Peterson's 12 Rules for Life v2.0-- actual book discussion

[The Grand Nudger]

-What- interpretation?  It's a direct quote.

Saying he's -for- a society that "finds a better balance between order and chaos" doesn't change what the euphemisms are standing in for. Nor does it change the fact that he chose those euphemisms explicitly.

Again, there can be no discussion of the man, his book..or his brand, if this has to be argued in. It can only begin there, otherwise we're discussing how his target audience mythologizes a hero in direct contradiction to his own words. Ironic, when you really think about it.

[CapnAwesome]

I'm not going to talk about the book specifically, just what it signifies in general when referencing self help books.

I believe these types of books are in lieu of the comfort religious ideas bring to theists, just a secular version. No less flowery or cognitively harmless. The basic foundation behind any of these types of books can be precisely summed up with: a lie I told myself and am now selling to others.

I don't think you can classify all self help books that way. Esspecially ones written by pychologists. I've never read one, but surely there are things people can learn from them.

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Well, he is pretty clear about minimizing that as a symbolic reference, and it's not his own idea. It goes to both Apollo vs. Dionysus, Yin/Yang, and also to the writings of some of the authors he's mentioned a lot, like Jung and Nietzsche.

Except that he continuously references it... Standing behind the notion resolutely. Like in a New York Times article:

”You know you can say, ‘Well isn’t it unfortunate that chaos is represented by the feminine’ — well, it might be unfortunate, but it doesn’t matter because that is how it’s represented. It’s been represented like that forever. And there are reasons for it. You can’t change it. It’s not possible. This is underneath everything. If you change those basic categories, people wouldn’t be human anymore. They’d be something else. They’d be transhuman or something. We wouldn’t be able to talk to these new creatures.”

Link: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/18/style...e.amp.html

Even in just normal speak, we can all identify personality traits that we'd acknowledge as generally feminine or masculine, without investing in stereotyping.

For example, I'd say that a caring instinct, especially for small helpless things, is generally a feminine trait-- wouldn't you? That doesn't mean that all women are caring or that no men are caring-- it's just acknowledgment of a pretty easily-observed gender difference overall.

This is not what he’s doing. He didn’t make use of an old symbolistic reference for no reason.

Can I ask you who you think his target audience is? I think it’s blatantly obvious, given enough consideration.

The problem is that some parties will immediately trigger-- talking about how I'm imposing a patriarchal view, or how gender expression is a rainbow, or whatever else their personal world views require hysterical shouting about.

I rarely find myself on the side of the easily triggered, in fact I tend to disagree with the current left about a lot of things. That said, Peterson’s views got a reaction from me and not without reason.

What part of that triggered you? I don't see anything that bad. There ar feminine and masculine traits. Do people actually deny this?

[The Grand Nudger]

His is fundamentally different, to be fair.  It's not really a self help book..that's just the marketing.

[Amarok]

 how gender expression is a rainbow, or whatever else their personal world views require hysterical shouting about.

It is a rainbow and you call it hysterical shouting i call justified outrage  at Petersons bullshit

[Bob Kelso]

What part of that triggered you? I don't see anything that bad. There ar feminine and masculine traits. Do people actually deny this?

Wouldn’t say triggered, as it’s not a vitriolic response on my part. I also don’t claim there aren’t feminine/masculine traits. Though I’d argue about their relevance and subjectivity in modern times.

What caused my reaction is his religiously couched traditionalist views that he’s marketing to the anti-pc/incel crowd.

On your first look, not knowing anything about him, it seems like it’s not a big deal for him to be making these references in a self help book. An odd choice in my opinion but not a big deal.

On a second look, after seeing what he’s about, I find it’s a bit more nefarious than that. I don’t think it’s accurate to say “Oh, he’s just making a common, if not antiquated, reference to illustrate a point.”. There’s a rhyme and a reason to it when you place it in line with his views on other subjects.

[CapnAwesome]

What part of that triggered you? I don't see anything that bad. There ar feminine and masculine traits. Do people actually deny this?

Wouldn’t say triggered, as it’s not a vitriolic response on my part. I also don’t claim there aren’t feminine/masculine traits. Though I’d argue about their relevance and subjectivity in modern times.

What caused my reaction is his religiously couched traditionalist views that he’s marketing to the anti-pc/incel crowd.

On your first look, not knowing anything about him, it seems like it’s not a big deal for him to be making these references in a self help book. An odd choice in my opinion but not a big deal.

On a second look, after seeing what he’s about, I find it’s a bit more nefarious than that. I don’t think it’s accurate to say “Oh, he’s just making a common, if not antiquated, reference to illustrate a point.”. There’s a rhyme and a reason to it when you place it in line with his views on other subjects.

Incels can't really make up that big of a percentage of his audience. I'm not super familiar with him really, other than his name seems to be in the zeitgeist, so to speak, but I don't think there are enough if them to make a book a best seller or make someone so popular.

I also don't think there is anything wrong with being anti-PC unless you are also a racist. Political correctness is just another way of trying to censor people.

[The Grand Nudger]

You mean, unless a person goes on screeds like 

"The Marxist Lie of White Privilege"....?

It's sort of amusing, but incels and racists are the only people who could possibly benefit from his constantly centering and assuaging message. If his book -was- a self help book..which it's not, that's the target market. Helping them to feel better about themselves, chiefly, lol.

[Bob Kelso]

Incels can't really make up that big of a percentage of his audience. I'm not super familiar with him really, other than his name seems to be in the zeitgeist, so to speak, but I don't think there are enough if them to make a book a best seller or make someone so popular.

I also don't think there is anything wrong with being anti-PC unless you are also a racist. Political correctness is just another way of trying to censor people.

Perhaps I should have clarified that I don’t think these are his only audiences (one would imagine he would appeal to conservatives as well for instance). I just happen to think they’re a key part given his own views.

No, nothing particularly wrong about being anti-pc to me. Hell I hold my own anti-pc views. Like most things it’s a broad area, and whether they’re a dick or not depends on the person and their reasoning. As I said above I think they’re a key factor in his target audience.

To back up why I think they’re a large part of his audience: *hidden to prevent the Great Wall O’text*

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Look up Jordan Peterson pronoun law, basically he misinterprets an inclusivity bill that includes transgender folk under the umbrella of a protected class thinking it would force him to use alternate pronouns and infringing on his speech. From what I undertand it doesn’t do that at all but I’m willing to bet it garnered him quite the anti-pc following in much the same way Trump did.

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My reaction comes down to taking issue with someone who is classing up his shit values to seem reasonable and reach a larger audience.

[The Grand Nudger]

His key audience is the alt light pipeline, a significant portion of which identify themselves as centrists or libertarians.  That has an idiosyncratic meaning in the us, lol.

That he specifically writes for the incel crowd is obvious..and he's made as much clear in legitimately emotional appeals to their fragile state of mind as he's experienced it in his clinical practice.  Those poor little boys be cryin..all the time...it cuts him to the bone.

[CapnAwesome]

Incels can't really make up that big of a percentage of his audience. I'm not super familiar with him really, other than his name seems to be in the zeitgeist, so to speak, but I don't think there are enough if them to make a book a best seller or make someone so popular.

I also don't think there is anything wrong with being anti-PC unless you are also a racist. Political correctness is just another way of trying to censor people.

Perhaps I should have clarified that I don’t think these are his only audiences (one would imagine he would appeal to conservatives as well for instance). I just happen to think they’re a key part given his own views.

No, nothing particularly wrong about being anti-pc to me. Hell I hold my own anti-pc views. Like most things it’s a broad area, and whether they’re a dick or not depends on the person and their reasoning. As I said above I think they’re a key factor in his target audience.

To back up why I think they’re a large part of his audience: *hidden to prevent the Great Wall O’text*

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Look up Jordan Peterson pronoun law, basically he misinterprets an inclusivity bill that includes transgender folk under the umbrella of a protected class thinking it would force him to use alternate pronouns and infringing on his speech. From what I undertand it doesn’t do that at all but I’m willing to bet it garnered him quite the anti-pc following in much the same way Trump did.

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My reaction comes down to taking issue with someone who is classing up his shit values to seem reasonable and reach a larger audience.

Like I said I said, I'm not that familiar with Peterson, but the one interview I listened to, I did get a little bit of the impression of what you are talking about. He mentioned the 'radical left' quite a few times as though they were some major concern. A little bit like marxists are some threat to take over Canada or the US, which is a laughable idea. There are hardly any marxists, and they have no power.

I can see how that idea would be appealing to a paranoid right wing, also can see how the anti-PC argument can be used to broaden the appeal of otherwise unpopular ideas. You are right that is what Trump did. I don't think his ideas on their own are all that popular. I don't think political correctness has ever even been an issue in a campaign before.

I think the European far right wing does a similar hat trick with immigration and anti EU ideas. They aren't popular when they are just the nazi-lite but can get more votes than their (horrible) ideas justify off of people's perhaps legitimate (or illegitimate) concerns over Muslim immigrants.

Personally I think that Peterson yelling about the radical left was off putting enough that I didn't really want to listen to another. I don't need a self help author or care about his politics.

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His key audience is the alt light pipeline, a significant portion of which identify themselves as centrists or libertarians.  That has an idiosyncratic meaning in the us, lol.

That he specifically writes for the incel crowd is obvious..and he's made as much clear in legitimately emotional appeals to their fragile state of mind as he's experienced it in his clinical practice.  Those poor little boys be cryin..all the time...it cuts him to the bone.

I do think that incels need help though. Is his attempt to appeal to them one that tries to help them change or reinforce their views?

I mean a lot of them need a pychologist.