda was truly fuckable.The only difference is I'll laugh, not cry like a school "girl" who then runs off to administrators/HR demanding action be taken against an act of "violence".

36

@33 He never said he refused to refer to people by their preferred pronouns as a matter of principal over gender. In fact he has said that he has generally done so. He said he would refuse to do so if legally compelled to do so.

This is conscientious objection, not to gender change or nonconformity, but to coerced speech. I believe that not making reasonable effort to accommodate someone's gender pronouns does make someone an asshole. But I am in agreement with JP that it shouldn't make them criminally or civilly liable.

I don't agree with everything JP says, however I do think those who believe he's "dangerous" are a bit silly.

Idealogues, on the other hand, be they left or right, scare the shit outta me. And they seem to make up both his most devoted fanbase and those who most loudly criticize him.

37

@4/6:

That would be the same John Cleese who once admitted, "ā€œI find it rather easy to portray a businessman. Being bland, rather cruel and incompetent comes naturally to me."

38

@26:

Correction: It was like the Nuremberg Rally but for failed wannabe pickup artists...

39

"has swindled reams of unsuspecting young men into believing that he is a savior when really he's nothing more than a quack."

Young men are rarely unsuspecting, but they are easily swindled.

40

I think trickle down is when a person at the top does something and we hope it works itā€™s way down. I donā€™t think it usually works.

I think ā€œclean your roomā€ would be the opposite. Trickle up, or built from the ground up. It starts with the person at the bottom and then works out into society. So opposite of trickle down. And that would probably work.

Idk just trying to understand things better. Have a great day everyone!

41

As a 21st century scientist, Jordan Peterson firmly believes that black people are genetically less intelligent than white people, and that denial of that is simple PCism. He talks a good game, but at his intellectual core is a spouting simp whose regressive general sense of things overrides any interest in acknowledging complexity.

Listen to his podcast interviewing UC Irvine Med School's Richard Heier (a high-acheiving thoughtless dolt himself, and defacto eugenicist) about his book The Neuroscience of Intelligence for all you need to know about the dangers of canonizing sloppy scientists.

42

Peterson believes lies can be truth if it is good for society, and that truth can be a lie. He is a religionist first and foremost. He props up old tropes such as women are chaos and men are order, a philosophy men created, again, this is clearly not true. Men are chaotic and women always have cleaned up and ordered that chaos. Then he writes a book titled An Antidote to Chaos. An Antidote is a medicine given to counteract a particular poison. This is so deeply sexist and wrong I don't even know where to begin. All I can say is men are desperate to not lose something that they don't even think they have, power and privilege an this guy feeds on their impotence.

43

"Jordan Peterson firmly believes that black people are genetically less intelligent than white people"

Citation please.

45

@35: Oh I love that movie! She has a ridiculous number of costume changes. So fun!
I understand your (& @36) objection to the idea of a law, but in JP's case he was being a wee bit melodramatic no? Canada doesn't throw people in prison for mis-gendering someone. Here is a link that I found helpful in breaking it down. You'll have to copy and paste it into your browser because unfortunately.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/ncna773421

46

@36: But you do see why there are people that find JP dangerous. You say so at the end of your comment, that his most devoted fans are idealogues. It's the followers that make a movement and he has some pretty shitty followers. I mean we need only look to @35 and his endlessly rotating profiles to see that for some, JP is an answer to an asshole's prayer.

47

Here is another break down regarding the Bill in question:
Bill C-16, whose full text can be found by Googling ā€œBill C-16ā€, would add just four words ā€” ā€œgender identity or expressionā€ ā€” to the list of factors like race and sex that government agencies and businesses regulated by the national government canā€™t use to discriminate. The same words would also be added to a section of criminal law (which anyone can find online) that forbids advocating genocide.

In the same way that people arenā€™t routinely locked up for using racial slurs, itā€™s also extremely unlikely theyā€™d be jailed for referring to a trans person who prefers to be called ā€œtheyā€ as ā€œheā€ or ā€œshe.ā€ Richard Moon, a professor at the University of Windsor who studies freedom of speech issues, said remarks have got to ā€œbe really extreme in characterā€ before they qualify as criminal hate speech.

So there you have it.

48

Herzog: "After his talk, for instance, during an audience Q&A moderated by Dave Rubin, someone asked how to ā€œmake Seattle be less fucked up.ā€ ā€œThatā€™s easy,ā€ Peterson said. ā€œStop contributing to it.ā€ Solid advice, I suppose, but Seattle doesnā€™t just need people to stop being dicks; it also needs affordable housing, better transit systems, an equitable tax structure, and a bunch of other systems that donā€™t magically appear when you start cleaning your room or standing up straight."

*

I'd never heard of Jordan Peterson until recently, when I read a piece about him in (I think) the Washington Post. I don't see his "stop contributing to it" as telling people to just stop being dicks, or to clean their room and stand up straight. I think what he's saying is that if you're not doing anything positive about making Seattle less fucked-up, then you're contributing to it being fucked-up.

It's like the comment by Eldridge Cleaver: "There is no more neutrality in the world. You either have to be part of the solution, or you're going to be part of the problem."

https://www.theguardian.com/notesandqueries/query/0,,-1859,00.html

49

@43 like I cited, listen to Peterson's podcast interview of Richard Heier. Its on YouTube. Heier believes the idea that black people are on average are less intelligent is proven by his book that argues functional imaging studies support this precept. Peterson agrees when Heier makes these claims. Heier claims that resistance to this "truth" is a big problem because it gets in the way of figuring out how to physically improve the brains of the less intelligent. Peterson seems to assent to this idea too. This is eugenics plain and simple.

Go ahead and read The Neuroscience of Intelligence too while you're at it. I did, cover to cover, and as science it's shaky as Jello, a virtual catalog of all the flaws and manipulations that make nearly 2/3's of published studies in Psychology unable to be reproduced. Takes a lot of sack to get from some sketchy and rhetorically broken studies to let's gene splice black brains for the better. Annoys me too that I had to buy the fucking thing out of own pocket

50

@48: See this is the crux of hucksterism. JP didn't say that. YOU said that. You interpreted those four words in a way that fit in with your world view. Peterson offers vague and simple statements dressed up in a mishmash of phrases and unexamined bits an pieces from a variety of scientific fields.
Then people start arguing about what he "really" means.
There's no there there.

51

@45 I don't think so. Law controlling speech is authoritarian. He was protesting against that. To disagree with his analysis would be to throw in your lot with Tipper Gore.

@46 I won't persecute someone for how the lowest common denominator takes their words. Attack the problem, not the person.

52

What the emphasis on "Cultural Marxism" accomplishes is this: by fusing those two words, it encourages conflation of economic and political arguments -- how should we pay for transit? What role should the government play in healthcare? etc -- with a whole host of trendy culture war arguments that have almost nothing to do with those things. How you feel about third person singular pronouns doesn't really have any bearing on whether or not you take the subway to work, but thanks to this framing it does now.

53

@51: So you didn't read either my link or the quote I posted. Gotcha.

55

He strikes me as someone with little to say, yet adores hearing himself speak. I'll pass.

56

@54: Awww you took all the trouble to create yet another profile because you're worried about me! I don't care what anyone says about you doll, you do have a soft squishy inside under your soft squishy outside. Xoxo

57

@54:

You seem to know a lot about this subject. I'm curious: what exactly does a "mangina" feel like? Is it soft and squishy - to borrow Lissa's phrase - or is it hard and throbbing, or perhaps a bit of both?

58

@48Roma,
Good observation. Indeed, I too hadn't heard of Peterson until a few weeks ago. Never knew he was Canadian. Seems he's a public intellectual who has written or said politically incorrect statements. Guess that comes with the territory. Elicits a yawn to me.

BTW, the quote by Cleaver reminds of the dated axiom "you're either for us or against us". The reason I say 'dated' is that I don't think there can be any real dialogue if one truly believes that saying. I believe that's part of the problem with advocacy.

59

Still not sure how "enforced monogamy" would lead to incels losing their virginity.

60

2, #6: Not sure John Cleese speaks for ALL of the Pythons on anything. He's very, very funny, but comes from a much more privileged place in the British class system than most of the others.

61

Also, neither Dr. Peterson, nor anyone else, would have been fined or arrested under either the federal nor Ontario provincial statutes for simply mispronouncing someone. You'd only be subject to legal action under either statute if you were actively inciting hatred against non-binary people OR calling for genocide against the non-binary-two things that, to my knowledge, Dr. Peterson has ever actually done. You wouldn't end up in jail for making an honest mistake on pronouns.

62

@61: Yup. I've been saying that and even gave links and quotes, but reality doesn't have the appeal that the idea of Peterson as the beleaguered martyr does. He was disingenuous from the get go.

63

61: that should read "two things, that to my knowledge, Dr. Peterson has NEVER actually done". Damn, I wish they'd let you go back and edit your posts if you see a typo after posting them.

64

ā€œYou wouldn't end up in jail for making an honest mistake on pronouns.ā€

What if it wasnā€™t a mistake when I call a woman with a penis ā€œsirā€?

65

64: In that case, it wouldn't be a mistake-what it would be is disrespect and an insult. But so long as you weren't calling for women with penii to be rounded up and gassed, you'd most likely skate. You'd be a jerk...but you wouldn't be an incarcerated jerk(at least, not just for THAT).

66

@65 A ā€œjerkā€ apparently means scientifically correct these days. I can live with that. Sir.

67

Mr Mehlman - The view you expressed is way too tradcon for you to be SUPER gay.

The strongest impression of this piece seems to be that Ms H is super-impressed with herself over how nice all the Heathers are being to her. Probably wise of her to say relatively little about Prof P, who seems to be in various ways the tradcon flip side of Mr Savage.

68

Who is something that Katie has drawn inspiration from? I wonder if that person has ever been shit on in a slog?

69

@58 writes:
ā€œBTW, the quote by Cleaver reminds of the dated axiom "you're either for us or against us". The reason I say 'dated' is that I don't think there can be any real dialogue if one truly believes that saying.ā€

Exactly. Post-911 George W. Bush was deservedly ridiculed for taking this stance but in 2018 this type of binary ā€œall or nothingā€ thinking is the norm. When people refuse to even listen to anyone who isnā€™t 100% ideologically on board with their own views more polarization and division is the inevitable result. Great news for the establishment and those seeking to uphold the status quo, but bad news for everybody else.

70

Still trying to figure out the obsession with this guy.

Why exactly is his bland, re-heated self help seen as so dangerous?

It's a sad state of affairs that so many "adults" need to be reminded to "clean their room" so to speak, but I guess that is where we are.

Still don't see why it is so threatening to so many of you.

71

@70: I agree, as I have said as far as his "advice" goes it's all vague platitudes and things that seem like easy answers, but as with all easy answers, don't actually amount to much upon closer inspection. There is no there there. This leads to people interpreting what ever given mushy statements he makes to fit their own world view. You can see it in Roma's interpretation of a four word statement @48.
He's a huckster, and the danger lies in those of his followers who take his words beyond the feel good quick fixisms of "clean your room" etc.
It is disingenuous to pretend that there aren't a portion of his fans, (and cynical right wing publications) who haven't latched on to his demonstrably false position regarding Bill C-16, and are using his fake martyrdom as a means to cudgel the Trans community, pretending it's about freedom.

As far as people who find value in how they apply the widely open to interpretation axioms like "stand up straight" (is that meant literally? Is it a metaphor for some fault in oneself?) if it helps them, I say great. Good for them. But what ever improvements they see in their lives are coming from within themselves, not Peterson.
He's just the feather Dumbo clung to to believe he could fly.

72

@71: Right, but why is this one self-help huckster worth daily articles and hundreds of comment threads about why he is so bad? What does Peterson say exactly that makes people (seems like mostly people on the left) so afraid of him?

How is he really any different from guys like Tony Robbins and Deepak Chopra who just take money from easily duped rubes?

Why exactly is this guy seen as something different, something darker and more dangerous? Or am I just seeing an extremely biased takes because the only time I hear about this guy is when people are getting worked up about his existence?

73

@72: Because Tony Robbins isn't political. Tony Robbins (and I have been to one of his events, and can I just say wow) doesn't pretend his advice is for people whose problems stem from bullshit made up boogie men like "Cultural Marxism" Tony Robbins and Deepak Chopra don't give their followers someone else to blame.

74

And to be clear, I was working that event, and when I say wow, I mean, holy shit this is like a cult and no! I do not want to walk on your hot coals or buy your book after we clear the front of house.

75

@73: Don't worry, I found it, he questioned enforced pronoun use back in 2016, I no longer have any questions about why he is hated in liberal circles.

76

71: Two significant dangers, to start with:

A) He is considering going into politics in Canada;
B) He has actually said he sees himself as "the prophet";

As cited, with much else, at THIS link:

https://www.thestar.com/opinion/2018/05/25/i-was-jordan-petersons-strongest-supporter-now-i-think-hes-dangerous.html

77

@75: Sigh. Yeeeeeeah try reading the link I put up @45 and the quote I put up at 47.
He pretended that adding 4 words to Canada's existing civil rights law affording Trans people the same protections as gay people and people of color meant he was going to be jailed if he misgendered some one.
(Insert game show buzzer) Nope, nope, nopety nope.
The fact that you fell for that bullshit says more about you than liberals.

78

@75: And in case you're too lazy to scroll up:

http://www.canadalandshow.com/no-wont-jailed-using-wrong-pronoun/

79

Peterson should start a self-empowerment cult, like Landmark, or est or something.

80

Yes he is thin-skinned, especially in debate, but anybody who fights back against PC pronouns must be doing something right. He's contemptuous of academic leftist groupthink. He actually thinks that science should be scientific, not dogmatic. And in a world cowed by radical feminism, he's a damn fine mansplainer, like every man who has any self-esteem should be.

81

@80: So you're an asshole then. Like the fella at work that continued to call the Husband by a diminutive of his given name despite being asked not to. Fella stopped after the Husband started calling him Barbara. This could happen to you! Won't it be fun to be deliberately misgendered, or called Charlene or Chuckles? You'll kick and fuss but have to put up with it because heaven forbid! You might be mistaken for being PC expecting common courtesy!

83

Of course Jordan Peterson is a totally contrived, bought and paid for, koch mercer bannon deepstate David Hoorowitz-knockoff cointelpro mother fucker trumptroll nazi. But that is neither here nor there or is it?Why do democracies elect sociopaths?
Posted by Christina MacPherson
Ken commented on Nuclear news to 24 June 18

The Mass Psychology of Fascism by Wilhelm Reich. It is what is happening. He wrote it in 1933, and most of the book tries to answer the question why democracies continually elect psychopaths to rule them. I think you would really like it.

Hereā€™s a free link to the PDF: http://www.wilhelmreichtrust.org/mass_psychology_of_fascism.pdf

You know Trump is a narcissistā€“ a malignant narcissist. Every psychopath is also a narcissist and itā€™s clear that Trump is also a psychopath. You probably knew that too.
The question is, how did a malignant narcissist psychopath become presidentā€“ not just president but a horrific monster who is intentionally destroying the protections that have made Americans and America save from the predations of the worst corporations and his fellow billionaire psychopaths? And what should we do about it.

Itā€™s a long story. Before civilization, humans evolved, over at least seven million years, to live in small hunter-gather bands where they were bottom-up beingsā€“ empathic, kind, cooperative, sharing, interdependent, living with bottom-up connection consciousnessā€“ awareness of how decisions and actions affected all the people around themā€“ and the natural ecosystems they depended upon. Anyone who tried to take more than their share of the bands resources would be seen as insane, or would banished or killed. for example, one expert on psychopaths told me that in the far north, a psychopath living amongst the indigenous peoples would be put on an chunk of ice and pushed off into the ocean to float away.

The creeping opening of vulnerability to the depredations of narcissists and psychopaths started with the onset of civilization, when food surpluses and possession of domesticated animals led to the creation of police and soldiers to protect them. That led to hierarchy, centralization, authoritarianism and domination. Narcissists and psychopaths began to flourish because there was no band of people to stop them.

Most of history (as opposed to prehistory)has been, until the past 3040 years, the top-down history of generals and rulers, i.e., despots, monarchs and worse. Civilization, while bringing some wonderful good advances came with a high priceā€“ slavery, serfdom, feudalism, privatization of the commons and brutal exploitation of the people at the bottom.

The narcissistic, top-down ideas of privatization and exploitation have been framed and celebrated by the right as aspects of ā€œlibertyā€ and individualism, as described by Ayn Rand. These narcissistic behaviors have become values that are supported and encouraged by religious and political leaders

Today, some businesses actually seek out psychopaths as employees. That gives them increasing access to wealth and power. Trump is a born-on-third-base child of wealth. These people are, I believe more at risk for developing the characteristics of psychopathsā€“ particularly callousness, hard-heartedness, absence of empathy, propensity towards lying and disrespecting laws and morals. Of course, Donald Trump fits this profile perfectly.

His massive scale child abuse is a clear sign of his having all the signsā€“ callousness, hard-heartedness, absence of empathy, propensity towards lying and disrespecting laws and morals. Worse, his deranged behavior is contagious, as evidenced by the many supporters and flunkies who defend this depraved policy. Even worse, ripping away children from their loving parents will permanently traumatize them and make them, the victims more at risk of becoming narcissists and psychopaths themselves. We have to take serious, aggressive action.

Iā€™ve written many articles, in my article series, Psychopaths, Sociopaths and Narcissists, on the challenge narcissists and psychopaths present to a decent society. Trump and his enablers have made my message even more urgent. We need to develop a science and culture that reject the ā€œvalues,ā€ really, pathological behaviors and thinking, as the vile, evil things they are. People who engage in such behaviors, people with strong narcissistic and psychopathic tendencies and characteristics should be identified, just as sexual predators are. This is not bigotry, not separating out any particular religion, race, or culture. This is what is done with sexual predators and carriers of highly contagious diseases.

We need to deal with the reality that these people are dangerous, malignant, destructive people. At one level, they are predators who take life savings from innocent victims who love them. But they are also the same people who gave us the multi-trillion dollar economic collapse of 2008, and the people who profit from war and drugsā€“ addictive and pharmaceutical.

These are the people who set examples of the worse kind, so we see massive increases in hate, bigotry, intolerance and discrimination. We need to identify them and protect the whole, healthy people who are not narcissists and psychopaths. This should be a conversation that is on the table. It will not be easy. There are billionaire narcissists and psychopaths who will fight it and they will fight dirty, attacking the messengers, attacking the idea. But weā€™ve gone far too long without doing this necessary work.

https://www.opednews.com/articles/How

From Paul Street article on Trump
ā€œThere have been many tyranny tests under the monstrous orange-tinted white nationalist Twitter clown Donald Trump. Where to begin:

The opening day trip to CIA headquarters, where he half-jokingly rambled about the US going back to Iraq to ā€œget the oilā€?
The repeated attempts to repeal even Obamaā€™s inadequate health insurance measure and thereby remove tens of millions of U.S. citizens from health coverage?
The insane claim to have won the popular vote but for the votes of illegal immigrants?
The idiotic call for a southern border wall combined with the asinine call for Mexico to ā€œpay for itā€?
The noxious description of Mexican and other Central American immigrants and asylum-seekers as rapists and murderers?
The praise and dog-whistling cover he offered to murderous fascist racists in Charlottesville in the summer of 2017?
The giant tax cut that the racist real estate mogul trailblazed for the already obscenely super-opulent Few last Christmas season ā€“ a socioeconomic atrocity in a nation where the top 10thof the upper 1 percent already owned as much wealth as the bottom 90 percent?
The advance pardon that the Tangerine Satan offered to the sickening racist and nativist tent-camp murderer Sheriff Joe Arpaio in Arizona last year?
The racist shaming of federal judges who happen not to rule his way?
The repeated transparent attempts to place himself above the rule of law?
The open assault on basic environmental protections and the eco-exterminist determination to advance the extraction and burning of every last fossil fuel in U.S. reach?
The clear and transparent affection he shows for blood-drenched authoritarians the world over?
The snap approvals of the planet-cooking Dakota Access and Keystone XL pipelines?
The open embrace of Saudi Arabiaā€™s practically genocidal war on Yemen?
The repeated ugly embrace of the National Rifle Association after yet another and then another mass shooting that amounts to homeland terrorism sponsored by the proto-fascistic and white supremacist gun lobby?
The open advance of prison privatization and mass incarceration combined with clear disinterest in curbing the ongoing epidemic of racist police shootings?

Thatā€™s just a short list.

What would it take to send millions of U.S.-Americans into the streets to confront the total evil of ā€œtheirā€ government in the age of Trump? How about this: ā€œDragging young children kicking and crying and screaming from their parents, separating those children from their parents indefinitely, locking those children up in cages (ā€˜dog kennelsā€™) like animals, and subjecting them to the predators of the American police sta

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The Stranger is the only place I regularly see pieces on Jordan Peterson. Rock bands that tour by van play larger venues than this guy. Is he really that big of a worry?


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