Thoughts on Jordan peterson

[Omario]

First and foremost if you don't know who Jordan Peterson is don't bother reading any further.

So i would like to have a discussion on Jordan Peterson's ideologies... he talks a lot about abstract ideas such as the dominance hierarchy, and how in order to have fulfillment and satisfaction in your life you have to man up. I feel as if though he is victimizing men and making it seem as if though the outcome come of their life isn't their fault and because somehow men have been robbed of their masculinity and that his advice is they key to sorting it out.

I am bamboozled on the idea of whether he is the savior of masculinity  or  a psychologist turned businessman taking advantage of  young men. 

 

Please share your opinions.

Edited April 9, 2018 by Omario

[RichardY]

@Omario Jordan Peterson equates Ideology with a braying ass. Was on one of his videos on Pinocchio(on Pleasure Island).

[Leo Gura]

@Omario Be careful. Ideology is not consciousness.

All ideology is going to limit your growth.

People such as Peterson and Sam Harris are actually ideologues. Which is why they develop sorts of cult followings. It's a modernized form of religion.

People with strong opinions betray their lack of consciousness and understanding of reality.

The more conscious you become, the less opinions and enemies you will have.

Constant criticism, debating, and self-justifying are sure signs of low consciousness.

If an ideology or worldview appeals to you, you should be extra wary of it.

[RichardY]

@Leo Gura Could you give a definition of what an Ideology is? and what particular ideology/ies, Jordan Peterson presumably follows wittingly or not?

[SeanD]

@Leo Gura wouldn’t you say that Jesus, Osho, and even Mohammad created many enemies from a high level of consciousness?

[Erlend K]

Buddha, Socrates, Ghandi etc had enemies. It seems like anyone who challange the socialy accepted ideas and values of his culture will get hated on. 

[Akim]

1. He teaches the importance of deep thinking, reading dense literature, developing capacities to think, speak and write clearly. This is very important for people in the age of twitter and emoji, where people's ability to concentrate on something, pay attention, think deeply and articulate their thoughts is probably degrading, though it may be true only for some people.

2. He is providing an example on how a person with depression can overcome it and be very productive.

3. He is a clinical psychologist and teaches how to deal with many problems like anxiety, depression and his advice is very useful at least for me.

4. He is building the bridge between Judeo-Christian tradition and science. For me personally, this is very valuable. Not only because I have Christian background and for a long time felt manipulated by it. Now I know there are great many good things there and I can integrate them.

5. He is showing the value of reading classical literature and myths that cultures develop. I personally haven't read fiction for years before I encountered Jordan Peterson.

6. He made some very interesting and wise thinkers famous.
Like Bread Weinstein, his video below is very deep and wise.

and Jonathan Pageau who explains how people in middle ages thought. They were not just superstitious simpletons, their view of the world was deep and profound.

7. He has an interesting way to look at the world. It is complex and deep, I can't formulate it shortly, you probably have to watch Maps of Meaning lectures on Youtube. The world is not a set of billiard balls floating and interacting under some physical laws or karma laws. It is a potential that you can interface with and work on actualizing parts that you want to actualize. And you have the free will to do so, you can move toward hell or heaven. Sure, things fall apart constantly, there are many traps on the way, but if you try to clean yourself from from bitterness and resentment, set a wholesome aim, and genuinely work on it, things will improve.

Edited April 9, 2018 by Akim

[Leo Gura]

6 hours ago, RichardY said:

@Leo Gura Could you give a definition of what an Ideology is? and what particular ideology/ies, Jordan Peterson presumably follows wittingly or not?

Any intellectual position that one is fond of and defends with rational arguments. A set of ideas or worldview that one is emotionally attached to, and in particular, thinks of as true and important. A personal philosophy or system of morals about which one feels righteous. An intellectual or philosophical agenda.

All of that is delusions of the ego.

5 hours ago, SeanD said:

@Leo Gura wouldn’t you say that Jesus, Osho, and even Mohammad created many enemies from a high level of consciousness?

There is a difference between people attacking you vs you "creating enemies." Enemies are a psychological creation of the ego-mind. People who attack you will of course always exist. 

A shark can attack you while you are swimming in the ocean. But that does not make him your enemy, unless you hold him as such.

The mistake would be to go on an ideological crusade against sharks. That's the lesser Jihad.

Be very mindful of anyone who you follow in the media who is waging an ideological crusade against anything. Notice that that entire thing is a distraction from consciousness.

All ideology is antithetical to truth and consciousness. And there are many very subtle forms of ideology floating around. We're not talking about fundamentalist religion here. The ideologies you should be worried about are much more subtle.

[Omario]

@Akim He is also a conservative.

[i am I AM]

@Leo Gura Doesn't an actualized person have agendas?

[RichardY]

7 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

Any intellectual position that one is fond of and defends with rational arguments. A set of ideas or worldview that one is emotionally attached to, and in particular, thinks of as true and important. A personal philosophy or system of morals about which one feels righteous. An intellectual or philosophical agenda.

All of that is delusions of the ego.

I remember a video you did where you talked about  arationality. Often thinking about morality, philosophy & metaphysics causes one big jumble. Though tend to think of the line "Take the pain!" from Platoon.

 

Metaphysically I'm personally at Incompatiblism or Illusionism. Freewill an Illusion, a potentiality not an actuality. Perhaps like infinity as a potentiality not actuality?

 

God as Chance?

 

Kind of addicted to the search for understanding, comprehension... I don't really know what.  

 

"The farther one travels the less one knows." The Inner Light (The Beatles) - paraphrasing the Tao Te Ching.
Greed for more(Supersize me). So much content online of J Peterson, would seem to take a life time to think about all the stuff he covers. 

 

"You are not you--you have no body, no blood, no bones, you are but a thought. I myself have no existence; I am but a dream--your dream, a creature of your imagination. In a moment you will have realized this, then you will banish me from your visions and I shall dissolve into the nothingness out of which you made me." Satan, The Mysterious Stranger (Mark Twain)

 

[Akim]

I personally would prefer him to do more new original lectures instead of twitter rants. But may be he believes he is doing more good that way, hard to tell.

Regarding free will. Words are tools. Expressions "there is free will" and "the is no free will" are two tools. Here are two more tools "A person can make his life and life of people around him better" and "A person can't make his life and life of people around him better". Why use second expression in your knowledge graph if you can use the first? If nothing matters  then expression "nothing matters" doesn't matter either, then why bother with it? Why not strive for good then? If it wouldn't matter, so what, you don't know that for sure, how can something even be known for sure?

You can make good out of nothing, out of thin air. Even breathing slower and more conscious can make a person feel better. You can help someone, cooperate and build something useful, cure some illness. There are things in this world that you can do to make it more wholesome without any obvious drawbacks for anyone. How amazing is that? What are the limits of it?
I guess it depends on what kind of experiences you irrationally prefer and is ultimately based on faith. So what?

 

Edited April 9, 2018 by Akim

[Leo Gura]

14 hours ago, i am I AM said:

@Leo Gura Doesn't an actualized person have agendas?

Perhaps so, but agenda isn't consciousness.

[Omario]

@Outer your english is shit.

[Omario]

@Outer there is more but your grammatical skills are so shit that you cant even recognize them.

and bro what the heck with that last point? i don't get it

[Omario]

@Outer so you're defending the rights of your enemies that don't care about their  own rights.

Why you gotta use complicated language?

[Faceless]

On 4/9/2018 at 0:45 AM, Leo Gura said:

ny intellectual position that one is fond of and defends with rational arguments. A set of ideas or worldview that one is emotionally attached to, and in particular, thinks of as true and important.

Of course, if you are emotionally attached than thought will be irrational anyway. 

This is true. That is an indication of disorderly thought. There then comes contradiction due to the bias nature of the psychological need to self validate and self affirm. 

Rationalizing is the product of irrational thinking. Irrational thinking is a symptom of the impulse to self sustain the ego. 

[Omario]

@Outer you legit wanna 1v1 me on chess?

Lets play at chess.com 

 

[Joseph Maynor]

On 4/8/2018 at 6:11 PM, Leo Gura said:

@Omario Be careful. Ideology is not consciousness.

All ideology is going to limit your growth.

People such as Peterson and Sam Harris are actually ideologues. Which is why they develop sorts of cult followings. It's a modernized form of religion.

People with strong opinions betray their lack of consciousness and understanding of reality.

The more conscious you become, the less opinions and enemies you will have.

Constant criticism, debating, and self-justifying are sure signs of low consciousness.

If an ideology or worldview appeals to you, you should be extra wary of it.

I agree about Peterson.  I haven’t looked into Harris yet.  I feel like Plato against the sophists here.  I guess the payday is too tempting for these people.  You would think love of truth would hold supreme, but not for everybody!  Money is the great corrupter.

Edited April 11, 2018 by Joseph Maynor

[Akim]

I think Peterson believes that he is defending western culture from descending into left-wing or right-wing totalitarianism like it happened in 20 century. So he wants to strengthen western values like independent individual, free speech, plurality of opinion, strong work ethics and so on. May be he is doing it a little bit too strongly and charismatically. But do we want others to take this role? It looks like in US people crave for charismatic leader who can speak emotionally and appear sincere. Just look what happened with Ron Paul, Bernie or Trump.

Peterson says that you can tell what person believes in by how they act. And it is much more important than what they say.
What Leo does:

1. Strong individualism. Thinks for himself, compares different traditions and experiments instead of joining some cult and giving some eastern guru total control.
2. Values free speech, creates forum for people to freely discuss different opinions, including outrageous.
3. Values articulate speech, practices it as a domain of mastery, probably practices talks hours every week and publishes the best online.
4. Is very proactive, logical, hard working. Creates a lot of content. Does not just peace out in some forest and goes with the flow.

Leo himself said as @Outer pointed out, that what he is doing is only possible in the age of free information exchange and technological improvement that were created by western civilization. Leo himself said that we should not take democracy and freedom for granted and posted talks about trump.

Is it dangerous to blindly follow Peterson? Probably. I would say you should diversify your sources and not consume more that 30% from one, with may be only temporary exceptions. Also many right wing people are using Peterson as a ram against left wing, while Peterson himself said he doesn't like either extreme. If you go into Peterson communities they are often overran by posts about outrageous things left did, which I think is not very good.

Edited April 11, 2018 by Akim