Not Quite a Counter Revolution, But . . .

Sit Back and Watch the Show

Jordan Peterson has become a bit of a thing.  He is a psychologist.  He bases his views and opinions on foundations of empirical observation and research.  He tosses in a bit of common sense.  He enjoys exposing the gaping irrational holes in populist ideologies. 

For those who are not aware of his work, an extended interview published in The Listener is not a bad introduction.  Some excerpts:
 
Jordan Peterson Talks Gender Pay Gap, Neo-Nazis and Preferred Pronouns

by Mark Broatch
NZ Listener

Canadian psychologist Jordan Peterson has become an internet sensation for his outspoken criticism of what he calls “political correctness” and “cultural Marxism”.

Camille Paglia has called him “the most important and influential Canadian thinker since Marshall McLuhan”. Right-wing British commentator Melanie Phillips described him as “a kind of secular prophet who, in an era of lobotomised conformism, thinks out of the box”. A columnist for the Canadian magazine Maclean’s said he was “the stupid man’s smart person”. Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek dubbed aspects of his work “ridiculous”.

Oracle or kook, Canadian psychology professor Jordan Peterson is having a moment. You can't escape his video lectures and Ted talks online, suggesting that Western society is being undermined by the likes of “postmodernists and “cultural Marxists”, who push pernicious concepts such as identity politics; turn minorities and marginalised groups into perpetual victims; and use political correctness to deaden thought and threaten freedom of speech. . . .


Norman Doidge in the foreword says the main rule is that you must take responsibility for your own life, focus less on rights and more on responsibility.

Yeah, and I also think that’s why the book and, perhaps even more, the lectures have become so popular. I’m stating very forthrightly to a society that’s been fed a non-stop diet of impulsive pleasure and infinite freedoms and rights for 50 years that most of the meaning of life is to be found in the adoption of responsibility rather than luxuriating in an ever-extending matrix of rights and privileges. People find meaning in their commitments. Commitments limit. They also enable, obviously. What do you do in life? Educate yourself. That’s a burden. Attempt to make yourself useful to yourself and other people so you can take your place in the reciprocal give-and-take of the broader social world. Establish an intimate relationship and some friendships. Take responsibility for children. Try to live a life that’s of benefit to you and other people. That’s where the meaning in life is. So I’m suggesting to people who are hopeless and desperate and finding it difficult to grow up and all of those things that they have something of benefit to offer in the world. And it’s necessary for them and everyone else that they manifest it. That’s a hopeful message to people who are lost. We’ve been sold casual pleasure and irresponsibility as a doctrine for so long that the whole culture is now starving for a message that says, “Do the most difficult thing you can. Tell the truth. Bear up underneath your responsibilities. Straighten yourself out.” And thousands of people say, “Oh, my God. You can’t believe how much of a relief it is to hear that.”  . . . .

You’ve famously argued against Canada’s mandated use of preferred pronouns for trans people. New Zealand’s recent census had only male or female. Do you accept there should be an “other” category?

No, I don’t think so. I think the damage done by destabilising that category system will far outweigh whatever benefits might accrue. I think this is already happening. One of the things you’re seeing now across the West is skyrocketing rates of rapid-onset gender dysphoria and referrals to gender-reassignment clinics. It’s like a psychological epidemic. It’s really a bad thing. We’re going to pay for it in a big way over the next 10-15 years. . . .

You have said both that you “act as if God exists” and that there is a “good case for atheism”, but it’s not going to lead to a rational society; that society needs a basic religious underpinning; and that atheist thinker Sam Harris has fundamental Christian metaphysics. But isn’t human “morality” just a consequence of evolutionary psychology?

Harris thinks we can generate a morality based on rules. I don’t think it’s reducible to a set of rules. We guide ourselves with stories. The great stories are the religious stories, the archetypal stories. They provide us with guidance in ways that we don’t really understand. Just like great literature provides us with wisdom in ways we don’t understand. I don’t think there’s any escape from the fundamental requirement of wanting a unifying narrative, and that brings you into religious territory. There’s no evidence that atheism has led to a rational, ordered society.