Conversation

I enjoyed reading this precisely because it wasn't a puffed up hit piece. I mean, the author's beef with Peterson is obvious, but so is his confusion. It's not written by someone who *wants* to take issue with the man.

Quote Tweet

Jonathan Korman

@miniver

May 26, 2018

This indictment of Jordan Peterson from a friend & colleague is thoughtful, subtle, and disturbing thestar.com/opinion/2018/0

Show this thread

Cinder

@Triquetrea

May 26, 2018

In many ways, I can relate. I don't lean right politically, even a little bit, but Peterson often makes good points. Sometimes he maps as well-justified in his reasoning, even if he's not necessarily *correct*. Not so much since becoming famous. Not at all.

Replying to

The seeds of messianism and fanaticism were there from the beginning in Peterson. A quick look at Maps of Meaning and the way he uses myth criticism reveals it. Jordo seems more keen on cultural renewal than on understanding. He's welcome to it. But I expect distortion.

This Tweet was deleted by the Tweet author. Learn more

Replying to

It must be very painful for Jordan's friend. The armchair psychiatrist in me saw something of a low grade rhabdomyolysis in Peterson's self description of his sleeplesness and muscle tissue breakdown. Is sometimes cause by mania.

Replying to

and

We, as the readers or consumers of the cultural products that others develop, are best served, imo, by discounting grandiosity and mania in whoever fancies themselves a culture warrior or defender or renewer.

Replying to

and

And there is an odd contradiction in being on the one hand a personal responsibility conservative and then on the other bemoaning the rationalizing trends of a consumer society and seeking to intervene in a culture war.

Replying to

and

If Jordo were just a personal responsibility conservative, we'd never hear of him. If he were another reader of the Bible as inspiring literature, we'd put him in the library with Northrop Frye. It's the culture war shenanigans that get him attention.

Cinder

@Triquetrea

Replying to

@faustroll

Couldn't help but agree with him on personal responsibility until he made it explicitly political, as "sure, everyone has let you down, but who else is going to sort you out?" is a fair point. Then he turned it into some sort of crackpot argument against activism. Very strange.

8:20 PM · May 26, 2018Twitter Web Client

Replying to

Yes. If we can become capable of assuming responsibility for ourselves, then that can become our responsibility and our capacity, our freedom. No other person's use of a pronoun nor their free expression nor even their demands to be recognized impinge upon me then.