the alt-right

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.

flippant thought: consistently refer to it as "it" rather that "he"/"him", with the reasoning that you see no obligation to refer to it by its preferred pronoun :-p

Do you want to see Jordan Peterson's penis.

Is that what you want.

awp
retracted

itshappening.gif

Running for Congress this year.....It's looking like a real possibility.

— Mike Cernovich 🇺🇸 (@Cernovich) February 8, 2018

The Baffler takedown of Peterson is dope too.

The strange paradox we face today is that the Enlightenment is being invoked like a talismanic object to thwart the very questioning of political hierarchies and norms that, for Enlightenment thinkers, was necessary for humanity’s emergence from tradition and subordination. But even if the forces of Counter-Enlightenment may have now adapted the language of rationality to their own purposes, authentic Enlightenment thought has never been about building up the bulwark of tradition. As that other British liberal John Stuart Mill wrote, “The despotism of custom is everywhere the standing hindrance to human advancement.” The great figures of the Enlightenment knew that the social and political revolutions of their day were aligned with their thought; there’s a reason that mild-mannered Kant toasted the anniversary of storming of the Bastille every year, earning him the not-so-friendly nickname of the “Old Jacobin.” For all their Millian, free-speech high-mindedness, intellectuals like Peterson, and writers for outlets like Quillette, which has ridden the back of figures like Peterson to style itself a great defender of Enlightenment values against the totalitarian left, are remarkably pessimistic about our human ability to alter our customs through rational critique.

This is my stuff

In the twentieth century, Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer—“postmodern neo-Marxists,” as Peterson would call them—thought that modern technology and scientific reason had outstripped humanity’s moral and political enlightenment. The powerful abstractions that allowed for scientific calculation and measurement levelled and liquidated when applied to humanity. They were appalled by the barbarity carried out in the name of progress and saw ancient myths replicated in the cult of reason. Yet for them, the recognition of Enlightenment’s failure led to a doubling-down on the project, an attempt to make rational criticism more aware of its own deficiencies.

What Frederik was talking about before — critical theory, beit adorno or derrida or foucault needs to be understood in its historical context. One advantage, i think, of engaging with reactionaries —hopefully smarter ones than peterson, but he seems to have a lot of influence — is that it’s an opportunity to defend and even renew the emancipatory enlightenment tradition, which as adorno saw needs to be understood dialectically because it’s not just a static set of values and if it becomes that can be easily appropriated. Seeing Peterson as an avatar of “irrationalism” isn’t metaphysical — that’s why reaction is, a longing for stability and tradition against the frightening uncertainty of freedom 😎

Like the issue isn’t that Peterson has “ideas” that are “worth engaging”; the principle is that the forces of reaction should be confronted when they pop up and amass millions of followers

lmao

Do you think your ex-wife can afford to finance an entire unsuccessful political campaign?

— Dan, a very stable genius (@everybodyshirts) February 8, 2018

please run, Mike

I agree with treeship. Too many examples of idiots & hucksters not being taken seriously or critiqued in any real way in the past. @ Simon - I agree that many on the far right are immovable, but what I think and what I think treeship believe is that Peterson is very much a gateway to that world or something close to it. I mean, the "PROFESSOR" chyron on Fox is a perfect example.

relevant to our interests I think

https://medium.com/@shujaxhaider/what-makes-life-shitty-e739902b2529

there will be no angry and lost young ppl in socialist utopia

no one actually believes or argues that but thx anyway

he's says capitalism is why ppl have shitty lives

which is correct, and also not the same thing as saying no one's life would be shitty under a different economic arrangement

anyway whether or not you agree with that aspect, haider's broader point in that it's not enough to belittle peterson fans etc, you have to lay out a vision at some point. if you think you can address those concerns win a capitalist framework, go for it.

I sometimes wish all those writers of 'you have to lay out a vision' pieces would spend some more time working on that vision of theirs.

fred that was me trying to make sure this doesn't become another socialism thread lol

I'm a socialist, feminist white young man (sorta, might not be that young anymore), and I've never felt attacked in the identity groups that I've been a part of. The thing about that piece is that it takes a self-evidently good point - it would be great if young men joined the DSA instead of the alt-right - and somehow puts the responsibility of that happening not on the DSA wing, but on the 'liberals' and in some ways on feminist and anti-racist groups. Who have better thing to do.

I think almost literally any leftist has *better* / more productive things to do tbh