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@mwiik

May 26, 2018

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@iwelsh

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@miniver

The critique seems even more interesting when read with Scott Alexander's review of his book, where he calls him a 'prophet' slatestarcodex.com/2018/03/26/boo Huh, just noticed there's that uncertainty reduction thing again

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It is consistent with my read of Peterson as someone who stumbled into fame and does not know how to handle it

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This is probably the take that best explains his wild fluctuations between brilliant little insights and absolute nonsense. He can't draw the line.

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Exactly.

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Good backgrounder. Would love a similar read on why his approach and content seems to engage so many right now.

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I have been thinking about that a lot and am not quite sure. Part of it is his professorial manner combined with him validating far right ideas. But his appeal to young men is an interesting puzzle.

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There is absolutely no puzzle. His appeal to young (white) men is obvious. Plays into power fantasies. Same goes for Ayn Rand.

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Trying to generously assume it is not that simple.

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I agree. We haven't even touched on xenoestrogens yet, for example. My main critique of pomo, identity politics etc is b/c to me they're tools of late capitalism. Conviviality hard to monetize, thus constant atomization polarization etc. Keep people suspicious of each other.

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The hilarious thing is that postmodernists represent a very, very small portion of Peterson's critics or ideological opponents. It's all grand narrative social activist stuff, identity politics, critiques of colonialism and capitalism and so on. Nothing remotely pomo about it.

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(Nothing particularly Marxist either.)

6:02 PM · May 26, 2018Twitter Web Client