the alt-right

Everyone who writes these JP takedown pieces gets absolutely pilloried with death threats and insults online and I thank them for their service

This is the only good one. It gets to the heart of why he is wrong and doesn’t go for a cheap caricature.

After Stalinism crumbled, the old Marxism continued in the guise of what Peterson calls “neo-Marxist postmodernism.” Like Nietzsche before him, Peterson sees the metaphysics of reason, as embodied in the Enlightenment project and modern socialism, leading inexorably toward relativistic nihilism. Nietzsche called this condition “passive nihilism” and argued that it could only be overcome with an “active nihilism” that would create a new system of values based on new modes of slavery and mastery. When Peterson criticizes “neo-Marxist postmodernism,” he is merely repeating Nietzsche’s diagnosis of passive nihilism — that is, the slavish revolt of the masses.

Peterson’s positivism — the dualism between descriptive facts and values — makes his Nietzscheanism possible. If the world is an atomized chaos of facts, it needs a strong will to define it and impose order. In Peterson’s need for something that transcends this chaotic reality, he subjectively imposes a mystical solution for the alienation and suffering of humanity, grounded in a Nietzschean version of Christianity and original sin. The strong will inherit the kingdom of heaven, while the weak are destined to fail.

When we theoretically confront Peterson, we need to do more than refute his pseudo-scientific claims, his bad pop psychology, and his Cold War–inflected version of history. The real challenge is overcoming his fundamental irrationalism.

I don't know. I don't think you need to deploy hifalutin academic language to explain why his ideas are bad and wrong.

I'd like to read that, but I've recently come to the conclusion that spending too much time reading/debunking bad ideas actually makes you stupider in the long run. It's like a virus that can infect your own thinking.

(I'm using "bad" in distinction from just simply "wrong," there.)

There is, like, a neo-reaction movement going on. If the ideas are never seriously refuted they’ll get stronger and more popular — the intellectual “forbidden fruit” the left won’t touch even to critique.

I'm glad there's an intellectual critique, I just don't imagine JP's chud squad engaging with it.

They already think the postmodern neo-marxists (lol) are out to drain them of their vital essence, so why should they listen to some Jacobin pinko?

xxp

Maybe, but that's a very optimistic conception of intellectual discourse!

But yes people are welcome to it.

Idk these ppl are theoretically reading carl jung and solzhenitsyn now that jp has turned them onto them

I would like to see JP get absolutely bodied in an interview the way spencer was a couple months ago. (I wouldn't mind a literal bodying either, but that would be purely for self-satisfaction.)

"theoretically" is doing a lot of work there, and you're assuming they're capable of good-faith argumentation. the important thing to them is that JP is their dad. the only solution is public humiliation and/or convincing advocacy for a more humane and compassionate alternative.

Somehow Jordan Peterson shouts about Derrida without ever having read a single line of his, and it seems to work anyway?

Plus ça change…

A lot of bullshit rhetorical moves “work” but I like to have my own independent standards.

Yet apparently you were fine with Cornel West's bullshit takedown of Ta-Nehisi Coates. It's striking the difference in incisiveness you demand in how people attack Jordan Peterson and Coates.

I agree that we should try and understand the new alt-right, I'm in a study-group in Copenhagen to try and do so myself, but some of it is quite simply fraudsters, and there's no need to treat them on their own terms. The important texts about them are created just as much by their victims, or in all honesty by the old philosophers who described the exact same kind of right-wing fraudster in their day - Lyotard is splendid on Holocaust denial in The Differend - and who the new fraudsters are of course now trying to discredit. The almost mystic 'challenge' described in that Jacobin-essay rubs me the wrong way.

It’s probably a mistake to conflate doing philosophy with doing politics

cool now i know whats 'bullshit' and 'bad' and who to body-check. gr8 website

Yet apparently you were fine with Cornel West's bullshit takedown of Ta-Nehisi Coates. It's striking the difference in incisiveness you demand in how people attack Jordan Peterson and Coates.

I don’t like the implication of this at all. In the West situation I was defending him from the attack that he was an opportunist shouting down young voices for attention rather than an activist and scholar who had serious reservations about the work and influence of a younger colleague. I only defended part of the substance of the critique and never said it was an appropriate or effective intervention. You’re the worst.

"Jacobin Pinko" is the name of my Decemberists cover band btw

x-post: West clearly didn't read the work he had 'serious reservations about', and the whole point of his piece was to label Coates a neoliberal. It's as clear an example of 'cheap caricature' as could be imagined, and it's almost charitable to imply that the difference in the way you react to this and to caricatures of Peterson has to do with some sort of implicit bias. Otherwise you're a complete moron...

No disrespect.

Otherwise you're a complete moron...

No disrespect.

don't do that, or you look like a total asshole

disrespect intended

TS: Judean People's Front vs. People's Front of Judea.

I admitted my potential bias on that thread, which is that I’ve met and interacted with West a bunch of times and didn’t think he was the opportunist people were describing him as, even if the piece was sloppy and looked bad. itt you ads trying to imply I am soft on reactionary guru jordan peterson because I want to see his ideas refuted thoroughly and effectively and it’s not fair and fuck off

Well, yes, I do think seeing the racism and sexism of the alt-right as 'ideas' to be refuted rather than as politics to be fought is being weak on them, no doubt about that. And I'll admit even further, as I've admitted plenty of times recently, that I think this view is mostly found among white men - especially Americans - due to implicit bias. That racism and sexism is something one has to actively believe in, rather than the water we swim in, as Coates writes at one point.

That is, once again, what rubs me the wrong way about the Jacobin piece, the metaphysical nature of Petersons 'irrationalism' and how we have to fight it. The alt-right is really not an interesting new philosophy, there's no there there. It's reheated racism. And it's quite simply not going to be defeated by agreeing with it on it's own terms. Peterson is a shitty academic, who wrote a book about Derrida without reading Derrida. He should be discredited on that level. And that will undoubtedly lead to a bunch of assholes claiming that he is a martyr of political correctness, but that's beside the point. No need to preemptively give him more significance than he has, so that other dudes can't attack us.

I think the essential thing about Jordan Petersons 'ideas', much more than any criticism of Derrida or Nietszche, is this:

Everyone who writes these JP takedown pieces gets absolutely pilloried with death threats and insults online and I thank them for their service

― Simon H., 6. februar 2018 16:16 (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

And yeah, for that I do thank the Jacobin.

Wait is am0n a Peterson fan? Lol

West is not a hack and deserves a refutation (if you disagree with him) whereas a hack like Peterson just draws you into a game with no real rules. Admittedly, the distinction isn't a precise one but I think everyone has to decide who/what is worth taking seriously. (Nietzsche? Yes! Derrida? Absolutely! Peterson? Nah.) We should start a thread on the general problem of attention but it seems to increasingly be the case that what you decide to pay attention to is almost as important as the kind of attention you pay it.

Even creating a framework where Peterson is in some kind of dialogue with the likes of Derrida is ridiculous on its face. And just because it gives you a chance to put that philosophy MA to use doesn't mean it's actually a good use of it.

This motherfucker is just an academic Baked Alaska

I think you guys are wrong. This guy has a huge following and he frames his ideas in ways that can seduce people who would be put off by Richard Spencer or whatever. There needs to be high quality refutations of him out there.

Even creating a framework where Peterson is in some kind of dialogue with the likes of Derrida is ridiculous on its face.

― ryan, 6. februar 2018 18:13 (five minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

ryan, I wish it wasn't so, but for anyone who has read We Were Eight Years in Power, the same kind of framework is just as ridiculous with West. He got stuff wrong that was literally explained on the first page...

The rest of your posts I agree with.

"But his ideas!" Oh fuck off. All this philosophical name dropping and 4chan /p/ circle jerking just so you can excuse your aversion to changing the way you think of pronouns. I hate 2018.

This motherfucker is just an academic Baked Alaska

― kurt schwitterz, Tuesday, 6 February 2018 17:16 (five minutes ago) Permalink

lol

There needs to be high quality refutations of him out there.

I don't disagree, I just don't think alt-right goons are going to be receptive to them.

he's just another huckster looking to profit off of disenfranchisement.

i love that Fox News has Jordan Peterson on and just refers to him as "Professor," as if that alone confers legitimacy. it's like that Mr. Show sketch with "Dr. Retarded." pic.twitter.com/dWUjHG5Izf

— your friend john (@johnsemley3000) February 6, 2018

i disagree w/ trés. the left needs to do much better intellectual work incl examining the flaws in their own canonical list of philo, but not by combating jp personally but rather by engaging the real philosophers who have and continue to undergird his ideology. jp himself doesn't have much to say but nietzsche still does. schmitt still does. land + moldbug do.

saying, "this is nothing new he's just cribbing FN" is missing the pt.

again do these philosophers *really* undergird his work or does he just namecheck them to appear intelligent

it doesn't really matter. they have something to say. i'm not talking about political pragmatism - just intellectual integrity. fwiw i'm doing my part reading (and taking notes on) GM. fyi if anyone ever expresses surprise that the nazis liked FN u can tell them that there's no reason to be surprised. nb this prob belongs on a separate thread.

oh yeah I think that's worthwhile work on its own, just not trying to weaponize it against JP

re JP weaponization the current efforts of demonstrating how he doesn't understand the thinkers that oppose or buttress his claims seems sufficient.

Had to think really hard who FN was, thought it was a FaNcy way of writing FaurrisoN. But FaurrisoN liked nazis, not the other way around. Get it now, but what is GM?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodnight_Moon

Oh, right. Mordy, if it's tough to get through, they did readings from it on The Wire, fyi.

Genealogy of Morals, I assume

how do you fight the chaos sex dragon man

How's Milo Yiannopoulos's attempt to represent himself in a lawsuit going? Oh... pic.twitter.com/00ZdYwWl1Q

— Will Sommer (@willsommer) February 7, 2018

Oh, right. Mordy, if it's tough to get through, they did readings from it on The Wire, fyi.

― Frederik B

i haven't been able to successfully watch the wire myself

being able to frame toxic ideas in a manner which is superficially appealing and seems to "make sense" is certainly extremely dangerous, as we've seen and continue to see. though it's important to objectively point out the flaws in reasoning and false premises of such people, to nakedly expose the toxic assumptions of the discourse, i don't think this is sufficient to counter such arguments. most people who support peterson aren't thinking logically, they're borrowing the appearance of sophistication to support their prejudices (no wonder david brooks loves him). of course it doesn't matter that peterson hasn't read derrida. the best way of undermining peterson's arguments is to undermine peterson himself. i recommend ad hominem attacks.