Jordan Peterson interview on C4

Maxpfizer wrote: »

That's the kind of environment that has now been created though.

Pretty much. And across the board of all the isms out there.

Does Jordan Peterson say anything that's THAT interesting or controversial?

Good question. Since this stuff kicked off I have watched a couple of his youtube vids, mostly the short ones And mostly the lecture ones. I find his Jungian stuff interesting but like you say hardly controversial(and I would personally disagree with much of it). His own background influence of personal religion over informs his take on that aspect of things and he doesn't seem to be able to disentangle that. Surprising given he's by no measure an unintelligent man. His personal political background tends to do similar. In both areas he makes good points well put, but then - as is so often the case - runs further than one should.

However I am much more in agreement with his take on the current victimhood/oppressor narrative that is woven through modern western thought. Precious few public types have approached the subject and in a pretty measured way. The victimhood narrative is the "correct think" within western thought, particularly, but not exclusively within academia and the media.

In that sense he is "controversial". And it's a large reason why he's getting attention, particularly from young men. He's essentially saying you are the master of your own life and can master it. That personal responsibility are not dirty words. The notion of personal responsibility has slowly been eroded in much of western public discourse to the point where even the hint of it will often get accusations of "victim blaming". It's nearly always someone else's fault. The oppressor. I would also agree with him that this victimhood/oppressor narrative is potentially very dangerous for the individual and a society. Though again he runs with it too far and there's the sniff of the end is nigh with him at times. Though that always fills the cheap seats.

Then you have dopes like Cathy Newman on C4 who try take him on and end up getting publicly destroyed when she could have just cordially talked about his completely mundane views and maybe see if he slips up and says something daft.

Well she couldn't in fairness as his views are not "completely mundane" within the sphere of most of the western media. He has publicly questioned things like the feminist narrative regarding success in careers, quotas and the like. She couldn't have let that stuff go. Not unless she was being dishonest. And she got whipped quite simply because she doesn't have the brain power or experience to debate him, regardless of his views(he's a tenured professor of psychology with three decades of this stuff under his belt, she's a journalist, which by its very nature requires an element of jack of all trades to it). Never mind that one could argue that much of her position is based on vapourware that doesn't bear much in the way of scrutiny. Much of his can be accused of similar, but his position was simply more robust than hers on the matters she brought up.