Comments

1

Honest to God, the Stranger is the only publication in which I've read anything about this guy. A quick search turn up 10 different Stranger articles in less than 2 years. Is he hugely popular in Seattle or something?

2

The professor seems to bring out the worst in people on all sides of the political Spectrum.

It also seems that this really isn't his intention.

It would appear that the intent of the listener is more important than the intent of the speaker.

4

Yeah, I'm with @1. I never heard of this guy.

Also, about the part of trying to figure out multiple pronouns (e.g., ze, zir, etc.) I like Dan Savage's solution... don't call anyone anything, just point at them. Stupid fucking problems deserve a stupid fucking solution.

5

Well, Ayn Rand managed to create a creepy cult, whose adherents remain devoted to "logic," "reason," and other concepts they simply and obviously do not understand, so even preaching for ideas which should help us can result in a movement which almost never does.

Having said that, the only persons who should be shouted down are the actual intolerant fanatics, because they refuse to grant tolerance to the rest of us. If a person is willing to explain his ideas and positions using reason, logic, and facts, then we should do him the courtesy of engaging his ideas and positions on those bases. If his ideas are wrong (and most of us will entertain wrongheaded ideas at some times in our lives) then a rigorous and skeptical examination of his points will reveal the deficiencies in his ideas. I want nothing to do with anyone who tells me I should not engage a person on those person's ideas.

@3: Despite the utterly abhorrent content, "Triumph of the Will" has a 7.3/10 rating on IMDB, so maybe the director's subsequent experiences were unjustified. (You're really jealous of talented persons, aren't you? There's probably a very good reason for that.)

6

"The Rise of Jordan Peterson"? Hell, I wouidn't want to see a film about ol' J.P.'s turgid dick pics either! What a maroon!

I mean, this isn't a new statement, but: His good ideas are not original, and his original ideas are not good. Just because he lacks sufficient empathy to ignore how he hurts other people doesn't make him a man worthy of praise or imitation. "Just be like a lobster"... Pass.

7

"One of the things he would always say in his classes is that it's important to realize that if we were in Nazi Germany at the time of the Holocaust, 95 percent of us would have joined"

eyeroll

Nazi party membership peaked at around 12% of the German population.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_Party
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Census_in_Germany

If someone wants to say that your typical human is willing to be complicit in crimes, forsooth to that - here I am sitting on my ass while Trump's goons torment migrants along the border. But that's a rather different claim than that "95%" of us would "join".

8

Oh. Jeez. Here we go. Sure. Canceling a documentary is pretty stupid and counter productive. Let him have another fifteen minutes.

Eventually either the drugs (he's just completing rehabs now), the mental illness or his all beef and salt diet will end him.

But this revisionist bullshit about Petersen being an honest misinterpreted actor is just too much. The only thing Petersen is an expert at is stealing other self help guru's ideas and using evasive doublespeak and dogwhistles that give himself and fellow travelers (like Herzog) just enough plausible deniability they can squeal "no, YOU'RE the fascist."

9

RE: ā€œ95% of us would join the Nazis...ā€

Itā€™s always about projection with conservatives/Republicans. Theyā€™re accusing others of that which theyā€™re guilty, and telling us exactly what they plan to do to us.

10

Shorter German wiener?

Nazi!

Longer German wiener?

Nazi!!

13

Really bums me out how the far left has become the thought police.

@1 seriously? Google "Slate Jordan Peterson" or "Atlantic Jordan Peterson" and you will find ample think pieces about this dude.

14

"Fair warning," it read, "several community organizations are planning to shut down your showing of the Jordan Peterson propaganda film. While many of us aren't Christian and some even flat-out condemn the religion, we do not want any harm to come to your place of worship or those within. However, we cannot allow fascism to continue to rise and will not tolerate its presence in our city, whether it is on the streets or on the waterfront or in a church. Read some history books, read about eugenics, read about sex and gender and then compare it to Peterson. Pray on it if you must. Do the right thing. As much as we joke about it, we really don't want to have to bring out the guillotine to fix society."
Wow. Just.... wow. Is this what Antifa and the far left have come to? Threatening someone exercising their right to free speech with threats of death? "We don't want any harm to come to your place of worship or those within" but are making very clear that THEY are the ones who will cause that harm? This would be funny if it weren't so terrifying.

15

@13 I dunno what to say, looks like he got a lot of buzz in 2018 when he put a book out? Looking up his tours year-over-year, his draw hasn't seemed to have grow any since then. I guess he's just the sort of kook that those demos love to get riled up about, but the average televangelist could buy a million of these guys.

Agree with your first point, though.

16

"There is some irony in this: the man who preaches independence could start a death cult if he wanted to and I suspect a number of his fans would sign-on. Of course, some people would probably set themselves on fire if Justin Beiber (sic) told them to."

A chilling thought just occurred to me. Jordan Peterson. Justin Bieber. They're both Canadian. I'll let you decide whether this is purely a coincidence.

And please, let's not bring Nickelback into this. ... OK, I just did. Sorry.

17

@16 - Is that "Kroeger's Law" --- "As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of invoking Nickelback approaches 1" :>D

@13 - Oh? And false claims of "fake news" and overt B.S. conspiracy theories emanating from the tush of our SPOTUS, to say nothing of the "fair & balanced" 'news' of Fox News isn't them all being thought police? Or Turmp Pumpers readily resorting to abject violence and carrying guns to threaten people? That's not 'thought policing'? Idk, mon ami, maybe we'd better have a frank discussion of what "controlling the discourse" actually means.

18

@7: The ā€œ95%ā€ quote is not from Peterson, but from one of the documentary filmmakers. Itā€™s entirely possible Peterson said something which differed in a small but significant way.

@14: To be fair, that quote sounds far better if you imagine James Gandolfini reading it in the voice he used for Tony Soprano. ;-)

@12: How dare we not punish expression of which we disapprove! Only by harming, punishing, and silencing dissenters can we ever possibly hope to remain free! Double punishment for any artistic expression still regarded as valuable many decades after production! Those art works are the worst!!1!

LOL, indeed. But the joke runs in the opposite direction of the one you perceive.

@11: Given your long-demonstrated habit of cheapening and debasing a valuable word by throwing it at anyone, everyone, and everything that happens to fall ever-so-slightly-short of your thunderous applause, itā€™s safe to say you sympathize with very few members of humanity.

Again, thereā€™s probably a really, really good reason for that.

19

ā€œThe Rise of Jordan Petersonā€ sounds like a scat porn.

Iā€™m not convinced that heā€™s dangerous, it I am convinced that his voice is whiny and irritating. Heā€™s a pretentious pseudo-academic that would largely be unnoticed by anyone if it hadnā€™t been for YouTube.

The massive over action to him is whatā€™s fueling his popularity. Look, when I was a teenager, I pretty much did whatever Society told me not to do. Smoking, drinking, recreational substances, fucking almost every guy that said hi to me, growing my hair down to my ass and wearing T-shirts that said things like Fuck the Pope, I mean, it had merit in the sense that everyone should rebel against the system, but it didnā€™t have any analysis to it. It was just raw id.

Thatā€™s kinda how I see Petersonā€™s pronoun thing. Some trans folks will completely lose their goddamn shit if you mistakenly use the wrong pronoun, or like Shea Diamond if you mispronounce their name. That kinda sets up a target for immature guys like Peterson to go after. Threatening a congregation with beheading is kinda extreme. I mean, Iā€™m a pretty extreme kinda guy, I want to abolish capitalism and I favor laicization and all sorts of extreme ideas. But even Iā€™m not extreme enough to threaten to set up a guillotine on the altar over a fucking pronoun. And if everyone just ignored Jordie Pete, heā€™d probably be working as part time faculty at a community college in Thunder Bay. Heā€™s a pretty unchrismatic guy, he canā€™t write well, and his ideas are about as well developed as mine were at age 17. In a sense, our moral outrage is what created him.

Why donā€™t we focus on the real enemy, which is the system itself? Letā€™s organize and educate the working class around the world, and build solidarity along class lines. Trans and cis working class people are both oppressed by the capitalist system, and turning on one another like this just makes each group smaller, weaker, and even more divided. Together though, trans and cis orders combined, can work together to defeat the system that oppresses both. Just as religious and non religious workers are both oppressed by capitalism.

Do not let the ruling class divide us.

21

@13 -- Thanks for the reference. Oh, that guy. OK, yeah. I kind of remember him now. So, why should we give a fuck about him?

Is he some brilliant intellectual? No. Does he have something really insightful to say, outside of this profession? Nope. I think I prefer reading what comedians or professional athletes have to say. He isn't scary -- he isn't going to usher in a new, right wing movement. Of course criticizing him will be counter productive -- what else is new. The right loves to stay stupid shit and then cry to their mommy when people criticize. This is all blather and nonsense about an insignificant figure that will have trouble making it to even the most detailed of history books. Who gives a fuck.

Oh wait, is this still part of the "Back to School" series you are running? Is this like the tips on pussy eating ("kiss the thighs before licking the clit" who new?). I get it now. You are trying to explain to the sophomoric little mother fuckers that none of this is really important. It might blow your mind now, but in a few years you will laugh about it, and think it was stupid, while 99% of the country (those that can't afford such luxury) worry about more mundane things, like food, shelter, clothing ...

22

@1

Every time Katie posts about him here, it gets like 60+ comments. All the incels/8chan/Fox News dipshits get triggered and flock here to defend their second favorite huckster, and brag about how they piss their money away on this dork's books and shows.

That's why she keeps bringing him up. I have to admit, it's always good for a laugh.

23

@20 Nazis came to power in 1933 with only ~43% of the vote despite constant thuggery against their opponents. In 1936 they got 98% of the vote but it was already a dictatorship and the Nazi party was the only legal party.

24

@20: Not even close. From Wikipedia, because I'm lazy:

In the 1932 Presidential elections, Hindenburg had beaten Hitler by winning an outright majority (53%) against Hilter's 36.8% in a three-candidate race. In the March 1933 elections, not even outright terror at the polling places could get the Nazis close to a majority:

"The Nazis registered a large increase in votes in 1933. However, despite waging a campaign of terror against their opponents, the Nazis only tallied 43.9 percent of the vote, well short of a majority. They needed the votes of their coalition partner, the German National People's Party (DNVP), for a bare working majority in the Reichstag."

As was later nicely put, the subsequent tragedy was born not only because the evil persons did evil, but because the good persons did nothing to stop the evil ones.

26

I do find it humorous that Jordan Peterson is at the same time to the same people: a nobody, someone with no new ideas, someone with terrifying ideas, very dangerous, harmlessly stupid, should just be ignored, but whose rhetoric must be confronted.

Have you all ever stopped to think that maybe you don't have to police everyone's thoughts? Just stop.

27

ā€œ trans and cis orders combined, can work together to defeat the systemā€

Yep, we just need that extra 0.01% of the population to get the revolution!

28

ā€œ Some trans folks will completely lose their goddamn shit if you mistakenly use the wrong pronoun, or like Shea Diamond if you mispronounce their name. That kinda sets up a target for immature guys like Peterson to go afterā€

I believe the immature ones are the ones screaming hysterically, demanding language be policed by the government. All because facts donā€™t care about their feelings.

29

@25: So did Hitlerā€™s private secretary, who survived the war. Should that woman also have been banned from her field of employment for the rest of her life?

Again, ā€œTriumph of The Willā€ has been recognized as a cinematic masterpiece for decades, despite everyone knowing what came after.

Your glee at the thought of punishing the artist for having made art you happened not to like is actually the joke here. (And itā€™s a cruel one, but not upon her.)

30

ā€œ if everyone just ignored Jordie Pete, heā€™d probably be working as part time faculty at a community college in Thunder Bayā€

Or back at Harvard where he taught in the 90s.

ā€œ Heā€™s a pretty unchrismatic guy, he canā€™t write wellā€

You canā€™t make this shit up.

31

Theater screens are the "venue" for knock-your-eyes-out but otherwise vapid CGI superhero spectacles, not documentaries that are easily streamed into ones home. Unless the point is to get pity points from attracting protestors, or turn the viewing event into a self-congratulatory convention (but why should one need the moral support of an auditorium filled with like-minded devotees of the purported prophet of "think for yourself?")

32

@31 Michael Moore movie?

33

Heā€™s so much smarter than the vast majority of his critics. Canā€™t wait to see this film. Hope that Streisand effect works in its favor.

35

I think what gets the film in trouble-and most likely undeserved trouble-is the title. Calling it "THE RISE OF JORDAN PETERSON" probably makes some people assume it's pro-Peterson propaganda when it actually isn't.

36

@9 Absolutely-and that's why they refuse to accept that anybody can ever be involved with a cause out of concern for the greater good, that everybody has to be doing everything in life as a con or a scam, because if the right can never act out of anything other than paranoia, hatred and cold-blooded self-interest, neither can anybody else. The sociopath assumes everyone else is either a sociopath or the future victim of a sociopath.

37

@28: Why is it asking so freaking much to remember people's pronouns? Where I am, we start meetings by having everybody share theirs and people write them down on nametags. When you mispronoun somebody intentionally-and yes, sometimes it can happen by accident, people are human, and most of those who mispronoun by mistake learn from their mistakes and get it right after that-you are announcing that you refuse to accept who that person is. Nobody should ever be treated as though they aren't who they are, for God's sakes. Getting the pronouns right with people is simply displaying a baseline level of human respect for the other person. Nobody has that much of a reason for deliberately being a contemptuous asshole about it in the way that Peterson encourages people to do.

And Peterson wasn't even correct about the law he was discussing-the ONLY circumstance in which a person could get arrested in relation to mispronouning someone else would be if the mispronouning was in conjunction with a call for violence persecution of the people you were mispronouning-it was never going to apply to a prof making an innocent mistake on a pronoun on the first day of class.

Look at it this way-there's no difference between intentionally mispronouning a person and using racial slurs towards people of color.

38

Hello, Iā€™m what I thought was a far-left liberal. I generally classify myself as a democratic socialist, I support reparations, want Medicare-For-All, to tax the wealthy, end mass incarceration, transition to clean energy, restore treaty rights for indigenous nations, etc.

I also think Jordan Peterson is alright. Heā€™s not my favorite but heā€™s okay. None of the people I know who like Jordan Peterson are remotely close to conservative/Nazi or any of the other vitriolic names spewed by the anti-Peterson crowd. The Peterson fans I know are interested in ideas and thoughts, even ones they gasp sometimes donā€™t agree with. To call Peterson far-right or a Nazi would be laughable if it werenā€™t for the fact that the intolerance, ignorance, and immaturity of the extreme left is too embarrassing and aggravating to laugh at. Can you people just zoom out for one minute and recognize that anonymous far left ā€˜activistsā€™ are writing letters to churches, passively threatening violence if a fucking documentary is screened there?

Hereā€™s a question, and feel free to actually THINK before answering it. What does more harm? Allowing a documentary about a for-the-moment popular Canadian Psychologist to screen as planned, or cancelling it, pissing off the thousands of people planning to see it and actually pushing some of them towards more accepting conservative circles? You understand that censoring something by force is literal authoritarianism? You understand that when you censor something it doesnā€™t just go away?

Iā€™m livid to hear about this. Not because Iā€™m a huge Peterson fanatic (I probably wonā€™t even see the movie), but because the very things the left used to be against they are now practicing. What happened to people who can see past their own emotional immaturity long enough to actually visualize the real outcomes and impacts of their actions? Shame on all of you participating in childish name calling, cancel culture and censorship of ideas, itā€™s embarrassing and harmful. This kind of bullshit is why the left is fucked and likely to lose to Donald Trump again.

39

What @38 said. People get a freaking grip. Peterson is def weird. He's got depression and probably Aspbergers, he's grumpy af and can't keep from offending the most offendable. But, the Interweb's grandpa is not dangerous, unless you want to commit to being a whiner and not make one small attempt to pull your sorry ass together. Yeah then you're SOL. He's too complicated for the average person to understand that's obvious. The inbred white right, as soon as they realized he wasn't in fact their poster boy, denounced him. His most faithful followers have come back from being incels and losers.
If you're concerned about lemmings committing mass suicide for their cult leaders look no further than the rabid fans of Ariana Grande and Beyonce. Oh and Donald Trump.


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