Jordan Peterson's gone alt-right (& far less persuasive)
Jordan Peterson's Was An Impartial Thought Leader
I've personally stated more than once that, in part:
- JP appeals with impartiality and neutrality (albeit he was clearly conservative)
- JP's successfully defended against left-wing and feminist attacks by avoid labels such as "conservative", "Christian", "right-wing" and "anti-feminist" (albeit he was probably all of those)
- JP's persuaded with (apparent) impartiality and neutrality (often more a case of skilled dialectic and frame control)
Well, that might be a thing of the past.
It seems that since the Twitter debacle he embraced the right-wing and conservative camp.
Some of his Tweets, messages, and some videos also sounded like angrier and bitter rants.
Jordan Peterson Joins Ben Shapiro (Becomes Just Another Conservative Talking Head)
It culminated with JP joining forces with Ben Shapiro, a well-known ultra-conservative:
JP: this new joint venture and help us continue educating and informing and battling on the side of tradition in the raging culture war
Me: (:S)
To me, it seems a terrible move (for JP).
From a power dynamics perspective, JP joined Ben Shapiro, not the other way around.
Why would the (already very wealthy) #1 world philosopher enter someone else's business instead of, say, creating a brand new venture -which would have been more power neutral-.
From an authority and persuasion point of view, it's also a loss.
JP (is/was/has at times been) an eagle with high authority.
But Ben Shapiro never was.
He only appealed to the conservative camp -and not even to the elites-.
Shapiro has become famous for posting froth-at-your-mouth outraged reaction rants appealing to turkeys.
Once A Philosopher, Now Religious Zealot
JP was able to soar higher than his background and belief to reach across the aisle.
That made him worth listening to for anyone, including those of different political opinions, and who believed differently.
That changed.
It's tough (for me) to look at the two now and not see two white conservatives who married high-school sweethearts virgin, and who have little to share with everyone else outside their rather extremist turfs.
The Announcement Couldn't Have Been Worst
And that's even without going into the video itself, which feels like a caricature.
Gone from that video is the humble Peterson who let his logic, knowledge, and dialectic do the talking.
He was in full outraged complaining mode, and came across as venal, money-driven, angry, pompous, and full of... Himself.
He even managed to sound like a teenage Redditor with the "woke / non-woke" terminology.
And he abandoned any neutrality and joined the senseless "battle" talk, together with a strong sense of "us vs them (join us against them)".
No thanks.
We didn't need another group of turkeys scratching each other (and trying to make some money out of that poor show, while recruiting other turkeys).
We need more people who can soar higher and bridge.
Let's see...
It's a pity because I think JP was largely a force for good and, albeit more with a conservative bent, still a voice of reason.
But let's not jump to conclusions and let's see what happens.
Hopefully he's not going to turn into a more erudite Ben Shapiro, stuck into "perpetual outrage mode".
Quite enlightening. Thanks!
Thanks John, if you -or anyone else- has any opinion on this, happy to read.
Well you summed it all I think.
My comments are: this is sad when a thinker becomes an ideologue/propagandist.
I think the attack (don't know the details) on his reputation left him scarred. He battled with the masses and he paid the price: he got crushed (possibly spiritually as well).
That is the tale of the hero: the hero dies. Well I think the hero he was, who championed different ideas that could also be true died. Now he chose a side and I'm afraid he won't think as much as before.
We need critical thinkers, not ideologues. There are already too many of those.
I watched 3-5 videos of Carlson Tucker in the past to understand conservatist television propaganda. It's really interesting. But it's also really scary as well. It's confirmation bias on steroids.
Actually the people who can learn the most from propagandist media are people from the other side. As you get to have a critical view on your own thinking and get to see inside the mind of your adversary.
So my opinion is that it's sad. He was always a conservative and this never bothered me. Because he was thinking critically.
Not everything he said was 100% true or right, but he was going through the mental exercise of confronting his ideas with reality, not trying to confirm them.
Reading the analysis, the most surprising thing for me was @lucio calling JP "#1 world philosopher". Really? Is this tonge-in-cheek? What has he done to deserve this title? I only know 'of' him, never read his books or watched much of him on youtube.
Thank you for sharing, John, I largely agree with you.
And Tucker Carlson is another bright mind... Semi-wasted with the ideological bias.
Quote from John Freeman on July 18, 2022, 10:07 pmActually the people who can learn the most from propagandist media are people from the other side. As you get to have a critical view on your own thinking and get to see inside the mind of your adversary.
Great point.
Would be one of the most helpful exercises for an open mind.
Quote from leaderoffun on July 20, 2022, 9:27 pmReading the analysis, the most surprising thing for me was @lucio calling JP "#1 world philosopher". Really? Is this tonge-in-cheek? What has he done to deserve this title? I only know 'of' him, never read his books or watched much of him on youtube.
Well, I was thinking in terms of "followers' base" or "mass influence".
And I'm not aware of anyone else who's "bigger" than JP by that measure.
Albeit one could certainly use some other yardsticks or have a different definition of "philosopher" that might include more people in that category.
Happy to hear if you have different opinions on this.
Good point on measuring the influence of what they write. I had no idea he was that influential. He's a doer, that's for sure. I'll pay more attention to him.
Any guesses on why he made this move right now? Was he always like this (woke/nonwoke, raging culture war), but managed to appear like a force of reason out of sheer willpower? Or did some event hit him hard enough to turn a calmed, rational man into a caricature of himself?
I don't remember seeing a change like this 'live' ever before. It looks strange. It made him less effective with rational people (eagles), and sadly more effective with the masses (turkeys). Perhaps the business benefits of the extra reach (by painting himself as a champion of the movement that carries people's identities by the millions, if not billions) were worth it?
Difficult to say for sure on what motivated or drove that change.
I'd guess that he was more conservative and religious than he showed to start with, but was more careful to keep it closely under wrap to have his message go further, to avoid labels, and to avoid easy attacks from the people he was pissing off the most.
As he became more famous and popular, he also had more power -and more willingness- to become more honest and genuine and "own" his true -more conservative and religious- self.
Turkey's spiral got to Jordan Peterson: the noisy minority took too much of his mental real estate
But I also think there's a dynamic he was a victim of -or, at least, not fully conscious-.
And that's the "turkey spiral".
Turkey spirals change you for the worse.
He got enmeshed into useless digital spats with online idiots.
He got a distorted view of the world like that, like there are more radicals and more "dangerous leftists" than there truly are.
It happened to me too when I released some articles and videos on the red pill: I got several haters' messages, including someone who found my private emails, and that distorted my view of the world, making me feel there were more radical red pillers than there truly are.
I stopped caring about the red pill and guess how many I've met in real life?
A couple in a group chat that I then left -the same group chat-, zero in real life.
And that was my case, on a very small scale.
JP probably felt he was under life threat with all the shit that was hurled at him by a few noisy idiots -and because of normal human representativeness biases, he never realized it was a minority in terms of percentage-.
That's what JP might have done as well:
- cut it out with his nonsense digital spats
- focus more on building his own philosophy / approach and less on tearing down others
- spend more time with smart critical thinkers as John says
- live more in the analog real life and less in the digital world
And I'm going to end this with a quote from "The Daily Laws" as in the other thread we're discussing:
To waste your time in battles not of your choosing is more than just a mistake, it is stupidity of the highest order.
Great post and analysis. I agree this sounds more plausible then him changing his pitch to appeal to a larger population (the turkeys).
Still, it's kinda Machiavellian and I wonder if others do this on purpose: chance their message to get more engagement from those who are frothing at the mouth. Use their language (woke, culture war) to get them to bind their identities to your message so they follow you to whatever nefarious plan you have. I'm sure politicians do this on a daily basis...
As an update on this:
I'm personally glad that the exclusivity deal with Shapiro's company removed Peterson from the bigger spotlights and it seems to me that self-development circles have improved (less divisiveness, less complaining, less drama, less anger).
The "original" Peterson was awesome.
But the more politicized one wasn't.
And, generally speaking, the world is better off without divisive figures in power.