Dubious wrote: ↑Wed May 04, 2022 7:48 pmWhereas I agree with most of what you wrote, picking Jordan Peterson as clear-headed, responsible, self-aware as an example is more than I can accept. If there aren't considerably better choices among the so-called intellectual elite living or recently deceased, the merits of whatever future we're heading into will be even more debatable. Analysis of what anyone says is always advisable.
But note that you have bolstered your rather unfavorable view of Peterson with an article in The Guardian. Do you think that The Guardian makes a case? I read the article (I believe I had read it awhile back) and I do not find it a very substantial critique. Given The Guardian's audience and orientation would you expect a different tack?
From The Guardian article:
The confrontation has worked wonders for Peterson. His new book 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos has become a runaway bestseller in the UK, US, Canada, Australia, Germany and France, making him the public intellectual du jour. Peterson is not just another troll, narcissist or blowhard whose arguments are fatally compromised by bad faith, petulance, intellectual laziness and blatant bigotry. It is harder to argue with someone who believes what he says and knows what he is talking about – or at least conveys that impression. No wonder every scourge of political correctness, from the Spectator to InfoWars, is aflutter over the 55-year-old professor who appears to bring heavyweight intellectual armature to standard complaints about “social-justice warriors” and “snowflakes”. They think he could be the culture war’s Weapon X.
I don't have much admiration for this style of journalism. When it is examined closely, in my opinion, it shows itself as a *hit-piece* of a rather typical sort.
The 'confrontations' that Peterson has had -- with gender pronouns and his refusal to bend to State mandate, as well as that interview with Cathy Newman (definitely worth watching) -- have interested so many people because through his articulated positions he shows people that they too can resist these encroachments. Of the State certainly but also of political correctness generally. The interview was fascinating simply because he held his ground, without rancor, and allowed the interviewer to show her own flaws. But isn't that rather *intolerable* these days?
This sentence seems illustrative: "Peterson is not just another troll, narcissist or blowhard whose arguments are fatally compromised by bad faith, petulance, intellectual laziness and blatant bigotry. It is harder to argue with someone who believes what he says and knows what he is talking about – or at least conveys that impression."
It actually says that
indeed he is a troll, a narcissist, a blowhard, who has fatally compromised arguments flawed by bad-faith, petulance, intellectual laziness and blatant bigotry. It is an underhanded sentence. It is the sentence that did all the heavy lifting intended in the article. Ad hominem by definition and thus fallacious. But do the readers of such articles care? I doubt it.
So then, if Jordan Peterson is popular (wildly popular in fact) why do you suppose that is? Is it as the author says? The stupid people seek a smartish representative? (Personally, I like some things he says and less others. And I really do not like his
weepiness).
