Jordan Peterson is a genius.
Some of the topics he tries to explain are just so complex i dont even get it.
Does anyone here actually fully comprehend what peterson is saying?
Posted Oct 4, 2019, 8:40 AM UTC
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Can you give some examples of topics you find hard to understand?
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the lobster sex
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I'm not familiar with the sex part of the lobster story, but the explanation of the lobster is simple:
Some people wish to put the existence of dominance hierarchies at the feet of capitalism or patriarchy. Truth is that dominance hierarchies exist throughout the animal kingdom. The lobster is just one of the many examples Dr. Peterson could have picked, but I think it was chosen because it's an ancient species that shares some commonalities in the neurological functioning of the brain with humans. As such, the idea that dominance hierarchies exist due to capitalism or patriarchy is ludicrous.
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oh
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Any other topics that trouble you?
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I have to agree. Dominance hierarchies exist in all forms of human interaction, and perhaps in all forms of relationships in nature where there is more than one sentient being and more than one point of view involved. Even within an individual with choices, a rank ordering can be determined between the choices. This rank ordering is simply a way to make sense of reality, an organizing principle, if you will. It may be possible to abandon this rank ordering of preferences to look at life with fresh point of view at every step, however few of us have the time to abandon our memories and order our steps anew every time we encounter a repetition in stimulus. That might be a corollary to the idea of insanity, which runs, "doing the same action repeatedly and at each cycle, expecting a different response".
JUST SANE ™
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I think part of the problem is that what Dr. Peterson says isn't particularly new or insightful (nor does he claim it to be); his strength is in the explanation from multiple angles, which allows a person to understand why something is true and important (and why certain interpretations and solutions are simply wrong). The issues start when people read his descriptive explanations as prescriptive opinions. It's not his wish that men on average are more aggressive than women, or that women on average are more agreeable than men; that's just what the relevant literature shows the current situation is. Perhaps it will change over time, but it's also quite possible that there's a biological component at play here that may never change, or will at least take a long time to change through evolution.
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Thats actually a bad example because thats very far fetched and not really correct.
His theory is that people have a natural hierarchy and to illustrate this he goes hundred of millions of years back to the lobster because it has a clear dominanche structure based on certain chemicals in their brain.
Human share an ancestor and have in part (and quite limited) the same chemicals so his asumption (he lets you make) is that this is the same with humans.
Of course we know that this isnt true and humans dont really have a dominance hierarchy, we have a social hierarchy .
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You're missing a couple of points.
The argument for the existence of a hierarchy has nothing to do with lobsters. It's based on perception; we require a hierarchy of value to know what information we collect with our senses we should use and what information we should ignore. This is the part of the Maps of Meaning lectures where he talks about how solid color walls are boring to look at, which you probably ignored because you thought that such an observation itself is boring. A hierarchical structure of people follows naturally from that. It's dominance properties are tied in because one of the values in question is mate selection. No lobsters are harmed in the making of this illustration.
The literature on how humans regulate emotions with seratonin in response to our perceived position within those hierarchies already exists, independent of lobsters. That same mechanism has been documented in lobsters, independent of humans. There's no 'assumption' that the mechanisms are similar; it's been explicitly shown in both species.
Comparing the two species tells us that the way humans respond to their position in hierarchies is as old as our common ancestor with the lobster. That means it's not a product of some uniquely human social construction. As JP phrases it, you can't lay the problems of hierarchies at the feet of capitalism. That also means that we can't solve the problems associated with hierarchies by addressing social constructions alone. Trying to flatten hierarchies with new social constructs will fail, typically in a catastrophic way.
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He is a genius for you. For me and other people he is slightly above average, let's say a good university student level but not one of the top ones. He is so full of logical fallacies that he has to resort to rhetoric all the time.
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The study and practice of rhetoric is one of the foundational elements of a classical university education. So the appropriate appellation may not be more accurately "genius", but rather "educated". So while a classical education may at present be denied to most individual university students, it does not mean that when some individuals exhibit classical understandings they might be categorized as "genius" by comparison to the mundane. And by the way, the use of logical fallacy is a legitimate strategy in the practice of rhetoric. So who cares if you personally need to somehow out rank Jordan Peterson by making some judgments about him, just to make yourself feel validated? You simply expose yourself as ineffectual and needy.
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I don't have the need to feel validated, there's my career for that. My judgments are a reflection of my standard, like you make yours but let's go into detail:
He doesn't have a classical education, he has a very poor or non-existent knowledge of history, philosophy, teology and ancient languages. His rhetoric is just plain bad, all the opposition he gets is the very proof of this ineptitude and no, the use of logical fallacy is not a legitimate strategy as any sophist would tell you. In fact it's quite the opposite.
So do you feel good now? I dared to touch your idol and you, in an emotional excess jumped to his defence without any argument or knowledge of the topic. You exposed your lack of education for all to see
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Thank you for your input. I have learned.
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You are welcome, friend.
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I really do not know what drives you, my learned friend, to such vigorous level of personal attack in your prose. It often appears you have some position which must be guarded. It seems kind of like your very existence is somehow at risk, should you not defend so strongly. "Your standard", you plant your flag, your line in the sand... "Approach no closer with your lack of education".
Have you, at once having attained status in the eyes of those around you, found yourself with feet of clay, so entrenched you cannot even consider the views of another which may not rise to your "standard". William James once said, something to the effect of, one makes grave error by prematurely closing their accounts with reality. I think that has much to say about personal evolution. Perhaps being open to other ideas and relaxing ones pedantic standards may bode well for a path of growth forward. Certainly you will encounter uneven terrain on that path, but you may also rediscover something about yourself.
Explore your own shadow, my learned friend.
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That's not vigorous at all to me... if you think that you've never seen two academics discussing opposing views.
As for standards, we all have one. If my fault is to respond with some criticism to a seemingly untouchable personality such as Jordan Peterson well, I'm afraid a lot of people should really read the authors he so vigorously quotes every now and then.
You may find my approach excessive, but that's how I deal with certain kind of people. It's not their lack of knowledge I despise, it's their air of superiority towards the "uninitieted", without realizing that there are people with ten times their knowledge. It's very easy to claim a superior education watching youtube videos, and disrespectful to those who actually dedicate their lives studying certain subjects.
And don't worry, I know my darkness very well, in Jungian terms.
Perhaps some people in this sub should become aware of theirs, instead of projecting their own shadow to others.
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Sounds like you're trying to assert your position in a dominance hierarchy!
Where have I heard that idea before? ...
OMG, I just used rhetoric.
You must have won.
Waves lobster hands at you.
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Logical fallacies such as?
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Are you really asking me this? All his "philosophy" is a logical fallacy.
He strongly argues about hierarchies and expertise and then talks about things he has no knowledge about smearing the experts in such fields. He tries to sell his view on reality as objective, as factual, when it's all the product of his personal abstractions. You can see this with his talks about religion: there are countless books by theologians that give different explanations about religious symbols and experiences and I get it, it's what Jung did, but Jung has no credibility anymore in his very field. There are so many fallacies in his arguments I could spend the rest of the week here typing them
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You haven’t listed one logical fallacy.
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Ok guys, read slowly what I wrote above.
Now, since you are unable to link that to a logical fallacy I'll do it for you, so you'll be happy: Principle of non-contradiction. ex falso sequitur quodlibet, consequentia mirabilis, reductio ad absurdum, just to name a few.
But hey, you are so smart you didn't need this I guess.
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He'd have to be reasonable for that, and that's expecting too much from him.
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why are you here? To hate on Jordan B Peterson. Get the hell out of here, and clean your room.
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Depends on what subject he is talking about. When I know the subject yes or I can even see where he is wrong, when I dont: no and I am far out of my depth, lukily he pauses often so I can catch up.
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I do understand the limited number of his lectures I've heard online, though I sometimes pause the video to fully reflect on what he posits to consider whether I find some of his propositions credible (in sync with my knowledge of connected topics) and to ensure I understand the implications of his arguments. The result is his propositions tend to spark my curiosity to read more on topics broached by or tangental to his propositions. I think it's okay to need to dig deeper to better understand propositions built with a complex set of supporting ideas. It's better to admit a gap in knowledge and fill the gap than to stay ignorant on a topic about which you care.
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He has a peculiar style of explanation that may not be familiar to everyone. I kind of like it because it's quite similar to my own conversation style.
You don't want to think of it like each statement is something you have to believe, unto itself with deductive connections from one step to the next. It's not like that. He's not reasoning with you.
It's more like he's painting you a mental picture. Listen to each piece, form a picture in your mind of the thing he just described, then park it. Then he describes some more things. Park more pictures. At some point, he describes how these parts connect up. Really important parts get described from multiple perspectives, not to complicate it, but to give you the opportunity to relate to at least one of the perspectives.
Usually by the end of a talk, he has connected all the parts, and if you've followed along, you're left looking at a complete model of some aspect of the human condition that you never imagined before, but there's so many connections between the parts, and it's so grounded in history and your own life experience, as well as archetypal truth's, that it's quite compelling as an explanation.
Well put. I would like to add that most of these explanations are indeed descriptive rather than prescriptive. He doesn't tell you what he'd like the world to be; he tells you what the world currently is, and why. Things may change over time, but he explains (very well) what made the world it is today. As he often says: "it's not like I'm particular happy about it.".
I agree with the majority of your writing, but I have one gripe. He does reason with you.
In philosophy classes they teach you that in order to support a conclusion you need to provide valid premises that paint the picture of the argument you're trying to defend. The valid premises about the central theme are reasons. That's the painting of the mental picture you mentioned. He describes different premises that tie together and paint a larger picture (aka the conclusion).