The Flaw in the Fabric: On Paying Attention

Jordan Peterson is one of my favorite humans, but there are certain performative contradictions in his words/actions which require some explaining. Jordan Peterson originally taught at Harvard, where his classes were praised by students as being akin to a psychedelic experience, and some even cried when they would no longer be able to take his classes. In Brave New World, a book that is on JP's recommended readings, Soma is a psychedelic drug that people use daily to simply avoid feeling bad. The author, Aldous Huxley, was very fond of LSD as a means of opening his mind, but the use of psychedelics as a cultural norm is clearly presented as negative in his book. JP's words are like psychedelics, if you are coming from a certain perspctive and understand them in a certain way. They provide a new way of thinking that is generally outside of most people's normal views. I believe he has played the role of the Great Father purposefully. He is both the "wise king" and the "tyrant father," but his tyrannical elements are all coming from a place of supposed compassion. In his book 12 Rules For Life, the second chapter (Treat yourself like you are someone you are responsible for helping) emphasizes the fact that people will often refuse to take their prescription medication, even when it is for something as crucial as an organ transplant. Within that context, it is perfectly understandable to assume, as he seems to do, that people who are not taking their medicine are probably motivated by shame. The problem comes when you begin to pay attention, as he so often insists we do (and this insistence is part of the reason I believe he may simply be playing a part to get people to understand for themselves what he believes). In his own story, a doctor prescribed him benzodiazapenes which he apparently blindly accepted as necessary. He, following his own advice, simply "took his damn pills." Had he questioned his doctor's judgement, however, he may have found that he actually did have the strength to defeat his demons on his own, despite one of those demons being the threat of his wife's death. Another performative contradiction is found in his analysis of trait-conscientiousness from the big 5 personalty theory. Trait theory is linguistically developed, and the researchers who first discovered these traits found them through self-evaluations of people from many cultures. JP mentions that he and his researchers tried to find a test which correlated with conscientiousness, but couldn't find any. If it is true that we cannot measure conscientiousness, then we have no reason to believe it is real. Even if all humans believe it is real, it may simply be one of the most compelling lies told to humans: "some people just work harder than others." This idea clearly doesn't hold true because one man might work like a machine at an assemply line, while another may write 100 books in their lifetime. But another person whose destiny is to be a writer will look at the one who has already made 100 books and think "that person was a special person who I will never meet/surpass." Then they will give up on their dreams and pursue something less meaningful, believing they are acting wisely, and finding all of the support for that belief that they want in the "sensible" people around them. The problem is that this claim to wisdom is sometimes, if not always untrue, and the belief in conscientiousness as an inherent trait of a person needs to be broken open a bit. We all work better under different conditions, and on different tasks. A person's "conscientiousness" could very well be a complex equation of factors in their environment, and from their psyche. Some people have very common interests, and therefore they appear very conscientious as our interest is actually what fuels our actions. This slightly ties into the third and final contradiction I will mention, which is his dogmatic adherence to carnivore diet. Similar to how the placebo affect works, but in reverse, I believe he has dug himself into a corner by only eating food that makes him feel good. Sometimes, it may be necessary to fill your body with something foreign to it in order to remember what it is to be alive. Our ancestors had no science to convince them of objective reality, they only had lived reality. They had only to PAY ATTENTION to their bodies, their surroundings, and to the still small voice in their head which said "go further." It is perfectly acceptable to eat anything (that is edible) as long as you are also active in proportion with your food intake. And one can discover if something is edible by exploring it. Food is simply fuel, and to treat it otherwise is to give it the evil power you are afraid it might have. Mikhaila Peterson, his daughter, appears to be in on this ploy as well. Whether she truly has been eating only beef, salt, and water or not, I find it hard to believe that nobody close to JP or in his fan base have tried to show him where he is blind. With all of his talk about "saving your father from the whale," you'd think someone who was watching him would catch these thematic ties to his own personal situation. The hypocrisy of stating "bravely endure" followed by "take your damn pills" is enough to make anyone who is paying attention to want to look closer. Unless, of course, his words ARE your ideology. Don't fail him by simply accepting everything he says. Pay attention, and realize that potential lies where responsibility has been abdicated.