Opinion of Jordan Peterson

Huntergonzo

The man is all over youtube at the minute since his interview with Cathy Newman, which I personally found pretty entertaining. Since then I've listened to quite a bit of his content on youtube and I've found myself very conflicted about him.

On one hand I think he makes a lot of good points, for example that equality of opportunity is good, whereas equality of outcome is bad and his opposition to 3rd wave feminism and social justice warriors in general is also very welcome.

However I also think he has a tendency to over scrutinize questions he doesn't like and also occasionally gives poor answers to those questions. For example I find when he's asked about religion he regularly gives highly convoluted, vague and confusing answers.

Any further thoughts or opinions?

kneemos

He presents the facts a lot of the time and gets accused of being this that and the other for doing so.

Captain Obvious

https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2057832584&page=104

Huntergonzo

Captain Obvious wrote: »

https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2057832584&page=104

I've posted on that thread myself, but that was started in response to his interview with Newman, I just want to get general opinions of Peterson if people still have any.

TheValeyard

la peseta loca wrote: »

clean your room

No.

Captain Obvious

I just watched his debate with Stephen Fry on political correctness. He came off as a grumpy ass. Fry was fantastic though.

The Bishop Basher

He's clearly a a smart guy with some well thought out arguments.

He's massively misrepresented and often misunderstood by those who he manages to piss off on a daily basis but he's obviously struck a chord with a very significant number of people and not all just male either.

In short, a lot of us have had enough of being preached at by "liberals" and feminazis and Jordan Peterson is a welcome voice in response to that.

The Cathy Newman interview summed it up beautifully.

Feminists are proving themselves to be illogical and irrational in the face of reasoned intelligent debate. We just need to hold course and this illiberal movement will eat itself. You can see it starting already.

super_furry

Bit of a gob****e to be honest, but there's already a big old thread full of people pulling themselves into a frenzy over him.

Muppet Man

I’ve stumbled across him myself lately and I think he doesn’t do himself any favors... sometimes comes across as being angry and argumentative when it’s not needed. He does make some good points in between it all, but his debating delivery is No where near as classy as Sam Harris, fry nor the hitch.

I think he’s doing a tour during the summer with Sam Harris, not sure what the topic of discussion will be.

B0jangles

I've only watched a few bits and pieces, but does he not have a tendency to make statements without indicating whether or not he agrees with them?

When he does this in an interview, the person who is talking to him then usually asks 'is that what you believe yourself?', or as in the infamous Cathy Newman interivew 'so what you're saying is X' he gets all irritated and points out that he never actually specifically said whether or not he does actually agree with whatever observation he just made.

It just seems kind of like he wants to say things without actually saying them, which is a very peculiar way of conducting yourself.


Edit: I've also noticed that his admirers seem to find it very hard to agree on what his stance is on anything, or explain what his key arguments are. All you get is an instruction to watch one of his many 45 minute youtube videos.

Huntergonzo

Rennaws wrote: »

He's clearly a a smart guy with some well thought out arguments.

He's massively misrepresented and often misunderstood by those who he manages to piss off on a daily basis but he's obviously struck a chord with a very significant number of people and not all just male either.

In short, a lot of us have had enough of being preached at by "liberals" and feminazis and Jordan Peterson is a welcome voice in response to that.

The Cathy Newman interview summed it up beautifully.

Feminists are proving themselves to be illogical and irrational in the face of reasoned intelligent debate. We just need to hold course and this illiberal movement will eat itself. You can see it starting already.

I would agree with all of that, those are very much what I would consider his strong side.

I just think he has a bit of a blind spot when it comes to religion, I honestly get the impression that he's a bit of a religious apologist.

Also I recently saw a video of him on youtube, where someone emailed into him (in relation to the Australian gay marriage vote) saying = "I'm against the Yes campaign, but only because it's backed by cultural marxists".....and he agreed with this ridiculous way of thinking. I'm not sure how such a clever man could back such an irrational way of thinking, if indeed the person who emailed was being honest, chances are they were always a No voter but didn't have the courage to own it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4jef2C4T1_A

emo72

He's a legend.

irishguitarlad

I think his psychology is ok and I hear his self help book has a few good ideas. However when he goes outside of his field and into areas like philosophy for example, he makes grand sweeping statements and arguments that are flawed.

Huntergonzo

B0jangles wrote: »

I've only watched a few bits and pieces, but does he not have a tendency to make statements without indicating whether or not he agrees with them?

When he does this in an interview, the person who is talking to him then usually asks 'is that what you believe yourself?', or as in the infamous Cathy Newman interivew 'so what you're saying is X' he gets all irritated and points out that he never actually specifically said whether or not he does actually agree with whatever observation he just made.

It just seems kind of like he wants to say things without actually saying them, which is a very peculiar way of conducting yourself.


Edit: I've also noticed that his admirers seem to find it very hard to agree on what his stance is on anything, or explain what his key arguments are. All you get is an instruction to watch one of his many 45 minute youtube videos.

I somewhat agree with this, but I will defend Peterson here to an extent here because to be fair, he often does give direct opinions. Also there are many issues in life where it's hard to give a very direct answer because there are so many grey areas or incomplete information.

But I do agree with you that he can get pretty vague and use very convoluted language when he clearly doesn't like a question. Infact he'll occasionally say he doesn't like a particular question before telling the person that it's the wrong question, then proceeds to to reword the question and finally gives a vague answer which itself raises more questions than gives answers........he's a complicated man!!!

Skylinehead

Huntergonzo wrote: »

I've posted on that thread myself, but that was started in response to his interview with Newman, I just want to get general opinions of Peterson if people still have any.

The other one has been a general opinion thread for ages now, no need for two.