Book Review - Twelve Rules For Life - Slate Star Codex

3/28/2018 Book Review: Twelve Rules For Life | Slate Star Codex
371 comments since
S l a t e S t a r C o d ex
T H E J OY F U L R E D U C T I O N O F U N C E R TA I N T Y
BOOK REVIEW: TWELVE RULES FOR LIFE

PO STE D ON MARCH 2 6, 2 0 18 BY S COTT A LE XAN DE R
I.
I got Jordan Peterson’s Twelve Rules For Life for the same reason as the other 210,000 people: to make fun
of the lobster thing. Or if not the lobster thing, then the neo-Marxism thing, or the transgender thing, or the
thing where the neo-Marxist transgender lobsters want to steal your precious bodily fluids.
But, uh…I’m really embarrassed to say this. And I totally understand if you want to stop reading me after
this, or revoke my book-reviewing license, or whatever. But guys, Jordan Peterson is actually good.
The best analogy I can think of is C.S. Lewis. Lewis was a believer in the Old Religion, which at this point has
been reduced to cliche. What could be less interesting than hearing that Jesus loves you, or being harangued
about sin, or getting promised Heaven, or threatened with Hell? But for some reason, when Lewis writes, the
cliches suddenly work. Jesus’ love becomes a palpable force. Sin becomes so revolting you want to take a
shower just for having ever engaged in it. When Lewis writes about Heaven you can hear harp music; when
he writes about Hell you can smell brimstone. He didn’t make me convert to Christianity, but he made me
understand why some people would.
Jordan Peterson is a believer in the New Religion, the one where God is the force for good inside each of us,
and all religions are paths to wisdom, and the Bible stories are just guides on how to live our lives. This is
the only thing even more cliched than the Old Religion. But for some reason, when Peterson writes about it,
it works. When he says that God is the force for good inside each of us, you can feel that force pulsing
through your veins. When he says the Bible stories are guides to how to live, you feel tempted to change
your life goal to fighting Philistines.
The politics in this book lean a bit right, but if you think of Peterson as a political commentator you’re
missing the point. The science in this book leans a bit Malcolm Gladwell, but if you think of him as a scientist
you’re missing the point. Philosopher, missing the point. Public intellectual, missing the point. Mythographer,
missing the point. So what’s the point?
About once per news cycle, we get a thinkpiece about how Modern Life Lacks Meaning. These all go through
the same series of tropes. The decline of Religion. The rise of Science. The limitless material abundance of
modern society. The fact that in the end all these material goods do not make us happy. If written from the
left, something about people trying to use consumer capitalism to fill the gap; if written from the right,
something about people trying to use drugs and casual sex. The vague plea that we get something better
than this.
Twelve Rules isn’t another such thinkpiece. The thinkpieces are people pointing out a gap. Twelve Rules is an
attempt to fill it. This isn’t unprecedented – there are always a handful of cult leaders and ideologues making
vague promises. But if you join the cult leaders you become a cultist, and if you join the ideologues you
become the kind of person Eric Hoffer warned you about. Twelve Rules is something that could, in theory,
work for intact human beings. It’s really impressive.
https://slatestarcodex.com/2018/03/26/book-review-twelve-rules-for-life/ 1/90
The non-point-missing description of Jordan Peterson is that he’s a prophet. 371 comments since
Cult leaders tell you something new, like “there’s a UFO hidden inside that comet”. Self-help gurus do the
same: “All you need to do is get the right amount of medium-chain-triglycerides in your diet”. Ideologues tell
you something controversial, like “we should rearrange society”. But prophets are neither new nor
controversial. To a first approximation, they only ever say three things:
First, good and evil are definitely real. You know they’re real. You can talk in philosophy class about how
subtle and complicated they are, but this is bullshit and you know it. Good and evil are the realest and most
obvious things you will ever see, and you recognize them on sight.
Second, you are kind of crap. You know what good is, but you don’t do it. You know what evil is, but you do
it anyway. You avoid the straight and narrow path in favor of the easy and comfortable one. You make
excuses for yourself and you blame your problems on other people. You can say otherwise, and maybe other
people will believe you, but you and I both know you’re lying.
Third, it’s not too late to change. You say you’re too far gone, but that’s another lie you tell yourself. If you
repented, you would be forgiven. If you take one step towards God, He will take twenty toward you. Though
your sins be like scarlet, they shall be white as snow.
This is the General Prophetic Method. It’s easy, it’s old as dirt, and it works.
So how come not everyone can be a prophet? The Bible tells us why people who wouldn’t listen to the
Pharisees listened to Jesus: “He spoke as one who had confidence”. You become a prophet by saying things
that you would have to either be a prophet or the most pompous windbag in the Universe to say, then
looking a little too wild-eyed for anyone to be comfortable calling you the most pompous windbag in the
universe. You say the old cliches with such power and gravity that it wouldn’t even make sense for someone
who wasn’t a prophet to say them that way.
“He, uh, told us that we should do good, and not do evil, and now he’s looking at us like we should fall to our
knees.”
“Weird. Must be a prophet. Better kneel.”
Maybe it’s just that everyone else is such crap at it. Maybe it’s just that the alternatives are mostly either
god-hates-fags fundamentalists or more-inclusive-than-thou milquetoasts. Maybe if anyone else was any
good at this, it would be easy to recognize Jordan Peterson as what he is – a mildly competent purveyor of
pseudo-religious platitudes. But I actually acted as a slightly better person during the week or so I read
Jordan Peterson’s book. I feel properly ashamed about this. If you ask me whether I was using dragon-
related metaphors, I will vociferously deny it. But I tried a little harder at work. I was a little bit nicer to
people I interacted with at home. It was very subtle. It certainly wasn’t because of anything new or non-
cliched in his writing. But God help me, for some reason the cliches worked.
II.
Twelve Rules is twelve chapters centered around twelve cutesy-sounding rules that are supposed to guide
your life. The meat of the chapters never has anything to do with the cutesy-sounding rules. “Treat yourself
like someone you are responsible for helping” is about slaying dragons. “Pet a cat when you encounter one
on the street” is about a heart-wrenchingly honest investigation of the Problem of Evil. “Do not bother
children when they are skateboarding” is about neo-Marxist transgender lobsters stealing your precious
bodily fluids. All of them turn out to be the General Prophetic Method applied in slightly different ways.
And a lot of them – especially the second – center around Peterson’s idea of Order vs. Chaos. Order
371 comments since is the
comfortable habit-filled world of everyday existence, symbolized by the Shire or any of a thousand other
Shire-equivalent locations in other fantasies or fairy tales. Chaos is scary things you don’t understand
pushing you out of your comfort zone, symbolized by dragons or the Underworld or [approximately 30% of
mythological objects, characters, and locations]. Humans are living their best lives when they’re always
balanced on the edge of Order and Chaos, converting the Chaos into new Order. Lean too far toward Order,
and you get boredom and tyranny and stagnation. Lean too far toward Chaos, and you get utterly
discombobulated and have a total breakdown. Balance them correctly, and you’re always encountering new
things, grappling with them, and using them to enrich your life and the lives of those you care about.
So far, so cliched – but again, when Peterson says cliches, they work. And at the risk of becoming a cliche
myself, I couldn’t help connecting this to the uncertainty-reduction drives we’ve been talking about recently.
These run into a pair of paradoxes: if your goal is to minimize prediction error, you should sit quietly in a
dark room with earplugs on, doing nothing. But if your goal is to minimize model uncertainty, you should be
infinitely curious, spending your entire life having crazier and crazier experiences in a way that doesn’t match
the behavior of real humans. Peterson’s claim – that our goal is to balance these two – seems more true to
life, albeit not as mathematically grounded as any of the actual neuroscience theories. But it would be really
interesting if one day we could determine that this universal overused metaphor actually reflects something
important about the structure of our brains.
Failing to balance these (Peterson continues) retards our growth as people. If we lack courage, we might
stick with Order, refusing to believe anything that would disrupt our cozy view of life, and letting our
problems gradually grow larger and larger. This is the person who sticks with a job they hate because they
fear the unknown of starting a new career, or the political ideologue who tries to fit everything into one
bucket so he doesn’t have to admit he was wrong. Or we might fall into Chaos, always being too timid to
make a choice, “keeping our options open” in a way that makes us never become anyone at all.
This is where Peterson is at his most Lewisian. Lewis believes that Hell is a choice. On the literal level, it’s a
choice not to accept God. But on a more metaphorical level, it’s a choice to avoid facing a difficult reality by
ensconcing yourself in narratives of victimhood and pride. You start with some problem – maybe your career
is stuck. You could try to figure out what your weaknesses are and how to improve – but that would require
an admission of failure and a difficult commitment. You could change companies or change fields until you
found a position that better suited your talents – but that would require a difficult leap into the unknown. So
instead you complain to yourself about your sucky boss, who is too dull and self-absorbed to realize how
much potential you have. You think “I’m too good for this company anyway”. You think “Why would I want to
go into a better job, that’s just the rat race, good thing I’m not the sort of scumbag who’s obsessed with
financial success.” When your friends and family members try to point out that you’re getting really bitter
and sabotaging your own prospects, you dismiss them as tools of the corrupt system. Finally you reach the
point where you hate everybody – and also, if someone handed you a promotion on a silver platter, you
would knock it aside just to spite them.
…except a thousand times more subtle than this, and reaching into every corner of life, and so omnipresent
that avoiding it may be the key life skill. Maybe I’m not good at explaining it; read The Great Divorce (online
copy, my review).
Part of me feels guilty about all the Lewis comparisons. One reason is that maybe Peterson isn’t that much
like Lewis. Maybe they’re just the two representatives I’m really familiar with from the vast humanistic self-
cultivation tradition. Is Peterson really more like Lewis than he is like, let’s say, Marcus Aurelius? I’m not
sure, except insofar as Lewis and Peterson are both moderns and so more immediately-readable than
Meditations.
Peterson is very conscious of his role as just another backwater stop on the railroad line371ofcomments
WesternsinceCulture.
His favorite citations are Jung and Nietzsche, but he also likes name-dropping Dostoevsky, Plato,
Solzhenitsyn, Milton, and Goethe. He interprets all of them as part of this grand project of determining how
to live well, how to deal with the misery of existence and transmute it into something holy.
And on the one hand, of course they are. This is what every humanities scholar has been saying for centuries
when asked to defend their intellectual turf. “The arts and humanities are there to teach you the meaning of
life and how to live.” On the other hand, I’ve been in humanities classes. Dozens of them, really. They were
never about that. They were about “explain how the depiction of whaling in Moby Dick sheds light on the
economic transformations of the 19th century, giving three examples from the text. Ten pages, single
spaced.” And maybe this isn’t totally disconnected from the question of how to live. Maybe being able to
understand this kind of thing is a necessary part of being able to get anything out of the books at all.
But just like all the other cliches, somehow Peterson does this better than anyone else. When he talks about
the Great Works, you understand, on a deep level, that they really are about how to live. You feel grateful
and even humbled to be the recipient of several thousand years of brilliant minds working on this problem
and writing down their results. You understand why this is all such a Big Deal.
You can almost believe that there really is this Science-Of-How-To-Live-Well, separate from all the other
sciences, barely-communicable by normal means but expressible through art and prophecy. And that this
connects with the question on everyone’s lips, the one about how we find a meaning for ourselves beyond
just consumerism and casual sex.
III.
But the other reason I feel guilty about the Lewis comparison is that C.S. Lewis would probably have hated
Jordan Peterson.
Lewis has his demon character Screwtape tell a fellow demon:
Once you have made the World an end, and faith a means, you have almost won your man [for Hell], and it makes very little difference what kind of worldly end
he is pursuing. Provided that meetings, pamphlets, policies, movements, causes, and crusades, matter more to him than prayers and sacraments and charity, he is
ours — and the more “religious” (on those terms) the more securely ours.
I’m not confident in my interpretation of either Lewis or Peterson, but I think Lewis would think Peterson
does this. He makes the world an end and faith a means. His Heaven is a metaphorical Heaven. If you sort
yourself out and trust in metaphorical God, you can live a wholesome self-respecting life, make your parents
proud, and make the world a better place. Even though Peterson claims “nobody is really an atheist” and
mentions Jesus about three times per page, I think C.S. Lewis would consider him every bit as atheist as
Richard Dawkins, and the worst sort of false prophet.
That forces the question – how does Peterson ground his system? If you’re not doing all this difficult self-
cultivation work because there’s an objective morality handed down from on high, why is it so important?
“C’mon, we both know good and evil exist” takes you pretty far, but it might not entirely bridge the Abyss on
its own. You come of age, you become a man (offer valid for boys only, otherwise the neo-Marxist lobsters
will get our bodily fluids), you act as a pillar of your community, you balance order and chaos – why is this so
much better than the other person who smokes pot their whole life?
On one level, Peterson knocks this one out of the park:
I [was] tormented by the fact of the Cold War. It obsessed me. It gave me nightmares. It drove me into the desert, into the long night of the human soul. I could not
understand how it had come to pass that the world’s two great factions aimed mutual assured destruction at each other. Was one system just as arbitrary and
corrupt as the other? Was it a mere matter of opinion? Were all value structures merely the clothing of power?
p f p y g fp
371 comments since
Was everyone crazy?
Just exactly what happened in the twentieth century, anyway? How was it that so many tens of millions had to die, sacrificed to the new dogmas and ideologies?
How was it that we discovered something worse, much worse, than the aristocracy and corrupt religious beliefs that communism and fascism sought so rationally
to supplant? No one had answered those questions, as far as I could tell. Like Descartes, I was plagued with doubt. I searched for one thing— anything— I could
regard as indisputable. I wanted a rock upon which to build my house. It was doubt that led me to it […]
What can I not doubt? The reality of suffering. It brooks no arguments. Nihilists cannot undermine it with skepticism. Totalitarians cannot banish it. Cynics
cannot escape from its reality. Suffering is real, and the artful infliction of suffering on another, for its own sake, is wrong. That became the cornerstone of my
belief. Searching through the lowest reaches of human thought and action, understanding my own capacity to act like a Nazi prison guard or gulag archipelago
trustee or a torturer of children in a dunegon, I grasped what it means to “take the sins of the world onto oneself.” Each human being has an immense capacity for
evil. Each human being understands, a priori, perhaps not what is good, but certainly what is not. And if there is something that is not good, then there is
something that is good. If the worst sin is the torment of others, merely for the sake of the suffering produced – then the good is whatever is diametrically opposite
to that. The good is whatever stops such things from happening.
It was from this that I drew my fundamental moral conclusions. Aim up. Pay attention. Fix what you can fix. Don’t be arrogant in your knowledge. Strive for
humility, because totalitarian pride manifests itself in intolerance, oppression, torture and death. Become aware of your own insufficiency— your cowardice,
malevolence, resentment and hatred. Consider the murderousness of your own spirit before you dare accuse others, and before you attempt to repair the fabric of
the world. Maybe it’s not the world that’s at fault. Maybe it’s you. You’ve failed to make the mark. You’ve missed the target. You’ve fallen short of the glory of God.
You’ve sinned. And all of that is your contribution to the insufficiency and evil of the world. And, above all, don’t lie. Don’t lie about anything, ever. Lying leads to
Hell. It was the great and the small lies of the Nazi and Communist states that produced the deaths of millions of people.
Consider then that the alleviation of unnecessary pain and suffering is a good. Make that an axiom: to the best of my ability I will act in a manner that leads to the
alleviation of unnecessary pain and suffering. You have now placed at the pinnacle of your moral hierarchy a set of presuppositions and actions aimed at the
betterment of Being. Why? Because we know the alternative. The alternative was the twentieth century. The alternative was so close to Hell that the difference is
not worth discussing. And the opposite of Hell is Heaven. To place the alleviation of unnecessary pain and suffering at the pinnacle of your hierarchy of value is to
work to bring about the Kingdom of God on Earth.
I think he’s saying – suffering is bad. This is so obvious as to require no justification. If you want to be the
sort of person who doesn’t cause suffering, you need to be strong. If you want to be the sort of person who
can fight back against it, you need to be even stronger. To strengthen yourself, you’ll need to deploy useful
concepts like “God”, “faith”, and “Heaven”. Then you can dive into the whole Western tradition of self-
cultivation which will help you take it from there. This is a better philosophical system-grounding than I
expect from a random psychology-professor-turned-prophet.
But on another level, something about it seems a bit off. Taken literally, wouldn’t this turn you into a
negative utilitarian? (I’m not fixated on the “negative” part, maybe Peterson would admit positive utility into
his calculus). One person donating a few hundred bucks to the Against Malaria Foundation will prevent
suffering more effectively than a hundred people cleaning their rooms and becoming slightly psychologically
stronger. I think Peterson is very against utilitarianism, but I’m not really sure why.
Also, later he goes on and says that suffering is an important part of life, and that attempting to banish
suffering will destroy your ability to be a complete human. I think he’s still kind of working along a
consequentialist framework, where if you banish suffering now by hiding your head in the sand, you won’t
become stronger and you won’t be ready for some other worse form of suffering you can’t banish. But if you
ask him “Is it okay to banish suffering if you’re pretty sure it won’t cause more problems down the line?” I
cannot possibly imagine him responding with anything except beautifully crafted prose on the importance of
suffering in the forging of the human spirit or something. I worry he’s pretending to ground his system in
“against suffering” when it suits him, but going back to “vague traditionalist platitudes” once we stop
bothering him about the grounding question.
In a widely-followed debate with Sam Harris, Peterson defended a pragmatic notion of Truth: things are True
if they help in this project of sorting yourself out and becoming a better person. So God is True, the Bible is
True, etc. This awkwardly jars with book-Peterson’s obsessive demand that people tell the truth at all times,
which seems to use a definition of Truth which is more reality-focused. If Truth is what helps societies
371 comments since survive
and people become better, can’t a devoted Communist say that believing the slogans of the Party will help
society and make you a better person?
Peterson has a bad habit of saying he supports pragmatism when he really supports very specific values for
their own sake. This is hardly the worst habit to have, but it means all of his supposed pragmatic
justifications don’t actually justify the things he says, and a lot of his system is left hanging.
I said before that thinking of Peterson as a philosopher was missing the point. Am I missing the point here?
Surely some lapses in philosophical groundwork are excusable if he’s trying to add meaning to the lives of
millions of disillusioned young people.
But that’s exactly the problem. I worry Peterson wakes up in the morning and thinks “How can I help add
meaning to people’s lives?” and then he says really meaningful-sounding stuff, and then people think their
lives are meaningful. But at some point, things actually have to mean a specific other thing. They can’t just
mean meaning. “Mean” is a transitive verb. It needs some direct object.
Peterson has a paper on how he defines “meaning”, but it’s not super comprehensible. I think it boils down to
his “creating order out of chaos” thing again. But unless you use a purely mathematical definition of “order”
where you comb through random bit streams and make them more compressible, that’s not enough.
Somebody who strove to kill all blue-eyed people would be acting against entropy, in a sense, but if they felt
their life was meaningful it would at best be a sort of artificial wireheaded meaning. What is it that makes
you wake up in the morning and reduce a specific patch of chaos into a specific kind of order?
What about the most classic case of someone seeking meaning – the person who wants meaning for their
suffering? Why do bad things happen to good people? Peterson talks about this question a lot, but his
answers are partial and unsatisfying. Why do bad things happen to good people? “If you work really hard on
cultivating yourself, you can have fewer bad things happen to you.” Granted, but why do bad things happen
to good people? “If you tried to ignore all bad things and shelter yourself from them, you would be weak and
contemptible.” Sure, but why do bad things happen to good people? “Suffering makes us stronger, and then
we can use that strength to help others.” But, on the broader scale, why do bad things happen to good
people? “The mindset that demands no bad thing ever happen will inevitably lead to totalitarianism.” Okay,
but why do bad things happen to good people? “Uh, look, a neo-Marxist transgender lobster! Quick, catch it
before it gets away!”
C.S. Lewis sort of has an answer: it’s all part of a mysterious divine plan. And atheists also sort of have an
answer: it’s the random sputtering of a purposeless universe. What about Peterson?
I think – and I’m really uncertain here – that he doesn’t think of meaning this way. He thinks of meaning as
some function mapping goals (which you already have) to motivation (which you need). Part of you already
wants to be successful and happy and virtuous, but you’re not currently doing any of those things. If you
understand your role in the great cosmic drama, which is as a hero-figure transforming chaos into order,
then you’ll do the things you know are right, be at one with yourself, and be happier, more productive, and
less susceptible to totalitarianism.
If that’s what you’re going for, then that’s what you’re going for. But a lot of the great Western intellectuals
Peterson idolizes spent their lives grappling with the fact that you can’t do exactly the thing Peterson is
trying to do. Peterson has no answer to them except to turn the inspiringness up to 11. A commenter writes:
I think Nietzsche was right – you can’t just take God out of the narrative and pretend the whole moral metastructure still holds. It doesn’t. JP himself somehow
manages to say Nietzsche was right, lament the collapse, then proceed to try to salvage the situation with a metaphorical fluff God.
So despite the similarities between Peterson and C.S. Lewis, if the great man himself were to read
371 comments Twelve
since
Rules, I think he would say – in some kind of impeccably polite Christian English gentleman way – fuck that
shit.
IV.
Peterson works as a clinical psychologist. Many of the examples in the book come from his patients; a lot of
the things he thinks about comes from their stories. Much of what I think I got from this book was
psychotherapy advice; I would have killed to have Peterson as a teacher during residency.
C.S. Lewis might have hated Peterson, but we already know he loathed Freud. Yet Peterson does interesting
work connecting the Lewisian idea of the person trapped in their victimization and pride narratives to Freud’s
idea of the defense mechanism. In both cases, somebody who can’t tolerate reality diverts their emotions
into a protective psychic self-defense system; in both cases, the defense system outlives its usefulness and
leads to further problems down the line. Noticing the similarity helped me understand both Freud and Lewis
better, and helped me push through Freud’s scientific veneer and Lewis’ Christian veneer to find the ordinary
everyday concept underneath both. I notice I wrote about this several years ago in my review of The Great
Divorce, but I guess I forgot. Peterson reminded me, and it’s worth being reminded of.
But Peterson is not really a Freudian. Like many great therapists, he’s a minimalist. He discusses his
philosophy of therapy in the context of a particularly difficult client, writing:
Miss S knew nothing about herself. She knew nothing about other individuals. She knew nothing about the world. She was a movie played out of focus. And she
was desperately waiting for a story about herself to make it all make sense.
If you add some sugar to cold water, and stir it, the sugar will dissolve. If you heat up that water, you can dissolve more. If you heat the water to boiling, you an
add a lot more sugar and get that to dissolve too. Then, if you take that boiling sugar water, and slowly cool it, and don’t bump it or jar it, you can trick it (I don’t
know how else to phrase this) into holding a lot more dissolved sugar than it would have if it had remained cool all along. That’s called a super-saturated solution.
If you drop a single crystal of sugar into that super-saturated solution, all the excess sugar will suddenly and dramatically crystallize. It’s as if it were crying out
for order.
That was my client. People like her are the reason that the many forms of psychotherapy currently practised all work. People can be so confused that their psyches
will be ordered and their lives improved by the adoption of any reasonably orderly system of interpretation.
This is the bringing together of the disparate elements of their lives in a disciplined manner – any disciplined manner. So, if you have come apart at the seams (or
you have never been together at all) you can restructure your life on Freudian, Jungian, Adlerian, Rogerian, or behavioral principles. At least then you make
sense. At least then you’re coherent. At least then you might be good for something, if not yet good for everything.
I have to admit, I read the therapy parts of this book with a little more desperation than might be considered
proper. Psychotherapy is really hard, maybe impossible. Your patient comes in, says their twelve-year old kid
just died in some tragic accident. Didn’t even get to say good-bye. They’re past their childbearing age now,
so they’ll never have any more children. And then they ask you for help. What do you say? “It’s not as bad
as all that”? But it’s exactly as bad as all that. All you’ve got are cliches. “Give yourself time to grieve”. “You
know that she wouldn’t have wanted you to be unhappy”. “At some point you have to move on with your
life”.
Jordan Peterson’s superpower is saying cliches and having them sound meaningful. There are times – like
when I have a desperate and grieving patient in front of me – that I would give almost anything for this
talent. “You know that she wouldn’t have wanted you to be unhappy.” “Oh my God, you’re right! I’m wasting
my life grieving when I could be helping others and making her proud of me, let me go out and do this right
now!” If only.
So how does Jordan Peterson, the only person in the world who can say our social truisms and get a genuine
reaction with them, do psychotherapy?
371 comments since

He mostly just listens:
The people I listen to need to talk, because that’s how people think. People need to think…True thinking is complex and demanding. It requires you to be articulate
speaker and careful, judicious listener at the same time. It involves conflict. So you have to tolerate conflict. Conflict involves negotiation and compromise. So, you
have to learn to give and take and to modify your premises and adjust your thoughts – even your perceptions of the world…Thinking is emotionally painful and
physiologically demanding, more so than anything else – exept not thinking. But you have to be very articulate and sophisticated to have all this thinking occur
inside your own head. What are you to do, then, if you aren’t very good at thinking, at being two people at one time? That’s easy. You talk. But you need someone
to listen. A listening person is your collaborator and your opponent […]
The fact is important enough to bear repeating: people organize their brains through conversation. If they don’t have anyone to tell their story to, they lose their
minds. Like hoarders, they cannot unclutter themselves. The input of the community is required for the integrity of the individual psyche. To put it another way: it
takes a village to build a mind.
And:
A client of mine might say, “I hate my wife”. It’s out there, once sdaid. It’s hanging in the air. It has emerged from the underworld, materialized from chaos, and
manifested itself. It is perceptible and concrete and no longer easily ignored. It’s become real. The speaker has even startled himself. He sees the same thing
reflected in my eyes. He notes that, and continues on the road to sanity. “Hold it,” he says. “Back up That’s too harsh. Sometimes I hate my wife. I hate her when
she won’t tell me what she wants. My mom did that all the time, too. It drove Dad crazy. It drove all of us crazy, to tell you the truth. It even drove Mom crazy! She
was a nice person, but she was very resentful. Well, at least my wife isn’t as bad as my mother. Not at all. Wait! I guess my wife is atually pretty good at telling me
what she wants, but I get really bothered when she doesn’t, because Mom tortured us all half to death being a martyr. That really affected me. Maybe I overreact
now when it happens even a bit. Hey! I’m acting just like Dad did when Mom upset him! That isn’t me. That doesn’t have anthing to do with my wife! I better let her
know.” I observe from all this that my client had failed previously to properly distinguish his wife from his mother. And I see that he was possessed, unconsciously,
by the spirit of his father. He sees all of that too. Now he is a bit more differentiated, a bit less of an uncarved block, a bit less hidden in the fog. He has sewed up a
small tear in the fabric of his culture. He says “That was a good session, Dr. Peterson.” I nod.
This is what all the textbooks say too. But it was helpful hearing Jordan Peterson say it. Everybody – at least
every therapist, but probably every human being – has this desperate desire to do something to help the
people in front of them who are in pain, right now. And you always think – if I were just a deeper, more
eloquent person, I could say something that would solve this right now. Part of the therapeutic skillset is
realizing that this isn’t true, and that you’ll do more harm than good if you try. But you still feel inadequate.
And so learning that Jordan Peterson, who in his off-hours injects pharmaceutical-grade meaning into
thousands of disillusioned young people – learning that even he doesn’t have much he can do except listen
and try to help people organize their narrative – is really calming and helpful.
And it makes me even more convinced that he’s good. Not just a good psychotherapist, but a good person.
To be able to create narratives like Peterson does – but also to lay that talent aside because someone else
needs to create their own without your interference – is a heck of a sacrifice.
I am not sure if Jordan Peterson is trying to found a religion. If he is, I’m not interested. I think if he had
gotten to me at age 15, when I was young and miserable and confused about everything, I would be
cleaning my room and calling people “bucko” and worshiping giant gold lobster idols just like all the other
teens. But now I’m older, I’ve got my identity a little more screwed down, and I’ve long-since departed the
burned-over district of the soul for the Utah of respectability-within-a-mature-cult.
But if Peterson forms a religion, I think it will be a force for good. Or if not, it will be one of those religions
that at least started off with a good message before later generations perverted the original teachings and
ruined everything. I see the r/jordanpeterson subreddit is already two-thirds culture wars, so they’re off to a
good start. Why can’t we stick to the purity of the original teachings, with their giant gold lobster idols?
371 comments since
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371 RESPONSES TO BOOK REVIEW: TWELVE RULES FOR LIFE
curiouskiwicat says:
March 27, 2018 at 12:01 am ~new~
” I see the r/jordanpeterson subreddit is already two-thirds culture wars, so they’re off to a good start. Why can’t we stick to the purity of the original teachings,
with their giant gold lobster idols?”
Problem with this was that having a voice in the culture war is how this guy got attention in the first place.
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Gaius Levianthan XV says:
March 27, 2018 at 3:32 am ~new~
12 Rules for Life itself has quite a bit of politics interspersed with the more general life advice; it’s unusually political for a self-help book.
On a side note, the r/slatestarcodex subreddit is also about 2/3 culture wars (judging by the volume of comments in the culture war threads vs.
everything else in the subreddit, anyway).
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Alethenous says:
March 27, 2018 at 4:35 pm ~new~
On a side note, the r/slatestarcodex subreddit is also about 2/3 culture wars (judging by the volume of comments in the culture war
threads vs. everything else in the subreddit, anyway).
This worries me. I’m not sure if it’s my imagination, but I get the feeling that the subreddit is worse than it was even a few months ago. Maybe
I’m paranoid, but I fear it’s starting to list into just another vaguely-right-of-stereotypical-Tumblr outpost in the wars.
Aapje says:
March 27, 2018 at 4:46 am ~new~
Merely (truly) caring about men is enough to take a side in the culture war.
Darwin says:
March 27, 2018 at 7:59 am ~new~
It’s not, but making this claim is.
People are remarkably fine with efforts to help men when they are not framed as being in conflict with efforts to help women. But as soon as
you start signalling your bravery in standing up to all the anti-man forces in order to try to actually help men, well, yeah, you’ve declared a side
in a war and people will start fighting you.
toastengineer says:
March 27, 2018 at 10:02 am ~new~

a c 7, 0 8 at 0:0 a ew
371 comments since
People are remarkably fine with efforts to help men when they are not framed as being in conflict with efforts to help women.
I can’t agree with this, though I might agree that the real problem is that there’s a relatively small group of people who are very
devoted to going around to anywhere there’s an effort to help men and loudly screaming that it’s in conflict with an effort to help
women.
Darwin says:
March 27, 2018 at 7:08 pm ~new~
And my experience is that there’s a small group going around to anywhere people are trying to help women, telling them that
these effort are hurting men and they have to stop and pay attention to men first instead.
This is probably just a bravery debate thing, we each experience the other side’s trolls who bother to do antagonistic
outreach outside of their own filter bubble, but we don’t experience the mainstream conscientious people from the other side
who stay within their own filter bubble.
I just have to say, most of the people I know hate the type of MRAs that have shown up in their spaces and yelled at them,
and have a natural revulsion for the term MRA. But, all of them are interested in helping male victims of whatever, reforming
the criminal justice and prison system to address bias, etc., if those issues are brought up in a collaborative rather than
adversarial way.
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Nicholas Conrad says:
March 27, 2018 at 10:07 am ~new~
Interesting, since Aapje’s comment made no reference to women or to promoting men’s interests in conflict to those of women… Yet
somehow, in direct contravention of your own statement, far from being “remarkably fine” with caring about men, you immediately
infer nefarious intent and declare Aapje a culture warrior.
Remarkably, you have in one fell swoop proved him correct, and yourself false.
Darwin says:
March 27, 2018 at 7:11 pm ~new~
Interesting, because I didn’t ascribe any of those motives to them, yet you seem to assume that I am when I’m merely
describing the situation in the culture as I see it.
Remarkably, you have etc etc etc oh what fun these games are.
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josinalvo says:
March 27, 2018 at 10:11 am ~new~
I wish you were right, that we could help men by only framing the issue differently
How many shelters for battered people exist in the US that accept battered men?
Is this number compatible with 3% of the battered people being men, nevermind what the real number might be?
However, it you choose to defend that there should be some much shelters, automatically you are deemed anti-feminist.
mdet says:
March 27, 2018 at 12:15 pm ~new~
If you choose to defend that there should be some such shelters, automatically you are deemed anti-feminist.
By whom? I’ve seen plenty of feminist stuff complaining about men or “men’s activists”, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen
feminists complaining “Can you believe they think there should be shelters for battered men?“
feminists complaining Can you believe they think there should be shelters for battered men?
371 comments since
I think what’s more likely is this isn’t an issue feminists think about at all, rather than one they explicitly oppose. (Not-
considering men’s issues is still a reasonable complaint!)
But now that I do think about it, why do battered men need their own shelters? (genuine question) I think that the point of a
battered women’s shelter is that the victims aren’t just avoiding their particular abuser, but also future abusers as well, and
given that men are on average much larger and more aggressive than women, men are more likely to be future abusers,
regardless of what your own gender is. Therefore, if you are a woman, a “women & children only” shelter goes a long way to
avoiding future abusers. But if you are a man, a “men only” shelter actually makes it MORE likely that you will come across
someone larger and more aggressive than you are, therefore a man’s best hope is for a shelter that takes both men and
women. I hope you can see that this reasoning isn’t “anti-men” (even if it is inconvenient), and I won’t think you’re “anti-
women” if you disagree with me.
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Viliam says:
March 27, 2018 at 4:30 pm ~new~
But now that I do think about it, why do battered men need their own shelters? (genuine question)
My understanding is that having either a shelter for men or a gender-neutral shelter would solve the problem (of a battered
man having nowhere to go), but I suppose neither exists.
Another problem is that, as far as I know, shelters for battered women do not allow them to bring their male children above
certain age (12 if I remember correctly).
I think that the point of a battered women’s shelter is that the victims aren’t just avoiding their particular abuser, but
also future abusers as well, and given that men are on average much larger and more aggressive than women, men
are more likely to be future abusers, regardless of what your own gender is.
I think this type of thinking contributes to the problem.
If we take this concern literally, we should build shelters where only men (and women; that is, if we also care about battered
lesbians) below average height are allowed.
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Ozy Frantz says:
March 27, 2018 at 4:47 pm ~new~
A lot of shelters that don’t accept men get hotel rooms for male survivors. While some shelters do exclude male survivors, it’s
important not to spread the myth that they all do, because then male survivors will believe that it’s impossible for them to
get help and remain in their relationships.
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Lambert says:
March 27, 2018 at 5:11 pm ~new~
If there exist female and gender-neutral shelters, I suspect women, given the choice, would almost always go to female ones,
leaving the gender-neutral ones de-facto male.
Not given the choice, it would be seen as an outrage that women aren’t given the choice.
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keranih says:
March 27, 2018 at 5:49 pm ~new~
I think that most people support the idea of womens shelters, and also (if the idea was brought to their attention) the idea of
places for “henpecked” or otherwise abused men to go. I think that most people also default to the idea of a battered woman
who has no resources (or else she would have walked already) and there is less cultural support for a man who can’t manage
without a woman to care for him.
I also think that there is a loudly vocal minority of women who care A WHOLE LOT about domestic abuse shelters who buy
into the idea that all women are victims of all men, and so strongly resist the idea that men might need shelters also. (I’ve
into the idea that all women are victims of all men, and so strongly resist the idea that men might need shelters also. (I ve
371 comments
seen this in action – those who accept the idea of “shelters for men” and actually mean “shelters since
for women and gay men
away from abusive men”.)
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Aapje says:
March 27, 2018 at 11:47 am ~new~
@Darwin
Any claim that men have problems that are not of their own doing and/or that all of society needs to help solve, conflicts with those
efforts to help women which are based on and legitimized by a narrative where men have the power in society and use that power to
advantage men at the expense of women. People have a tendency to object when their ideology is challenged.
People with that ideology also work very hard to suppress facts about physical and sexual abuse by women against men. The lack of
societal and institutional support for male victims of female misbehavior is part of gender inequality which disadvantages men (and
which IMO contributes to people seeing men and women as more different than they are). So any comprehensive effort to address
how society treats men differently will conflict with the ideology based on its contents and not the packaging.
It’s illustrative that both Cathy Newman and my own local newspaper harshly challenged Peterson in an interview for the mere fact
that a large percentage of his viewers are men, while I’ve never seen progressives challenge anyone for having many female
viewers/fans. Peterson flabbergasted Newman with his story about how he has helped women achieve their goals. The very fact that it
was confusing to her that a person can both care about men doing well and yet also care about women doing well, shows that it was
Newman who had the perception that speaking to the needs of men implies antagonism towards women.
jbradfield says:
March 27, 2018 at 9:59 am ~new~
Exactly, it’s not clear to me how you can separate Peterson’s self-help shtick from his culture warrior shtick and when you look at the two together,
Peterson becomes a weird jumble of inconsistencies and contradictions.
I haven’t really been following Peterson closely but from what little I’ve seen he’s mostly getting people unnecessarily inflamed over race and gender
issues, which doesn’t strike me as a path to “the alleviation of unnecessary pain and suffering.”
Viliam says:
March 27, 2018 at 4:35 pm ~new~
Any link for “Peterson getting people inflamed over race issues”? I watched dozens of hours of his lectures and I don’t remember race being
mentioned there at all.
(Unless we are talking about the dragon race, of course.)
andreyk says:
March 27, 2018 at 12:19 am ~new~
Did not expect this to be so positive. What do you think of the critique here – https://www.currentaffairs.org/2018/03/the-intellectual-we-deserve
“Jordan Peterson appears very profound and has convinced many people to take him seriously. Yet he has almost nothing of value to say. This should be obvious
to anyone who has spent even a few moments critically examining his writings and speeches, which are comically befuddled, pompous, and ignorant. They are
half nonsense, half banality. In a reasonable world, Peterson would be seen as the kind of tedious crackpot that one hopes not to get seated next to on a train.”
RandomName says:
March 27, 2018 at 12:28 am ~new~
“You become a prophet by saying things that you would have to either be a prophet or the most pompous windbag in the Universe to say, then looking a
little too wild-eyed for anyone to be comfortable calling you the most pompous windbag in the universe. You say the old cliches with such power and
gravity that it wouldn’t even make sense for someone who wasn’t a prophet to say them that way.” 371 comments since
If I’m interpreting these sentiments correctly, Scott and Nathan are mostly in agreement. Both are saying Peterson’s writing is equal parts vague hand
waving and obvious platitudes, with Scott saying (Or at least quoting uncritically? I’m a little unclear here.) that these can help people sort out their own
lives. That Peterson can say obvious things we’ve all heard a million times before with a force that makes people listen, or motivates them to act on
them.
Darwin says:
March 27, 2018 at 8:02 am ~new~
Yeah, I’ve heard the claim that Peterson is best understood as a competent self-help guru before, but I haven’t seen it framed in the context of
psychotherapy. This does help me understand better how his work can be valuable to people.
However, most of the times I hear about Peterson, it’s from people talking like he is an intellectual or a political activist. That’s the main thing
that worries me about him.
manwhoisthursday says:
March 27, 2018 at 9:48 am ~new~
Peterson is actually a very good researcher on the science of personality. His paper with Colin DeYoung and Lena Quilty, Between
facets and domains: 10 aspects of the Big Five, has been cited nearly a thousand times since it was published about 10 years ago. It’s
a significant refinement of the Big 5 model.
Radu Floricica says:
March 27, 2018 at 11:20 am ~new~
Speaking of, he has what I assume is this version of the big 5 online. I took it, and it’s visibly better.
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Viliam says:
March 27, 2018 at 5:03 pm ~new~
most of the times I hear about Peterson, it’s from people talking like he is an intellectual or a political activist.
We are living in the age of Twitter — the one thing you do that randomly gets virulent on social networks will define you forever in the
eyes of most people who heard your name, while 99.9999% of your lifetime work will get virtually no attention… and if any of it does,
it will be interpreted exclusively in the light of That One Moment.
To meet Jordan Peterson qua Jordan Peterson, look at the stuff he did before he said That One Thing That Got Tweeted:
* free recordings of his lectures on YouTube. Hundreds of hours. They are about mythology (the “order” and “chaos” and “hero”
things), either in general, or focused on Bible specifically, with an emphasis on understanding human capacity for evil (which inevitably
does have political connotations);
* “self authoring” psychological self-help website, which… also succeeds to be the combination of obvious and powerful (for example
you are asked to think about various areas of your life, make goals, decide on measurable outcomes; or you have a list of traits,
probably based on OCEAN, and you are asked to choose which ones apply to you; or you are asked to choose important moments in
your personal history and write something about them);
* arguably, even the 12 Rules for Life fits here, because it was mostly written before That One Thing That Got Tweeted, and is an
expansion of an earlier material.
(Probably forgot something.)
j r says:
March 27, 2018 at 12:39 am ~new~
What is interesting to me is that, with some minor edits, this is exactly how I would describe Nathan J. Robinson. I have yet to be convinced that
371 comments since
Robinson is not, in fact, involved in some grand act of performance art.
Is this what we deserve? About that, I am not sure.
melolontha says:
March 27, 2018 at 3:35 am ~new~
Really? I have mixed feelings about Robinson, but I’ve always thought that one of his virtues is a clear and straightforward (but not boring)
prose style. Whether he has valuable things to say is up for debate, of course, as it is for any writer — but I don’t think I’ve ever seen him cloak
banality in impenetrable pomposity, as he accuses Peterson of doing.
Brett says:
March 27, 2018 at 1:02 am ~new~
As RandomName pointed out, they’re kind of saying something similar about Peterson (although Scott is much more positive). The heart of Robinson’s
critique is that he believes Peterson is basically serving as this ambiguous, cliches-and-self-help-mixed-with-conservative-politics figure that
conservative-sympathetic young men can project on to (and treat as something to defend).
There definitely is some value in being able to sell even just the basic self-help stuff that people need to hear, as long as they follow through on it.
andreyk says:
March 27, 2018 at 10:16 am ~new~
That is a good point. I guess the it’s fine to appreciate Peterson as a self-help guy, but a Nathan and others here point out he is usually
interpreted as doing much more than that:
” The Times says his “message is overwhelmingly vital,” and a Guardian columnist grudgingly admits that Peterson “deserves to be taken
seriously.” David Brooks thinks Peterson might be “the most influential public intellectual in the Western world right now.” He has been called
“the deepest, clearest voice of conservative thought in the world today” a man whose work “should make him famous for the ages.””
Which is what makes me instinctively dislike him.
vV_Vv says:
March 27, 2018 at 5:42 pm ~new~
Which is what makes me instinctively dislike him.
Why?
Montfort says:
March 27, 2018 at 1:11 am ~new~
I admit to only skimming Nathan’s article, but that quote’s pretty much the picture of Peterson I got from reading Scott’s review, only I’m considering the
possibility he may be a charismatic crackpot/cliché generator instead of a tedious one.
Scott Alexander says:

March 27, 2018 at 1:52 am ~new~
I glanced at Maps of Meaning and some of his lectures, and I agree they seem confused and not very interesting. Maybe Twelve Rules had a great editor?
I agree there’s not much original intellectual substance in Peterson’s method, but I think it succeeds on a kind of artistic level in provoking the feelings
it’s meant to provoke. I can’t justify it on anything other than internal reaction, and if I had Nathan’s internal reaction I would probably think the same
way Nathan did.
371 comments since

weaselword says:
March 27, 2018 at 3:03 am ~new~
Would you be willing to review just the section 2.2 of “Maps of Meaning”: “Neuropsychological Function: The Nature of the Mind”? It is 43 pages
dense with references to neurology and psychology research, and it’s the basis on which Peterson rests his framework.
I am not a neurologist or a psychologist, and I really want to know how solid Peterson’s basis is.
Downstream says:
March 27, 2018 at 5:09 am ~new~
Peterson turned Maps of Meaning into a lecture series (available on youtube) and that’s what earned him the bulk of his fame. I think MoM is a
lot more potent than 12 Rules so if you enjoyed the book I recommend going through those lectures.
Brad says:
March 27, 2018 at 6:27 am ~new~
It turns out I need a new mattress. Mine is seven/eight years old and isn’t very comfortable anymore. Someone suggested that I go to
a mattress store so I can try the different mattresses and see what kind I want to get. I rejected that idea because I know that if I go
to a mattress store some salesman is going to talk me in to buying a mattress that’s a bad deal and that I haven’t done enough
research about. That’s something I know about myself.
If reading MoM seems confused and not very interesting I worry that going to watch the lectures based on them is kind of like going to
that mattress store. It is deliberately subjecting yourself to someone’s charisma.
Erfeyah says:
March 27, 2018 at 6:40 am ~new~
You are being overly suspicious/afraid of Peterson. He is not a hypnotists that is going to plant ideas in your mind. I would
venture that you are afraid of him affecting your belief system and thus being overly defensive.
As he would say, whenever we learn something new (change our belief structure) a part of us has to die and from its ashes
another one is being born. See? That is true, so you can accept it. If he says something that you don’t have a reason to
accept.. don’t.
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Deiseach says:
March 27, 2018 at 7:29 am ~new~
That’s something I know about myself.
But you know that about yourself, at least, so you have a starting point. Get someone to go along with you who won’t be
swayed by the salesman, who can say “Excuse me, we’d like to look at this one” or “No, I’m sure it’s a bargain on sale but
not what we want” to help you out. Decide beforehand: do you need extra support for your back? Do you like a firm or softer
mattress? How much are you willing to pay? Do you need them to deliver it for you? Do they have a website where you can
see what they have in stock and on offer before you go to the store? Then stick to that list, get your moral support person,
and hit those mattress stores!
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Brad says:
March 27, 2018 at 8:27 am ~new~
@Deiseach
That’s what I would do if I didn’t have any other choice but to buy in person. But luckily everything can now be ordered
online. So that’s what I’m doing.
Anyway, my point is that there are multiple reasons not to want to watch youtube videos. If it can’t be communicated in
writing than it is probably just charisma rather than substance.
371 comments since
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DavidFriedman says:
March 27, 2018 at 12:14 pm ~new~
But luckily everything can now be ordered online.
I ordered our current mattress online. As best I can tell, it fits the online description, and it is comfortable.
What I didn’t realize, ordering it online, was that it was substantially thicker than our original mattress, which is why my
wife’s side of the bed now has a step stool next to it. I would have noticed that in a store.
Online has advantages—I buy lots of things that way—but also some disadvantages.
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pinenuts says:
March 27, 2018 at 8:19 am ~new~
Maps of Meaning is poorly written, but Peterson is capable of better writing and has published a couple of articles that lay out his core ideas
without the mythological prophecy layer. Definitely connected to the whole predictive coding trend in neuroscience. They’re available online in
pdf.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/11235376_Complexity_Management_Theory_Motivation_for_Ideological_Rigidity_and_Social_Conflict
http://www.jordanbpeterson.com/docs/230/2014/26Petersonmythology.pdf
(Okay, so the second one has a little of the mythology, but it’s pretty cleanly separated from the psychology.)
March 27, 2018 at 9:50 am ~new~
I’d watch the lectures for his UofT Maps of Meaning course before reading the book. Peterson is a great speaker, but frequently a pretty terrible
writer, even in 12 Rules.
Bugmaster says:
March 27, 2018 at 2:21 am ~new~
That quote is phrased way too harshly, but in the broad sense, I agree with it. The problem I have with Peterson is that whenever he says anything, he
does so with total and absolute conviction. Naturally, this makes me doubt everything he says, especially the parts I agree with.
When Peterson says, “free speech is our only hope against the darkness of tyranny”, I could probably nod my head and keep listening. But when he says,
in the very next sentence, “actually the Bible is a metaphor about rescuing your father from the Underworld, which is a deeply spiritual action all humans
must undertake”, I want to immediately raise my hand and ask, “excuse me, Professor, but what’s your evidence for this ?”
Don’t get me wrong, Peterson’s ideas are really engaging and interesting and possibly even profound, but ultimately, profound ideas are a dime a dozen.
I want to believe things that are actually true (in the real sense, not in the Petersonian poetic sense), not just things that sound good.
WashedOut says:
March 27, 2018 at 3:53 am ~new~
whenever he says anything, he does so with total and absolute conviction
Are you referring to his tone or the epistemic status he assigns to his statements?
If the former, i agree but dont find it troubling. If the latter, i refer you to his biblical lecture series which he openly regards as ‘thinking out loud
trying to figure this complex document out.’ He makes mistakes along the way, re-visits his previous interpretations and makes refinements,
and generally comes across as a model of epistemic humility.
The purpose is discussion and disection rather than preaching his ‘truth’. At least thats how the series came across to me.
371 comments since
Bugmaster says:
March 27, 2018 at 4:51 am ~new~
Are you referring to his tone or the epistemic status he assigns to his statements? … i refer you to his biblical lecture series
which he openly regards as ‘thinking out loud trying…
I am referring to both. I will grant you that one case of epistemic humility in the biblical lecture series, but to me it sounds like an
exception, not the norm.
Stirson says:
March 27, 2018 at 5:43 am ~new~
I believe he answered this sort of question in one of his Q & As. Alas, I don’t have the link on hand, but it’s on his channel somewhere.
His answer, if I remember correctly, was something to the effect of it only being his interpretation of the stories, and by no means definitive
(he’s said as much that every time he looks more into the history of any one of the stories, he discovers something new), and the degree to
which you want to call it ‘valid’ or ‘true’ depends on whether or not when you act it out, the outcomes are consistent with what you expect. It’s
probably not necessary to equate his tone of conviction with a lack of skepticism.
Conrad Honcho says:

March 27, 2018 at 7:36 am ~new~
When Peterson says, “free speech is our only hope against the darkness of tyranny”, I could probably nod my head and keep listening.
But when he says, in the very next sentence, “actually the Bible is a metaphor about rescuing your father from the Underworld, which is
a deeply spiritual action all humans must undertake”,
Except the first thing is probably something Peterson has actually said. The second is not. That’s sort of a “so what you’re saying is we should
be lobsters” reduction. There’s a discussion in OT98 about what to name this sort of rhetoric (or really what the definition is), but it’s a
deliberate removal of your target’s nuance, so you can then dismiss what they say because it lacks nuance. But it only lacks nuance because
you deliberately removed it.
What Peterson says more often about the metaphors that he’s describing includes phrases like “this is very hard to articulate, which is why it’s
done through symbols, stories, and art, but it’s something like that.” “It’s something like that” is practically a JP meme like cleaning your room
or calling people “bucko.” So, I think you’ve just removed his nuance, and then are mad at him for not having nuance.
MugaSofer says:
March 27, 2018 at 12:13 pm ~new~
That’s great, except Peterson tends to add so much nuance as to be all things to all men.
A: It’s something like X, maybe, in a sense.
B: It’s nothing like X, here’s a pile of evidence. It’s actually Y. Nobody with even a cursory knowledge of either it or X would say this,
it’s blatantly false.
A fans: What kind of strawman is this? Y is like X in a symbolic manner/He never said it was literally like that/He was never really
talking about it at all, it was a metaphor for how Z is like X/He said “maybe” so it was just speculation.
Conrad Honcho says:
March 27, 2018 at 12:23 pm ~new~
So do you agree or disagree with Bugmaster? He can’t be both over-nuanced and completely lacking in nuance.
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Bugmaster says:
M h 27 2018 t 4 41
March 27, 2018 at 4:41 pm ~new~
371 comments since
FWIW, I was trying to make both of my mis-quotes a sort of a summary for Peterson’s views.
I would normally agree with you regarding metaphors, except that Peterson has explicitly stated (*) that he believes in two kinds of
truth: the physical one (e.g. “ice melts at around 0 degrees C”), and the poetic one (e.g. most of the things he says). Both truths are
equally true, in his view; so his metaphors aren’t entirely metaphorical.
There’s nothing wrong with metaphors, but when I’m making grand life decisions, I personally prefer to rely on (at least some amount
of) evidence, and not just on deeply meaningful words that ignite my soul on a deeply personal level. However, my epistemology is
very different from Peterson’s; I can completely understand how, from his point of view, both metaphors and real-world observations
would be equally true (and, in fact, I believe he privileges metaphors as being more true than plain old physical facts).
(*) Sorry, I don’t have a video link handy.
ADifferentAnonymous says:
March 27, 2018 at 7:36 am ~new~
Honestly that article became suspect to me when I actually attempted to read the lecture transcript that Robinson warms you not to try to read all of. It
doesn’t translate well to writing, but it’s perfectly coherent, with a message so powerful I question the accuracy of the story.
(Summary of the story is that Peterson’s wife solves a neighbor’s child’s development issues in one day through common sense. A big deal if it’s true,
no?)
Darwin says:
March 27, 2018 at 8:14 am ~new~
Yes, but so massively unlikely to be true that it makes me suspect everything he says even more.
Honestly, this is what makes me run cold when I read Peterson more than anything: the way he defines other people in simplistic terms, like
characters from a children’s fable, but always in ways that define them as weak or simple or lost and himself/his team as glowing saviors able
to reach in and fix them.
Like the woman who lacks any internal structure and is so lost that she will crystallize her entire personality around whatever coherent ideas he
hands her… that is not a description of a real human being. That is a description of a narcissist’s power fantasy.
It feels like Ayn Rand defining everyone who doesn’t live life exactly how she wants them to as ‘leeches’, coming up with these vast frameworks
that explain how cowardly and villainous and weak the vast majority of the population in, how they’re only impediments standing in the way of
her heroes, who are the only true human beings in the world. It’s not even a question of the politics or philosophy involved, it just makes my
blood run cold to see anyone think about other people that way.
Conrad Honcho says:
March 27, 2018 at 8:24 am ~new~
Like the woman who lacks any internal structure and is so lost that she will crystallize her entire personality around whatever
coherent ideas he hands her… that is not a description of a real human being. That is a description of a narcissist’s power
fantasy.
But he’s not talking about “people.” He’s talking about a specific person. Who was in need of psychotherapy.
And it doesn’t strike me as ludicrous. I’ve known people like that, who leap from one identity to another rapidly, maybe because they
don’t know who they are yet. Specifically I’m thinking of a girl I knew in high school who was like a preppy and then a goth and then a
political activist…with each massive change in her perspective on the purpose of life coinciding with a new boyfriend who was in to
those things. She was just looking for something to be.
lvlln says:
March 27, 2018 at 8:56 am ~new~
Like the woman who lacks any internal structure and is so lost that she will crystallize her entire personality around whatever
371 comments since
coherent ideas he hands her… that is not a description of a real human being. That is a description of a narcissist’s power
fantasy.
I would question how much someone knows about humanity if this looks like a “power fantasy” rather than a “real human being” to
them. I’ve known people like that, and in fact, I myself have been someone like that.
That doesn’t mean his stories are true. But if that’s what you find triggers your skepticism sensor, I’d say it’s poorly calibrated.
It feels like Ayn Rand defining everyone who doesn’t live life exactly how she wants them to as ‘leeches’, coming up with these
vast frameworks that explain how cowardly and villainous and weak the vast majority of the population in, how they’re only
impediments standing in the way of her heroes, who are the only true human beings in the world. It’s not even a question of
the politics or philosophy involved, it just makes my blood run cold to see anyone think about other people that way.
Funnily enough, I’ve seen Peterson asked about Rand, and his criticism of Rand’s novels are in line with what you wrote. He says his
big problem with Rand is how she simplifies characters as being all good or all bad (not having read any Rand myself, I don’t know
how reasonable either your statement or his are), when, in fact, he sees good and bad as being intrinsic to all humans. I’ve seen him
say this a few times, usually quoting one of his heroes Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn:
“If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary
only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every
human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?”
March 27, 2018 at 10:41 am ~new~
@Darwin
Agreed! But Current Affairs is trying to say the lecture is incoherent, when the problem is more that it’s hypercoherent.
Conrad Honcho says:

March 27, 2018 at 8:18 am ~new~
Yes, I think this is a particularly sleazy tactic commonly employed. Take almost anyone’s extemporaneous speech, transcribe it word for word
complete with pauses, filler words, run on sentences, asides, pepper it with inferred CAPITALS and italics and it’s much more difficult to
comprehend and makes them sound crazy. It’s almost as if people do not speak like they write or hear like they read…
lemmycaution415 says:
March 27, 2018 at 9:41 am ~new~
I tried watching one of the lectures and it had different rambling personal story. I think a lot of fans just like the sound and rhythm of
his voice like other people like the sound and rhythms of pewpewdie’s voice or whatever. Getting to the point isn’t the point. I do wish
there was a 15 minute TED talk version of Peterson though
baconbits9 says:
March 27, 2018 at 11:25 am ~new~
Summary of the story is that Peterson’s wife solves a neighbor’s child’s development issues in one day through common sense. A big deal
if it’s true, no?
The wife diagnoses the developmental issue in one day, which is different from solving it. What she did was take the first step, but actually
solving the issue would have taken weeks and maybe months of time after that.
Conrad Honcho says:
March 27, 2018 at 8:13 am ~new~
I read it. It all seemed to be of the form “Here’s something Peterson said. Can you believe he said this?!” Yes? And?
I read it. It all seemed to be of the form Here s something Peterson said. Can you believe he said this?! Yes? And?
371 comments since
All I got out of that was “Nathan Robinson is mad.” Okay.
vV_Vv says:
March 27, 2018 at 5:39 pm ~new~
Projection.
DavidFriedman says:
March 27, 2018 at 12:39 am ~new~
zzzzort says:
March 27, 2018 at 4:24 am ~new~
British imperialist counterpoint
WashedOut says:
March 27, 2018 at 12:50 am ~new~
But if Peterson forms a religion, I think it will be a force for good. Or if not, it will…..
What? He is not forming a religion. What’s the basis for the above speculation? Is it simply the observed fact that he has a following, plus the fact he is religious?
Andreyk:
Did not expect this to be so positive. What do you think of the critique here – https://www.currentaffairs.org/2018/03/the-intellectual-we-deserve
“Jordan Peterson appears very profound and has convinced many people to take him seriously. Yet he has almost nothing of value to say. This should be
obvious to anyone who has spent even a few moments critically examining his writings and speeches, which are comically befuddled, pompous, and
ignorant. They are half nonsense, half banality. In a reasonable world, Peterson would be seen as the kind of tedious crackpot that one hopes not to get
seated next to on a train.”
Gosh, what a surprise to hear more empty ad-hominem from Current Affairs.
I understand why CA is the go-to for blue-tribe opinions, since the articles are written in a way that clearly articulate all the right blue-sounding noises. What I
don’t understand is Scott’s (and SSC’s by extension) continuing faith that CA will offer an analysis sophisticated enough to tackle pretty much any of the ideas
that get discussed here or by JP.

March 27, 2018 at 1:36 am ~new~
I use “founding a religion” to mean “have some sort of self-supporting social structure to make this actually matter”.
The default scenario is that in five years, Peterson and Twelve Rules go the way of Marcus Aurelius – a decent self-cultivation system that almost no one
reads.
If you want to do more than that, you need to build a social community around yourself. Even though Transcendental Meditation has way fewer followers
than Peterson does, I’m much more confident in its ability to exert various effects five years down the line, just because they have good institutions and
those institutions can direct people and promote their meditation methods in some structured way.
I don’t think Peterson is going to “start a religion” in the classical sense, but I think there’s a decent chance he understands this on some level and is
trying to do something more lasting with his ideas. Or maybe I’m just projecting.
Prefer less confrontational or more contentful comments re:CA in the future.
Log in to Reply Hide ↑ 371 comments since
honhonhonhon says:
March 27, 2018 at 3:28 am ~new~
Remember when rationalists were annoyed at the movement being labeled a religion? Funny parallel; while Rationalistwiki may not have done it
with the most charitable of intentions, I guess “religion” is the best-fitting term for “social group for self-cultivation that’s not quite a movement
because it doesn’t move”.
toastengineer says:
March 27, 2018 at 10:36 am ~new~
“Religion” carries a buttton of baggage with it. Seems like the word you’re looking for is “community,” although “community” is a little
overplayed.
andreyk says:
March 27, 2018 at 11:42 am ~new~
I mean, you may not agree with the article but labeling it ad-hominem is a bit much, it clearly critiques Peterson’s writing style and message and not just
him as a person. Like, right there in the quote:
” This should be obvious to anyone who has spent even a few moments critically examining his writings and speeches, which are comically befuddled,
pompous, and ignorant. They are half nonsense, half banality.”
Fluffy Buffalo says:

March 27, 2018 at 1:10 am ~new~
Welcome aboard the train, I guess.
ETA: Yes, Peterson doesn’t serve the answers to the questions about meaning on a platter, like a cult leader might do. He believes it’s an individual matter, and
offers some pointers for the search for a personal meaning, and assurance that the search is not in vain. I suppose that’s the best one can realistically do, and I
hope the message doesn’t get lost too quickly.

(I just had to think of the scene in “The Life Of Brian” where Brian tells the adoring crowd, “You’re all individuals! You’re all different!” and they all cheer in unison
“We’re all different!”, and one guy shouts “I’m not!”)
Darwin says:
March 27, 2018 at 8:17 am ~new~
Unless you happen to individually find meaning in Marxism or social justice or being politically active or happen to be trans. Right?
Sorry if that sounds snarky, but I think it’s dangerous to pretend that he’s just trying to help people find their own meaning and is agnostic to where they
find it, if in reality that’s not true and he very angrily constrains the space of acceptable meaning in some ways.
Conrad Honcho says:
March 27, 2018 at 8:31 am ~new~
Unless you happen to individually find meaning in Marxism or social justice
I guess. But I don’t think it’s going to be very productive for an individual who determines that their problems are all society’s fault. That’s why
Peterson’s advice is to clean your room and then fix your family before you go trying to change the world, because those are things you can
reasonably accomplish.
or happen to be trans.
What does that have to do with anything?
LadyJane says:
371 comments since
March 27, 2018 at 12:24 pm ~new~
Peterson actively and vehemently rejects trans identity, to the point where he’s explicitly stated that he will adamantly refuse to call
trans people by their chosen pronouns. It’s partially because he’s upset with the perceived Social Justice establishment for trying to
force everyone to use trans people’s preferred pronouns (though you’d think a great moral teacher with a keen understanding of the
balance between Order and Chaos would be above such contrarianism, and understand the difference between genuine resistance to
genuine oppression and mere petty spitefulness). But mostly it’s because he thinks that trans people’s identities are fundamentally
false, and that respecting their identities would constitute a violation of his devotion to Truth.
And unlike someone like Orson Scott Card, you can’t even say “well, he might have some awful personal opinions, but that doesn’t
affect his work,” because the two are tied so closely together. Trans people’s identities being invalid is literally an essential part of his
moral and philosophical ideology: In his eyes, trans people should accept that they are the gender they were assigned at birth, and it’s
unethical and self-destructive to refuse your given role in society and try to become something else.
It’s a shame, because judging from what I’ve heard, he does have some genuinely good ideas. But the sexism, transphobia, and
support for traditional social roles and hierarchies is so prevalent in his work and so deeply-rooted in his worldview that it’s almost
impossible to sort out the good from the bad.
Conrad Honcho says:

March 27, 2018 at 1:04 pm ~new~
Peterson actively and vehemently rejects trans identity, to the point where he’s explicitly stated that he will
adamantly refuse to call trans people by their chosen pronouns.
This is completely incorrect. He is opposed to being forced to say things, and has no problem with calling a person by their
preferred pronouns. It’s just the compelled speech aspect to which he objects.
I do not believe he has ever rejected trans identity at all, much less “actively” or “vehemently,” nor has he refused to call
trans people by their chosen pronouns, much less done so “explicitly” or “adamantly.”
I think you’re wrong in both magnitude and direction. The rest of your post is similarly bizarre, and you should check your
sources.
Hide ↑
Wency says:
March 27, 2018 at 2:00 pm ~new~
To clarify, I believe Peterson has only refused to use invented words such as “xir”, or at least he has objected to efforts by the
Canadian government to mandate that he do so. He has expressed tolerance towards calling individuals with male biology
“she” if they so insist.
I don’t believe he has spent much (or any) time on trans people as such, which is probably about right for a self-help book
directed at a general audience, as trans issues only directly affect a miniscule slice of the population.
But the prospect of an Orwellian state apparatus that forces people to use certain words does affect pretty much everyone,
and therefore he objected publicly.
Hide ↑
LadyJane says:
March 27, 2018 at 4:05 pm ~new~
I don’t believe he has spent much (or any) time on trans people as such, which is probably about right for a self-help
book directed at a general audience, as trans issues only directly affect a miniscule slice of the population.
The reason trans people and LGBT activists have a problem with Peterson is not because his books don’t specifically address
trans issues; obviously that would be a ridiculous and unrealistic expectation for general self-help books, which is why (to the
best of my knowledge) no one was expecting it.
If Peterson never talked about trans people at all, I wouldn’t have a problem with him. In fact, until he made a name for
himself in 2016 by specifically denouncing trans people and the trans rights movement I didn’t have a problem with him (or
himself in 2016 by specifically denouncing trans people and the trans rights movement, I didn t have a problem with him (or
even know he existed, for that matter).

371 comments since
Hide ↑
fnord says:
March 27, 2018 at 4:12 pm ~new~
He’s explicitly refused to use singular “they”, at the very least.
Hide ↑
Evan Þ says:
March 27, 2018 at 6:30 pm ~new~
@fnord, I did too for a while, because I believed that it contributes to unclear and confusing writing by risking making it
unclear whether a sentence’s referring to one or multiple persons.
Unfortunately, I later learned it has centuries of precedent in some aspects of the English language. I still don’t like it, but I
don’t think I have standing to object in normal conversation anymore.
Hide ↑
warrel says:
March 27, 2018 at 9:41 am ~new~
For what it’s worth, there is a ‘Rules for Life for young people’ book by a High-Octane French “Maoist” intellectual which came out in 2017: Alan
Badiou’s The True Life. Maybe it’s his bid to be the far-left Jordan Peterson?
suntzuanime says:
March 27, 2018 at 1:14 am ~new~
If Truth is what helps societies survive and people become better, can’t a devoted Communist say that believing the slogans of the Party will help society
and make you a better person? Isn’t a transgender person who says they’re their chosen gender more likely to flourish and become strong than one who
insists on their birth gender?
You’re confusing claims with facts. The Communist can say that Communism is metaphorically true and helps society and et cetera, but the Communist is wrong
about this (and at this point showing a reckless disregard for the truth). By their fruits, Scott, by their fruits! Peterson doesn’t just say these metaphorical truths
are helpful, he argues for it and points to various evidences. Look at what happens when people believe the slogans of the party, does that feel like flourishing to
you?

March 27, 2018 at 1:31 am ~new~
The original fascists/communists didn’t have fruits to look at. I’m sure they assumed things would go great. We don’t need something that tells us today,
in 2018, that fascism/communism is bad. We need something that would have told people that in the 1940s, or can tell us today that the latest Hot New
Thing is bad.
We need something that can tell us not to spread misleading propaganda without solving every object-level issue. I don’t want to have to disprove all of
the economic theses in Das Kapital (or until a hundred million people have already died) before I’m allowed to say you can’t lie and silence people to
promote Marxism.
RandomName says:
March 27, 2018 at 1:49 am ~new~
Well, you can generalize the past experiences into rules. In that case, Peterson generalizes the experience “It was the great and the small lies of
the Nazi and Communist states that produced the deaths of millions of people.” to “And, above all, don’t lie. Don’t lie about anything, ever.
Lying leads to Hell.”
If you’re asking “Well what if some new ambiguous situation, not involving lying or anything like what we’ve previously seen at all comes up?
Then what?” Well… why should there BE a way of knowing? Maybe the best we can really do is try out truly novel ideas, preferably in a
controlled or limited setting, and see what happens. You can’t always know the results of an experiment before doing it, right?
Darwin says:
March 27, 2018 at 8:26 am ~new~
>“It was the great and the small lies of the Nazi and Communist states that produced the deaths of millions of people.”
This is one of the most baffling sentiments to me, and I would be interested if anyone else has a batter explanation of it.
To me, it seems like it was, you know, the guns and tanks of the Nazi and Communist states, or having violent psychopaths for
leaders, that led to most of those deaths. I don’t think the leaders of those countries were intentional liars, I think they were true
believers in a bad ideology; and surely they used propaganda to manipulate the masses, but so has every government, good or bad,
since the dawn of time.
I don’t see how ‘lies’ is the defining characteristic that separates Nazi and Communist regimes from other governments. Unless he’s
using ‘lies’ to mean ‘bad ideas’, which is wildly misleading in my opinion, and seems perfectly calibrated to give people the wrong idea.
‘Don’t hold or follow bad ideas’ is very very different life advice from ‘don’t lie, ever’.
toastengineer says:
March 27, 2018 at 10:47 am ~new~
To me, it seems like it was, you know, the guns and tanks of the Nazi and Communist states, or having violent
psychopaths for leaders
I’m not super convinced by this myself but I’m trying to steelman a bit:
The guns and tanks would’ve been useless if there hadn’t been people eager to man them, or at least people eager to force
their neighbors to pretend to be eager to man them.
If Hitler had tried to make a truth-based argument for why Jewish conspirators were responsible for Germany not being a
nice place to live, no-one would have listened to him because there simply was no such true evidence. It was because he
built his arguments out of seductive lies that he actually came in to power in the first place. And, yanno, ‘cos he murdered all
the other political parties and such, but again he wouldn’t have been able to do that without a heck of a lot of lying and
convincing.
If the Communists were truly basing what they did on truth they would have said “aww shucks, looks like the whole
‘eliminate the capitalist framework and everyone will stop responding to material incentives’ thing isn’t working out, I guess
we’d better try something else.”
Hide ↑
suntzuanime says:
March 27, 2018 at 11:28 am ~new~
If Hitler had tried to make a truth-based argument for why Jewish conspirators were responsible for Germany not
being a nice place to live, no-one would have listened to him because there simply was no such true evidence.
Well, no, there was evidence. Hitler wasn’t just making shit up out of whole cloth, he could point to e.g. the actual Jewish
conspirators involved in the establishment of the Bavarian Soviet Republic. He had a pretty iron-clad argument for the
existence of Jewish conspirators undermining the German state, the problem was what he extrapolated it to and the
ideological gloss he gave it.
Hide ↑
March 27, 2018 at 11:39 am ~new~
I’ve only lived about 10 years in a communist dictatorship, but I have some idea about this.
Imagine a society in which a good part of life is play pretend. Many people don’t really care, but among those that think and
feel and care, they all behave completely different in public than in private.
371 comments since

I have a couple of stark memories from my childhood. One is my father cursing “the beloved leader” in the privacy of our
home, and the other is my parents’ scared reaction when I behaved liked a normal child sponge and said “The Idiot” once.
They took time and care to explain to me that he’s most definitely not an idiot but a great man, and _definitely_ don’t say
anything bad about him in public.
You’re thinking lies are something some people say and others believe. Not all. The ones we’re talking about here are the lies
society tells itself. They’re a Nash equilibrium where everybody thinks the same things, but they can only live the lie – any
minority to do otherwise would be punished severely.
There were no lying leaders and believing followers, they never were, actually – they usually come to power by violent
means. That’s why when it ends, it ends suddenly and completely. Anybody still supporting the regime 10 days after the
revolution would have been regarded not as an enemy, but simply a bit slow or stupid.
(Romania, btw).
Hide ↑
Jack Lecter says:

March 27, 2018 at 12:20 pm ~new~
@Darwin
surely they used propaganda to manipulate the masses, but so has every government, good or bad, since the dawn of
time.
This feels true to me, but I haven’t ever actually checked, and I’ve heard it disputed by people who didn’t strike me as stupid.
(Most notably by those folks we’re not supposed to mention by name.) It also seems like there are degrees of this- some
societies seem to have a lot more propaganda than others.
I guess I’m saying: this isn’t the sort of thing you’d have a simple citation for, but is there any reason in particular to think
it’s true other than it seems plausible?
EDIT: tl;dr: I’m reflexively skeptical wrt claims of the form ‘all X are Y’ when provided with no support, even if my own
experience has been that in fact all X are Y.
Hide ↑
suntzuanime says:
March 27, 2018 at 1:52 am ~new~
The original fascists/communists didn’t have fruits to look at. I’m sure they assumed things would go great.
Is that actually true, though? We’ve talked about good and evil, and how you know what they are but sometimes you bullshit yourself. I doubt if
you honestly endorse the claim that the fascists were legitimately and earnestly trying to do good, instead of indulging their hate with whatever
justifications they could find. The communists have better PR, but there was an awful lot of hatred and desire for plunder powering them too.
I think Peterson would say that he’s not spreading misleading propaganda, that these deep metaphorical truths exactly do not lead you amiss
and that’s why they’re deep and true. I don’t think he’s in to silencing people at all, I’m not sure where that came from?
Let’s take Marxist economics as an example – I don’t think it’s obvious that it’s wrong to promulgate metaphors which encapsulate Marxist
economics. I think you actually need to know that Marxist economics is wrong to know that that’s the case. I don’t think the metaphorical claim,
as he sees it, is any more or less a lie than the clinical reductionist claim it’s a metaphor for.

March 27, 2018 at 11:10 am ~new~
I’ll bite the bullet and say a lot of fascists thought they were doing good – maybe not all the higher-ups, but at least the rank-and-file.
And even the higher-ups just probably didn’t have a clear concept of “good”. If they had performed the mental operation “check if
what you’re doing is actually good”, I think it would have come out positive.
I think it’s overly easy to say our opponents secretly know they’re evil, but we know in our hearts we’re motivated by the right things.
371 comments since

I’m not sure what you mean by the Marxist econ paragraph. I agree that it’s not wrong to promulgate things you believe. It might be
wrong to spread misleading propaganda about them because “the ends justify the means”. I’m not sure what pragmatism has to say
about this.
fontesmustgo says:
March 27, 2018 at 11:27 am ~new~
Everyone thinks that they’re doing “good,” even the higher-ups within brutal fascist regimes. They defined their happiness
and security as the highest goods, and consequentialismed their way to justifying the suffering of others. But at all times they
were serving the good as they understood it. The math always worked out to creating more good than evil.
All evil is done this way. All evil is done by deciding that the good I am experiencing outweighs the suffering (if any) of
others.
Hide ↑
suntzuanime says:
March 27, 2018 at 11:31 am ~new~
Well, I think this is where you disagree with Jordan Peterson. He thinks the fascists should have known better.
I don’t know in my heart that I’m motivated by the right things. I’m a petty little shithead. I don’t even give all my money to
malaria charities.
Again, I think Peterson would agree that it’s wrong to spread misleading propaganda. He doesn’t think that these claims
about God he endorses are actually misleading.
Hide ↑
dndnrsn says:
March 27, 2018 at 11:34 am ~new~
@fontesmustgo is absolutely right. The attitude of the Nazi leadership towards the worst of the things which they did – see
for example Himmler’s Posen speeches – indicates they saw their actions as justified and necessary.
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suntzuanime says:
March 27, 2018 at 11:40 am ~new~
The Nazis claimed to see what they were doing as justified and necessary. This isn’t incompatible with Peterson’s theory! He
says that people will bullshit themselves that what they’re doing isn’t wrong. That’s all the Posen speeches are.
Hide ↑
dndnrsn says:
March 27, 2018 at 11:55 am ~new~
I’m not responding to Peterson, I’m responding to Scott’s statement:
And even the higher-ups just probably didn’t have a clear concept of “good”.
Hide ↑
Jack Lecter says:

March 27, 2018 at 12:31 pm ~new~
@scott:
I think it’s overly easy to say our opponents secretly know they’re evil, but we know in our hearts we’re motivated by
the right things.
Alternate framework: Everyone knows in their hearts what motivates them, everyone is motivated by humanly
understandable impulses, but whether those impulses get spun as ‘good’ or ‘evil’ is heavily determined by circumstance.
p , p g p g y y
371 comments since
This could be true even of things everyone seems to agree are good; in one of my writing classes last semester, we were
studying memoirs, and the teacher stressed that it was important to be honest… about the emotional truth. How exactly this
differed from the literal truth was never clearly defined, but in cases where the two conflicted we were advised to go with the
former.
Hide ↑
DavidFriedman says:
March 27, 2018 at 12:41 pm ~new~
The fascists get a generally darker image in our society than the communists, but I agree with Scott’s skepticism.
One of John Buchan’s novels, The House of the Four Winds, is set in a fictional central European country and involves a
political youth movement called Juventus. My guess reading it was that it was a reasonably friendly portrait of a nascent
fascist movement before it had taken power.
Hide ↑
Viliam says:
March 27, 2018 at 5:47 pm ~new~
I think National Socialists tried to keep the existence of concentration camps secret. Why would they do that, if they sincerely
believed this was the right thing to do?
Similarly, Communists did not talk much about their gulags, secret services, uranium mines, et cetera. Again, why, if they
sincerely believed this was the right thing to do?
(People who sincerely believe they are doing a good and important thing — effective altruists, vegetarians, etc. — often can’t
stop talking about what they do and why they do it.)
Sometimes people prefer not to talk about things because they prefer not to think about them too much.
Hide ↑
Evan Þ says:
March 27, 2018 at 6:32 pm ~new~
I think National Socialists tried to keep the existence of concentration camps secret. Why would they do that, if they
sincerely believed this was the right thing to do?
Perhaps they believed it was the right thing to do, but also (correctly!) believed that other people would vehemently
disagree?
(Also, it was pretty much an open secret by midway through the war.)
Hide ↑
fontesmustgo says:
March 27, 2018 at 11:31 am ~new~
I doubt if you honestly endorse the claim that the fascists were legitimately and earnestly trying to do good, instead of
indulging their hate with whatever justifications they could find.
Their justification was that what they were doing was good – or at least a greater good than the harms they were creating. Their math
always worked out so that the good created by their happiness was greater than the harm they caused.
Leonard says:
March 27, 2018 at 6:22 am ~new~
We don’t need something that tells us today, in 2018, that fascism/communism is bad.
Actually I think we do. Sad! I mean, we have the fascism thing pretty straight (albeit largely as a point of faith), but communism is still hip as
can be. Did you know that the Young Karl Marx got drunk with his good buddy Engels? “The founders of Communism, full of intensity and
ambition and sporting contrasting beards, look and act like pioneers of brocialism.”
371 comments since
I agree that it would be even better to have a thing that tells us about Hot New Thing.
Doctor Locketopus says:
March 27, 2018 at 6:33 am ~new~
>Actually I think we do. Sad! I mean, we have the fascism thing pretty straight (albeit largely as a point of faith), but communism is
still hip as can be.
Indeed. Unlike being a Nazi, being a Marxist appears to be no hindrance when it comes to (for example) getting tenure. That needs to
change.
Freddie deBoer says:

March 27, 2018 at 6:40 am ~new~
Speaking as a communist, Marxism is out of fashion in the academy. Workers are not currently a sexy fundamental object of
interest.
Hide ↑
March 27, 2018 at 7:09 am ~new~
“Out of fashion” (to the limited extent that’s true) is an entirely different thing from being ejected from the academy entirely.
Marxist professors are tolerated in the academy while Nazi ones are not.
As I said, that needs to change (to be perfectly clear: that change should not be in the direction of tolerating Nazis in the
academy).
Hide ↑

March 27, 2018 at 7:27 am ~new~
There’s this whole idea of intellectual and political freedom in academia. You might have heard of it; it’s currently protecting
someone like Jordan Peterson from his many critics.
Hide ↑
March 27, 2018 at 7:47 am ~new~
> There’s this whole idea of intellectual and political freedom in academia. You might have heard of it;
Yeah, I have. That doesn’t mean faculties of chemistry are still obligated to hire alchemists or those who believe in the
phlogiston theory, nor does it mean that faculties of medicine are still obligated to hire those who believe that being shot with
arrows by elves is a significant cause of disease, nor those who believe that routine bleeding is a useful therapeutic
technique.
The Marxist experiment was run multiple times in the last century, and degenerated into slavery, starvation, and mass
murder every single time.
At this point, it has no further place in the academy (except perhaps among historians who specialize in atrocities), and is no
longer an intellectually tenable subject of scholarship. It needs to go.
Hide ↑
Aapje says:
March 27, 2018 at 7:49 am ~new~
@Freddie deBoer
There’s this whole idea of intellectual and political freedom in academia. 371 comments since
As the Heterodox Academy argues (and IMO convincingly), many parts of academia have given up on this goal, in favor of a
Social Justice agenda, where heterodox opinions are no longer accepted.
One paper found that in psychology, a large percentage of liberal academics say that they would discriminate against
conservatives, when given the chance. The who would discriminate when hiring seems high enough, that any non-liberal
would likely be blocked from being hired, by one of the people who are involved in the hiring procedure.
We see exactly the kind of slow cleansing of moderates and conservatives that you would expect if the entrance to many
parts of academia filters out moderates and conservatives.
Also, various academics, like Bret Weinstein, were not in fact protected (note that he is very liberal, but one who holds at
least one opinion with is currently anathema among American Liberals).
Hide ↑
March 27, 2018 at 7:54 am ~new~
Speaking as a neoliberal, I gotta side with Freddie here. The right analog to a Nazi professor might be a Stalinist professor,
which I don’t think would be tolerated.
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Nancy Lebovitz says:

March 27, 2018 at 8:16 am ~new~
Freddie deBoer
What do you make of the people who say “Smash capitlalism!”?
Hide ↑
March 27, 2018 at 8:22 am ~new~
Usually I buy them a beer.
Hide ↑
Conrad Honcho says:

March 27, 2018 at 8:35 am ~new~
What do you make of the people who say “Smash capitlalism!”?
Usually I buy them a beer.
buy
Hypocrite! 😉
Hide ↑
March 27, 2018 at 8:45 am ~new~
Hypocrite!
Truly, there is no ethical living under capitalism.
Hide ↑
citizencokane says:
March 27, 2018 at 10:13 am ~new~
I think we need to carefully distinguish between two types of “communism” in academia. There’s the unintereisting,
unsophisticated, and possibly dangerous (even to my Marxist values) demagogic variant (which I’d call “not real scientific
371 comments since
socialism,” but whatever…for the purposes of this conversation)…for example, someone screaming “down with capitalism!” to
his/her students. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I’d be surprised if anyone got tenure for such ideas. First because, they are
normative and thus not really debatable in any interesting way. Second, because they are uninteresting.
Then there are sophisticated communists. Your Anwar Shaikhs. Your Andrew Klimans (who argues, for example, from a
Marxists perspective that the stagnation of workers’ total compensation since the 1970s has been overstated by other
Marxists). For me, Michael Roberts is borderline because he suffers from the syndrome of constantly shouting “recession is
right around the corner!” which is not a useful hypothesis without getting much more specific than he does. If he wants my
attention, he should be forecasting how long the current boom will last. “The economy’s going to be great for at least the
next two years, barring some shock external to the internal logic of capitalism” would be an argument worth hearing. He has
some interesting research on how the rate of profit drives investment, and not vice-versa, but a lot of his other writing
borders on demagogy.
The question is, are you seriously going to call for the Anwar Shaikhs and Andrew Klimans of the world to be denied tenure?
That’s not only a bad principle…it could also be seriously harmful to our ability to approach some practically useful truth. Like,
maybe you think 90% of their stuff is rubbish…but they are well-read enough to engage with mainstream economics, and
maybe in their mixtures of mainstream economics and Marxist economics there is some new insight that allows us to dampen
the next recession? Like, Michal Kalecki…would you wish that he had never gotten a chance to teach or write his books?
Now, turning to Nazis…first we have the unsophisticated Nazis. Whatever, we don’t need them in academia, which I think will
be obvious just on the lack of interesting things in their work itself (regardless of how controversial their normative claims
might be). But what about the sophisticated Nazis? I say, sure, let them into academia. The thing is, you’ll have to show me
what a sophisticated version of Nazism looks like. I’m having a hard time envisioning it. But I won’t rule out it exists. If I had
to steelman a sophisticated version of Nazism, it would go something like this:
“1. We Nazis agree with the communists that economic inequality will always generate political inequality. “Liberal
democracy” is a sham. The pretense of having equal political power while wealthy bankers run the economy is laughable.
Such a situation is always going to breed corruption and dissatisfaction when people realize how short liberal democracy falls
relative to what it promises.

2. However, we disagree with the communists that economic equality is possible. It is not. Economic inequality is inevitable
and necessary for a thriving society.
3. Therefore, we must reconcile ourselves to the fact that there will always be both economic AND political inequality. In
other words, we will always be living in some sort of aristocracy. The only question is, who will be the aristocrats and who will
be the slaves?
In theory, anybody could be the aristocrats, but we will get more enrichment of our culture, virtues, genetic health, etc. if
some people are the aristocrats rather than others. This enrichment will benefit the slaves too (and remember, it is inevitable
that there will be slaves, whether wage-slaves or chattel slaves or serfs), so the best utilitarian course of action for everyone
is to identify the strongest, healthiest, most mindful, most intelligent, most virtuous people to be the aristocrats. Now, how
do we identify those individuals who are the strongest, healthiest, most mindful, etc.? How can we measure those traits?
Maybe we should be Christian supremacists since we will get the most virtuous society if they are the aristocrats. Maybe we
should be Mexican supremacists. Maybe we should become high-IQ supremacists…”
Liberal: “But don’t you know that we will have the most virtuous society if we aren’t any kind of supremacist? If we make
nobody into aristocrats or slaves?”
Sophisticated Nazi: “Oh, you liberal. Yeah, your utopian fairy-tale dream would be nice. But even you haven’t attained it in
your favorite societies, and people still correctly sense that they are still slaves. Better to be enslaved to the ubermenschen
than to the Rothschilds!”
Hide ↑
Jack Lecter says:

March 27, 2018 at 12:38 pm ~new~
Marxist professors are tolerated in the academy while Nazi ones are not.
Some of us old-fashioned liberals might want to change the former condition rather than the latter.
I mean, I have the idea most fascists are dumb, and I’m not advocating that the academy employ dumb people, but I also
have the idea that an fascist who happened not to be dumb would probably be blacklisted for their political views and I’m
have the idea that an fascist who happened not to be dumb would probably be blacklisted for their political views, and I m
371 comments since
not thrilled about that. And the more broadly we define ‘fascist’, the less thrilled I get; sloppy definitions teach imprecise
habits of thought, and I’d like to keep imprecise habits of thought out of the institutions which are putatively aimed at
molding young minds.
Maybe the colleges should stop conflating ‘this is a disrespectable opinion’ with ‘this is a toxic opinion that must be
quarantined’. Not (necessarily) because toxic opinions don’t exist, but because exposure to them can also have beneficial
effects and we’re not that great at weighing those against the positives.
Hide ↑
DavidFriedman says:
March 27, 2018 at 12:53 pm ~new~
That doesn’t mean faculties of chemistry are still obligated to hire alchemists
There are two different issues being conflated here.
If an economics department is trying to hire someone in trade economics and the candidate is a mercantilist, and it becomes
clear that the reason he is a mercantilist is that he doesn’t understand the principle of comparative advantage, he doesn’t,
and shouldn’t, get hired. That’s the alchemist case.
But what if a math department is considering a candidate who turns out to think South African Apartheid was a good thing.
That’s irrelevant to his ability as a mathematician, so not a good reason not to hire him. But my guess is that it will count
heavily against him in practice.
There is the intermediate case that Citizencokane raises. Suppose the job is in political science and the Apartheid supporter is
a highly intelligent person who offers arguments for apartheid that people in the department cannot readily rebut. Insofar as
intellectual diversity is a good thing—we would be better educated if we understood the arguments for the views we disagree
with—they should hire him. But again, they probably won’t.
Hide ↑
Viliam says:
March 27, 2018 at 6:08 pm ~new~
Speaking as a communist, Marxism is out of fashion in the academy. Workers are not currently a sexy fundamental
object of interest.
We have this weird “Marxism in form but without the substance” thing, where there is the eternal battle between the
privileged and the oppressed… only the prototype of the “oppressed” is no longer a starving working-class person, but a
multigendered dragonkin trust fund kid.
The actual starving working-class person is probably quite problematic, because they don’t have all the latest politically
correct opinions, and maybe not even a Twitter account. Which is probably good, because if they ever start tweeting, the
dragonkin is going to make sure they get fired for something. (Seriously, how did “get people fired from their jobs” ever
become a left-wing tactics? I mean, that is a weapon designed specifically against the working class…)
Hide ↑
sarth says:
March 27, 2018 at 9:32 am ~new~
But isn’t that the point of combing through the ancient stories for these universal human “truths?”
It’s related to why Peterson is fairly conservative. Innovating new lies to restructure society is dangerous, in his opinion. He points to the 20th
century as a fantastic lesson in that.
The ancient truths/lies have been vetted by thousands of years of implementation so we can see the result of them.
At least, I think that’s part of his point, and where you might be drawing a false equivalence.
Edit: I’ve thought a lot about that discussion with Sam Harris and I think the ideas there were articulated very poorly. But I think Peterson’s
stance included the idea that we shouldn’t cede this idea “truth” to the scientific method.
371 comments since

If you only see “truth” as being real in the scientifically probable fact sense, then what he’s saying sounds like condoning convenient lies. But if
you accept the possibility that there is such a thing as “truth” in some other sense, it isn’t a fair characterization to say he is advocating for
convenient lies. He’s not saying every expedient belief is true. He is saying there’s some other kind of truth which can be known.
BillG says:
March 27, 2018 at 9:40 am ~new~
Yeah, I think there’s some overlap with Nassim Taleb’s wisdom that your grandmother’s advice is more likely to be correct in 20 years
on most topics than what you hear around a water cooler at work.
Replace the crumbling posts in the fence or re-route it, do not just take it down for lack of understanding about why it’s standing.
professorgerm says:
March 27, 2018 at 12:22 pm ~new~
“Cram them full of non-combustible data, chock them so damned full of ‘facts’ they feel stuffed, but absolutely ‘brilliant’ with
information. Then they’ll feel they’re thinking, they’ll get a sense of motion without moving. And they’ll be happy, because facts
of that sort don’t change. Don’t give them any slippery stuff like philosophy or sociology to tie things up with. That way lies
melancholy.”
Thus were the words of Captain Beatty, Fahrenheit 451. I think, perhaps indirectly, Bradbury was getting a similar idea. Scientific facts
are one kind of truth, but fundamentally different from this kind of truth.
beleester says:
March 27, 2018 at 1:48 pm ~new~
But on the other hand, the Crusades were perpetrated by very old ideas, not by new ones. The Nazis weren’t the first country that
tried to get rid of the Jews, just the first to be capable of exterminating them by the millions. The fascists in Italy borrowed their
symbol from ancient Rome.
A lot of things feel like universal human truths until you actually put them to the test. How do we tell what’s endured because it is
“true” (by whichever definition of truth you use), and what has endured because nobody has managed to oppose it until now?
sarth says:
March 27, 2018 at 2:21 pm ~new~
But isn’t that the point of what he’s doing?
In this framework these “truths” are something that has to be explored, debated, discovered, analyzed, and a dozen other
action words.
In the model I *think* he’s pointing to you don’t just discover the truth, prove yourself correct, and inform everyone. It’s a
process. But just because it’s a process doesn’t mean all convenient beliefs, or all compelling beliefs, are equally true.
Hide ↑
Aevylmar says:
March 27, 2018 at 5:25 pm ~new~
But on the other hand, the Crusades were perpetrated by very old ideas, not by new ones.
No, I would say that they weren’t.
Crusade – the idea of that the Christian God approved of these specific wars, and that fighting in them was meritorious rather
than sinful – was a new idea, an idea specifically innovated in the 1090s in response to the political, social, and military
situation of the time.
All who die by the way, whether by land or by sea, or in battle against the pagans, shall have immediate remission of
All who die by the way, whether by land or by sea, or in battle against the pagans, shall have immediate remission of
sins. This I grant them through the power of God with which I am invested. 371 comments since
This was not said by any Pope before Urban II; it was the head of the Catholic faith using his power as Pope to introduce new
rules. (You may note that when the Byzantine emperor Nikephoras II Phocas tried to get the same rule passed in the
Orthodox church a hundred-fifty years back, he was refused point-blank). The popular preachers of the age who celebrated it
celebrated it as something new; it was now possible for a knight to act as a knight and, instead of being condemned by his
religion as a violent thug, be hailed as a hero – provided he directed his violence against the right people. God in his
goodness has provided a new way for you to be saved without having to live up to His moral rules! All you have to do is die a
hero!
Other religions had practiced holy war before, sure, and Christian rulers had been praised for conquering the infidel – but the
fighting-man of medieval Europe had never been told, “here is a way to save your soul while remaining true to yourself”
before. When he was, the force unleashed shook the Mediterranean world to pieces.
Hide ↑
Darwin says:
March 27, 2018 at 8:21 am ~new~
Yes, but if Peterson is willing to allow objective fact to be a determinant of what types of meaning are acceptable, then we can start kicking down 90% of
his metaphysical meditations and he’s not left with much.
Conrad Honcho says:
March 27, 2018 at 8:43 am ~new~
It’s not so much about objective fact but about which objective facts are meaningful. Walk into a room. There are an infinite number of facts in
that room. The shape of each speck of dust on the table. The number of dimples on each ceiling tile. The direction the axe murderer is facing.
How do you tell which of these facts are meaningful, or meaningfully useful to you?
We encounter the same issue in politics, where the discussions aren’t over facts so much as which facts are meaningful. Some Americans are
killed by illegal immigrants (but it’s incredibly rare), and some black Americans are killed by cops (but it’s incredibly rare). But tell me your
preferred political party and I can probably guess which of these facts is important to you and which one is immaterial. Yet, “but the facts are
on our side!” is bog standard political rhetoric.
citizencokane says:
March 27, 2018 at 9:44 am ~new~
And this is why we can be sure that everyone in the world is constantly combing through the data of the world with an ideology. There
is no such thing as an “un-ideological” or “no-nonsense” or “common sense” or “apolitical” take on the world, if only because we must
heuristically decide which facts to prune our attention away from and which are salient. That often unconscious choice stems from all
sorts of assumptions.
Maybe a supercomputer that analyzed the motion of every atom could be apolitical. But as soon as it has to start pruning out which
movements of which atoms are important, and which are not, it obtains the potential to become ideological.
This is half of the post-modernist program, and I am prepared to go along with them this far. The other half is to assert that there are
no objective criteria for evaluating one set of ideological heuristics as better than another because the criteria we use for that will be
ideologically given too. I disagree. I agree with the idea above that there are certain objective things that I do not want to experience,
such as suffering. If employing Marxist heuristics has a higher chance of bringing me more suffering and less
happiness/pleasure/novelty/complex values, and it’s the opposite for a set of liberal heuristics, then I’m going to pick the liberal
ideology…with the understanding that I’m still using an ideology and that, if those outcomes reliably reverse in the future (i.e. Marxist
heuristics start to bring me happiness/pleasure/etc. and liberal ones start to bring me suffering), then I’ll be open to changing my
ideological assumptions.
Eric27 says:
March 27, 2018 at 1:42 am ~new~
Great analysis, Scott.
I have read and watched a lot of Jordan Peterson and I would like to try to answer to some of your points.
y y p
371 comments since
You wrote:
“But if you ask him “Is it okay to banish suffering if you’re pretty sure it won’t cause more problems down the line?” I cannot possibly imagine him
responding with anything except beautifully crafted prose on the importance of suffering in the forging of the human spirit or something.”
I think his answer to that would be: “Yes, it would be okay, but I don’t think it’s possible in the real world to banish suffering without causing problems down the
line and we have to concern ourselves with real world matters.” I don’t think he thinks suffering per se is good, just that it is in inevitable in the real world. But I
might be wrong about that. He definitely has talked about suffering as a forger of the human spirit.
You wrote:
“Okay, but why do bad things happen to good people?”
In his lecture series about the bible, in the lecture about Cain and Abel he answers that very question I think. He talks about why Abels sacrifice was accepted but
not Cains and there he says: “There is [an] arbitrariness about life.” So I think his answer to the question would be: “Bad things happen to good people by
chance.” Or more specifically “Bad things happen to all people, good or bad.”
You wrote:
“his discomfort with transgender”
This is the standard criticism against Peterson, but I think it misunderstands him. Peterson isn’t uncomfortable with transgender people. The video that made him
famous was about that he objected to that the law mandates what pronoun he should call a transgender person. He has repeatedly said that if a transgender
person asked him civilly to use his prefered prounoun he would probably do it. He has videos on his youtube channel where he sat down with a transgender
person and had a good, civil discussion.
March 27, 2018 at 1:49 am ~new~
Thanks, updated the transgender part.
Eric27 says:
March 27, 2018 at 2:10 am ~new~
I have to thank you! 🙂
Gaius Levianthan XV says:
March 27, 2018 at 3:00 am ~new~
The video that made him famous was about that he objected to that the law mandates what pronoun he should call a transgender person
Except that’s not what the proposed law actually would have mandated (it was passed in July of last year, by the way).
He has repeatedly said that if a transgender person asked him civilly to use his prefered prounoun he would probably do it
Actually he said something a bit different- that he would use them if he felt that they were “genuine” but would refuse if he felt that “the fundamental
motivations were ideological”. This sounds reasonable enough at first, but he also thinks that “arguments that biology does not determine gender ‘stem
from the humanities and are entirely ideologically driven'”– so he’s essentially giving himself an excuse to refuse to use a transgender person’s preferred
pronouns regardless of how civil they are being.
nameless1 says:
March 27, 2018 at 5:09 am ~new~
But with a bit of charity you can assume that a clinical psychologist who is all about healing and helping people would use that excuse only if he
sees someone as a perpetator of that ideology instead of being its victim.
Besides, a purely biological view of gender does not invalidate trans people – brains are biological and it is a common (not sure
371 comments if true) view
since
that if a testosterone release in the womb kind of does awry and it affects only the genitals but the brain not, or the other way around, you get
trans people.
A purely biological view of gender – the view that male and female brains are different – tends to affect not as much the trans problem but
feminism – say, it means the reason there are fewer female CEOs than male because female brains are less aggressive.
In fact it would mean that aggressive women (people with vaginas) are actually somewhat trans so it would still not depend on the genitals, nor
the social roles based on the genitals… it would be solely based on brain structure and how hormones affected it in the womb.
But suppose it is not the case and Peterson still sees someone with masculine genitals and a female brain a man. I don’t know why would it be
the case since he is aware that male and female brains are different. But even if it is the case he is clearly seeing someone who is suffering.
And he seems like the kind of guy who would be willing to call that person a she if he thinks ideologues convinced he that he is a she and it
gave that person some hope and he really does not want to crush that.
I think he would only use that excuse if confronting a conscious activist lobbying for political change or something.
nameless1 says:
March 27, 2018 at 5:16 am ~new~
Wait I just completely forgot about chromosomes. Do ALL trans people have the chromosomes predicted by their birth genitals? Or is it
sometimes the chromosomes predicted by their brain / chosen gender? Because in the later case it can be that the hormone release
went avry in the genitals, not brain.
CherryGarciaMillionaire says:
March 27, 2018 at 12:16 pm ~new~
Do ALL trans people have the chromosomes predicted by their birth genitals? Or is it sometimes the chromosomes
predicted by their brain / chosen gender?
I’ve seen many people “on Peterson’s side” in the culture wars claim that there are only two genders, which can supposedly
be inferred from one’s chromosomes. I’ve found comparatively few individuals online (two, to be exact) who have spoken up
about the actual “messiness” of the relevant biology.
So I will leave this here.
First, if there are only two genders/sexes, then which gender are each of the following:
1. X (Turner Syndrome)
2. XXY (Klinefelter Syndrome)
3. “XX male syndrome,” where an individual with a female genotype has phenotypically male characteristics
4. Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome, which produces humans who are chromosomally XY but have fully female bodies. A
century ago, before human chromosomes had even been counted, there would have been no reason to doubt that such
people were women; are they now men, thanks only to scientific progress?
None of the above can be waved away by dismissing hermaphrodites as suffering from a “birth defect.” (Yes, I’ve seen people
try exactly that, to be able to ignore that obvious “third sex” exception.)
And sure, the above are all small-percentage “edge cases.” But in real science, the anomalies are what hint to you that your
theory will eventually wind up a pile of smoldering ruins, with its valid ideas being incorporated into a more-expansive
explanation of the full set of evidence. (That is in contrast to Internet “spheres” of experts-on-everything who live by the
inherently unscientific idea that “the exception proves the rule.” They know who they are.)
Further, if one’s own body’s reaction (or lack of same) to hormones can turn an XY genotype into a female phenotype…then
how can anyone argue that hormonal injections don’t produce a “real woman” from an XY genotype?
371 comments since

The other standard claim from the “only two genders” side is that gender dysphoria is a mental illness. Almost invariably they
reference the DSM in support of their position—thereby proving they’ve never even cracked it open.
Because, per the DSM, as authored by the American Psychiatric Association: “The critical element of gender dysphoria is the
presence of clinically significant distress associated with the condition…. This condition causes clinically significant distress or
impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning” (emphasis added). You can google that exact first
sentence to get the APA’s two-page PDF, as the first result.
Conversely, persons like the comedian Eddie Izzard (or the fictional Dr. Frank N. Furter), who embrace and celebrate their
transgender status, would in principle not be diagnosed as suffering from a mental disorder/illness.
Hide ↑
sclmlw says:
March 27, 2018 at 3:00 pm ~new~
Not sure how the cases you cite disprove sexual dimorphism in humans. As a biologist, this whole “debate” seems bizarre to
me. We’ve got lots of evidence from many different species on planet Earth. There are lots of different sex strategies species
can adopt. Humans have adopted a male/female sexual dimorphism common to many species. We know broadly how this
works, as well as many of the details. To oversimplify: most genes are on the 22 non-sex chromosomes and the X
chromosome. The Y chromosome has some stuff, but mostly it appears to function as a sort of biological switch, such that
embryos that get a copy switch “on” male developmental apparati and switch “off” female ones.
In rare cases, people don’t develop exactly this way. These cases do not invalidate any of the basic understanding of sexual
dimorphism in humans. Edge cases help us understand it better, but edge cases should not be interpreted as implying
humans are not sexually dimorphic, or that the theory should be replaced with a “spectrum” theory that fits none of the
evidence very well. What to do with edge cases, where people don’t follow the vast majority of the population is unclear.
Compare this to asthma. We understand how lungs and human airways work. We don’t always understand why one person
mounts an aberrant immunological attack against house dust mite, but we understand all the specific mechanisms involved in
that immunological attack, it’s pathogenesis, and its effects. None of this invalidates our understanding of how most people’s
lungs normally function, nor even how the pleural immune system functions, even if we’re not sure how to fix asthma.
By definition, the chromosomal cases cited above are edge cases, so if we’re trying to figure out how to treat them standard
thinking may not apply; but then, non-standard thinking could also lead to poor results. For example, it’s unclear injecting
hormones is as clear-cut a strategy as assumed above. Genetic regulation and timing are complex, and it’s unclear to what
extent clinician-driven substitutions differ in meaningful ways to the complex, microenvironmentally-driven signalling it is
trying to mimic. Sex-driven body/brain signaling is a lot more complex than something like insulin release from the pancreas.
And in all honesty, it has taken a long time to get even that right (to the extent patients are on adequate doses/schedules of
insulin in actual practice).
That said, just giving insulin saved lives back when we first started clumsily doing it. By definition, we were talking about
people whose pancreas didn’t function correctly, so medical intervention was warranted. I’m not saying medical intervention
isn’t warranted for edge cases in gender. I’m saying we understand the pathogenesis of those cases less than
insulin/diabetes, and it’s a system that is much more complex.
Everyone who talks about this topic is speaking from ignorance. And it’s unwise of people claim to know the Truth, and
denounce others for disagreeing with their proposed solutions (Left and Right) when we don’t even know the causes. But not
knowing the causes of transgenderism does not imply sexual dimorphism in humans is wrong.
Hide ↑
LadyJane says:
March 27, 2018 at 4:35 pm ~new~
What to do with edge cases, where people don’t follow the vast majority of the population is unclear.
It might be “unclear,” but I think we can (hopefully) agree that there are definitely better alternatives than “kill them all for
being deviants” or “throw them in jail for not conforming to social norms” or “force them to conform to whichever of the two
standard genders they were assigned at birth,” as Peterson and his followers would suggest.
By definition, the chromosomal cases cited above are edge cases, so if we’re trying to figure out how to treat them
standard thinking may not apply; but then, non-standard thinking could also lead to poor results.
371 comments since
Well, we’ve learned that it’s often psychologically beneficial to give trans people hormone treatments that make their
testosterone/estrogen levels match what’s expected of their preferred gender. Conversely, treatments designed to make their
hormone levels match their assigned gender are almost always psychologically harmful. (I knew a trans man who, prior to
transitioning, was given estrogen supplements by a doctor who assumed he was just a cis woman with unusually low
estrogen levels; this had the effect of deeply intensifying his existing feelings of dysphoria.)
We’ve also learned that it’s psychologically beneficial to let trans people live as their preferred gender and accept them as
such, and psychologically harmful to treat them and/or force them to live as their assigned gender. Treatments that help
them to physically resemble their preferred gender (including genital reconstruction, breast augmentation/removal, laser hair
removal and electrolysis, and facial surgery) also tend to be helpful for many trans people.
From this, I think it’s fairly simple to figure out the correct course of action, given the current possibilities available (although
better possibilities may become available in the future, and we shouldn’t discourage attempts to find them). At the very least,
we have a fairly solid idea of what not to do.
Hide ↑
suntzuanime says:
March 27, 2018 at 4:40 pm ~new~
I don’t know where you get the idea that Peterson wants to force anyone into gender conformity. Are you just slandering
him? Am I missing something? Have you been lied to by the word-we-can’t-say? Is this coming from the same place where
Scott got the idea that he wants to silence people?
Hide ↑
Aapje says:
March 27, 2018 at 5:21 am ~new~
@nameless1
Trans people are a big threat to a pure nurture view of the sexes and why there is a substantial TERF contingent.
Deiseach says:
March 27, 2018 at 7:33 am ~new~
male and female brains are different
Is that the new orthodoxy today? Because I remember the old orthodoxy, where only paternalistic sexist racist homophobes would say
male and female brains were different and every right-thinking person knew they were the same so you have no excuse to say women
can’t be computer programmers, you fascist!
Funny how biology changes according to the prevailing ideological requirements of the day!
mdet says:
March 27, 2018 at 11:05 am ~new~
It is not the new orthodoxy. There is a large amount of infighting and debate around what trans people mean for feminists.
There are some who say “Gender is pretty much a social construct anyway, so if someone with J genitals/chromosomes says
they’re K gender, then why not?”. There’s Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminists — the TERFs Aapje mentioned — who say
“We’ve fought hard to decouple behavioral stereotypes from gender, and now trans people are coming in and saying ‘I think
and act like a woman, therefore I am a woman’? No thanks”. And there’s a biological-differences faction that says “The
differences between men and women are largely biological, and the evidence suggesting trans people’s biology is
‘inconsistent’ reflects this”.
It’s not hypocrisy that some people support trans people because “male and female brains are different” while other
supporters consider this concept bigoted. Those actually are different groups of people.
Hide ↑
Radu Floricica says: 371 comments since

March 27, 2018 at 11:51 am ~new~
For 20 or 30 years, yes.
It’s a really good read, btw. Don’t have to go deep, I think the good part is in the first 10 pages or so.
(and in case you’re not sarcastic (I can never tell anymore, maybe we should have little flags designating sides) you could tell
exactly the same thing about physics)
Hide ↑
CherryGarciaMillionaire says:
March 27, 2018 at 12:24 pm ~new~
The obvious example of tolerance for the idea that male and female brains are different is Simon Baron-Cohen’s “extreme
male brain” theory of autism (i.e., in “male systemizing” vs. “female empathizing”).
Hide ↑
kybernetikos says:
March 27, 2018 at 2:05 pm ~new~
I’ve got very old neurology books that describe the differences between male and female brains. I don’t think the fact that
the median male brain has predictable differences to the median female brain is particularly controversial, or should ever
have been so.
The extent to which this meaningfully and relevantly affects behaviour (the magnitude of the effect), should be used to
determine the way people are treated (ethically), is caused by nurture rather than genetics, is good/bad/neutral are all things
that are much more debatable. And positions stronger than the evidence would support are often taken by people of
particular ideological persuasions.
Hide ↑
mdet says:
March 27, 2018 at 2:17 pm ~new~
@Radu Floricica, CherryGarciaMillionaire, kybernetikos
I am 90% sure Deiseach was sarcastically mocking how progressives called James Damore a bigot for saying there are few
women at Google because of male-female biological differences, yet progressives also say we know trans people aren’t
diseased / faking it because of male-female biological differences. Deiseach implies that progressives are hypocrites, the
actual answer is that progressives, like every other group, are not homogenous.
Hide ↑
beleester says:
March 27, 2018 at 1:09 pm ~new~
I think he would only use that excuse if confronting a conscious activist lobbying for political change or something.
So you’re saying he’ll only insult people when he disagrees with them politically. Phew! Good thing that politics are a minor,
unimportant part of life, so that situation will never come up!
I don’t think you’re making him sound as pleasant as you think you are.
andreyk says:
March 27, 2018 at 11:45 am ~new~
Yes, besides the article I linked above his misrepresentation of the proposed law is what has me very doubtful he is worth listening to. Seems
like a charlatan.
Aapje says:
M h 8 8
March 27, 2018 at 5:18 am ~new~
371 comments since
@Eric27
So I think his answer to the question would be: “Bad things happen to good people by chance.” Or more specifically “Bad things happen to all
people, good or bad.”
Yes, but he also argues that success breeds success and failure breeds failure, because successful people get more and better opportunities, while people
who fail get fewer and worse opportunities.
So this is why he suggests finding the areas in your life where you have the ability to actually achieve success and focusing on those first, because
actually achieving that success is likely to open up opportunities that you couldn’t imagine or plan for in your state of relative failure.
This seems like good advice to me, although it is obviously dependent on both your actual abilities and ultimately boils down to improving your chances
at the lottery of life, rather than being guaranteed a result.
I was frankly a bit confused why Scott thought that Peterson should give meaning to suffering in general, as my interpretation of Peterson is that he
thinks that overcoming is what satisfies people. I think that there are different kinds of suffering: the good kind and the bad.
When I choose to get on a racing bike and torture my legs, I suffer, but it is a controlled suffering that reaffirms my ability and makes me better. When I
chose to go to college, I suffered in some ways, but it made me better. When I get an injury, it is also suffering, but one that harms me. If someone
beats me up, it is suffering, but doesn’t make me better in the end.
I think that Peterson sees suffering just as an inevitable consequence of the human condition, something that good people are not immune from. He
instead tries to steer people towards choices that actually reduce the ‘bad’ suffering, which means getting out of local optima and accepting some
suffering that eventually leaves you in a better place.
Eric27 says:
March 27, 2018 at 6:18 am ~new~
I agree a 100 percent!
SkyBlu says:
March 27, 2018 at 11:46 am ~new~
“Bad things happen to good people by chance.” Or more specifically “Bad things happen to all people, good or bad.”
Yes, but I think Scott’s point was that Jordan Peterson’s responses don’t provide a satisfying answer to Theidiocy; If there is a meaning to life, if there is
some underlying Order to the world, why does it not seem like good people tend to be naturally luckier/happier/better off than bad people?
guardianpsych says:
March 27, 2018 at 1:48 am ~new~
Your patient comes in, says their twelve-year old kid just died in some tragic accident. Didn’t even get to say good-bye. They’re past their childbearing age
now, so they’ll never have any more children. And then they ask you for help. What do you say?
You get them to grow a plant and give it the same name as the child they lost, or find out their hobby and get them to transfer their energies into that, preferably
in a pro social way.
People need to do stuff and they need to do it with other people. Especially when grieving. Talking is fine, but action is better. (Generally the lower the IQ, the
more action and less talk)
On Peterson – he has correctly identified that modern soceity is descending into a war of all against all because we have no centralising organising values any
more (god is dead, globalisation is rupturing nationality, families break apart now theres now lifetime marriages etc) and he’s trying to replace it with a religious
set up based on self help values.
Because one of the values is individual self reliance I don’t think it will fall into culthood, it is going to be hard to create a cult by getting anyone interested in your
ideas heavily invested into not depending on you.

371 comments since
Bugmaster says:
March 27, 2018 at 2:27 am ~new~
“Nae king! Nae quin! Nae laird! Nae master! We willnae be fooled again!”
fion says:
March 27, 2018 at 5:58 am ~new~
+1
JulieK says:
March 27, 2018 at 11:42 am ~new~
“The dwarfs are for the dwarfs!”
yodelyak says:
March 27, 2018 at 3:40 pm ~new~
Anyone for a Hegelian synthesis of “The dwarfs are for the dwarfs” and “Nae king! Nae quin! Nae laird! Nae master! We willnae be fooled
again!”
Turn back, O man, forswear thy foolish ways.

Old now is earth, and none may count her days,
Yet thou, her child, whose head is crowned with flame,
Still wilt not hear thine inner God proclaim,
‘Turn back, O man, forswear thy foolish ways.’
Earth might be fair, and all men glad and wise.

Age after age their tragic empires rise,
Built while they dream, and in that dreaming weep:
Would man but wake from out his haunted sleep,
Earth might be fair, and all men glad and wise.
Earth shall be fair, and all her people one;

Nor till that hour shall God’s whole will be done.
Now, even now, once more from earth to sky,
Peals forth in joy man’s old, undaunted cry,
‘Earth shall be fair, and all her folk be one!’
(A popular hymn by Clifford Bax, also popularized as a song from the musical Godspell)
yodelyak says:
March 27, 2018 at 3:43 pm ~new~
Mostly I’m just super jealous of Bugmaster and JulieK for getting both halves of this dialogue so spot-on, and with such brilliant
references to proponents of their respective halves of the dialogue. I have to go on and on because I want to participate, and the
conversation is already complete.
Bugmaster says:
March 27, 2018 at 6:47 pm ~new~
FWIW, I believe Pratchett would reply to Lewis thusly:
“ h d f h h d h h f h h f d h h f
“The merest accident of microgeography had meant that the first man to hear the voice of Om, and who gave Om his view of
371 comments since
humans, was a shepherd and not a goatherd. They have quite different ways of looking at the world, and the whole of history
might have been different. For sheep are stupid, and have to be driven. But goats are intelligent, and need to be led.”
Hide ↑
Bugmaster says:
March 27, 2018 at 6:52 pm ~new~
I have never heard this hymn (not surprisingly, perhaps) — what is your favorite rendition of it ? Normally I wouldn’t ask, but I’ve
become aware how much the performance can impact the meaning of a song. For example, this rendition of a popular hymn changes
its meaning… well, if not 180°, then perhaps 90° or thereabouts.
AC Harper says:
March 27, 2018 at 2:44 am ~new~
I am not convinced that Jordan Peterson writes/lectures as a (modern) philosopher or guru trying to establish the framework for generating meaning in peoples’
lives. I suspect he writes as a clinician trying to establish metaphorically informed world views to help people balance their lives and reduce avoidable suffering.
So talk of a Jordan Peterson religion or cult or philosophy are perhaps an over-reach. Maybe his choice of narratives, myths or archetypes misleads?
a reader says:
March 27, 2018 at 3:01 am ~new~
@Scott:
As a psychiatrist, what do you think about Jordan Peterson’s “self authoring” program? Can it really help someone fight akrasia and put order in his/her life?
@others:
Did anybody here try it? Did it really help or not?
@Aapje:
I was right when I said that “I don’t think that Scott has such an aversion to Jordan Peterson” 🙂
Aapje says:
March 27, 2018 at 5:28 am ~new~
I disagree. I think he had a very weak and irrational aversion* that could easily change, which is what probably happened.
* More based on the delivery
BillG says:
March 27, 2018 at 9:38 am ~new~
I’ve used it, found it valuable. Returns will likely vary based on personality.
Value for me was in the stepwise process- beginning with highest level goals helped pull away from details, and then condensing down to concrete
activities helped avoid paralysis/lack of focus.
I think it would be valuable for most folks, particularly those who have difficulty articulating either their highest level goals in a concrete manner or
figuring out next steps toward attaining those goals at a reasonable level of attainability.
awalrus says:
March 27, 2018 at 3:15 am ~new~
I think Peterson is very against utilitarianism, but I’m not really sure why.
It’s my impression that his stance is similar to Seeing Like A State, 371 comments since
cautioning against meddling with complex systems one does not fully understand.
gsalisbury189 says:
March 27, 2018 at 3:24 am ~new~
One person donating a few hundred bucks to the Against Malaria Foundation will prevent suffering more effectively than a hundred people cleaning their
rooms and becoming slightly psychologically stronger. I think Peterson is very against utilitarianism, but I’m not really sure why.
It’s because of his Piagetian framework (which is kind of like Aristotelian ethics), which insists that the actions you make benefit you proximally and rippling from
there across your own networks, and across time. Donating money abroad might have the effect of helping ‘more’ people, but the effects are disembodied from
yourself and your wider circles. This makes it, for one, harder to sustain over time, while investing that same amount of money into more local areas is generally
easier to become self-perpetuating.
The two are diametrically opposed greedy algorithms, which seek to maximize in different ways. In Peterson’s way, it’s easier to reduce suffering amongst more
people, but crucially, it reduces the relative suffering differential between your peers. Arguably, suffering is easier to deal with if everyone else is suffering through
it the same.
JulieK says:
March 27, 2018 at 11:30 am ~new~
If Peterson was telling people to donate to the Against Malaria Foundation, how many people would actually do it? For his audience, telling them to clean
their room will probably have more of a result.
Plus, presumably his theory is that cleaning your room starts a process that eventually leads to your giving more money to charity.
Maybe rationalist-types can read a logical argument and start giving hundreds of dollars every year to fight malaria. But for an average person who
doesn’t give anything to charity, (generally) that aspect of his behavior will only change as part of a larger change in his behavior patterns and how he
sees himself.
Ketil says:
March 27, 2018 at 3:27 am ~new~
rooms and becoming slightly psychologically stronger. I think Peterson is very against utilitarianism, but I’m not really sure why.
Perhaps because it is a self-help book, not a help-the-statistics-on-global-inequality-and-suffering-book? The point being that giving money against malaria
improves the world, but the giver is still miserable because he doesn’t have a girlfriend, has a lousy job where his talents aren’t appreciated, lacks this, wants for
that. This isn’t utilitarian or consequentialist, is is virtue ethics.
Recently I’ve read up a bit on stoicism, and I find it interesting to contrast and compare (to the ability of my amateur understanding of either topic) stoicism and
Peterson. I think there are many parallels, the most fundamental one is to focus on yourself. Be a better person! Chasing hedonism, materialism, or other people’s
approval won’t make you happy. Don’t look for someone to blame, don’t complain about your lot in life (which to be honest, isn’t all that bad, considering). Realize
that you cannot avoid misfortunes in life, but that you can control how you respond to it. And so on.
Anon. says:
March 27, 2018 at 3:43 am ~new~
What is the life expectancy for people with congenital insensitivity to pain?
liskantope says:
March 27, 2018 at 3:46 am ~new~
rooms and becoming slightly psychologically stronger.
I don’t think it’s quite as clear-cut as that. Peterson’s repeated “learn to make your own bed first” advice, while coming across as rather judgmental and superior
in tone given the manner and frequency at which he says it, doesn’t strike me as that incompatible with utilitarianism. I haven’t read the book being reviewed, but
I’ve seen a lot of Peterson lectures and interviews on YouTube, and I’ve heard him justify this philosophy as one enabling people to become far more effective at
371 comments since
reducing suffering in the world.
If we learn to get our own lives in order, we can become better effective altruists. I’ve seen this emphasized multiple times by EAs, in the context of discussing
mental health issues affecting rationalists/EAs who aren’t sure how acceptable it is to prioritize alleviating their own suffering over directly tackling greater
suffering in the world. (Actually calculating how far people should go in taking care of themselves at the expense of energy spent directly on EA causes is a
nontrivial problem, of course.)
IrishDude says:
March 27, 2018 at 8:24 am ~new~
Here’s an interview clip with Jordan getting at what you’re saying. Get your stuff together (e.g. cleaning your room) and you’ll be more competent at
taking on the larger, more complicated challenges.
EDIT: Jordan offers a particular example in Boyan Slat, who, instead of protesting environmental issues, worked to solve them by developing a method
to clean plastic from the ocean.
liskantope says:
March 27, 2018 at 9:42 am ~new~
That’s the particular interview I was thinking of when I wrote that, actually. 🙂
March 27, 2018 at 11:15 am ~new~
I agree you can make this argument, but Peterson doesn’t find the “actually go out and relieve the suffering” part interesting or worth talking about at
all, which is surprising.
I think the EAs advocate a balance between self-improvement (investing in your future ability to improve the world) vs. current improving the world
(without having a strong position on what form that balance takes). I don’t really see Peterson as addressing this.

March 27, 2018 at 12:15 pm ~new~
I kind of think his approach is more robust. If you happen to live in an universe that has either a well of very deep suffering or a vastness of
somewhat less fortunate, it would be at least challenging to focus on finding a balance. Plus, by definition it would be splitting an existing pie.
Focusing on a rippling self-improvement is immune to a “bad” universe, ends up improving it in the end, and focuses of making the pie bigger.
Might be slower, but more efficient long term.
Rocket says:
March 27, 2018 at 4:38 am ~new~
A bit of an aside from Peterson, but relevant to the idea of conflicting Order-Chaos drives and uncertainty-minimization: There was a paper about a month ago
about getting AI agents to learn new and interesting behaviours, which touched surprisingly close to that.
Background: Lots of people have tried “reinforcement learning”, where you plop an AI agent in some environment in which it can take actions, and doing certain
things nets it a ‘reward’, then you let it do its own thing to try to learn how to maximize that reward. The problem with this is that if reward is rare, as it can be in
many scenarios, the AI gets very few opportunities to learn from it. Imagine a game where such an AI only got a reward for finishing a complex level, but no
reward for incremental progress: The odds of it coincidentally stumbling into that reward are extremely low, and it will take it a vast, vast amount of time and
random button-mashing to join up the dots and figure out which chains of actions got it to that state, and so learn how to get that reward more efficiently in
future.
The paper took a different approach: Rather than purely seeking out reward, the AI agent should give itself its own goal, namely to understand how to manipulate
the environment it’s in. They achieved that goal (and here’s where the Order-Chaos part comes in) by giving it two components. The first component looks at the
input it’s getting (i.e. what the agent can see in the virtual world it’s in) and the action (i.e. what “buttons” the agent is pushing). It then tries to predict what the
t ill t i th d t di t th f th t ti
agent will see next – in other words, to predict the consequences of that action.
371 comments since
The fun part comes from the second component, though, which has an adversarial relationship with the first. It’s the bit that gets to choose actions, and it
chooses actions so as to maximally challenge the first component. It’s the Chaos, in this analogy, but it’s also the driver of learning, because if the first component
was in control, and the only goal was to minimize uncertainty, it would just sit still and stare at a blank wall. With the two components, though, the AI effectively
“learns through play”, starting by moving itself around until the predictor component has mastered that before focusing on objects in the scene, and specifically
how to toss them around in maximally confusing ways. (Insert your own analogy to toddlers here)
As well as being an interesting piece of computer-psychology (this is sort of becoming a field lately), the longer-term hope is that such agents will build a model of
their environment even in the absence of external reward signals, and so when reward arrives, they’ll have some higher-level abstractions ready to go (“Maybe I
need to move the blocks onto the button”) rather than having to painstakingly bootstrap their world-model from raw pixels and rare rewards. In other words, such
agents may be far more effective at getting reward than ones that are solely motivated by getting reward.
benwave says:
March 27, 2018 at 1:53 pm ~new~
That’s interesting. “Imagine a game where such an AI only got a reward for finishing a complex level, but no reward for incremental progress: The odds
of it coincidentally stumbling into that reward are extremely low, and it will take it a vast, vast amount of time and random button-mashing to join up the
dots and figure out which chains of actions got it to that state, and so learn how to get that reward more efficiently in future” Sure sounds like an
accurate description of adult life to me!
tossrock says:
March 27, 2018 at 3:40 pm ~new~
Reminiscent of Sax’s ruminations on the “habitable zone” of complexity between order and chaos from Blue Mars:
“There was orderly behavior, there was chaotic behavior; and on their border, in their interplay, so to speak, lay a very large and convoluted zone, the
realm of the complex. This was the zone in which viriditas made its appearance, the place where life could exist. Keeping life in the middle of the zone of
complexity was, in the most general philosophical sense, what the longevity treatments had been about — keeping various incursions of chaos (like
arrhythmia) or of order (like malignant cell growth) from fatally disrupting the organism.” Kim Stanley Robinson, Blue Mars, 1996
Erfeyah says:
March 27, 2018 at 4:57 am ~new~
But it would be really interesting if one day we could determine that this universal overused metaphor actually reflects something important about the
structure of our brains.
He has a chapter in his book Maps of Meaning where he maps the pattern (which is more than just order and chaos – see the same book) onto parts of the brain.
Would be really interested to know what you think!
Andy B says:
March 27, 2018 at 4:59 am ~new~
But on another level, something about it seems a bit off. Taken literally, wouldn’t this turn you into a negative utilitarian? (I’m not fixated on the “negative” part,
maybe Peterson would admit positive utility into his calculus). One person donating a few hundred bucks to the Against Malaria Foundation will prevent suffering
more effectively than a hundred people cleaning their rooms and becoming slightly psychologically stronger. I think Peterson is very against utilitarianism, but I’m
not really sure why.
Peterson is preaching a virtue ethic. If he spoke your language, he might suggest that it is consequentially better for his audience to cultivate the virtue of care
rather than (or at the very least prior to) the virtue of rationality. To me that seems obviously correct.
nameless1 says:
March 27, 2018 at 5:02 am ~new~
I like him, but I really don’t get his overly pragmatic approach to truth. I don’t really get how a conservative version of Rorty’s pragmatism can work. Take this
transgenderism thing. The conservative thinks that being born with a penis makes you a man. He does not think it is good for you think you are a man if you are
born with a penis. He can accept that it can be horrible for you. He just says you cannot change this reality. But if what is good for you is true, then it is good for
bo t a pe s e ca accept t at t ca be o b e o you e just says you ca ot c a ge t s ea ty ut at s good o you s t ue, t e t s good o
you think you are whatever gender you feel the most comforable in. 371 comments since
Maybe he means it is good for you to accept objective reality. But in that case truth is not what is good for but what conforms to objective reality. And what is
good for you is not truth as such, but accepting it.
Suppose you have terminal cancer. It is the truth and it is not good at all. Accepting it can be good, in the sense that less bad than keeping to deny it until the last
moment because it can make you hurry up and do some things you would regret not doing while you are alive. But it is acceptance that is good for you, not truth
in itself.
lemmycaution415 says:
March 27, 2018 at 10:40 am ~new~
He needs the pragmatic concept of truth to discuss religious and mythical ideas as true. the pragmatist William James does the same thing in Varieties of
Religious Experience. Peterson develops a version of what James calls the “second born” that emphasizes redemption and construction of meaning
through suffering. There is also a less prevelant “first born” temperament that deemphasizes suffering. James’ framework is 100% comparable with
Darwinian evolution. Things that resonate with peoples religous temperaments become super popular.
LadyJane says:
March 27, 2018 at 5:04 pm ~new~
But if what is good for you is true, then it is good for you think you are whatever gender you feel the most comforable in.
From what I can tell, there are two reasons why Peterson rejects this. First, he disagrees with the object-level claim that transgender identities are valid;
i.e. he doesn’t think there’s any justifiable cause for a seemingly-male person to identify as a female or vice-versa. He doesn’t accept that it’s possible
for someone to have a “female brain in a male body,” or at least thinks it’s extraordinarily rare and not actually the case for 99% of the people claiming
it. In his eyes, trans people (or at least the vast majority of them) are either delusional, lying to themselves, or faking it for social status, and in keeping
with his near-obsessive focus on Truth above all else, he thinks it’s unethical to play along with their lies and delusions.
Second, and even more importantly, a big part of his philosophy is centered around accepting your circumstances, including the societal roles that people
were born into. This is one of the core aspects of his whole philosophical and ideological framework, possibly the single most important aspect. I can’t
emphasize that enough, it’s the lynchpin of his entire worldview, to the point where he believes that people imprisoned in gulags should simply take
responsibility for their actions and make the best of their current circumstances. This is why he believes that women should conform to traditional gender
roles, and why he condemns blaming social/political/economic factors for people’s problems – not because he doesn’t believe that sociological factors can
affect people in negative ways, but because he thinks those considerations are irrelevant, since the real question is how people choose to live within their
sociological constraints.
So even if he did acknowledge the validity of trans people’s claims, he’d still think the correct course of action would be for them to accept that they can’t
have everything they want and go along with society’s expectations, rather than struggling against the current to change society’s view of them. Again,
this is a man who believes that the correct course of action for a concentration camp guard would be to do his job to the best of his ability, because the
alternative would be a state of anarchy that would be worse off for everyone. He is conservative to an extreme, not in the political sense of the word
(most political conservatives are actually quite supportive of change, as long as it’s in the direction they like), but in the literal sense of opposing all
changes to the current status quo as a matter of principle.
zima says:
March 27, 2018 at 5:19 am ~new~
I think Peterson’s psychology videos are great; I learned a lot and did feel my life become more meaningful. But lots of his takes outside psychology are
somewhat crazy, and he definitely didn’t help his reputation by threatening a critic on Twitter recently. Overall, this seems like another example of an intellectual
becoming controversial because they became well-known based on polarizing views outside their area of expertise (like Chomsky?), but it’d be unfortunate to
ignore his insightful psychology work because of it.
Erfeyah says:
March 27, 2018 at 5:59 am ~new~
Well, while I personally do not believe that swearing was necessary, especially for a public intellectual, the ‘critic’ you are referring to used the arguably
far more offensive characterisation of fascist towards Peterson as well as insulting a friend of his based on fake claims. It was a smear piece.

371 comments since
P. George Stewart says:

March 27, 2018 at 5:28 am ~new~
What’s wrong with cliches? Sayings and cliches often represent the accumulated wisdom of the human race. The fact that you’ve heard them a million times
before doesn’t make them any less true.
I think the reason Peterson has charisma is probably because he’s had mystical experiences, which give you an inner conviction and enthusiasm that’s completely
unshakable, which you inadvertently transmit to others. I rather think that’s the true origin of religion in almost all cases, for left to his own devices,
naturalistically-minded man would never have come up with the kinds of ideas you get in religion (and there have always been sceptics – the materialist Carvaka
school was recognized as part of the intellectual atmosphere of early Hinduism). But the religious stuff is garbled, third-hand reports of mystical experience
minced over with speculative philosophical reasoning.
Someone has a direct experience of a trivial fact: the universe is a Great Big Thing, and we are as much that Thing as anything else (fallacy of composition? no –
“grammatically,” this is like a wall made of brown bricks being brown). And whatever mysterious Engine undergirds the universe we see, we are also That, a chip
off the old block at the very least. People get this experience here and there in various ways – unusual stress, cheating death, a walk in nature, doing any of the
numerous largely identical contemplative practices that have been developed by recluses in all human cultures.
It’s almost impossible to understand and directly experience that large but trivial fact in the normal frame of mind: the normal frame of mind is steeped in the
illusion of radical separateness. We can’t help but feel we are a separate “thing” inside the body, peeping out from somewhere behind the eyes. The hypnotic
trance of being a “self” is so strong that breaking out from it is quite rare.
But it happens, and when it happens, the person who it happens to becomes fearless, enthusiastic, compassionate, and has a twinkle in their eye.
This makes them attract followers.
The followers may or may not “get” the same message.
The thing becomes institutionalized.
It becomes socially acceptable, then respected.
When it’s respected, the rich send their useless second sons and daughters to communities around the thing.
In order to accommodate some form of progression for the useless second sons and daughters, the “religion” is turned into something palatable, intellectually
intricate, etc. – it keeps them occupied.
Eventually, when the useless second sons and daughters take charge, the system ossifies into dogma, gets enforced by governments, etc.
Alkatyn says:
March 27, 2018 at 5:28 am ~new~
Its nice to see a steelman of Peterson, but I’m not sure if this really addresses the problems people have with him.
If he was just talking about how good things are good in an eloquent way I don’t think people would object to him, but also nobody would have heard of him. He
may be good at saying uncontroversial ethical claims in a compelling way, but he also packages them with a lot of traditionalist ideology without ever making a
distinction between them.
Similarly for his supporters, maybe what they get out of the experience in the end is a valuable self help framework. But most of what seems to attract them and
what they want to talk about when they talk about JP isn’t that stuff, but the altright-esque talking points.
For example, I’m not sure exactly how talking about how mainstream academia and the media is dominated by “neo-marxist postmodernists” relates to the
project of being a better person. The most sympathetic interpretation would be that its an extension of his truth absolutism, by saying the postmodernist cultural
marxists are saying there isn’t such a thing as objective truth. Which a) probably isn’t true of 90% of the people the term is applied to (would be pretty hard to be
a journalist with no such thing as truth) and b) doesn’t really connect with the attacks he makes on them, which aren’t about epistemology but culture war stuff.
Even if we treat the idea of neo-marxistpostmodernists as a real thing, his arguments against them seem to be responses to strawmen that dodge the actual
question. E.g. White privilege isn’t real, not because white people aren’t privileged, but because lumping people together into groups is a less valuable thing than
trying to do good yourself. Which I’m pretty sure nobody would disagree with. And that if you beleive in talking about groups as privileged thats analogous to the
extermination of the Kulaks in soviet russia Here https://www youtube com/watch?v aZK9h Mzmu8 and in more detail here https://www youtube com/watch?
extermination of the Kulaks in soviet russia. Here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZK9h_Mzmu8 and in more detail here https://www.youtube.com/watch?
371 comments since
v=JEESNpAu1EU.
Similarly, his idea that there is something inherently different about males and females, (he talks about it in terms of “archetypes”) and that this should be
treated as a normative claim, not just a descriptive one. (e.g. women are inherently more caring so should be mothers). Which is a pretty basic is/ought error,
and also seems to contradict his own rules about intellectual modesty (e.g. “12. Assume that the person you are listening to might know something you need to
know. Listen to them hard enough so that they will share it with you.”) Which would seem to entail you should take other people’s claims about their experiences
with gender seriously. So if lots of women say traditional gender roles suck for them you should listen.
(Also apparently Frozen is propoganda that says women don’t need men. And that’s bad? Apparently the self responsibility and and determination stuff only
applies to men for unclear reasons. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_GtYEPoc9wM )

March 27, 2018 at 6:14 am ~new~
> would be pretty hard to be a journalist with no such thing as truth
On the contrary, it is very easy to be a journalist whose output has no connection with the truth. It’s pretty much the default setting, in fact.
eyeballfrog says:
March 27, 2018 at 12:47 pm ~new~
So if lots of women say traditional gender roles suck for them you should listen.
(Also apparently Frozen is propoganda that says women don’t need men. And that’s bad? Apparently the self responsibility and and
determination stuff only applies to men for unclear reasons.)
One of the points Peterson has made is that in his experience as a clinical psychologist, a lot of women have found themselves very unhappy in
nontraditional gender roles. But “there’s a good chance you’ll find the most happiness in a traditional mother role” is not currently an accepted message
for women in society. But this too is part of self-determination. Figuring out what will really make you fulfilled in life is just as important for men and
women. And for the record, Peterson is quite adamant that men need women. See this (perhaps overly strong) condemnation of MGTOW.
Anatoly says:
March 27, 2018 at 5:56 am ~new~
I didn’t read the book, but the way Peterson comes across in this review is essentially the way he comes across to me in the Youtube clips I saw (only phrased
much better than I could, because Scott always says it better).
Someone who says things that are cliches, but with a lot of conviction that rings true, and with outstanding oratory skills. And that may seem like faint praise, but
it really isn’t, it’s fulsome praise as far as I’m concerned.
People are often discussing why Peterson appeals so much to young disaffected males. I used to read a lot of CW material from both sides because I’m stupidly
obsessed with understanding both sides of every CW issue I come across, as I imagine quite a few people here are, so e.g. I read both KiA and GamerGhazi for
years and I don’t even play games much. And the MRA/PUA/redpill camp has always been full of “fix your own house” type of advice. MRAs have the ironic mantra
“Lawyer up, delete Facebook, hit the gym”; leaving lawyering up aside, isn’t that what Peterson is saying?
Except for two things. One, Peterson is not pushing an ideology and is not shoring up support to wage CW. He keeps bringing things back to your own personality
and a chance of leading a fulfilling life. Radical SJ activism is bad not because it’s destroying the society or whatever; well, maybe it is, but much more important
is that it’s bad *for you*. Second, and this is something Scott doesn’t mention in this review, and I’m not sure how important it is but I think it might be, Peterson
is saying it from a standpoint of an academic and an intellectual. And that carries a lot of authority for intellectually curious people that gave/gives Peterson a
huge boost.
TyphonBaalHammon says:
March 27, 2018 at 6:39 am ~new~
« Peterson is not pushing an ideology »
Yes he is He’s consistently pushing against feminism against “post-modernism” against all kinds of progressiveness and also against the far-right He’s
Yes he is. He s consistently pushing against feminism, against post-modernism , against all kinds of progressiveness, and also against the far-right. He s
pretty obviously some sort of moderate conservative.

371 comments since
There’s worse things than being a moderate conservative, but on the other hand it’s really tiresome to see moderate conservatism presented as the
apolitical common sense default.
Deiseach says:
March 27, 2018 at 7:39 am ~new~
it’s really tiresome to see moderate conservatism presented as the apolitical common sense default
I can see that would be as tiresome as it is seeing moderative progressivism being presented as the apolitical common sense default (as in the
“conservatives versus neutrals” thing). You’re right-leaning, we’re plain fact-seekers.
Anatoly says:
March 27, 2018 at 8:38 am ~new~
He might be a moderate conservative, but he’s not *pushing* moderate conservatism. For example, have you heard Peterson say anything on
abortion? Intervention in Syria? Small government? Do you know if he’s for or against US steel tariffs (hey, they potentially affect Canada)? In
the time when almost everyone waging CW happily align themselves pro- or anti- Trump, Peterson never even mentions the man. I imagine this
takes quite a principled commitment. For example, our host explicitly declared anti-Trump before the election (I’m not criticizing, I did the same
on my own blog). Peterson seems to be less political than Scott Alexander. I kind of feel that he’s earned the right to be seriously considered
apolitical.
blacktrance says:
March 27, 2018 at 6:49 pm ~new~
Having and advocating for an ideology doesn’t require taking positions on the object-level issues of the day. For example, we don’t
need to wonder what Rawls would think about steel tariffs to classify him as a progressive.
Conrad Honcho says:
March 27, 2018 at 9:39 am ~new~
He’s consistently pushing against feminism, against “post-modernism”, against all kinds of progressiveness, and also against the far-
right. He’s pretty obviously some sort of moderate conservative.
Being against ideology is not the same thing as having ideology. This is the old “atheism is a religion too” trope.
TyphonBaalHammon says:
March 27, 2018 at 10:45 am ~new~
I don’t think this comparison is fair at all. First of all, though atheism is no religion at all, militant atheism can meaningfully be said to
have common points with religion.
Second, Peterson is not just a random dude living a random life, he’s a famous guy actively arguing in favor of some things and
against other things.
It’s not just that he has opinions, but that he makes videos about them, and books, and through them, he exhort people to change
their behaviour.
That corpus of opinions on what to think on certain topics, and what people should do, constitutes an ideology, whether he likes it or
not.
But again, I want to stress that I don’t think it’s in itself bad to push an ideology.
Maybe Peterson and his ilk do, but that’s their problem, not mine.
The difference between the atheism-as-religion thesis and the anti-ideology-as-ideology is that atheism by itself does not compel
people to do anything in particular. Nonbelief does not entail that you should convert your neighbour.
371 comments since

Some atheists do and in that they do resemble other missionaries.
Similarly the anti-ideology conservative creed of Peterson is not just not having an ideology, it’s a pronounced dislike of other
ideologies and an active attempt to undermine them, argue against them, etc… And the wider worldview that he promotes is not some
sort of neutral status quo from the ether, it’s a very specific idea of how people should behave and society should work, accompanied
by frantic shoutings of “DO NOT EXAMINE THIS” if someone points it out.
Aapje says:
March 27, 2018 at 7:15 am ~new~
@Anatoly
I would argue that it all boils down to these men realizing that that the dominant feminist narrative that claims that they are free in their choices and
that they have huge opportunities is a lie. The actual truth is that men can generally only succeed if they to a large extent follow the traditional male role
and walk the thin line. At the end of this line, there is also only ‘success’ in a few ways, which has some severe costs, but these costs are less recognized
or respected nowadays.
This is also where the enormous anger at feminists by some men who don’t naturally enjoy the traditional male role comes from, because it is feminism
which claims to break this down, but which is seen as demanding traditionalism from men when that benefits women & which tends to refuse to also hold
women accountable for their traditionalism, when that harms men. Also, whenever people challenge the feminist narrative, huge forces tend to brought
down on them (like most of the media & other institutions).
Furthermore, the male gender role and the society that believes in it hate male victim-hood, so it is extremely hard for men to organize for male causes
or succeed when they do, because it tends to cause disgust reactions on an emotional, unconscious level.
So instead, a lot of men recognize that any attempt to change society makes them unlikely to end up like Martin Luther King* and more like that
homeless person in the park who tries to convert people.
So then the more realistic choice is to not try to truly change the system, but either disengage (MGTOW), engage from a position of knowledge so you
can reduce the risks & perhaps do some anonymous arguing on the Internet (MRA-lite) or go dark triad (Red Pill PUA).
So I would argue that many of these men choose to turn to traditionalism because they see it as the only realistic option to improve their lives. It’s not
like true egalitarianism is an option right now.
* Although, he ended up shot dead…
SkyBlu says:
March 27, 2018 at 12:05 pm ~new~
I would argue that it all boils down to these men realizing that that the dominant feminist narrative that claims that they are free in
their choices and that they have huge opportunities is a lie.
I may simply be reading from radically different sources from you, but I get the impression that the dominant feminist narrative nowadays is
that men are also hurt by gender roles in the exact way you describe: the less you conform to male gender roles, the less male privilege applies
to you. However, this doesn’t mean that women who conform to their gender roles are suddenly just as successful as men who conform to
them; the system privileges men over women, but gender non-conforming people and anyone else who threatens the system gets the shortest
end of the stick. I can’t pretend that there are no feminists who think the way you describe, and feminism does need to be better at actually
helping men also, but I think it’s unfair to say that feminism doesn’t recognize this reality and doesn’t intend to help these men.
eyeballfrog says:
March 27, 2018 at 1:00 pm ~new~
but I think it’s unfair to say that feminism … doesn’t intend to help these men.
I see this as somewhat like Kafka’s toxin puzzle. They intend to help those men, but what have they done to actually help? Can you
really be said to intend to do something if you never actually do it?
L i t R l Hid ↑
371 comments since
AeXeaz says:
March 27, 2018 at 6:12 am ~new~
Huh, I’ve watched a lot of his youtube videos, and I still don’t understand how Peterson’s ideas are “traditionalist”, or move people towards a “traditionalist” path
– could someone help me out here?
fion says:
March 27, 2018 at 8:37 am ~new~
Belief in importance of institutions such as marriage and nuclear family, belief in “traditional” gender roles, belief that religion is a valuable part of our
culture.
I know people who explicitly want to erode the institution of marriage because they think it is harmful to humanity, who are somewhat estranged from
their immediate family and instead form almost familial-strength bonds with their friends and (multiple) lovers, who believe it is healthy and normal to
‘be in touch with your *-ine side’ and who think that religion is dangerous and harmful.
The first paragraph describes “traditionalist” values and ideas. The second describes values and ideas that are not “traditionalist”.
*=mascul/femin – the opposite of your birth gender
Lambert says:
March 27, 2018 at 11:06 am ~new~
Why is it always the nuclear family touted by traditionalists? Extended family has been the norm for far longer, and has increasing benefits in
this day and age.
fontesmustgo says:
March 27, 2018 at 11:19 am ~new~
I would imagine difference in outcomes between Nuclear and Single-Parent families are greater than the difference in outcomes
between Nuclear and Extended families.
Sniffnoy says:
March 27, 2018 at 3:06 pm ~new~
Because for your garden-variety traditionalist, the “tradition” has nothing to do with what’s actually been practiced for a long time, and
has a lot to do with such things as A. what you grew up with, and B. what people tell you the tradition is.
Jack Lecter says:
March 27, 2018 at 4:21 pm ~new~
+1 for insight.
This is the sort of thing that can come off as snarky, but it answers something than can be genuinely puzzling, especially if
you’re not closely acquainted with any traditionalists.
The difference between what people are optimizing for and what they say they’re optimizing for is practically impossible to
point out without sounding sarcastic, with the result that, if you’re not intuitive about this stuff, you can be confused about it
for years without anyone setting you straight.
(I’m not knocking snark, per se, and if snark was your intent you can consider the +1 for insight a bonus; on the margin,
there’s a lot to be said for encouraging insightful snark over insightless snark.)
Hide ↑
Sniffnoy says:
March 27, 2018 at 4:43 pm ~new~ 371 comments since
Yes to be clear I meant that as an honest answer. I did realize it might come off as snarky but didn’t feel like putting in the
effort to make sure it didn’t. 😛
Hide ↑
Whatever Happened To Anonymous says:
March 27, 2018 at 6:13 am ~new~
I see the r/jordanpeterson subreddit is already two-thirds culture wars, so they’re off to a good start. Why can’t we stick to the purity of the original
teachings, with their giant gold lobster idols?
Tragically, the most ardent Peterson defenders on the internet are the ones that are failing the hardest to follow his “teachings”.
Conrad Honcho says:

March 27, 2018 at 9:41 am ~new~
Hey, I cleaned my room last weekend!

March 27, 2018 at 6:27 am ~new~
>One person donating a few hundred bucks to the Against Malaria Foundation will prevent suffering more effectively than a hundred people cleaning their rooms
and becoming slightly psychologically stronger.
Just about everyone will be more strongly affected by (say) a dozen local children being killed in a school bus accident than they will be by (say) a thousand
people being killed in an earthquake in Uzbekistan. When it comes to your own child, or a child who is otherwise close to you, even one child being killed is going
to cause you more distress than the thousand people in Uzbekistan. A holder of the homo economicus or utilitarian view would argue that the Uzbekistan event
should somehow make us feel worse, but that is not how human beings actually work.
Similarly, while it might be emotionally rewarding to write a check to an organization that tries to prevent animal suffering, that is not going to give you anything
like the direct psychological reward you’ll get from bandaging up a kitten’s injured paw.
People have a stronger emotional connection with those nearer to them, and, of course, no one is nearer than oneself.
edgepatrol says:
March 27, 2018 at 6:58 am ~new~
Ahhh. I have been hoping you would read his new book and post your thoughts on it. 😉 I enjoyed reading this, and tbh I also enjoy JP’s philosophy quite a bit,
although it’s not without its own set of errors.
As to why bad things happen to good people, I have been meaning to tell you that I’ve NEVER read a more satisfying answer to that question, than the one at the
conclusion of Unsong.
Deiseach says:
March 27, 2018 at 6:58 am ~new~
You become a prophet by saying things that you would have to either be a prophet or the most pompous windbag in the Universe to say, then looking a little too
wild-eyed for anyone to be comfortable calling you the most pompous windbag in the universe.
I was smiling a little up to this about Peterson the Prophet, but I have to admit it made me pause: if he’s just a pompous windbag as his critics and opponents are
insisting he is, why are they so wound up about him?
The only thing I really know is that he gets called a transphobe because of some kind of refusal to use special pronouns, but is the trans activism movement really
so big a deal that someone has to be burned at the stake for not falling in line? As I said, the little I know of it is that A (where “A” means “people online as in on
Tumblr and sometimes in the sub-reddit and quoted articles from elsewhere”) says Peterson wants to murder trans people (or the like) and this is all because – he
won’t use “preferred pronouns” if he thinks the particular ones are stupid?
371 clothes”
I don’t know. I don’t think Peterson is doing anything strange, new or startling (“eat your vegetables, stand up straight, wash your comments sinceour mothers
is what
told us) and I certainly find it very difficult to think of him as a guru or inspired seer or anything other than a middling public sort-of-intellectual, but he seems to
provoke a striking response out of all proportion in those who detest him, so maybe he is a prophet – and as we know, they kill the prophets and stone those sent
to them.
lvlln says:
March 27, 2018 at 7:24 am ~new~
The only thing I really know is that he gets called a transphobe because of some kind of refusal to use special pronouns, but is the trans activism
movement really so big a deal that someone has to be burned at the stake for not falling in line?
Peterson himself has commented on the sort of absurdity at this. After all, though he’s been public for a while, he never courted fame, and what caused
him to be famous was a few YouTube videos he made some night when he couldn’t sleep, due to being consumed by thoughts about a client of his who
was being bullied by social justice warriors.
This is where I think he’d say the “post-modern neo-Marxism” comes in. The issue was never truly about pronouns, it was about power. For one, he’s
been consistent in stating that he sees no problem with using preferred pronouns, as long as it’s negotiated in good will between himself and the person
who wants him to use a certain pronoun. What he objected to was enforcing the use of preferred pronouns in law. So it’s not that the trans activism
movement is particularly big, but rather that there’s a larger movement that’s using the trans movement as a tool to achieve greater ends than just
convincing people to use certain pronouns.
Especially making the issue confusing is that this isn’t even a “trans activist” issue. After all, the vast majority of trans people just want to be called the
pronoun they identify as rather than the one of their birth, whereas what made Peterson so famous was his objection to a law compelling the use of
recently-created pronouns such as “xe” or “xer.” The proportion of people within the trans population who go by these non-standard pronouns is fairly
small, I believe, so it’s not necessarily clear that compelling others to use such pronouns is a major interest for the trans community at large. Which
points to a larger, deeper cause.
It’s hard to say how much of this is Peterson being hypersensitive to totalitarianism due to his field of expertise and applying a particularly strong
pattern-matching algorithm. On the one hand, of all things, totalitarianism seems to be not such a terrible thing to be hypersensitive to. On the other
hand, I think the reaction of the left to Trump shows that being hypersensitive to totalitarianism can cause incredible amounts of harm to oneself and to
others that far exceed the original threat that triggered the response in the first place. On the other OTHER hand, the left that caused this harm seem to
have, at best, a cargo cult level understanding of totalitarianism while Peterson’s understanding seems actually meaningful.
Iain says:
March 27, 2018 at 9:57 am ~new~
whereas what made Peterson so famous was his objection to a law compelling the use of recently-created pronouns such as “xe” or “xer.”
It looks like it is time for me to yet again step in and point out that the law in question said nothing of the sort. It merely added “gender
identity or expression” to the existing laundry list of prohibited grounds for discrimination, just after “sexual orientation” and just before
“marital status, family status, disability or conviction for an offence for which a pardon has been granted or in respect of which a record
suspension has been ordered”.
At the federal level, that is. Peterson’s home province of Ontario updated made the equivalent change on a provincial level way back in 2012.
If this is what a meaningful understanding of totalitarianism looks like, then sign me up for the cargo cult.
Nicholas Conrad says:

March 27, 2018 at 10:24 am ~new~
You’re not wrong, but you’re not *not* wrong. The text of the legistlation doesn’t directly mention pronouns, but the body charged
with *enforcing* it DID explicitly list on their website mis-pronouning as a cause for enforcement under the law. So while technically
correct that the “law” doesn’t mention it, the legal opinion of the enforcing body is that it’s broad enough to encompass pronouns, and
in fact the “law” in the broader sense of the government-at-large did explicitly mention pronouns. By the way, a distinction Peterson
had made *many* times, so good job feeling smug about knocking down that haggard strawman.
lvlln says:
371 comments since
March 27, 2018 at 10:34 am ~new~
I believe this is the video where Peterson criticizes C-16 and which triggered the firestorm of controversy around him. This
distinction is a core part of his argument for why he considers the bill to be pernicious.
Perhaps I ought to be clearer in saying that the law doesn’t explicitly compel the use of such pronouns, but rather that it
amends existing policies around enforcement such that use of such pronouns is now compelled under threat of legal
punishment.
Hide ↑
Anatoly says:
March 27, 2018 at 1:47 pm ~new~
When I tried to get to the bottom of this some time ago, the most thorough and convincing argument I could find about it
claimed that mis-pronouning wouldn’t fall under the law after all.
Now it’s also written in a very smug style and I’m loath to take it on faith, but the article seems to make good points,
especially when it claims that most everyone talking about it interprets the phrases in the law in a prima facie way, which
extra confuses the picture.
Hide ↑

March 27, 2018 at 7:40 am ~new~
> The only thing I really know is that he gets called a transphobe because of some kind of refusal to use special pronouns
That is not quite correct. He refuses to be ordered to be use those pronouns. He doesn’t refuse to use them at all (and in fact has said that he probably
would use them if requested).
There is a subtle but important difference here.
Example:
I am an agnostic (more or less), but still generally refer to the Pope as “His Holiness” should I happen to mention him.
That’s not because I believe the office of Pope has any special holiness associated with it (I don’t believe that at all) but because it’s the polite convention
and I don’t wish to be gratuitously rude to those who do believe the Pope is holy.
That’s an entirely different thing from someone ordering me to call the Pope “His Holiness” or else be hounded from my job.
Riley Martine says:
March 27, 2018 at 8:53 am ~new~
Someone in another comment linked Robinson’s The Intellectual We Deserve. The relevant piece is as follows:
Peterson first came to international prominence when he publicly opposed Canada’s Bill C-16, which added gender expression and
identity to the list of prohibited grounds of discrimination in the Canadian Human Rights Act. Peterson claimed that under the bill, he
could be compelled to use a student’s preferred gender pronoun or face criminal prosecution, and suggested that social justice activists
were promoting a totalitarian ideology. In fact, there was nothing in the bill that criminalized the failure to use people’s preferred
gender pronouns (full text), and I share the belief that government legislation requiring people to use particular pronouns would be an
infringement on civil liberties. But since that’s a position shared by Noam Chomsky and the ACLU, it’s not a particularly devastating
criticism of the left.
After this, the linked essay talks about Peterson’s comparison of trans activists to Mao, and how “The first thing is that their philosophy
presumes that group identity is paramount. That’s the fundamental philosophy that drove the Soviet Union and Maoist China. And it’s the
fundamental philosophy of the left-wing activists.” (Quote from Peterson) The essay continues with a restatement of the goals of activists:
I think it’s worth remembering here what anti-discrimination activists are actually asking for: they want transgender people not to be
fired from their jobs for being transgender, not to suffer gratuitously in prisons, to be able to access appropriate healthcare, not to be
victimized in hate crimes, and not to be ostracized, evicted, or disdained.
victimized in hate crimes, and not to be ostracized, evicted, or disdained.
371 comments since
Peterson’s stance of not wanting to be “forced” to use correct pronouns is disingenuous and reeks of the “identity politics” he is seeking to vilify.
He makes a demonstrably false claim about the bill and opposes it on supposedly virtuous grounds. In the process, he compares people fighting
for trans rights to Mao and summarily dismisses their progress and actual ideals. This has, unsurprisingly, attracted people with a genuine
distaste for our (trans people’s) existence.
I desperately wanted to be wrong, to think that maybe all of this was a misunderstanding on my part, that Peterson really does only not want to
be forced to say something, and that his followers are equally rational, thoughtful devotees. And, to be fair, my position has softened since I
started writing this comment, as I did more research. Since I saw it linked in another comment, I went to /r/jordanpeterson and searched for
“trans”.
Here are the top 5 link titles, unedited:
“Why should your right to freedom of speech trump a trans person’s right not to be offended?”
Trans man on the failures of the social justice movement (tumblrinaction x-post)
“I called a trans boy a girl by mistake… and it may cost me my job as a teacher: Maths tutor suspended after praising pupil using the wrong
gender”
Charity calls police after a teacher ‘misgenders’ a trans pupil and say he has committed a ‘hate crime’
What are some of Jordan Peterson’s more controversial ideas, aside from trans people and gender identity?
Wonderful. I have seen this rhetoric before, quite often, and it is /never/ in communities that seek the betterment of circumstances for trans
people. One linked community is /r/tumblrinaction, and if you are not already familiar, I would encourage you to spend a few minutes in that
cesspit to see exactly how strong my distaste for it is. There are a few comments from the /r/jordanperterson subreddit I would like to highlight
here:
On nonbinary people:
Just pick “he” or “she” and move on. Society is a group dynamic, it can’t cater to every whim of every individual. The bigger issue here is
the growing tyranny that wants to enforce these ridiculously minor rules. The bigger issue is the stripping away of our freedom of
speech to make way for ridiculous and unrealistic demands. (+28)
On the rarity of “true” trans people:
My intuitive feel is that there are true trans people out there, but they’re very rare, and likely a product of genetic flukes or hormones
going haywire in utero so you wind up an XY-chromosome baby with a feminized brain or vice versa. (+186)
On the origins of the LGBT movement:
They are just hijacking this Trans-topic. Nothing more.

I mean has anyone ever made the research and went down the rabbit hole on how this entire LGBT-something something Movement
started?
I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if the start was an internet troll and nothing else. (+36)
On who is pushing this nonsense:
Great post, except one thing: it ain’t “middle America” pushing the nonsense. It’s the attention-seeking hive-mind women (and their
beta-male partners) on the Coasts.
On respecting a trans-male student’s pronouns:
“my 2nd person pronoun isn’t ‘you’, it’s ‘grue’, so if you want to praise me you have to say it like ‘grue did a good job!’ ”
fuck. these. people. (+56)
On transtrenders:
Having known several in some stage, the fact that it’s becoming “in” worries me. I think there are some genuine trans people to whom
reassignment may very well be the best course of action, but it attracts people desperate for an identity. If you meet someone who’s
trans and it’s the centerpiece of their personality, I suspect that may be a problem.
I have no problem with anyone doing whatever they want, but 40% suicide rates are a pretty big fuckin deal.
371 comments since

Also it’s evil to give hormone treatments to children. They are children. Wait until the kid’s an adult and let them make their own
choices, that shit is fucked up. (+23)
I hope I do not have to go into detail on why the ideas espoused here are harmful.
These are all quotes I cherry-picked from the multitude available. There were plenty that seemed reasonable, and even a few trans people
defending him. However, I still am convinced that what he says and does is ultimately harmful to the trans community, and attracts those who
hold ~problematic~ views. Characterizing his argument as free speech avoids the reality of the effects it has.

March 27, 2018 at 12:29 pm ~new~
> Characterizing his argument as free speech avoids the reality of the effects it has.
But isn’t this what free speech means? Allowing opinions you disagree with? Not just have a slight preference against them, but
strongly believe that they’re “bad” – but still chose to support the freedom of expression because of a rule that lives at a higher level
of abstraction, that says stuff like “I want all opinions visible in the public agora, because it’s a better strategy long term”, or stuff like
“There is a 1% chance I am wrong, so by having the dispute in public we can correct our mistakes”.
Having only arguments with “good” consequences is the opposite of this – partly because it utterly breaks meta rules like that, and
because _somebody_ still has to chose which arguments are right – and that’s a slippery slope if there ever was one.
Tenacious D says:
March 27, 2018 at 3:28 pm ~new~
In fact, there was nothing in the bill that criminalized the failure to use people’s preferred gender pronouns, and
I share the belief that government legislation requiring people to use particular pronouns would be an
infringement on civil liberties.
Robinson is coming at this from an American perspective. He even refers to the ACLU in the next sentence. I’d suggest that this
overlooks differences in how free speech issues are approached in the US and Canada. IANAL, but I’ll note that the faculty of law at
Queen’s University invited Dr. Peterson to give a guest lecture on compelled speech so at least some lawyers in Ontario see it as an
open question on this side of the border.
lvlln says:
March 27, 2018 at 7:05 am ~new~
Searching through the lowest reaches of human thought and action, understanding my own capacity to act like a Nazi prison guard or gulag archipelago
trustee or a torturer of children in a dunegon, I grasped what it means to “take the sins of the world onto oneself.”
(Bolding mine)
1st, “dungeon” is misspelled there. Is that an error from the original book, or did Scott just transcribe it incorrectly? Based on the lack of “(sic),” I’m guessing the
latter.
2nd, I think Peterson crystallized these concepts during the 80s, during which there were the child sex abuse hoaxes that were based on literally nothing but
figments of imaginations. Nazi prisons and gulags and the guards and trustees thereof are very well established empirically, but I wonder how much the child
dungeon torture that inspired him was based on a hoax, rather than real human behavior. Of course, torturing children a dungeon has been proven to happen, like
that Ariel Castro guy a few years back, but I don’t know how much it was known in the 80s.
andrewflicker says:
March 27, 2018 at 4:45 pm ~new~
See, I thought this was a reference to Omelas.
Null Hypothesis says: 371 comments since
March 27, 2018 at 6:00 pm ~new~
It’s kind of funny you mention that since Peterson himself, delivered just as an anecdote during one of his lectures, gave one of the best breakdowns of
that very hoax.
He does a great job articulating the main issue I have with a lot of child psychology studies, which is that the idea that you can control the input given to
kids, and expect them to be unaffected, is ridiculous, and most child psychology are almost embarrassingly obviously dependent on this priming.
Dry Raven says:

March 27, 2018 at 7:09 am ~new~
As someone who is deep into the Peterson hole, I have a warning. Peterson is like an alien whose words travel through several layers of perceptual distortion
before they come out to a regular human being. You think you understand what he means when he says something, but he means something entirely different.
His words come out like static to people, and they make the mistake of thinking they understand his intent because the sentence still parses in English. But he’s
changed the meaning of all the words. Reading 12 rules for life is like watching him attempt to simulate a normal human being with hilariously punchy sentences,
but maps of meaning and his absurd recursive diagrams is where you should go if you want to get an idea of what’s really floating around in Peterson’s head.
Mr Mind says:
March 27, 2018 at 8:02 am ~new~
Then I ask you: how do you know you’re reading at the correct layer? Is there a formal documents that says: this is the correct translation from
Petersonian to human?
Otherwise, how could you know that you’re at the correct level, instead of being at a level that is not enough deep or one that is too deep, that you
invented for yourself?
Dry Raven says:
March 27, 2018 at 9:44 am ~new~
My answer 1: Your interpretation is always partially correct and partially incorrect, other people are mysterious and their words shrouded in
depth even they don’t fully understand.
My opinion: You can only ever look at your projection of another person. Your image of Peterson is simply a refuse of aged implicit desires, a
mirror masquerading in his image.

My answer 2: You are always at a level you’ve invented for yourself, whether you like it or not.
Deiseach says:
March 27, 2018 at 7:13 am ~new~
They were about “explain how the depiction of whaling in Moby Dick sheds light on the economic transformations of the 19th century, giving three examples from
the text. Ten pages, single spaced.”
Oh gosh. This makes me smile an evil smile, as one of the three examples I’d love to use would be this whacked-out (technical term) description of preparing the
spermaceti obtained from cutting up the whale that Melville himself uses:
It had cooled and crystallized to such a degree, that when, with several others, I sat down before a large Constantine’s bath of it, I found it strangely
concreted into lumps, here and there rolling about in the liquid part. It was our business to squeeze these lumps back into fluid. A sweet and unctuous duty!
no wonder that in old times this sperm was such a favorite cosmetic. Such a clearer! such a sweetener! such a softener! such a delicious mollifier! After
having my hands in it for only a few minutes, my fingers felt like eels, and began, as it were, to serpentine and spiralize.
As I sat there at my ease, cross-legged on the deck; after the bitter exertion at the windlass; under a blue tranquil sky; the ship under indolent sail, and
gliding so serenely along; as I bathed my hands among those soft, gentle globules of infiltrated tissues, woven almost within the hour; as they richly broke
to my fingers, and discharged all their opulence, like fully ripe grapes their wine; as I snuffed up that uncontaminated aroma, – literally and truly, like the
smell of spring violets; I declare to you, that for the time I lived as in a musky meadow; I forgot all about our horrible oath; in that inexpressible sperm, I
washed my hands and my heart of it; I almost began to credit the old Paracelsan superstition that sperm is of rare virtue in allaying the heat of anger:
while bathing in that bath, I felt divinely free from all ill-will, or petulence, or malice, of any sort whatsoever.
Squeeze! squeeze! squeeze! all the morning long; I squeezed that sperm till I myself almost melted into it; I squeezed that sperm till a strange sort of
insanity came over me; and I found myself unwittingly squeezing my co-laborers’ hands in it, mistaking their hands for the gentle globules. Such an
371 comments since
abounding, affectionate, friendly, loving feeling did this avocation beget; that at last I was continually squeezing their hands, and looking up into their eyes
sentimentally; as much as to say, – Oh! my dear fellow beings, why should we longer cherish any social acerbities, or know the slightest ill-humor or envy!
Come; let us squeeze hands all round; nay, let us all squeeze ourselves into each other; let us squeeze ourselves universally into the very milk and sperm of
kindness.
I dunno what kind of economic transformation this describes but it would be fun to work it out 🙂
Aapje says:
March 27, 2018 at 7:26 am ~new~
I wonder how many people masturbated to that…
Nick says:
March 27, 2018 at 10:35 am ~new~
After having my hands in it for only a few minutes, my fingers felt like eels, and began, as it were, to serpentine and spiralize.
What kind of Lovecraftian horror is this gunk?!
Jacek Lach says:
March 27, 2018 at 7:16 am ~new~
> But that’s exactly the problem. I worry Peterson wakes up in the morning and thinks “How can I help add meaning to people’s lives?” and then he says really
meaningful-sounding stuff, and then people think their lives are meaningful. But at some point, things actually have to mean a specific other thing. They can’t just
mean meaning. “Mean” is a transitive verb. It needs some direct object.
I would contest that! Yes, for a perfectly rational agent that is the case; you can just look at the effects of your life, see that it is on net positive, and call that
‘meaning’.
But what we really care about when talking about the people, is the *impression of meaning*. It is not important for your wellbeing whether your life is actually
rational-meaningful. It is important if your system 1 is satisfied with your life in the certain ways, that it signals this satisfaction in certain ways that we call
‘meaningful’.
As such, it’s not strictly necessary to tie your meaning to some objective measures. If your life feels meaningful, and you have reasonable expectation that this
feeling will persist (so presumably – if you accept the assumption that this feeling of meaning evolved, culturally or genetically, for ‘a reason’, i.e. meaning is
adaptive – just cheating system1 with drugs is not the right long term answer), and not causing too many negative externalities… Then you’re good?
Obviously meaningfullness is not the only thing one should optimise their life for. But it’s definitely one of the things you should be looking at.
greghb says:
March 27, 2018 at 7:18 am ~new~
If you can’t get from
“the depiction of whaling in Moby Dick sheds light on the economic transformations of the 19th century.”
to
“the meaning of life and how to live”
then you have much to learn as a kabbalist.
Peffern says:
March 27, 2018 at 10:39 am ~new~
There goes Scott Alexander always with the macabre whale metaphors
There goes Scott Alexander, always with the macabre whale metaphors.
371 comments since
greghb says:
March 27, 2018 at 12:32 pm ~new~
The etymology of “macabre” is unknown, but it’s suspected to come from Maccabees, the sect of Jews who lead the revolt against the Seleucid
Greeks, purified the Temple, and whose victory is commemorated in the holiday Chanukkah. It’s not coincidence that you chose that word, so
what are we meant to make of a Maccabean whale metaphor?
In Moby Dick, Captain Ahab pursues the whale at all cost. In the story of Chanukah, the Maccabees pursue their traditional way of life at all
costs. But the historical Ahab was an evil king of Israel, who lead the nation astray by endorsing idol worship — and he ultiamtely failed. The
Maccabees were holy and successful. What accounts for the difference?
First ask: what was the commercial purpose of whaling in the 19th century? Whale fat was rendered into oil, especially to be used in lamps.
(Literally to “shed light”, as Scott said.) What was the miracle of Hanukah? That a single jar of oil lasted for eight days, ensuring that the lamp
in the Temple could burn continuously.
The lesson is obvious. Ahab was wrong to pursue the whale in order to have enough oil. Only God decides who gets enough oil. Rather Ahab
should have followed the example of the Maccabees and tried to purify the Temple, at which point God would have made sure that he got the
whale (oil) he needed.
This is essentially Peterson’s 6th principle: “set your house in perfect order before you criticize the world.” Don’t read “house”, but “Temple” —
which is the house of God on earth. And don’t read “whale” but “world”.
In other words, purify your Temple before you attack the whale.
If this doesn’t connect how “the depiction of whaling in Moby Dick sheds light on the economic transformations of the 19th century” to “the
meaning of life and how to live” then I don’t know what does.
Deiseach says:
March 27, 2018 at 3:28 pm ~new~
Captain Ahab also sets up an idol for his crew, the golden coin he nails to the mast, which he promises to the first man to raise sight of
the great whale. Thus he diverts their purpose to false worship from the True Light to the false golden sun of the coin, the worldly
wealth which deceives and leads astray:
It so chanced that the doubloon of the Pequod was a most wealthy example of these things. On its round border it bore the
letters, Republica del Ecuador: Quito. So this bright coin came from a country planted in the middle of the world, and beneath
the great equator, and named after it; and it had been cast midway up the Andes, in the unwaning clime that knows no
autumn. Zoned by those letters you saw the likeness of three Andes’ summits; from one a flame; a tower on another; on the
third a crowing cock; while arching over all was a segment of the partitioned zodiac, the signs all marked with their usual
cabalistics, and the keystone sun entering the equinoctial point at Libra.
The task of the whaling crew is (ultimately) to seek light – the oil for the lamps – but Ahab bends that task to his personal vengeance;
he seeks the whale not for its oil but for its blood, to satisfy his anger and vengefulness, and sets up a golden idol to distract his men
into abandoning their lawful mission and following the false way which eventually leads them all down to death, save Ishmael, the sole
survivor. Ahab of the novel repeats the errors of King Ahab in setting up false idols and making himself the ultimate authority rather
than submitting to God, and receives the fruit of his actions which end in disaster.
userfriendlyyy says:
March 27, 2018 at 7:30 am ~new~
My problem with Jordan Peterson’s world view is that he completely ignores the structural problems in the way of self improvement. It’s all well and good to do
everything in your power to make yourself stronger and improve your lot in life but it risks turning all of his devotees into fervent believers in the Horatio Alger
myth. There will always be a segment of society that can pull themselves up by their own bootstraps; but it is an absolute certainty that it will not work for
everyone. Then the problems arise when all those Horatio Alger’s go ‘I did it my self, your moral failings must be why you didn’t so you deserve what you get.’
It just feeds into the individualistic narrative that everything about your life is 100% the result of things you have control over. Just ignore why your wages aren’t
going up just work harder to get paid more Just ignore that you are making less than your parents when they were your age just keep working harder to get
going up, just work harder to get paid more. Just ignore that you are making less than your parents when they were your age, just keep working harder to get
371 comments since
paid more.
It completely ignores workers banding together to demand better treatment. I’m not even against some of the self improvement stuff but I cringe when it is
offered as the sole solution.
fontesmustgo says:
March 27, 2018 at 8:09 am ~new~
I don’t know Peterson well enough to say whether he offers “self improvement stuff… as the sole solution,” but he strikes me as too thoughtful and
humble for that. I doubt that he would suggest that anyone take his advice as anything less than a partial guide to living.
You directly control little in your life, but you control some, and you’re almost certainly not doing everything you can to help yourself. Getting yourself in
order won’t solve all your problems, but it will be an improvement – perhaps to the point where the structural inequities won’t matter to you as much.
Certainly it’s faster. You won’t overthrow cisheteropatriarchical capitalism by the summer, but you can lose some weight and get organized.
And if you’ve done that and you still want to band together to demand better treatment, self-improvement will enhance your charisma, clarify your
thinking, and give you more energy – all things that will make you a better labor leader (or participant in a movement).
lvlln says:
March 27, 2018 at 8:48 am ~new~
I’ve seen an interviewer push him on this a couple times (same interviewer in 2 different occasions), and I’ve never quite seen a response from
him that was fully satisfactory to me. The best response I saw was him comparing society to a military helicopter, and how attempting to fix it
or make improvements without fully knowing what you’re doing is more likely to cause it to spin out of control and send us all crashing to our
fiery deaths than it is to actually make things better. Instead, better to start small, gain an understanding of the things around you and make
incremental improvements that you KNOW are better, even if they’re tiny and don’t do anything to fix the underlying, larger problems that may
be the far greater source of your problems.
The disasters of Nazism and Communism in the 20th century, which seem to take up a lot of room in his mind, do serve as pretty good
evidence that his way might be the way to go.
And yet, fact remains that there HAVE been activist movements in the US, like the suffragettes or the civil rights movement in the 60s or the
more recent gay marriage movement that have caused what I think are unambiguously good society-wide changes. So it’s hard to find his
argument fully convincing; sometimes, even something as complex as a military helicopter really has a simple and dumb problem that a simple
layman with no specialized knowledge can fix.
Now, one person Peterson does bring up a lot is Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, who he claims found himself in the GULAG system in Stalinist USSR
and, instead of resentfully decrying his current unfair predicament (I think it’s fair to say that pretty much anyone who suffered in the GULAG
system probably had it far worse for unfair reasons than pretty much anyone in modern US society – at the least, I doubt that many people in
modern US would be willing to trade places with someone in the GULAG system), he decided to take responsibility for each of his decisions that
eventually led him to that place, and he decided to fix each of those things and to see how much good he could do. Peterson claims that this
eventually led to him writing and publishing the GULAG Archipelago, which had a large impact in discrediting Communism and eventually
leading to the downfall of USSR.
So he seems to think that bringing about good societal change comes from taking full responsibility for one’s own predicament and working to
fix it, rather than from finding something someone else is doing wrong and then coercing them into doing it right. Not knowing the history
myself, I don’t know if Peterson’s account of Solzhenitsyn is apocryphal or deluded in some way, though, which is part of what I don’t find so
fully convincing.
I do think it’d be unfair to say that Peterson would say anything like “I did it my self, your moral failings must be why you didn’t so you deserve
what you get,” or that any honest engagement with what he says would lead anyone to say anything of that sort.
fontesmustgo says:
March 27, 2018 at 9:03 am ~new~
[S]tart small, gain an understanding of the things around you and make incremental improvements that you KNOW are better, even if
they’re tiny and don’t do anything to fix the underlying, larger problems that may be the far greater source of your problems.
371 comments since

I’m not seeing this as in conflict with your example of (for example) same-sex marriage.
First, my point about timelines holds: you’re not going to change the world quickly. The Overton Window shift on homosexuality was
comparatively fast, but it still took decades. If you were a gay man in 1980 hoping for full legal and social recognition/acceptance of
your romantic relationship, you had to wait for a huge chunk of your life.
Second, to the extent that there were incremental improvements, they resulted in significant part from the types of small-scale
behaviors that individuals can control for themselves. Gay marriage became thinkable when heterosexuals saw homosexuals living
their lives not as the God-hating exotic hedonists they expected, but as ordinary folks. Along the way, hating someone simply for the
sex of their romantic partner seemed increasingly arbitrary and weird.
I am not arguing that homosexuals were doing something wrong that they needed to improve, but I am suggesting that individual
behaviors had an aggregate effect of normalizing homosexuality.
Randy M says:
March 27, 2018 at 9:30 am ~new~
he [Solzhenitsyn] decided to take responsibility for each of his decisions that eventually led him to that place
This seems like a weird thing to say. Weren’t there plenty of virtuous actions that could lead someone to be in, particularly, the soviet
gulags, like failing to produce enough or honestly critiquing the communist system or party leaders, etc.?
Taking responsibility generally means identifying faults of yours that lead to a problem.
Lambert says:
March 27, 2018 at 12:01 pm ~new~
In One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovitch, most of the prisoners of the camp seem to be there simply for having been
captured by the Nazis during the war, under the pretext of being spies (for a regime that no longer exists).
Hide ↑
Randy M says:
March 27, 2018 at 12:17 pm ~new~
All the more odd, the, would it be to tell them to “take responsibility for the decisions that led them there.”
Hide ↑
lvlln says:
March 27, 2018 at 1:46 pm ~new~
I don’t know Solzhenitsyn’s life story (though I did recently read One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich), so I can’t really say
what it meant for him to “take responsibility” for ending up in the GULAG system. I don’t fully recall what Peterson said on
this, either. I think the point might have been that, for better or for worse, the USSR government and the GULAG system
were essentially forces of nature in the environment in which Solzhenitsyn lived. The system was corrupt, unjust, and unfair,
but he also made various decisions along the way that didn’t minimize his odds that he didn’t end up in a GULAG camp. And
maybe even if he acted perfectly, the random injustice of the system would’ve ensnared him anyway. But instead of focusing
on that and deciding that he would’ve ended up there anyway, he focused on those decisions that contributed to increasing
the chances of him ending up there, and strove at least not to make those decisions again.
One issue I have with this is that it has major survivorship bias. How many other people did what Solzhenitsyn did in the
GULAG system and still ended up starved or frozen to death or just didn’t do much of worth? But then again perhaps the
point is that good things such as the great societal change that he helped to create, or even personal survival, are never
guaranteed, but the best way to make them possible is by taking responsibility for oneself.
But that also runs into the civil rights movement counterexample.
As an aside, writing this out reminded me of a couple of things. One was a Vietnam vet and former POW that Jocko Willink
interviewed on his podcast, who said that one rule he followed as a POW was to exercise every single day, even on days
where his wrists and neck were bound to the stocks the entire time. Another is a possibly apocryphal story about people in
d th (I thi k it N i) i i l b i t f titi l h i hi t l ’ i
some death camp (I think it was Nazi) surviving only by virtue of surreptitiously changing his own name to someone else’s in
371 comments since
the list of people to be executed on a certain day and delaying his execution long enough that he got freed.
Hide ↑
Iain says:
March 27, 2018 at 11:23 am ~new~
Some problems can be solved by self-improvement, and some problems are systematic. And yet, fact remains that there HAVE
been activist movements in the US, like the suffragettes or the civil rights movement in the 60s or the more recent gay
marriage movement that have caused what I think are unambiguously good society-wide changes.
Yeah, I think this is important.
Jordan Peterson pushes the self-improvement angle very heavily. In a lot of ways, that’s a good thing. Everybody has things in their
life that they could improve. If you are a clinical psychologist trying to give useful advice, that is absolutely where you should focus.
But not all problems are solved by the quiet pursuit of individual excellence. Sometimes problems are systemic, and need a movement
to solve. And that’s where Peterson goes off the rails. Take this bit, from his interview with Cathy Newman:
PETERSON: No, I’m saying that the philosophy that drives their utterances is the same philosophy that already has driven us
to the deaths of millions of people.
NEWMAN: Okay. Tell us how that philosophy is in any way comparable.
PETERSON: Sure. That’s no problem. The first thing is that their philosophy presumes that group identity is paramount.
That’s the fundamental philosophy that drove the Soviet Union and Maoist China. And it’s the fundamental philosophy of the
left-wing activists. It’s identity politics. It doesn’t matter who you are as an individual, it matters who you are in terms of your
group identity.
This is a wholesale rejection of the idea of systemic fixes. It is a fully generalizable counter-argument: “You can’t have a movement to
address discrimination against Group X, because that would privilege group identity over individual identity. Nice try, Mao.” (Ironically,
Jordan Peterson is not above using group membership as a shield himself.)
baconbits9 says:
March 27, 2018 at 11:42 am ~new~
This is a wholesale rejection of the idea of systemic fixes
No it isn’t, it is wholesale rejection of group identity being used for systemic fixes, this would not preclude systemic fixes such
as the early civil rights movements in the US.
Hide ↑
lvlln says:
March 27, 2018 at 12:24 pm ~new~
baconbits9 is absolutely right. The similarities between Communism and identity politics isn’t that they both call for systemic
fixes to problems. It’s that they elevate group identity over individual identity. It’s very possible to address discrimination
against group X while still privileging individual identity over group identity. The suffragettes and the civil rights movement of
the 60s and the recent gay marriage movement did just that. They didn’t call on all men or all white people or all straight
people to be considered oppressors who all benefit from systemic oppression and thus need to be resisted and punished.
They called for individuals to be treated as individuals – for women to have the same voting rights as men because female
individuals are equal to male individuals, for blacks to have the same access to services and protection as whites because
black individuals are equal to white individuals, for gays to have the same access to marriage as straights because gay
individuals are equal to straight individuals.
Those were quite explicitly about rejecting the privileging of group identities over individual identities. Those combated
systems in place that deemed certain individuals as worthy of fewer rights or privileges based on their membership in certain
group identities. Identity politics and, say, dekulakization are the direct opposite of those, where individuals are deemed
worthy of fewer rights or privileges based on their membership in certain group identities.
Hide ↑
ilikekittycat says:
Wow, I hadn’t read that last bit before, but that confirms Peterson’s understanding of Marx is terribly sloppy.
Proletarian/bourgeoisie aren’t group identities, they’re material circumstances. Marx wasn’t advocating for vulgar workerism.
The whole point is to destroy the notion of “worker” as a category that defines someone at their core. It couldn’t be more
different than modern social justice notions of “I am BLACK and you MUST acknowledge the dignity in that forming the core
of who I am, and choose to present as, forever” “I am TRANS and…” etc. etc.
Hide ↑
Aapje says:
March 27, 2018 at 1:46 pm ~new~
@Iain
No, it is the rejection of populism/reductionism:

– All white people benefit from and should want a policy that benefits the upper class
– All black people benefit from and should want affirmative action
Etc.
Hide ↑
baconbits9 says:
March 27, 2018 at 6:53 pm ~new~
@ Ilikekittykat
Marx’s whole deal is that if there are differences between groups that there must then be perpetual conflict between them.
The only way to end the conflict is to end the differences and make people 1 group, this is identity politics to its extreme.
Peterson is in the tradition where by each individual is treated as their own group which is on the far end of Marx.
Hide ↑
benwave says:
March 27, 2018 at 7:01 pm ~new~
@baconbits9 where did Marx say that? My reading of Marx made it very clear that the particular character of capitalism was
what was forcing workers and capitalists into competition, not the mere fact that it was possible to draw meaningful category
lines around them.
Hide ↑
March 27, 2018 at 8:34 am ~new~
I think Peterson would say that in the West there is a lot more opportunity out there than people are taking advantage of. In other words, the problems
of most people in the First World . . . are First World problems.
That isn’t to say that there aren’t a non-trivial number of people in the West who don’t have really serious problems that they can’t do much about: IQ
under 85, serious physical illness, genetic propensity to mental problems etc. But those aren’t most people.
BillG says:
March 27, 2018 at 9:25 am ~new~
I don’t think he ignores these structural impediments at all– in fact, I think he explicitly addresses that it will always be the case that there will be
impediments. “Of course the order is tyrannical.”
His solution is to address what is in front of you. If there’s nothing that you can impact beyond cleaning your room, start there. If you have the power to
chip away at some of that tyranny, do so. The problem he correctly points out is how many folks default to screaming at the biggest thing they can
scream at, in the process failing into foolishness or inactivity.
For example, if you are not making a fair wage that supports a reasonable lifestyle, your only option may be to change your qualifications, work a bit
harder and advance some in a ladder. Or, you may have the option to help influence a corporation’s compensation scheme in a way that makes the world
a better place. If you do, that’s in front of you and you should do so. Or, you may have a leadership role that lets you impact the market on a grander
p y , y y ,y y p y p g
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scale. If you do, that’s in front of you and you should do so. In each case, you will have the expertise and access to address since
the problem in front of you.
The situation he decries is the guy who shows up late for work and misses out on available advancement options, all while explaining the horrors of the
system. Maybe showing up on time and working diligently won’t solve his problem, but his current approach definitely will not.
thepenforests says:
March 27, 2018 at 2:53 pm ~new~
See that’s interesting, I have a sort of similar reaction, but from the opposite side. I worry that, far from being neglected, messages about structural
problems have completely saturated the cultural zeitgeist, to the point where even people who could pull themselves up by their bootstraps are
discouraged from trying. I see Peterson as reacting to (and pushing back against) that cultural narrative, not because it’s invalid but because it’s become
too all-encompassing.
I won’t put words in Peterson’s mouth, but speaking for myself: I unreservedly agree with your last sentence – I think it’s obviously the case that
structural problems lead to gross injustices in society, and that anyone who claims that “self-improvement” can completely nullify these is lying,
mistaken, or engaging in wishful thinking.
But that being said, I think the counterpart sentence “I’m not against the ‘dealing with structural problems collectively’ stuff, but I cringe when it is
offered as the sole solution” is also a valid concern, and in fact is (in my estimation) probably a more pressing one, at least at the moment. I think it’s
almost certainly the case that many social justice messages, while helping a great deal of people, have caused harm to many others by pushing them
away from self-improvement. And I don’t think the idea that social justice messages even can cause harm is widely acknowledged enough.
I can’t help but see this as one of those Should You Reverse Any Advice You Hear situations, in that I genuinely believe there’s a huge group of people
out there who haven’t heard messages like Peterson’s nearly enough, and who would benefit from listening to him.
March 27, 2018 at 3:48 pm ~new~
100% endorsed.
Incurian says:
March 27, 2018 at 3:55 pm ~new~
All debates are bravery debates?
benwave says:
March 27, 2018 at 4:55 pm ~new~
Another idea in that vein is that those structural problems are only able to be addressed and improved by people who have already found their
own stable footing as a person. On a personal level, ‘cleaning your room’ is a prerequisite for cleaning up all of human society.
My personal impression is that dealing with structural problems collectively is not an overpushed message, but then I mostly tend to interact
with people who already have the self-improvement part working for them. So, maybe I am just seeing and responding to an unrepresentative
world.
Null Hypothesis says:
March 27, 2018 at 6:06 pm ~new~
I mean, it’s pretty obvious that Peterson would agree that systemic problems can certainly exist and do bad things to society.
The whole reason he was catapulted to fame was the C-16 Bill in Canada, which he argued gave a ‘human rights council’ authority to prosecute
people for failing to use particular gender pronouns.
He was pretty obviously arguing that that would be a systemically bad law, and that crossing the line from saying; “You cannot say some hurtful
things” to “you must say these specific things” interferes with society’s ability to think and discuss and reason stuff out, and that’d obviously be
bad independent of how ‘sorted out’ any individual’s life is.
baconbits9 says:
March 27, 2018 at 6:39 pm ~new~
Even if we granted the premise here, what can an individual do about it? Structural issues in the way? One person can’t fix those, it is self defeating to
say ‘hey, not your fault oh well’. Peterson’s message is deal with what you can deal with, very explicitly he starts with things that an individual clearly can
do and tells them to build from there. Structural impediments might get in the way, but these are secondary considerations as you won’t even bump up
against them if your are getting in your own way.
Anonymous says:
March 27, 2018 at 7:33 am ~new~
Super-saturated solutions are really cool.
Philipp says:
March 27, 2018 at 7:55 am ~new~
Scott, I’m surprised no one on this thread (I’ve not looked at the sub-reddit) has taken you up on the C.S. Lewis angle, so I guess, as something of a Lewis fan,
that I’ll bite. I’ll state at the outset that I’ve not read Jordan Peterson, though I have watched a few clips of him and read quite a bit about him.
I realize that your talk of C.S. Lewis ‘hating’ Jordan Peterson is hyperbole, but it’s well worth realizing that he was actually a man of broad friendships and, much
though he later rejected his youthful flirtations with non- or anti-Christian ideas, a broad personal experience. I mean, the man had variously been a dabbler in
the occult (something he rejected with particular ferocity, after one of his spiritualist friends went insane), an idealist, and an atheist materialist, before he
became a Christian, in part through the long intellectual influence of George MacDonald and G.K. Chesterton (two very different figures) and in part because of a
late-night conversation with Hugo Dyson and the very Catholic J.R.R. Tolkien. Of his friends throughout his life, one of the closest was the anthroposophist Owen
Barfield, and another, Charles Williams, was, well, it’s rather hard to figure out, but at least eccentric.
In fact, Peterson sounds, whenever I hear him described, as a kind of prophet of what Lewis called ‘the Tao’ in The Abolition of Man. Lewis is not, so far as I can
see it, using the word in the technical sense–this is not Tao as ancient Chinese doctrine–but instead borrowing a word to refer to the basic sense of right and
wrong, truth and goodness, and, at least to some degree, beauty and order as reflections thereof. It is, in other words, the natural law, understood not as an
arcane system for judging morality in the abstract (the unfortunate impression some less-talented writers leave), but as it is really is: the basic moral order
imprinted in the universe itself and in the hearts of mankind.
The central problem of The Abolition of Man (and a central problem also of the novel That Hideous Strength, which was likewise published in 1943 and is very
close to it in thought) is the failure of modern education to teach that sense of right and wrong: its tendency to produce ‘men without chests’, or people whose
actions are not grounded in the law of nature, in what is true and good, but ultimately only in their own preferences. From this perspective (or so I infer–I don’t
have the book in front of me and I don’t remember whether he treats any kind of sophisticated utilitarian thought), utilitarianism, though it purports to judge
what is moral, must fail, as it is not ultimately beholden to what is actually right in and of itself. At best, the utilitarian, despite his doctrine, still acts on the basis
of his ingrained sense of rightness, and that sense of rightness needs to be shaped to the Tao, or it is nothing.
So, where does this leave Jordan Peterson? Not, I think, straightforwardly on the outside. I doubt Lewis would see in him a proto-Christian, since Peterson knows
scripture and rejects Christian orthodoxy, but he is at least–or so it seems–a man with a strong apprehension of right and wrong, who is trying to grow the chests
of people, especially young men, whose morality has been stunted. He is, as it were, on the side of the Tao.
To any Christian, and Lewis was one, there is a danger here, of course, and that is that Peterson is nevertheless still not on the side of God. Morality simply is not,
because it cannot be, a matter of self-help and self-improvement. There, I think, your own characterization of Lewis goes wrong. He is not part of a “vast
humanistic self-cultivation tradition”; though he does draw on ancient philosophy, he is a Christian lay theologian, and therefore believes in human frailty and the
need for divine grace. ‘We have not got to try to climb up into spiritual life by our own efforts’, he wrote in Mere Christianity. ‘It has already come down into the
human race. If we will only lay ourselves open to the one Man in whom it was fully present, and who, in spite of being God, is also a real man, He will do it in us
and for us.’
One cannot speak for a dead man, and others know Lewis’s works better than I do. Nonetheless, I suspect that he would see in Jordan Peterson a man who sees
clearly some of the worst errors of his own age, but who can only be a kind of stop on the way to the full truth, who is (of course) Christ himself. Like the world’s
moral traditions which, Lewis believed, reflected the truth of the Tao, he might prepare for the Gospel; but making of his teaching a Gospel–treating it, that is, as
if it really could make people good enough–would simply be to pave yet another path that leads away from God and real health of the soul.

March 27, 2018 at 8:31 am ~new~ 371 comments since
Small point: “‘men without chests’, or people whose actions are not grounded in the law of nature, in what is true and good, but ultimately only in their
own preferences. ”
I read that passage somewhat differently– the problem is that the emotional connection to what is right was getting broken, so people could affirm what
is right in theory but not act on it. I suppose that all that’s left is preferences.
Macrofauna says:
[+] 1969-12-31 20:
March 27, 2018 at 8:32 am ~new~
A little more on Lewis:
So despite the similarities between Peterson and C.S. Lewis, if the great man himself were to read Twelve Rules, I think he would say – in some
kind of impeccably polite Christian English gentleman way – fuck that shit.
I believe the impeccably polite way in question might be the one Lewis said in Mere Christianity, in the section on conceptions of God, against a
statement of the Pantheists: “Don’t talk damned nonsense.”
There’s a footnote: “One listener complained of the word damned as frivolous swearing. But I mean exactly what I say — nonsense that is damned is
under God’s curse, and will (apart from God’s grace) lead those who believe it to eternal death.”
Philipp says:
March 27, 2018 at 8:54 am ~new~
Oh, I agree, Macrofauna; the quotation is quite to the point. But I don’t think Lewis would dismiss Peterson’s efforts to encourage morality and
self-discipline, even while he deplored his notions about God. It’s a matter of taking what is good and rejecting what is not, something Lewis
also believed in quite strongly–witness, for example, the end of The Last Battle, in which a pagan who tried to worship his god rightly ends up
actually worshipping the right God, or the pervasive presence of Greek mythology in Lewis’s writing.
The key thing, I think, in understanding Lewis, is not to imagine that all the God-stuff is just window-dressing, which calling him a ‘humanist’
tends to imply. Neither seeing Lewis as straightforwardly antagonistic to Peterson’s way of thinking nor as a member of the same tradition is
quite right. There are aspects of agreement, along with a fundamental divergence on what was for Lewis the most important point. I simply
think that Lewis was intellectually broad enough to be able to recognize that agreement, though I don’t doubt that he would have sternly
warned Peterson’s readers (mostly, it seems, young and impressionable men) against thinking that it was enough.
I may have misstated things, Nancy, but I don’t think, as I now re-read the passage, that what you are finding in it is substantially different
from what I had inferred in my previous readings (though again, I didn’t have the text in front of me; always perilous!) Lewis wrote, ‘It still
remains true that no justification of virtue will enable a man to be virtuous. Without the aid of trained emotions the intellect is powerless
against the animal organism.’
The problem is that mere theory is not, in Lewis’s eyes, enough actually to ground one’s actions in what is right; that requires a genuine love
and desire for rightness and goodness. To say it rather differently, I think, from the way he did, the Tao isn’t just an idea; it is a conviction and
a way of life, and the path to it leads not through philosophy in the abstract, but through moral formation. I rather elided the problem of
sentiment, but then, I don’t think Lewis is aiming at the weak feelings we often call ’emotions’. He is talking about a properly-balanced impulse
toward what is good and away from what is evil–an (if I may be a bit colloquial) ‘ick-factor’ that is aimed at what is really repulsive, and, yet
more importantly for any Christian, a desire aimed at what is truly good. Does that seem closer to the mark?

March 27, 2018 at 9:22 am ~new~
You’re probably right– I wasn’t sure I had a real point there.
Conrad Honcho says:

March 27, 2018 at 9:56 am ~new~
March 27, 2018 at 9:56 am new
371 comments since
So, where does this leave Jordan Peterson? Not, I think, straightforwardly on the outside. I doubt Lewis would see in him a proto-Christian, since
Peterson knows scripture and rejects Christian orthodoxy,
Peterson always dodges the “are you a Christian” or “do you believe in God” questions. He says “he acts as though God exists.” We don’t actually know
what Peterson’s religious beliefs are, or whether or accepts or rejects Christian orthodoxy.
In my imagination, Lewis would chastise Peterson for his temerity.
Philipp says:
March 27, 2018 at 10:22 am ~new~
Like I said, I don’t know Peterson well. Everything I’ve read suggests that his stated views on scripture are far from orthodox, but I concede
that that may not be quite the same thing as consciously rejecting Christian orthodoxy per se. If it really is true, however, that he sees God
chiefly as metaphor–or treats him as such in practice–it would be very difficult to reconcile him with Christianity. With aspects of Christian law,
maybe, but the first commandment is still ‘love the Lord Your God’, and Christianity is precisely something more than law.
Temerity or timorousness, by the way? That sounds to me more like the latter.
Conrad Honcho says:

March 27, 2018 at 10:51 am ~new~
If it really is true, however, that he sees God chiefly as metaphor–or treats him as such in practice–it would be very difficult to
reconcile him with Christianity.
He treats God at least as a metaphor, as do I. I do not have the language to describe God. When I refer to God as “Father,” I’m using a
metaphor. My father is a swell guy, but he’s not God, and God is not literally my father.
I’m a practicing Catholic. I treat God as a metaphor…and then much more than that. Peterson treats God as a metaphor…and then we
don’t know because he doesn’t answer those questions. It could be that he doesn’t answer the questions because he, as you say,
rejects Christian orthodoxy. It could also be that he is a Christian, but as an academic/speaker/seller of books wants to speak in a
broader a language instead of simply being another televangelist. I’ve watched a lot of Jordan Peterson and I honestly couldn’t tell you
which one it is.
Temerity or timorousness, by the way? That sounds to me more like the latter.
Yes, that. Words are hard and make me look bad 🙁
Philipp says:
March 27, 2018 at 11:09 am ~new~
Words can make us all look bad. I was just trying to make sure what you meant, as I can see a way of construing temerity to
fit the context, but it seemed a little unusual–letting one’s own worries get in the way of speaking the truth could I suppose
be seen as a kind of rashness, as it fails to treat the most important things as the most important.
I’d be happy to learn that Peterson is more orthodox than he’s been made to sound. As I said, I don’t know, and you certainly
sound better positioned to judge.
Hide ↑
tjohnson314 says:
March 27, 2018 at 4:49 pm ~new~
Perhaps I’m misunderstanding, but based on how frequently Peterson mentions Jung’s archetypes, I think he believes that
the metaphors are what’s actually Real in some deeper sense.
So it might not be as simple as distinguishing between metaphor vs. something more than a metaphor.
Hide ↑
Jaskologist says: 371 comments since

March 27, 2018 at 11:52 am ~new~
My impression is that whatever Peterson might call himself, his beliefs are very far from orthodox. However, what I’ve seen in his
series on the Bible is not heretical. It is perfectly licit and even scriptural to interpret the Biblical stories in a metaphorical way, as long
as that is in addition to the literal meaning (and there’s some wiggle room even there). I don’t think it would be a hard task to
harmonize his neo-Jungian interpretation with an orthodox belief system.
Probably you’d have to dial down the love affair with Marduk, though.
PaulVK says:
March 27, 2018 at 5:43 pm ~new~
You can’t talk about Peterson’s “god” and not consider Jung. Peterson isn’t a Jungian like some I’ve encountered since delving into this on
YouTube but Jung is a huge influence on Peterson. Jung brought Peterson to the Bible and Jung has not be exorcised from Peterson’s religious
matrix.

March 27, 2018 at 11:24 am ~new~
Lewis seems broadly friendly to non-Christians who approximate Christian morality, but broadly hostile to people who do that and say “And this, not that
boring literal Jesus stuff, is the true essence of Christianity”
fontesmustgo says:
March 27, 2018 at 11:55 am ~new~
This is consistent with a Catholic (and some forms of Protestant, although I can’t speak for the hundreds of sects) understanding that ignorance
and doubt of Christ is less of an obstacle to salvation than rejection of Christ. Faith is hard – much harder than deciding that the words in the
Gospels to provide a coherent and workable moral code. Doubt is preferable to erroneous certainty.
Philipp says:
March 27, 2018 at 1:28 pm ~new~
That’s quite true. I’m not sure, from what others are saying, that that is what Peterson is doing, but it sounds as if his work is at least
susceptible to that reading.
EDIT: Fontesmustgo, that’s akin to the interpretation of the famous ‘blasphemy against the Holy Ghost’-passages that I’ve most often heard.
It’s one thing, and very bad, to worship a false God or not worship God; but it’s much, much worse knowingly and intentionally to reject him (or
persist in sin, which amounts to the same thing), as that is the kind of thing that, by its very nature, can’t be forgiven.
PaulVK says:
March 27, 2018 at 5:47 pm ~new~
Lewis was hard on Freud but I’m less clear on his take on Jung. Jung shows up infrequently in Lewis’ main texts but more often in the letters.
Owen Barfield frustrated Lewis to no end but Lewis loved and respected him and his Theosophism. If I had a clearer picture on what Lewis
thought of Jung it would be easier to guess what he’d think of Peterson.
flylo says:
March 27, 2018 at 8:03 am ~new~
This is an interesting take, but aren’t Peterson’s writings directly aimed at cisgendered (white?) men? So it’s not surprising that Scott would have a positive
emotional reaction to them. The objection to Peterson is partly that his writings inspire the opposite emotional response in everyone else. It might not be his fault,
since he can’t fully enter into the worldview of someone who’s not a cisgendered male, but then even if you agree with Scott’s (generous) reading and
interpretation of Peterson’s goals, Peterson is still failing in a sense by not reaching a broader audience and instead provoking further culture wars. As Scott says,
it’s less about the intellectual content than the emotional reaction Peterson incites in the reader, so we can’t blame readers for not “getting” Peterson.
On a related note, if a religion did start around Peterson, and this religion was exclusively made up of conservative white guys, is that a good thing? More
371 comments since
generally, is it good to have religions aimed at specific segments of the population? Or does this just lead to too much division and reinforce culture wars?
lvlln says:
March 27, 2018 at 8:18 am ~new~
aren’t Peterson’s writings directly aimed at cisgendered (white?) men?
I haven’t seen anything to indicate this. What gave you that idea?
fontesmustgo says:
March 27, 2018 at 8:28 am ~new~
I’ll assume arguendo that trans people would object to Peterson, based either on what he intends to say about transgenderism or what they understand
him to be saying. But which of his ideas/suggestions are inapplicable to Chinese men or white women?
March 27, 2018 at 8:35 am ~new~
He has a significant following among minority and women students in Toronto.
flylo says:
March 27, 2018 at 8:53 am ~new~
What does “significant” mean? What fraction of minority and female readers buy into Peterson’s ideas? And what fraction are repelled? My point is it’s
probably much smaller than the fraction of male readers. Rightly or wrongly, he is against identity politics, and he described feminism as a “murderous
equity doctrine”. Even Scott says: “(offer valid for boys only, otherwise the neo-Marxist lobsters will get our bodily fluids)”
All of this would apply in a reverse sense to some militant feminists/etc.
My basic point is that Scott’s review pointed out that Peterson’s fundamental appeal is emotional. Scott had a positive reaction, which isn’t surprising
since he’s in the target demographic, and he then assessed the value of Peterson’s work on this basis. Someone who had a negative reaction (and many
people do) would have the opposite reaction. Is there a way for someone like Peterson to promote these ideas in a more constructive way, without
turning off the majority of people outside his demographic?
lvlln says:
March 27, 2018 at 9:06 am ~new~
What does “significant” mean? What fraction of minority and female readers buy into Peterson’s ideas? And what fraction are repelled?
My point is it’s probably much smaller than the fraction of male readers.
Do we actually know this? How much is “much?” Is there any empirical evidence to indicate this?
Rightly or wrongly, he is against identity politics, and he described feminism as a “murderous equity doctrine”.
I hardly think being against identity politics or describing feminism* as “murderous equity doctrine” makes his points targeted at cis white men.
From the stats I’ve read, the majority of people who aren’t cis white men aren’t fully on board with identity politics or the strain of feminism he
describes, though perhaps they mostly don’t have the same level of antipathy he does.
*obviously “feminism” has many meanings, and just as obviously this one is referring to the specific strain that’s powerful right now and is
calling for equity in results of everything. As a feminist myself, I don’t find the statement to be off-putting in the least.
Scott had a positive reaction, which isn’t surprising since he’s in the target demographic
Again, what makes you say that Scott’s in the target demographic?
371 comments since

fontesmustgo says:
March 27, 2018 at 9:13 am ~new~
From the stats I’ve read, the majority of people who aren’t cis white men aren’t fully on board with… the strain of feminism he
describes,
I suppose the distinction is whether Peterson is perceived to be attacking Motte Feminism or Bailey Feminism, and behind which wall
the listener stands.
Iain says:
March 27, 2018 at 11:27 am ~new~
Do we actually know this? How much is “much?” Is there any empirical evidence to indicate this?
I can’t find any specifics about race, but it’s undisputed that Peterson’s fanbase is mostly male. The top answer indicates that Peterson
himself has addressed this several times, and he’s in the best position to know.
lvlln says:
March 27, 2018 at 12:28 pm ~new~
That doesn’t actually address the question which was asked, which was “What fraction of minority and female readers buy
into Peterson’s ideas?”
As Peterson has pointed out, his fanbase being mostly male coincides with most YouTube viewers being male. It’s hard to
disentangle what the relative effects are between his message and the YouTube audience. It’s, as some might put it, a
multivariate issue where a univariate analysis will invariably fail.
But more to the point, it tells us nothing about what fraction of females who encountered Peterson “buy into” his ideas versus
are repelled by it. For that, we’d need stats on the # of females who encountered his ideas and the # of females who are his
“fans.”
Hide ↑
March 27, 2018 at 12:48 pm ~new~
No evidence has been put forward that Peterson’s fans are mostly white.
His Youtube audience is, like the rest of Youtube, mostly male.
His students at UofT are mostly female.
Hide ↑
Tenacious D says:
March 27, 2018 at 3:54 pm ~new~
I don’t have any hard data either on Peterson’s support among visible minorities, but I went to uni in the same city as
Lindsey Shepherd (a few years before JP became infamous) so I feel like I’ve got a decent sense of the demographics and
culture on campuses in southern Ontario. My priors are that there are a lot of Asian-Canadian young men among his fanbase.
There’s more than a little overlap between what Peterson says and some culturally-Confucian values, after all.
Hide ↑
Conrad Honcho says:

March 27, 2018 at 9:59 am ~new~
Peterson is still failing in a sense by not reaching a broader audience
I don’t see why this matters. If a black female author wrote profound truths about the black female experience and connected with black female readers
and imparted in them behaviors and thought patterns that improved their lives, I don’t think I’d call her a failure for not reaching a broader audience
that included white and Asian men.
fontesmustgo says:
March 27, 2018 at 10:37 am ~new~
Surely you know how this works: those with a higher Oppression Score can exclude those with a lower Oppression Score, but not vice-versa.
Consult your local Intersectionalitologist to determine your Oppression Score.
Conrad Honcho says:
March 27, 2018 at 10:55 am ~new~
Consult your local Intersectionalitologist to determine your Oppression Score.
I took some online quiz like that and as a white, cis, hetero, male, Christian, engineer, able-bodied, American, etc, I was completely
off the charts on the “evil oppressor” side. Like, if I were a super hero, I would be Captain Patriarchy, and my catchphrase would be
“PRIVILEGE OVERWHELMING!!!!”
Deiseach says:
March 27, 2018 at 3:19 pm ~new~
Like, if I were a super hero, I would be Captain Patriarchy, and my catchphrase would be “PRIVILEGE OVERWHELMING!!!!”
Don’t you mean super-villain, Captain Patriarchy? 😉
Hide ↑
dahud says:
March 27, 2018 at 8:10 am ~new~
I seem to have missed the Discourse on this particular book, so can someone let me in on what the “neo-marxist transgender lobsters” are about? Each
interpretation that I come up with is more confusing than the last.
lvlln says:
March 27, 2018 at 8:27 am ~new~
Peterson first became famous in late 2016 for posting a YouTube video in which he decried a then-proposed now-law Canadian bill that he posited would
compel people to use people’s preferred pronouns. This led to disruptive and violent protests in a few occasions when he was invited to give talks or take
part in debates at some colleges. That’s where the “transgender” comes from.
Since then, he’s claimed to identify the movement that reacted so strongly to him as being “postmodern neo-Marxists” who have essentially “taken over
the humanities” in colleges. This has led to some people claiming that he’s a conspiracy theorist, and that really it’s just a bunch of excited college
students who just want people to be nice to each other. That’s where the “neo-Marxist” comes from.
More recently, his comparison of human competence hierarchies with those found in lobsters have become a bit of a meme. His point being that the
same serotonin-based systems for indicating one’s status in a hierarchy exist in the neuronal circuitry of lobsters and of humans, indicating that such
hierarchies go back at least as far as our common ancestor. “They’re older than trees!” I’ve seen him excitedly proclaim. He’s actually been making this
point for a while (I saw a video from 2015, I think, where he made the same point), but it probably became famous recently due to an interview on UK’s
Channel 4 with Cathy Newman, in which she claimed something like, “So you’re saying we should organize our society like lobsters?” That’s where the
lobsters come from.
So basically, he’s been saying that neo-Marxist transgender lobsters have been taking over humanities departments of colleges in a long-running
conspiracy to dominate the culture and take down Western civilization.
dahud says:
March 27, 2018 at 10:00 am ~new~
Huh. That’s unfortunate. I double checked what you said, and apparently he makes a point of not using preferred pronouns when students
request that he do so. (EDIT: unless that pronoun is “he” or “she”.) That would seem to run counter to the philosophies that Scott described in
h f ll h f ff ( ’ d h b h l k d f h )
the review, specifically the minimization of suffering. (I’m going to digress here, because this particular kind of thing annoys me.)
371 comments since
Regardless of Peterson’s views on trans-ness, it is apparent that calling someone “he” when they’d rather you call them “they” does cause them
some suffering. Using the preferred pronoun would be about as difficult as calling someone by their middle name because they dislike their first,
and is unlikely to cause suffering to others.
Thus, it seems that Peterson is willing to inflict some amount of personal suffering to advance his views on this matter. That goal being, as far
as I can tell, that trans-ness isn’t real and we should all stop pretending.
This allows four possibilities:

1. Peterson believes that allowing trans-ness to exist causes greater suffering than all his misgendering.
2. Calling someone “they” when Peterson thinks “he” would be more appropriate causes him suffering that he judges to be greater than what
the other person would feel if he did the reverse.
3. Peterson simply hasn’t rubbed this particular habit up against his suffering-minimization principle.
4. Peterson is aware of the contradiction, persists regardless, and is philosophizing about suffering-minimization in bad faith.
Any of those possibilities would make me suspect the rest of his work. Peterson is apparently quite a good writer, so I can never really be sure if
any particular point is truly sound, or if I just missed where he palmed the Lady in a rhetorical shell game.
Edit: Originally, my pronoun examples were of swapping “he” and “she”. Peterson is actually fine with that, but refuses to use any other
personal pronouns. I have edited the examples to match this.
lvlln says:
March 27, 2018 at 10:22 am ~new~
I double checked what you said, and apparently he makes a point of not using preferred pronouns when students request that
he do so.
I do not believe that’s accurate. Would you mind pointing me to what led you to this conclusion? I’ve seen an interview of him where
he’s said that he’d be happy to use someone’s preferred pronoun, as long as he believed that person was asking him to use it in good
faith. I don’t think he went into so much detail, but in the infamous Cathy Newman interview, he also said as much.
But certainly, if it’s the case that he outright refuses to call people by their preferred pronouns no matter what, that seems like a
contradiction to a desire to minimize suffering. So I’d be curious to know when he has said that or demonstrated it.
dahud says:
March 27, 2018 at 10:29 am ~new~
BBC report.
I misread the report at first. I saw this:
Dr Peterson is concerned proposed federal human rights legislation “will elevate into hate speech” his refusal to use
alternative pronouns.
But I missed this:
Dr Peterson says he does not object to trans people or to choosing which traditional pronoun they prefer.
So he’s fine if you want to go by “he” or “she”, but refuses, for example, the singular specific “they”. I believe my point
stands, but I will edit my post, then read the rest of your comment.
Hide ↑
lvlln says:
March 27, 2018 at 10:51 am ~new~
So he’s fine if you want to go by “he” or “she”, but refuses, for example, the singular specific “they”. I believe my point
stands, but I will edit my post, then read the rest of your comment.
I actually don’t think that it’s reasonable to conclude that he would refuse to use singular “they” or even “xe” or “xer,” but I
371 comments since
honestly don’t know his opinion on that. What he’s made clear, though, is that he sees the choice of pronouns as a
negotiation between 2 humans, and that’s a game he’s willing to play. He only objects when it’s not a negotiation but rather a
tyranny – one party dominating the other party and forcing them to submit. Which is why he sees a good faith request as so
critical to the issue. And it certainly seems reasonable to say that some people having the power to compel others to say
whatever arbitrary new words they want them to is likely to lead to far more suffering than whatever suffering individuals go
through from not being called by those arbitrary new words.
Thinking about it a little more, one weird thing about pronouns, of course, is that you rarely actually use them with the
person it’s describing. If I want to be referred to by “they” or “xe,” it’s actually unlikely that the person I’m talking to will call
me by that – they’ll just call me “you” or “lvlln.” It’s really when I’m not around, but I’m being talked about by others that the
issue of whether to use “he” or “she” or “they” or “xe” or anything else comes up, and it’s actually quite unreasonable for me
to claim that I suffer when others refer to me in a way that doesn’t affect me in the slightest.
Hide ↑
dahud says:
March 27, 2018 at 11:19 am ~new~
Dr Peterson was especially frustrated with being asked to use alternative pronouns as requested by trans students or
staff, like the singular ‘they’ or ‘ze’ and ‘zir’, used by some as alternatives to ‘she’ or ‘he’.
That, combined with the first quote I shared, suggests that Peterson regards ‘they’, ‘ze’, and so on as ‘alternative’ pronouns,
and actively refuses to use them. If this report is accurate, he is only willing to comply with good-faith requests for ‘he’ or
‘she’.
Regarding the power dynamic you describe, that already exists and is somewhat socially acceptable. If a man is named
“Robert”, but prefers “Bob”, he’ll probably introduce himself as “Hi, I’m Bob.” If someone discovers that Bob’s birth certificate
says “Robert”, and goes out of their way to address Bob as such, polite society would at the very least regard them as a boor.
I see what you mean about one’s pronouns rarely being used in direct address, but I think that it still comes up enough to be
a problem. “I think Sally has everything she needs for the project. Isn’t that right, Sally?” In any case, let’s extend the Bob
example. If someone only called Bob “Robert” when Bob couldn’t hear, I’d probably think even worse of them. Not only are
they a boor, but they’re a cowardly one.
Digression:
I’ve often daydreamed of a language where pronouns are considered to be a part of one’s name. Perhaps you’d introduce
yourself like “Hi, I’m Jessie, he.” Maybe you use the singular “they” if you don’t happen to know their pro-name. Maybe using
the personal pronoun instead of “they” would be a sign of familiarity, like being on first-name basis. It’s a shame I’m not an
SF writer, this language feature would probably make for a nice bit of worldbuilding.
Hide ↑
Edward Scizorhands says:

March 27, 2018 at 12:00 pm ~new~
If I ask you to call me Ed, or Edward, or even Mr. Scizorhands, sure, you’ll probably comply, because whatever.
If I insist you address me as Doctor Professor Scizorhands, Esquire, Phd, MD, RN, CPA every time, you will realize I’m playing
a status signaling game, and you lose if you play. Even if I honestly have and have earned all those titles.
Hide ↑
lvlln says:
March 27, 2018 at 12:10 pm ~new~
Huh, that’s actually the first time I’ve read about him being frustrated by staff or students directly. I’ll have to look more into
that to see how well that report holds up.
Regarding the power dynamic you describe, that already exists and is somewhat socially acceptable. If a man is
named “Robert”, but prefers “Bob”, he’ll probably introduce himself as “Hi, I’m Bob.” If someone discovers that Bob’s
birth certificate says “Robert”, and goes out of their way to address Bob as such, polite society would at the very least
regard them as a boor.
Well yes, these all work in degrees. If the same “Robert” prefers “Your lord and savior Bob,” someone calling him “Robert” or
371 comments since
just “Bob” wouldn’t generally be considered out of line. This is because, while “Bob” a version of “Robert” has become
commonly accepted in society through natural usage (rather than, say, a bunch of Roberts getting together and declaring by
fiat that “Bob” is now what they want to be called), “Your lord and savior Bob” hasn’t.
And this even extends to the cases where this Robert has a middle name, say, Lee, and wants to be called “Lee” rather than
“Robert” or “Bob.” The practice of calling someone by their middle name rather than their 1st name is something that has
developed naturally in language rather than by fiat, and that’s why it’d be boorish to call Robert “Robert” or “Bob” instead of
his preferred “Lee” in this example.
And we can even extend this further to Robert choosing a whole new name, say, “Eric,” that he wants you to use to refer to
him. I think this is right around the border, though – if you told him that you’ll keep calling him “Bob” or “Robert” until he
legally changed his name, while some would say you’re in the wrong, others would say Robert is being unreasonable. And if
it’s not Eric but rather, say, “Jong-un” or “Mohammed” or “Jenny,” more people would probably be on the side of saying that
Robert is being unreasonable.
The point being, there are gradations based on general practices as naturally developed through voluntary interactions
between individuals in society, and there’s no absolute rule that anyone gets to pick whatever they want as their preferred
name to be called. “Robert” to “Bob” is entirely reasonable. “Robert” to “Jenny” at the very least raises some eyebrows.
“Robert” to “Your lord and savior Bob” is clearly unreasonable.
Now, pronouns aren’t the same as names, but I think there are some similarities. In English, pronouns for people are
gendered (coming from Korean which has no gendered pronouns, this always seemed to be bonkers to me, but it is what it
is) depending on the gender of the people they’re referring to. Now, what gender that person is is the question, but on first
blush, it’s generally acceptable to trust your own judgment; if you believe someone’s male, use “he,” if you believe someone’s
female, use “she.” With ambiguous cases, use “they” or don’t use pronouns or ask (though that also comes with costs as
that’s a major social faux pas in some circumstances). Transgender folk add complexity, but it’s generally accepted that if a
transman wants you to use “he,” you’re being the boor if you don’t use “he.” There’s extra complexity of he hasn’t physically
transitioned and/or presents as completely female, and some people will reasonably balk at being expected to use “he” in
such cases.
And going even further, if someone asks that you call them “xe” or “they,” that’s highly non-standard, and it’s not clear to me
how reasonable the request is. Again, there’s no absolute rule that anyone has to call anyone by whatever they demand to be
called, whether that be names or pronouns; what demands or requests are reasonable are mediated by society and culture.
My impulse would be to just use those preferred pronouns, in order to minimize friction, but that’s my own impulse, and it’s
not the only reasonable one.
So getting back to Peterson, if it is the case that he would outright refuse to use non-standard pronouns in all cases no
matter what, I think that’s unreasonable, and it’d be right to call him out on it, because that just creates needless suffering.
If his position is that, when he’s requested to go far outside the regular norms of conversation, he would like to be asked to
do so in good faith and to be convinced of using them rather than being forced to, I think that’s reasonable. Because creating
and enforcing a norm by fiat of giving everyone the responsibility of using whatever arbitrary pronouns that one desires to be
referred by seems likely to cause lots of suffering, far beyond whatever suffering one goes through from explaining to
someone why their highly unusual non-standard pronoun is so important to them (I certainly refuse to consider any party to
be utility monsters).
I see what you mean about one’s pronouns rarely being used in direct address, but I think that it still comes up
enough to be a problem. “I think Sally has everything she needs for the project. Isn’t that right, Sally?” In any case,
let’s extend the Bob example. If someone only called Bob “Robert” when Bob couldn’t hear, I’d probably think even
worse of them. Not only are they a boor, but they’re a cowardly one.
That’s your call to make, but it seems true to me that someone who only calls Bob “Robert” behind his back isn’t causing Bob
any suffering. And now that I think about it more, it seems to me that names and pronouns exist for the benefit of the
speaker and the listener, rather than for the benefit of the person being spoken about. It doesn’t harm me whether you refer
to me as “lvlln” behind my back or you refer to me as “that asshole” behind my back, as long as you and the person you’re
speaking to knows that you’re referring to me.
Hide ↑
March 27, 2018 at 12:33 pm ~new~
371
I do think Peterson has said he would refuse to use the new, invented pronouns because he comments
thinks since a political
they reflect
ideology that he does not agree with. He has also said he is against the use of individualized pronouns because pronouns are
were never intended to convey a detailed picture of who you are: they are intended mainly for interactions with people who
don’t know you very well and don’t need to convey your individuality in a nuanced manner.
He’s against the use of “they” because he says we don’t want to lose the distinction between singular and plural. (As a side
note, I’ve actually seen times where Scott has used “they” and it did end up genuinely confusing me.)
He does not have a problem using the opposite set of pronouns for trans people.
—–
It is completely reasonable to refuse to use these alternative pronouns. If someone is going to suffer immensely because
someone else doesn’t use them, they have serious problems and who uses what pronoun to refer to you is the least of them.
Hide ↑
antpocalypse says:
March 27, 2018 at 1:45 pm ~new~
@dahud: It’s certainly not the level of linguistic integration you’re speculating about, but there are places (mostly queer
community events) where it’s conventional to include your pronouns when you introduce yourself (e.g. “Hi, I’m and I use
he/him/his pronouns”) or to write them on your nametag if you have one.
This seems worth exporting to society at large, because it really doesn’t cost anything but a little initial awkwardness and, as
your comparison makes clear, you should feel roughly as embarrassed to misgender someone as to call them by the wrong
given name: a bit, fleetingly, if you do it once or twice by accident; fairly sheepish if you flub it several; and like a right
asshole if you do it continuously and without compunction despite knowing better.
Hide ↑
Douglas Knight says:

March 27, 2018 at 6:34 pm ~new~
Peterson (recently) told Cathy Newman that he has never had a student request a pronoun. I don’t see anyone claiming
anywhere that anyone (student or not) ever made any such request of him.
He has made a lot of different claims about what he would do. He has said that he would never use a neologism (unless
widely adopted); he has said that he would use he and she; he has waffled on they. Those are compatible, although they
sure didn’t sound the same when he said them. But in other places he has taken the very different position it’s not the
pronoun that matters, but other details of the request. And it may be that his very definite statements were not about
neologisms, but about legal confrontation.
Hide ↑
CthulhuChild says:
March 27, 2018 at 12:27 pm ~new~
In an early CBC interview (As It Happens, fall 2016, where “I’m not a bigot” became associated with him) he talked his willingness to
use pronouns. I can’t find the exact wording, but he basically said it depends on the person, and what he saw as their intention. IE, he
believed that many (most?) people insisting on neutral pronouns were doing so as a political statement in order to compel others to
adopt a particular worldview. He seems to have no issues with using gendered pronouns for trans individuals, although this only seems
to have been tested in the case of trans people who are clearly presenting as their stated gender (IE he might challenge a non-
transitioned biologically male with masculine features and masculine clothing who describes themselves as “she”).
With respect to the gender neutral pronouns, as near as I can tell he believes that identity (especially gender identity) is a negotiated
arrangement. Identity is the result of a compromise between how you ask others to perceive you, and how they would otherwise be
inclined to perceive you. Social norms have changed quite a bit in recent years: the increasing acceptance of trans people indicates
that there is willingness to accept gender identity as divorced from biological sex, but it’s not carte blanche and their is an expectation
that the individual will put effort into presenting as their declared gender.
Persons who want gender identity to be a purely internal designation that society must accept are fighting an uphill battle, because
that is a striking exception to how identity works in every other domain. Consider for example class: your ability to identify as upper
l d d t f th t id tit ’ t d i ifi A d it k b th th liti i h t i dt

class depend on your mastery of that identity’s outward signifiers. And it works both ways: more than one politician has tried to
371 comments since
identify as lower class and been called out for the presumption.
The struggle for non-gendered status is a particularly steep uphill battle, because society by and large doesn’t recognize it as a valid
category.
(sidebar: this is not a political opinion, it is an empirically verifiable truth. Go ask a random selection of people from around the globe
whether there is something other than “male” and “female”. With very few exceptions male and female are the only accepted options)
While every society has some idea of what “maleness” and “femaleness” means, there is no clear template for “agenderedness”. The
declaration of agenderedness appears to be at the sole discretion of the declarant, and using non-standard pronouns entails tacit
acceptance of their right to define their own identity, independent of society or social norms. Peterson sees this as an inherently
political act with an ideological basis he finds repellent, and reacts accordingly. I’m speculating, but I suspect he’d have far less issue if
there were some broadly accepted standard for what makes a person agendered (other than mere assertion), and persons asking to
be identified without gender strove to present themselves as such.
CthulhuChild says:
March 27, 2018 at 12:49 pm ~new~
So I generally like Peterson, but I take some umbridge at his describing humanities and social studies as infected by post-modern marxism,
because none of what he is describing meshes with my understanding of either post modernism or marxism. He might as well say that schools
are being infected by pro-gun bubblegum gnostics. The phenomena he is railing against clashes with the words he uses to describe it. If there’s
one thing I like about the reactionaries (and it is pretty much just the one thing), it’s their use of the word “cathedral” as shorthand for a
particular concept, which is very clearly divorced from the word’s original meaning. See also Scott’s use of “Moloch”.
Anyway, I know very little about evolutionary biology, but mocking him about lobsters seems weird. My understanding is that he’s pointing out
how many species, even extremely primitive and asocial ones, have dominance hierarchies, so its not surprising that humans do too. This
seems entirely reasonable, but I keep seeing “WE ARE NOT LOBSTERS” posters hoisted by anti-Peterson protesters. Are they failing to
comprehend his argument, or have I been overly charitable and he’s made unsupportable claims that deserve mockery?
(Related: I always thought the mockery of Rumsfields “known unknowns vs unknown unknowns” was unjust. It’s a hard concept to explain
quickly).
suntzuanime says:
March 27, 2018 at 1:19 pm ~new~
You’ve been overly charitable: they’re not trying to comprehend his argument, they’re just mining it for things they can mock him
about.
fion says:
March 27, 2018 at 8:48 am ~new~
And what about “bodily fluids”? The best I could come up with was that it might be a Dr Strangelove reference, but that doesn’t seem related to
Peterson…
Randy M says:
March 27, 2018 at 9:39 am ~new~
I think that’s just applying a stereotypical tinfoil-hat concern.
melboiko says:
March 27, 2018 at 8:19 am ~new~
> They were about “explain how the depiction of whaling in Moby Dick sheds light on the economic transformations of the 19th century, giving three examples
from the text. Ten pages, single spaced.
I have a degree in computer science, and a degree on language studies (literature+linguistics).

a e a deg ee co pute sc e ce, a d a deg ee o a guage stud es ( te atu e gu st cs)
371 comments since
You people have some weird-ass humanities classes. In all of my literature courses, I’ve never had a single assignment like that.
Aapje says:
March 27, 2018 at 2:35 pm ~new~
That’s probably because you went to Oxford, rather than Cambridge.
Deiseach says:
March 27, 2018 at 3:14 pm ~new~
You people have some weird-ass humanities classes. In all of my literature courses, I’ve never had a single assignment like that.
I can’t speak about college, but it does sound like the kind of essay you would be set in secondary school.

March 27, 2018 at 3:48 pm ~new~
Did you not get writing assignments about classic books, or were they all about the deep ways the books related to the meaning of life?
andrewflicker says:
March 27, 2018 at 4:55 pm ~new~
I got ’em in AP English- and they were all about relating it to the deep meanings of human life, and the human condition, etc., etc.
Now the AP English test, that one wanted you to talk about 18th century mercantilism and whatnot.
christhenottopher says:
March 27, 2018 at 8:26 am ~new~
I’m not surprised you wound up liking Peterson once you read him (at least in his current mature writing style rather than the somewhat less coherent style of
Maps of Meaning). Ultimately he fits well into the metis type thinkers I’ve found myself drawn towards. He approaches the problem of how do we deal with a world
that is too complex for effective algorithmic calculation (at least with the calculators we humans have) on a personal “what is your life plan?” basis. This fits in
with the James Scott concept that cultures learn through practice not rational system designing, or the Nassim Taleb concept of anti-fragility, or even the Thomas
Kuhn idea of accidents driving scientific revolutions more than institutions. Heck, I’d also say that the mode of urban planning advocated by new urbanists like
Strong Towns is an outgrowth of this type of thought. And of course there is an underlying mechanism behind all of this with a type of natural selection driving the
metis rather than conscious thought (and before you mention them I know there are way more thinkers along these lines, Popper, Chesterton, Burke, Hume, Al-
Ghazali, Laozi, it’s an old and broad tradition I’m trying to point at here). Hence why Peterson goes to cliche’d ideas, the fact that they’ve survived as long as they
have is a good indicator of some value.
This mode of thought gets coded as right leaning in modern American political discourse (can’t and won’t speak for you non-Americans out there), but one can
have over rationalized right wing governments (I’m very pointedly looking at you divine right absolutists). And ultimately I think the true value is really to take a
step back from politics altogether, especially at national/international levels. Focus on areas where you can gain metis such as one’s personal life or sufficiently
small political units where trying out ideas and letting the bad ones die won’t impact too many people (archipelago ftw).
And this is where I think the transgender pronoun controversy fits into Peterson’s thought. Laws like Bill 89 are trying to skip the natural process of discussion and
interacting with people to learn how to deal with new groups by having the law apply universal rules. Peterson himself has said if he is asked by a person who he
believes is asking to have different pronouns used for legitimate reasons. The complaint I see about this is along the lines of “well this just means he can
arbitrarily decide to ignore other people’s preferences.” Here’s the problem though, any situation where a person can force you to change your actions or words is
a potential situation where people who like having power over others can have power over you. Controlling others because one likes having the ability to force
others to jump when you say so is how abuse gets started. And any overly rigid rule that is universalized will be exploited by people following the letter but not
the spirit of the rule. So having in the back pocket “if I perceive you’re just trying to gain power over me I will ignore your power play” is important. And the very
act of stating rules when another person is just doing a power play makes one vulnerable to people following the letter but not the spirit of the rule.
Now in everyday life, the vast majority of people who you will encounter who are transgender are asking for pronoun changes in your language in good faith. I’ve
never had a situation where I felt a transgendered person was trying to use language to put my on the defensive or to rhetorically seize control of the
conversation. And I’ve never deliberately (or even accidentally to my knowledge) misgendered a transperson as a result. But I also don’t hang since
371 comments out in places where
people who enjoy controlling others tend to congregate (like say, political rallies or among groups that like the saying “the customer is always right”). Therefore, if
I’m facing a conversational bully, rather than a person just trying to feel at home in their own body, I reserve the right to not follow the request (and probably to
leave the conversation ASAP). No, I can’t articulate a hard-and-fast-always-true rule to define the difference. There is a metis to personal interactions that defies
simplistic (i.e. explainable in words) systems. And yes there are people who mis-calibrate and wind up being jerks by rejecting legitimate requests (or worse,
people who try to control others by deliberately misgendering). I even believe that most likely the culture we live in has historically (and possibly currently) had a
bigger problem with people ignoring legitimate preferences of transpeople or the controlling jerks trying to rhetorically dominate transpeople than vice versa. But
these are still situations that must be dealt with on case-by-case bases not by centralized law makers for millions of people.
Ultimately though, I do think Peterson dives too deep into the culture war, even if most of his positions are nuanced, simply by talking about it too much. The
lesson I take from his own ideas, and from the broader metis school around him, is that large scale cultural conversations tend to overly systematize and overly
prize what can be articulated in print/rhetoric. You can’t have a global conversation about metis because that sort of local knowledge is almost inherently specific
to very particular situations and the people who can enact a particular metis the best are not correlated (and may even be anti-correlated) with the people who
can best articulate rules and systems. If there is any possible way for you to ignore a dumb law or an overly general cultural conversation, do it. If you think you
can’t ignore such things, stop, try ignoring it for a while (say a month) and see how your life is going.
Ultimately, engage less in The Discourse(tm) is probably the best take away I’ve gotten from listening to Peterson.
Telminha says:
March 27, 2018 at 2:26 pm ~new~
+1
Mr Mind says:
March 27, 2018 at 8:27 am ~new~
Good and evil are the realest and most obvious things you will ever see, and you recognize them on sight.
I feel that this point has not been challenged enough. Epistemic humility is at the core of rationality, and taking the said point for granted is dangerous. It
shouldn’t be repeated in the blog of a psychiatrist, but the brain evolved to distinguish on sight the good and evil of a sabretooth, not of a complex societal
system. After all, witches were obviously evil…
fontesmustgo says:
March 27, 2018 at 8:33 am ~new~
It hasn’t been challenged because it isn’t SA’s position. It’s the first of the three claims of the prophet:
(1) You know what the right thing to do is, because it’s self-evident and obvious.
(2) You don’t want to do it.

(3) But you can.
SA has defined a “prophet” as someone who says those three things. (A good working definition, I’d say, at least within the Hebrew and Christian
scriptures, which are the most relevant to the West). You can argue about his definition, (I would add “(4) Woe to you if you don’t”) but the veracity of
those claims is not at issue here.
March 27, 2018 at 8:42 am ~new~
You know what the right thing to do is, because it’s self-evident and obvious.
This isn’t always true, but it’s often true.
emblem14 says:
March 27, 2018 at 10:56 am ~new~
Witches ARE evil, the issue is we have a tendency to falsely accuse without strong evidence – which leads to runaway abuse and unjust persecution…
371 comments since

The part about the ultimate grounding of morality absent divine authority is food for thought. I suppose it does come down to faith in the end, except in
the existence of a quasi-universal collective conscience instead of godly commandment.
Without faith that (most) people really do have the capacity to know right from wrong, and that such knowledge is broadly shared in a naturally
emergent way, we’re not only stuck in the relativistic morass, but the case for a universalist humanism is shattered. If basic morality isn’t something all
individuals have in common, then “right” and “wrong” are just labels to serve the particular interests of particular people, and we’re back in the jungle.
I personally have that faith, because appeals to universal morality, and humanity, have been occasionally effective at supplanting more parochial moral
frameworks and we’ve seen that we’re capable of emerging from the jungle (at least temporarily).

March 27, 2018 at 11:27 am ~new~
I was mentioning this position rather than asserting it, but I think I’ll assert that it’s true on the tails, although complicated at the margins. I like moral
philosophy as much as anyone else, but I am more certain that the Nazis were evil than I am that evil is a real concept.
Randy M says:
March 27, 2018 at 11:50 am ~new~
Is the first contingent on the second?

March 27, 2018 at 8:47 am ~new~
Does Peterson tell people to not troll/ Trolling strikes me as both causing unnecessary suffering and also something that sucks up an amazing amount of time. I’m
assuming that he wouldn’t have a following from the alt-right if he’s against trolling, but I could be wrong.
Thank you for underlining that part of Peterson’s appeal is simply that he’s in favor of living ordinary life well. This is refreshing in an era when there’s a pressure
to assume that nothing is more important than politics and/or that only extraordinary achievement matters,
christhenottopher says:
March 27, 2018 at 9:06 am ~new~
In some of the Q&As he puts up I’ve seen him speak against trolling or telling fans wanting to fight “meme wars” to cool it and focus on themselves. It’s
not a core thing he prioritizes because his priority is on either his general self help or speech restrictions when he gets to the culture war stuff.
Nick says:
March 27, 2018 at 2:51 pm ~new~
Folks occasionally request that he disavow people doing violence and “abuse” (as I think Cathy Newman put it) in his name, and I believe he responded
that he would need evidence that anything of the sort was going on—going on in his name, that is. That’s is not a very helpful response, but I suspect it’s
to avoid the old LBJ “I want him to deny it” thing. In one video, a transgender person confronted him over whether his views align with that of white
supremacists, and he says something like, that’s a foolish question, if you want to know what my views are watch my lectures.
I’m assuming that he wouldn’t have a following from the alt-right if he’s against trolling, but I could be wrong.
I don’t think this view is at all tenable. Trump is not a white supremacist, but KKK members were still happy to vote for him. Likewise, Peterson says
himself he doesn’t like Nazis, but it doesn’t mean the all trite won’t happily take advantage of his message for their own purposes.
(This is not to say the all trite is Nazis, of course.)
George Oleinikov says:

March 27, 2018 at 8:54 am ~new~
So you’re saying “to make fun of the lobster thing”? Is that all you understood in that interview? Cathy is that you?
y y g g y y y

371 comments since
March 27, 2018 at 8:56 am ~new~
I tried to post a bunch of links to what I consider Jordan Peterson’s best video lectures, but the spam filter ate it because of all the links.
In any event, the short version is that I most recommend watching the recordings he made of his University of Toronto courses, both Maps of Meaning and
Personality and Its Transformations.
I particularly recommend the second half of his personality course, as he talks about the refinement of the Big 5 model he created with Colin De Young. It’s based
on the scientific paper for which Peterson is best known:

Colin G. DeYoung, Lena C. Quilty, Jordan B. Peterson. Between facets and domains: 10 aspects of the Big Five. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol
93(5), Nov 2007, 880-896.
As for Maps of Meaning, I liked his analysis of Pinocchio for the 2017 course.
The same courses vary from year to year, so you can get new things out of watching different versions of the same course.
Happy watching!
Chlopodo says:
March 27, 2018 at 9:56 am ~new~
Will the spam filter let through a single pastebin link? You can put the rest there.
March 27, 2018 at 10:18 am ~new~
Thanks for the tip. Here goes:
https://pastebin.com/4Jamx5Lm
Jared P says:
March 27, 2018 at 9:12 am ~new~
I rode the Jordan Peterson train and have seen enough videos that I feel I can clarify a few thing. (I recommend his earlier stuff before he became just another
talking head.)
Jordan Peterson is an atheist if your definition of God is “A big bearded guy that lives in the sky.” Which really is more just like a learning tool than an actual God.
His understanding of God is something more like capital-B Being. The universe itself. The God of Spinoza and the God of Classical Theism. Is *that* God? Well, it
depends on what you mean by “God”. If you don’t want to call *that* God, then don’t call that God! But some people experience that as God and live perfectly
happy religious lives. (See: The Case for God by Karen Armstrong)
Is God good? Well, is the universe good? The answer seems to be no. Being is blind, uncaring, and random. Jordan Peterson definitely believes that. BUT! Jordan
Peterson believes that implicit in the Hebrew scriptures is the idea that Being is good. Which really is a crazy thing to say or believe in. It almost seems
immediately wrong on the surface. Life is suffering! Everyone knows it. You can’t deny it. BUT! If you assume Being is good, then all suffering is under OUR
control. To assume Being is good is to live in a non-fatalistic, non-nihilistic universe. To have “faith” that Being is good is *transformative.* The faith itself makes
*meaning* possible. It orients your life.
But maybe your life sucks. Maybe you have the worst life ever. Maybe you decide, “God (Being) is a monster! Everyone would be better off dead! Or to have never
lived!” That’s what the negative utilitarian’s have decided. It’s what the anti-natalists have decided. And it’s what the columbine shooters decided.
So instead of hating Being, try having faith that Being is good. Transform your life and transform the universe. Commit yourself to Being in the same way that a
soldier commits to his country. Have faith in God, in this view, is more like having faith in your country. It’s not the answer to “Does your country exist?” It’s the
answer to, “Should your country continue to exist?”
Peterson then backs this up with myth. And I agree with him, this does seem to be the central myth. At some point both the good and the wicked must pass
through fire, die, and their orientation towards Being revealed and/or solidified. The fire transforms the protagonist into a hero, and kills and/or transforms the
weak into the villain. The fire (suffering) is sort of a selecting mechanism for goodness. The fire itself is neither good or bad (both
371PTSD and Post-Traumatic
comments since
Growth exist. Suffering cannot be the cause of both. There must be an internal mechanism), instead it’s what you bring into the fire that matters. If you are
suffering and have the assumption that Being is evil, you become Columbine. You become Vader on Mustafar. But if you suffer and commit yourself to Life, then
you become an Altruist and a Hero. You are Harry Potter passing through Snape’s flames to save the Sorcerer’s Stone, a source of Eternal Life. You become a
Cherubim with a flaming sword, protecting the Tree of Life. You become a Jedi with a flaming sword. You become part of that same fire which selects, because in
protecting Being you become a Hero. And sometimes Heroes have to fight and kill in order to protect Being and Life.
Every Harry Potter book, LoTR, Star Wars, Hunger Games, the bible, Buddha, the process of reincarnation…it all follows that pattern. It’s a meme passed down for
thousands of years. Not immediately obvious, but saturating our entire culture. A naturally occurring esoteric mystery. Baptism by water and by fire, followed by
rebirth or resurrection. Whether Jesus actually did what the bible says, at that point, is irrelevant to Peterson. Psychologically resurrection is very real. It’s the
True Myth.
PaulVK says:
March 27, 2018 at 6:16 pm ~new~
I think this is a terrific summary of Peterson. It’s when you get to the last sentence that Lewis and Tolkien would diverge.
Jack says:
March 27, 2018 at 9:15 am ~new~
I tried a little harder at work. I was a little bit nicer to people I interacted with at home. It was very subtle. It certainly wasn’t because of anything new or
non-cliched in his writing. But God help me, for some reason the cliches worked.
Why do you think this? Sounds like reading a book about being “good” framed your week. Possibilities include: your behaviour wasn’t different at all but you drew
different judgements about it; or, you could have acheived the same effect with a page-a-day calendar that says “TRY HARDER AT WORK. BE NICER TO PEOPLE.”
Mathamatical says:
March 27, 2018 at 9:39 am ~new~
What evidence is there that JP’s methods *work*? His book sales?
It seems like his fanbase is True Believers in exactly the sense outlined by Hoffer via lou keep! Not understanding that the young men who spend their day
watching ‘SJWs evicerated!!’ youtube video also have an insatiable appetite for vacuous self-help advice is to not understand the history of Peterson’s rise.
Devoting a significant amount of time and emotional energy to internet-culture war tends to at least correlate, and probably cause, a deep feeling that you’re
doing things wrong and need serious change in your life, and this is evidenced by the dual purpose of communities like reddit’s theredpill.
The main problem with this article is that ultimately Jordan’s platitudes and prophecy are not his major effect on the world. He is not a guru. His most popular
work is as political figure and philosopher, and the fact that he echoes motivational Content is just personal-credibility evidence for his fans– who may have
cleaner rooms but who Hoffer would predict are not going to stop watching important analysis of Trudeau’s ‘people-kind’
BTW I do agree Peterson would be a fantastic teacher. He’s had absolutely fantastic reviews his whole career it seems, so he’s almost certainly a nice enough guy.
Conrad Honcho says:

March 27, 2018 at 10:08 am ~new~
What evidence is there that JP’s methods *work*?
His decades of clinical practice that did not seem to result in obvious failure?
March 27, 2018 at 10:19 am ~new~
The Future Authoring program seems to have a lot of empirical support behind it.
lvlln says:
March 27, 2018 at 10:24 am ~new~
I don’t think there’s a lot. Peterson always says that it’s been shown to work when he talks about it, but obviously he’d be motivated
t th t d l B th M fO St d A d i th li ti i i i h l it’ i ll dt b k ti l
to say that, and also Beware the Man of One Study. And given the replication crisis in psychology, it’s especially good to be skeptical.
371 comments since
Mathamatical says:
March 27, 2018 at 6:53 pm ~new~
My comment is about jp as guru for the disaffected masses not jp as clinical psychologist
moridinamael says:
March 27, 2018 at 9:56 am ~new~
On Peterson hating utilitarianism: I kinda get it. I feel like utilitarianism is a wonderful tool for stopping yourself from recognizing evil when you see it, especially if
you try to apply it at the micro-level. What a wonderful opportunity to put your finger on the scale and rule in favor of whatever is most convenient for you on
every moral decision!
Peterson is exactly right that the burning sense of “this is wrong” is natural to most people, but we become practiced at ignoring it. Trying to actually live by any
kind of explicit consequentialism tends to train you even further in ignoring it. Thought experiments like Torture vs Specks seem to be designed to teach you to
ignore your intuitions and just “calculate”.
On meaning: I admit, at this point, the more I read various intellectuals talk about “meaning” the more I suspect meaning is just a feeling. Your boring corporate
life doesn’t feel meaningful because your meaning-generating brain centers, attuned to the savanna, don’t generate the feeling of meaning. When you go on a
road trip with your best pals, it’s meaningful because your brain recognizes this is a meaningful context.
And when you’re on a road trip with your best pals and still don’t feel it’s meaningful, well, that’s depression. We recognize the disconnect between feeling and
obvious correlates of human joy as a dysfunction.
You’re not going to find something fundamental to ground meaning beyond “how much does this situation look like something a homo sapiens should be doing?”
What else could it even be?

March 27, 2018 at 9:56 am ~new~
My teenage son seems like the person that would benefit from a Peterson-style kick-in-the-pants, but if I bought the book for him, it would likely sit on his shelf
until it got covered stuff and never end up read. I think Peterson’s resistance to some current authority regimes would make it more likely he would read it, but it
would still sit there.
moridinamael says:
March 27, 2018 at 10:25 am ~new~
Well, Rule 5: Do not let your children do anything that makes you dislike them.

March 27, 2018 at 10:33 am ~new~
I cannot force him, and if I did I suspect any kick-in-the-pants lesson would be quickly lost.
lvlln says:
March 27, 2018 at 10:37 am ~new~
What about one of his many many YouTube videos? A lot easier to passively take something like that in, rather than cracking open a book, even though a
video is likely to be less influential or effective. Here’s a talk he gives specifically on the book, in which he goes over each of the 12 rules and the thinking
behind them.
PaulVK says:
March 27, 2018 at 6:20 pm ~new~
Many of Peterson’s followers are post-literate. Many of them work in IT and listen to YT all day and like most of American seldom read a book. The book
371 comments since
puts Peterson on the radar for the literate world but YT is its own universe.
wickedfighting says:
March 27, 2018 at 9:57 am ~new~
> But I actually acted as a slightly better person during the week or so I read Jordan Peterson’s book. I feel properly ashamed about this. If you ask me whether I
was using dragon-related metaphors, I will vociferously deny it. But I tried a little harder at work. I was a little bit nicer to people I interacted with at home. It was
very subtle. It certainly wasn’t because of anything new or non-cliched in his writing. But God help me, for some reason the cliches worked.
perhaps the crazy thing is that i know exactly what Scott is talking about, just that it’s not in reference to any of JP’s works (i haven’t read them). when i finish a
good book/anime/manga/visual novel which contains fictional characters who are simply such admirably good characters (see: Madoka Magica), i deliberately try
to become a better person. at least for a while. the effects peter out over time, though they certainly do have more than a subtle impact on how i try to view the
world after that (even if they don’t change my actions in the long term per se).
but still. basically Scott is saying that the book impacted him on an emotional level. that’s something i can respect, but maybe Scott should try consuming other
kinds of media (fictional or not) which are more likely to draw out an emotional impact, and re-evaluate JP in light of that.
Jared P says:
March 27, 2018 at 11:13 am ~new~
Something like Jonathan Haidas Moral Elevation? What the Mormons call “the spirit”.
March 27, 2018 at 11:28 am ~new~
I’ve seen Madoka Magica and it didn’t have this effect on me, if that helps.
Conrad Honcho says:

March 27, 2018 at 10:14 am ~new~
So God is True, the Bible is True, etc. This awkwardly jars with book-Peterson’s obsessive demand that people tell the truth at all times, which seems to use
a definition of Truth which is more reality-focused.
Not exactly. He says not to lie. Peterson doesn’t say to tell the truth. It’s hard to know what’s true, but we definitely know when we’re lying. So don’t do that.
My corollary to the “do not lie” rule is “do not do things one would feel tempted to lie about.” It makes life a lot easier.
Prussian says:
March 27, 2018 at 11:42 am ~new~
Will someone please explain to me what is all this stuff about the transsexual lobsters or whatever?
But from reading this – there’s a parallel here with Ayn Rand. I don’t want to get into the weeds about her philosophy for the moment, but something I heard a lot
from people who read Atlas Shrugged or The Fountainhead and found the guts to kick drugs and booze and start a new career and leave a loveless, empty
marriage etc. What they got from her wasn’t what to do so much as an absolute, burning sense that it was the right thing to do. Change is really difficult [citation
needed] and often what is necessary is for people not just to know that change would be good, but that it would be essential. That it is the morally correct thing
to do. A sense that goes far beyond self-help and into something closer to a kind of religious awakening. I may be overthinking things, but this sounds a lot like
what Scott’s talking about here when he says that Peterson makes things feel meaningful, so meaningful that he found his own behaviour changing?
N.B.: Would love to read Scott’s reaction to Rucka Rucka on Jordan Peterson.
suntzuanime says:
March 27, 2018 at 11:44 am ~new~
The word-we-can’t-say have been running a smear campaign on Peterson to make him look like a loony and a bigot It’s in reference to that
The word we can t say have been running a smear campaign on Peterson to make him look like a loony and a bigot. It s in reference to that.
371 comments since
Andrew Hunter says:
March 27, 2018 at 12:06 pm ~new~
I’m honestly not even sure which word you’re tabooing here.
suntzuanime says:
March 27, 2018 at 12:10 pm ~new~
Well, this is one of the reasons it helps to be able to say words.
Jack Lecter says:

March 27, 2018 at 5:23 pm ~new~
Granting the general point, I’m also unsure which you meant.
Clarification?
Hide ↑
b_jonas says:
March 27, 2018 at 11:49 am ~new~
See lvlln’s comment above that explains this: http://slatestarcodex.com/2018/03/26/book-review-twelve-rules-for-life/#comment-613388
Prussian says:
March 27, 2018 at 11:52 am ~new~
Hmmm – if that comment is accurate then the line is more unjust than I usually expect from S.A.
danylmc says:
March 27, 2018 at 11:51 am ~new~
Peterson’s first rule – stand up straight and don’t slouch – is justified based on the dominance hierarchy of lobsters, which is hard-coded into their brains
by evolution. It is pretty much the first thing you encounter in the book and, to be honest, makes very little sense so his critics have seized on it.
Prussian says:
March 27, 2018 at 11:53 am ~new~
That explains more.
Aapje says:
March 27, 2018 at 2:50 pm ~new~
His claim is that adopting a more dominant posture makes you feel as if you are higher in the dominance hierarchy.
Deiseach says:
March 27, 2018 at 3:08 pm ~new~
People who were oohing and aahing over Gay Penguin Couples as “see? it’s in nature! this is why we should have same-sex marriage!” can’t
throw stones about using examples from nature such as dominant lobsters, is my opinion 🙂
But isn’t the “Stand up straight and don’t slouch” (a) the advice our mothers and grandmothers and teachers gave us (b) related to that Power
Pose thing? That having been refuted would seem to be a better counter-argument than saying he thinks humans are lobsters.
L i t R l Hid ↑
371 comments since
Jack Lecter says:
March 27, 2018 at 5:25 pm ~new~
hat having been refuted would seem to be a better counter-argument than saying he thinks humans are lobsters.
Better, but less rhetorically effective.
I doubt the general public knows what ‘failed to replicate’ means, and expecting them to actually modify their worldview based on it is
setting yourself up for disappointment.
LadyJane says:
March 27, 2018 at 1:01 pm ~new~
The difference is, Peterson’s philosophy tells people to be the best they can be within the context of their given societal roles and the constraints of
conventional morality. Whereas Rand’s philosophy tells people to be the best they can be, even if that means subverting societal roles and social norms
and conventional morality, so long as you’re not actively harming others. Peterson and Rand both encourage people to work hard and be assertive and
find strength within themselves, and they both reject the idea of blaming external factors for one’s problems. However, Peterson rejects it because he
believes people should learn to be content with external factors as they are, whereas Rand rejects it because she believes that people can and should
change those external factors if they’re not content with them. Peterson’s philosophy is ultimately centered around acceptance of circumstance, whereas
Rand’s philosophy is ultimately centered around shaping your own circumstances.
I’d say they both agree on the worst way to live (i.e. sitting around bitching about how much your life sucks without doing anything about it, while
blaming other people or society as a whole or bad luck for your misery and inaction), but they have very different and almost diametrically opposed ideas
on the best way to live.
bbeck310 says:
March 27, 2018 at 4:37 pm ~new~
Peterson rejects it because he believes people should learn to be content with external factors as they are, whereas Rand rejects it
because she believes that people can and should change those external factors if they’re not content with them.
Is this really correct? Based on the previous comments, that sounds not quite right–I don’t think Peterson would say people “should learn to be
content with external factors as they are,” but that people should accept that external factors will not change quickly or easily and do the best
they can within them. E.g., a black person in 1950’s Georgia should work to change the unjust law, but shouldn’t let the unjust law be an
excuse for laziness or misbehavior. If people are going to discriminate against me unjustly for whatever reason, I should advocate against
discrimination–while trying to be as good at what I do as I can despite it.
LadyJane says:
March 27, 2018 at 5:23 pm ~new~
See the gulag example above. Rand would probably say that someone wrongfully imprisoned in a gulag should try to revolt or escape,
even at the risk of their own lives. In her eyes, they had a right to refuse a life in bondage, and to reject the unjust constraints of such
an immoral system. Whereas Peterson’s view is that the prisoner should accept their conditions and live the best life they can within
the gulag.
Rand believed that it was acceptable for an entrepreneur to destroy their own land and resources, rather than let those resources be
stolen from them by an unjust collectivist government. Peterson would probably say that the entrepreneur should probably just make
the best of it and take whatever small amount of compensation the government was offering, even if it wasn’t fair.
As the saying goes: Grant me the courage to change what I can, the serenity to accept what I can’t, and the wisdom to know the
difference. Rand’s philosophy heavily emphasized the first part; Peterson’s philosophy heavily emphasizes the second. In his eyes, the
only thing a person really can change is their outlook, and some fairly minor aspects of their immediate surroundings (e.g. how clean
their room is).
daystareld says:
M h 8 t
March 27, 2018 at 11:51 am ~new~
371 comments since
I predict most people who dislike Peterson are not going to be particularly swayed by this piece, because it’s a review of his BOOK, and only a little bit of a review
of the man himself, but not a review of what actually made him (in)famous, which is his role in the culture wars and his political beliefs.
The people who like Peterson are going to fixate on the glowing praises and run around asserting that Scott likes Peterson and thinks his teachings are good and
useful, and feel validated in liking him too… and that will often bleed over into validation for agreeing with Peterson’s politics and dogmatic beliefs, which Scott
barely touches on, but criticizes when he does.
Like countless popular intellectuals, Peterson is someone who is most famous for the things he says and believes that are outside of his expertise. Him being
effective and valuable within his expertise is good to know, particularly to me, as a therapist. After reading this, I’d actually be interested in reading a condensed
version of Peterson’s therapy advice, with all the dogma and politics and religious fluff taken out to improve the Signal:Noise.
But all that is also mostly beside the point: how good he is as a therapist and how good his intentions are and what benefits people can get from his teachings do
little to nothing to address the undermining cracks in his ideology, the contradictions in his asserted beliefs, and the whiff of danger that everyone on the other
side is yelling about. To wit, it is very easy to like someone if you only focus on what they’re good at and right about, and not what they’re not.
Again, Scott only briefly touches on those other things in this review, which is probably for the best: it is, after all, a book review, not a Peterson review. But
Peterson is more than this book, and the people who are against him are not against him for this book.
MugaSofer says:
March 27, 2018 at 11:53 am ~new~
But prophets are neither new nor controversial. To a first approximation, they only ever say three things:
First, good and evil are definitely real. You know they’re real. You can talk in philosophy class about how subtle and complicated they are, but this is
bullshit and you know it. Good and evil are the realest and most obvious things you will ever see, and you recognize them on sight.
Second, you are kind of crap. You know what good is, but you don’t do it. You know what evil is, but you do it anyway. You avoid the straight and narrow
path in favor of the easy and comfortable one. You make excuses for yourself and you blame your problems on other people. You can say otherwise, and
maybe other people will believe you, but you and I both know you’re lying.
Third, it’s not too late to change. You say you’re too far gone, but that’s another lie you tell yourself. If you repented, you would be forgiven. If you take one
step towards God, He will take twenty toward you. Though your sins be like scarlet, they shall be white as snow.
This is the General Prophetic Method. It’s easy, it’s old as dirt, and it works.
Really?
Those aren’t the central teachings of the Buddha. They’re not the central teachings of Moses. They’re not the central teachings of L Ron Hubbard.
I think you’ve mistaken the tenets of Christianity, as generally recapitulated by Christian holy men, for generic Prophetic Wisdom that makes you lead a better
life.
Peterson is, at best, an atheist attempting to re-build Christianity out of objectively false Unsong-esque gibberish about “universal archetypes” and “racial
memory”. At worst, he’s a wannabe cult leader who’s skilled at pretending to be smart and little else and actively opposed to those “generic” prophetic truths.
fontesmustgo says:
March 27, 2018 at 12:05 pm ~new~
S.A. didn’t say anything about “central teachings.” He said that those three things ((i) You can identify evil, (ii) You don’t want to avoid it, (iii) but you
can) are common to the messages of prophets.
Is the Buddha considered a “prophet”? Forgive me for doing this, but the Wikipedia entry states that he’s a prophet for a small Muslim sect and for
Manichaeism. So if he doesn’t seem to fit under S.A.’s “prophet” definition, maybe it’s because he’s not generally considered to be a prophet.
Moses? Well, he did a lot of stuff, but one thing he did was to give the Hebrews the law (which literally set in stone what was right and what was wrong),
note that they don’t want to follow the law, and call them to knock it off. Prophet.
Hubbard? I have no idea.

Hubbard? I have no idea.
371 comments since
MugaSofer says:
March 27, 2018 at 12:25 pm ~new~
Scott said, and I quoted:
To a first approximation, they only ever say three things:
This is a very different statement from “they all say these three things at some point, buried in the middle of the stuff they actually care about.”
Is the Buddha considered a “prophet”?
I guess I did take a broad definition of “prophet”, as anyone who acts wild-eyed and convinces people they have special religious/moral wisdom.
If we’re limiting ourselves to those people agreed upon as prophets by all three Abrahamic religions, I challenge you to give three examples
that fits Scott’s description.
fontesmustgo says:
March 27, 2018 at 12:44 pm ~new~
Well, “only” is too broad; Elijah also said “make me a loaf of bread” (1 Kings 17:13). But I don’t think that invalidates SA’s point.
If we’re limiting ourselves to those people agreed upon as prophets by all three Abrahamic religions, I challenge you to give
three examples that fits Scott’s description.
Elijah, Moses, Jonah, Ezekiel.
beleester says:
March 27, 2018 at 12:44 pm ~new~
Moses is, doctrinally, “the greatest prophet,” because he talked to God all the time about everything, but narratively, he’s a law-giver rather
than a guy who reminds you of the laws you already know.
The “Generic Prophetic Method” prophets in Judaism would be the post-Torah prophets, the Nevi’im. They follow a pretty reliable pattern of
saying that Israel has strayed and followed false gods and done all sorts of obviously evil things, and if they don’t turn back and do what is
right, there will be much wailing and gnashing of teeth. Jeremiah is the foremost example of this type.
You also get the flip side of that – prophets promising that Israel’s current awful situation will be restored if they keep their faith. The Haftarot
of Consolation from Isaiah are the archetype there.
(Although keep in mind that the prophets are not only writing Generic Prophecy. Isaiah talks about politics as much as he talks about faith.)
Another famous example is Micah: “And what does the LORD require of you, but to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?
March 27, 2018 at 12:24 pm ~new~
“skilled at pretending to be smart”
Peterson has a 10 old paper, with nearly 1000 citations. It’s a major advance in the study of human personality. He has an h-index of 50. (20 is your
average tenured psych prof. 40 is something of a star.) He’s genuinely smart.

March 27, 2018 at 3:45 pm ~new~
I’m using “prophet” here not in the sense of “great religious figure” but in the sense of “the kind of guy who’s got a book of Nevi’im named after him”.
Think Jeremiah, Isaiah, etc. 371 comments since

David Speyer says:

March 27, 2018 at 6:27 pm ~new~
Moses doesn’t spend much time calling people to repentance — when the Israelites under his leadership screw up, either they get smote immediately, or
else Moses intercedes with God to save them. But plenty of Jewish prophets after this fit the mold: Jeremiah, Hosea, Micah, Jonah … I’ll agree that this is
an Abrahamic model, but not that it is a Christian one.
joshmaundering says:
March 27, 2018 at 12:20 pm ~new~
With all the talk about transforming chaos into order, did anybody else have a flashback to the Incarnations of Immortality series by Piers Anthony? Those seem
like such inconsequential books to me now, but they were some of the first literature I came across that included gradations of meaning.
Levantine says:
March 27, 2018 at 12:27 pm ~new~
Regarding JBP, I oscillate between solid approval and high irritation.
I sent him a couple of messages respectfully arguing to correct an error. Months later he still talks as if he hasn’t read them. Meanwhile, I learned that what I was
trying to tell him … strikes at the basic motive of his endeavour! It’s to explain and ward off totalitarian evils. Well, since c. 1984 when he had become fascinated
by them, newly opened archives and mainstream historiography showed that those totalitarian evils were I. neither that totalitarian, II. nor that destructive, and
on top of it, there is lack of care by JBP to methodologically treat them comparably to the evils of our own societies.
It shows to me that Peterson is not unlike myself in my teenage and adolescent years. I see his very postulation of the problem is plainly flawed, and without the
virtue of being original.
Predictably, many of you will brush aside what I just said as some idiosyncratic apologetics for dictators. (As a matter of fact I’m libertarianish.) Yesterday I came
across this sub-reddit that, with its 4.5 M subscribers & all, indicates the spread of irritation with JBP’s flaws:
https://www.reddit.com/r/enoughpetersonspam/top/
To be sure, I’m glad for most of what JBP does.
March 27, 2018 at 12:54 pm ~new~
He says he has been getting thousands of emails a day since the controversy over pronouns broke out. Don’t take it personally.

March 27, 2018 at 3:42 pm ~new~
I get a lot of emails “correcting” me on stuff. I try to read as many as I can, but a lot of them I still disagree with, and I don’t have time to turn all of
them into long discussions trying to resolve our disagreement, so it probably looks like I just ignore them.
Peterson is a hundred times more famous than I am, so he probably gets this even worse.
apedeaux says:
March 27, 2018 at 12:54 pm ~new~
Oh my God.
Jordan B. Peterson just redpilled Slate Star Codex.
But seriously, as a huge fan of SSC and a megasuper fan of Peterson, I was rather shocked by your introduction: “But, uh…I’m really embarrassed to say this. And
I totally understand if you want to stop reading me after this, or revoke my book-reviewing license, or whatever. But guys, Jordan Peterson is actually good.”
371 comments since

Scott, why did you have such a negative, and I would assume misinformed idea of what Peterson is about? Why would it be so shocking to your audience to hear
you express your admiration for the man and his ideas? I can understand some points of disagreement, but you act like you’re going to be thrown out of your own
community for some kind of blasphemy.
Jack Lecter says:

March 27, 2018 at 5:41 pm ~new~
you act like you’re going to be thrown out of your own community for some kind of blasphemy.
I can’t speak for Scott, but my own (casual, almost entirely uninformed) impression of Peterson prior to this was that he was an anti-sj hack. If this lines
up at all with the general public perception, we’d expect that
1. SSC commenters who are pro-sj wouldn’t like him because they’re pro sj.
2. SSC commenters who are anti-sj wouldn’t like him because he’s a hack and they don’t want to be associated with him.
and
3. SSC commenters who are pro-sj would additionally dislike him because, like the anti-sj commenters, they have standards.
(This ignores neutrals, and people who don’t care very much, not because there aren’t any but because they’re unlikely to factor in to the calculus.)
vaniver says:
March 27, 2018 at 1:18 pm ~new~
I think Peterson is very against utilitarianism, but I’m not really sure why.
See the earlier paragraph you quoted:
Don’t be arrogant in your knowledge. Strive for humility, because totalitarian pride manifests itself in intolerance, oppression, torture and death.
Most people who use utilitarianism use it to argue how doing the ‘wrong’ thing in the short-term really will help long-term. But also most people are bad at
predicting the long-term, and would be better off doing something that they can be highly confident will actually have good local effects.
Vanessa Kowalski says:

March 27, 2018 at 1:38 pm ~new~
Humans are living their best lives when they’re always balanced on the edge of Order and Chaos, converting the Chaos into new Order. Lean too far
toward Order, and you get boredom and tyranny and stagnation. Lean too far toward Chaos, and you get utterly discombobulated and have a total
breakdown… Peterson’s claim – that our goal is to balance these two – seems more true to life, albeit not as mathematically grounded as any of the actual
neuroscience theories. But it would be really interesting if one day we could determine that this universal overused metaphor actually reflects something
important about the structure of our brains.
The Order/Chaos dichotomy seems more or less the same as the completely standard exploitation-exploration dilemma in reinforcement learning. Any RL
algorithm has to strike a balance between exploiting already known strategies and experimenting with new ones. Surely this is reflected in the design of the
human brain as well.
sclmlw says:
March 27, 2018 at 2:19 pm ~new~
Good post overall. While I don’t agree with lots of Jordan Peterson, I think Scott fundamentally missed the boat in some of his criticisms because he systematically
views things from a different perspective than Peterson, which was missed.
From what I can tell, Peterson is intensely interested in the idea, “Everyone has the capacity to become a Nazi war criminal. What causes that phenomenon?” His
answer, and the central driving idea of his philosophy, seems to be, “Anarchy/chaos is worse for society/humanity than horrific, unimaginable cruelty. So evolution
pushed society to develop in a way that will always choose cruelty over chaos. Thus, if you were in Stalin’s Russia, you’d run the gulags to stave off anarchy, and
you’d kill hundreds of people if you had to. You may hate it, but it was required for humanity to soldier on, so it’s what evolutionary forces produced.” Peterson
cares because he wants to understand how to steer societies away from the gulags and the killing fields.
This appears to be the foundation of his philosophy and you can understand a lot of what he talks about as an outgrowth of this idea For example his answers to
This appears to be the foundation of his philosophy, and you can understand a lot of what he talks about as an outgrowth of this idea. For example his answers to,
Why do good things happen to bad people? He accepts that good things happen to bad people as a given. However, when good 371 comments
things since
happen to bad people,
those people have a choice to make: should I give in to chaos and ascribe meaninglessness, or should I accept some order of some kind? And Peterson would say
that societies that would have chosen the chaos angle didn’t survive. Evolution now has the choice as a built-in function, where you will always accept order of
some kind. And that order could manifest in a number of different ways, such as the killing fields of Cambodia, but what matters is that if your choice is killing
fields or chaos you’ll choose killing fields every time. So Peterson wants to ensure we don’t get to the point where that’s the only choice left; he advises his
acolytes not to destroy society (which leads to the chaos/authoritarian dilemma), but to recognize that they’re going to choose to follow some order of some kind,
and that they should therefore intentionally follow even a flawed societal order, because it’s better than gas chambers and ethnic cleansing. The reality that “bad
things happen to good people” shouldn’t persuade them to tear down society and try starting all over again, because that leads to the chaos/tyrant choice, and we
can’t go there. So when bad things happen, you have to do your part to keep flawed society going, or else we get concentration camps. Go back and read the
quotes above in that context and they all make sense. He’s not trying to answer “why do bad things happen”, he’s trying to direct what he sees as an appropriate
response to when they do.
This also directs his motivations when talking to people about his theory. Fundamentally, he has hypothesized a reason so many people in the 20th century
became horrible, and he sees the current non-awful state of civilization as unstable. He sees trends he believes could tear down society, and cause people to spiral
back to the point where they will be willing to do anything to stave off the chaos. In some of his videos he gets passionate, and in most cases he reserves his
passion for this basic idea in some form or another: everyone has the capacity to become a Hutu killing Tutsis; you would do it, even if you think you’re better
than that; if you don’t follow certain ideas, you (and society in general) will devolve into that awful state.
I don’t know if any of that is true, or if it’s a different kind of psychobabble, but the fundamental observation that Scott is missing is that Peterson is thinking on a
society-wide and philosophically-projected evolutionary development axis. Peterson’s pronouncements flow from this angle. He’s not thinking as a utilitarian or
deontologist or consequentialist. He’s thinking, “What do populations do in these situations, and how can we nudge populations away from mass torture/murder?”
That’s not utilitarian maximization, or negative utilitarianism. It’s sort of like Nassim Taleb’s concern about fat-tail events breaking fragile systems, and how to
avoid that.
jvalim says:
March 27, 2018 at 2:53 pm ~new~
The words “cliche” and “platitude” used in the review could equally well be replaced by “ancient wisdom”. Peterson admits that he’s not saying new things, and
that these are old truths. The thing is, when most people speak about them, cliches and platitudes are what comes out. What makes Peterson different?
Charisma, confidence and facility with language certainly help. But I think a crucial thing about Peterson is that he understands these ideas about life on a level
most people don’t, and he believes, deeply, in their importance in actually relieving needless suffering. Let’s take the idea of telling the truth, or at least not lying.
Most people would indeed agree that it’s not good to lie, but that confidence wouldn’t go very deep. For Peterson, it’s bone deep, coming from decades of
reflection on clinical experience, research on totalitarianism and mythology and other things. So he can explain the idea about why being truthful is important very
well. He can make the idea concrete from multiple perspectives, connecting it to results in real life, in the society and in the psychology of the individual.
Anybody can spout off a cliche / ancient truth about life. It take something more to make that cliche come alive again in the minds of listeners and to help them
appreciate it’s importance. Actually, this ties rather nicely to Peterson’s idea about how the culture is dead, and needs to be revivified all the time. That’s what a
cliche is, it’s the corpse of a dead idea, an idea that may have once been something important, even crucially so. The idea behind the cliche must be grasped,
understood and applied to current life by living minds for it to come alive.
Carl Milsted says:

March 27, 2018 at 3:25 pm ~new~
Regarding “making the world an end:” This concept is closer to what the Bible says than what C.S. Lewis implies in the quote above. The Bible is very political!.
The Old Testament is heavily about enforcing a certain legal system. The New Testament promises crowns and kingdoms for the saints when Jesus returns.
And that return is to here on Earth. The Bible does not promise a cushy heavenly retirement home for the righteous. It promises government jobs in the far
future. See here for relevant citations.
fnord says:
March 27, 2018 at 3:52 pm ~new~
So you’ve reconsidered your position on charisma now, I imagine?
jonnyallred says:
What does Scott mean by
I’ve long-since departed the burned-over district of the soul for the Utah of respectability-within-a-mature-cult.
theredsheep says:
March 27, 2018 at 5:03 pm ~new~
Re: prophecy, I think it’s more that we’re wired to trust people who sound absolutely certain in general, for whatever reason. It might be some function of the
percentage of people who turn out to be confident for good reason vs. the percentage of people who are confident because they’re stupid or crazy. I once heard a
woman speak who identified herself as a “prophetess” and told everyone in the room (a meet-the-author event at the library) about what God wanted. Now, I
don’t believe in a bit of what she was saying, other than very broad generalities like “God exists.” Certainly I thought she was a loon. But because she spoke in
just the right firm, level tone, I felt absurdly tempted to listen to her anyway. There are plenty of people out there who we think are absolutely certain of the
words coming out of their mouths, but there’s always a certain defensiveness about them. To be actually able to say something with perfect, calm conviction is
really quite rare. Most of us are plagued and undermined by some level of doubt or modesty.
Have not read Peterson, have seen videos of his lectures where he seems unremarkable and uninteresting. Maybe it’s just that I’m not in the market for a belief
system, I don’t know.
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371 comments since

BOOK REVIEW: TWELVE RULES FOR LIFE

“Weird. Must be a prophet. Better kneel.”

Lewis has his demon character Screwtape tell a fellow demon:

On one level, Peterson knocks this one out of the park:

371 comments since

371 comments since

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371 RESPONSES TO BOOK REVIEW: TWELVE RULES FOR LIFE

March 27, 2018 at 12:01 am ~new~

with their giant gold lobster idols?”

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Gaius Levianthan XV says:

March 27, 2018 at 3:32 am ~new~

everything else in the subreddit, anyway).

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March 27, 2018 at 4:35 pm ~new~

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March 27, 2018 at 4:46 am ~new~

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March 27, 2018 at 7:59 am ~new~

It’s not, but making this claim is.

in a war and people will start fighting you.

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March 27, 2018 at 10:02 am ~new~

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March 27, 2018 at 7:08 pm ~new~

who stay within their own filter bubble.

Nicholas Conrad says:

March 27, 2018 at 10:07 am ~new~

infer nefarious intent and declare Aapje a culture warrior.

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March 27, 2018 at 7:11 pm ~new~

describing the situation in the culture as I see it.

March 27, 2018 at 10:11 am ~new~

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March 27, 2018 at 12:15 pm ~new~

considering men’s issues is still a reasonable complaint!)

women” if you disagree with me.

March 27, 2018 at 4:30 pm ~new~

man having nowhere to go), but I suppose neither exists.

certain age (12 if I remember correctly).

I think this type of thinking contributes to the problem.

lesbians) below average height are allowed.

Ozy Frantz says:

March 27, 2018 at 4:47 pm ~new~

get help and remain in their relationships.

March 27, 2018 at 5:11 pm ~new~

leaving the gender-neutral ones de-facto male.

March 27, 2018 at 5:49 pm ~new~

without a woman to care for him.

away from abusive men”.)

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March 27, 2018 at 9:59 am ~new~

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mentioned there at all.

(Unless we are talking about the dragon race, of course.)

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March 27, 2018 at 12:28 am ~new~

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March 27, 2018 at 8:02 am ~new~