Not a lolcow but a guy with an overrated intellect and depth. Seems like an overall nice, mild-mannered guy. I'm familiar with his perspectives on things and it is true he is in some ways a postmodern anti-postmodernist. His fanbase consists of pseudointellectual youth that are easily taken in by the trappings of faux philosophy and intellectualism. It's nice to see people call him out when he talks about whether he's a christian or not, and whether he believes in god. There's a contingent of academics that play this game, if you've read The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins he mentions them specifically to state he isn't talking about their views and that it isn't a helpful view to have. Really, he's an intelligent guy trying to rationalize Christianity when he doesn't really believe in the factual claims of the religion.
That said, let's not forget that this is a guy that really is a serious academic. He's no big brain Sargon of Akkad, this guy is actually a research psychologist.
Peterson is also really, really good at handling biased journalists. He knows exactly why they are asking questions they ask and calls them out on it instead of falling into their trap, which is wonderful to see and strangely a rare skill. I have to give the guy props for that.
The problem with Peterson is actually the problem with all "intellectuals." Everyone is pretty stupid, and the people we hold up as being big-brained always fail spectacularly under examination. People have too much faith and trust in the intellect of the highly educated when often their ideas have no more merit than the superstitions of the uneducated, they're just able to rationalize and more eloquently express them.
also, possibly worth checking out: an article some guy who used to work with peterson wrote about him, basically calling him out for being a shady master manipulator who's up to no good. not sure how credible it is, but i think it deserves a place in here:
https://www.thestar.com/opinion/201...gest-supporter-now-i-think-hes-dangerous.html
http://archive.is/iiqdy
From that article:
He was, however, more eccentric than I had expected. He was a maverick. Even though there was nothing contentious about his research, he objected in principle to having it reviewed by the university research ethics committee, whose purpose is to protect the safety and well-being of experiment subjects.
That's because these ethics committees are often a stupid bureaucracy and are politicized. Even giving someone a disapproving look probably needs to be justified to these committees. You could probably find a bioethicist out there that is a strong believer in not saying mean words to plants. You'd even have to evaluate how a study would effect a person's self-esteem is they were told they were getting everything wrong on a test, or something. And the animal ethics committee, like AICUC, thanks to animal rights activists, you practically have to give lab animals back rubs and hand jobs and treat them far above how we treat livestock or perhaps even pets.
Anyway, you read the article and you realize what is going on at this paragraph, regarding Jordan refusing to call people gender-neutral pronouns:
I have a trans daughter, but that was hardly an issue compared to what I felt was a betrayal of my trust and confidence in him. It was an abuse of the trust that comes with his professorial position, which I had fought for, to have misrepresented gender science by dismissing the evidence that the relationship of gender to biology is not absolute and to have made the claim that he could be jailed when, at worst, he could be fined.
It's this same old genderology shit. I'm not sure exactly what is meant here by "the relationship of gender to biology is not absolute" (who disagrees with that? I don't think Peterson does). And the whole "we're not going to jail you, we're just going to fine you and then jail you if you don't pay our bullshit fine." You see the whining and nitpicking about that is a sign they've got a stupid ax to grind...
I assume you skimmed this article because it's just another person pretending they were a huge Peterson fan until he refused to kiss the ring to troons and trannies. It's not merely calling him a shady master manipulating, it's whining that Peterson doesn't capitulate to their gender bullshit. Check it out for yourself, the article makes Peterson look good once you read between the lines and realize what the author's troony agenda is. It's a shit smear article.
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Jordan's one of those people where his fans are obnoxious, he's vastly overrated (like mostly every other thinker), but his critics are far worse. Peterson, for all his faults, seems to say exactly what he thinks and doesn't hide ulterior motives. Despite the fact that he babbles pretentious bullshit I think he's a decent guy. And everyone who isn't me is full of bullshit to some extent
He's not that bad the vast majority of times except when it comes to talking about politics (see his big take on Kavanaugh allegations), but I definitely do believe he is publicly overrated, has been allowed to bask too long in the public spectrum, and too often either inserts or drags all sorts of stuff and references which have little to no connection with one another. Probably the worse example I can think of the latter was his review/criticism of Frozen (which is god awful) where for some reason he equated watching a cartoon (or was it movie) was somehow akin to a religious experience. I think he then proceeded to talk about archetypes and how Frozen didn't pin itself on some kind of mythology or something which I think misses the freaking point since the writing in that movie was patently stupid. I'm talking TLJ bad where we're twice subverted by the whole Anna has to find-true-love sub-plot which was inserted well over half way into the movie. Something, so far as I'm aware, that pretty much never happens in any Disney movie. They're almost always pretty clear cut where the movie is going to go and why, but Frozen said screw all that. We're going to subvert your expectations.
Yeah, that's a pretty succinct way of putting it and I agree--your example of Frozen was exactly right. Jordan Peterson is like a meal where the side dish is more famous than the main course--the stuff Peterson is known for, he's pretty good on, but the stuff he cares about the most, this archetype Jungian shit, it's bullshit.
