Leo's straw man arguments against JBP

[Tim R]

 

In this video clip, Leo misrepresents JBP's views on individual and social responsibility and makes a straw man out of them.

Disclaimer: I'm not here to defend JBP, I'm not taking sides, this post is simply meant to point out what I consider a biased and unnuanced perspective on Leo's part and I think that a lot of people who agree with him on this one are making the same blunder. 

And judging by some of the comments under that video it seems that I'm not the only one who thinks that. 

 

JBP is an individualist and yes, and I think he overemphasizes individualism. But he certainly doesn't ignore or even deny the fact that we are a global collective and that we are a society. And that when Japan dumps radioactive waste into the ocean, it effects us all and I don't think that there's anybody, not even conservatives who would deny something like that. Yes, he says that you must fix yourself first before you go out and attempt to change the word, but that's definitely necessary and I don't see how there could be a viable solution to do this any other way; because if you are completely clueless about the world, about yourself and about society and you then proceed to apply your cluelessness (and possibly resentment, as JBP often points out) in an attempt to fix a broken world, you will make a mess of it and it will be worse than if you had never done it. 

He even encourages people to take care of their community, to fix their family and to fix their society. 

 

The example Leo gives which I consider to be a straw man is about kid who has ADHD or autism due to heavy metal pollution in the water;

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let's say i'm struggling in school i'm like 18 years old... i'm struggling in school to to make something of myself, to succeed, to get good grades, to get into a good university, i'm struggling with that, i have maybe adhd, i'm depressed, i'm anxious.

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i come to Jordan Peterson and he" says put your life in order mister! you gotta clean your room, you gotta get disciplined, you gotta maybe start going to church, you got to read some books and you got to watch some of my lectures and you got to you got to know find some meaning in your life and stop wasting your time worrying about these collective issues about capitalism and socialism and racism and and gender rights or you know corporate greed and predatory capitalists not worried about this stuff because that's not your problem, you can worry about that after you fix yourself.

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okay that sounds good in theory but what if the reason i'm having problems is  because i have ADHD. i can't focus, i can't meditate, i can't even sit down to read a book for 10 minutes because my mind is just going crazy and the reason that is, is because of the lead and the mercury in the water that I've been drinking in my public water supply for my entire life, for 18 years. is that something i can fix?  is that an individual problem or is that a collective problem?  and are we just supposed to allow that to keep happening?  and be quiet about it?  i'm just supposed to ignore that? 

Obviously this is a social/collective problem. It's not the kid's responsibility that he's sick from the heavy metals. And yet, Leo frames it as though, when this kid would ask JBP what to do about it, JBP would tell this kid that he's responsible for this problem.

This is certainly not the case and this is not at all an accurate representation of JBP's views. If you think it is, I welcome you to show me a clip where he says anything comparable, where a more or less severe collective problem is entirely passed on to individual responsibility. Also, he never said anything like "stop caring about capitalism, racism, socialism" etc. And certainly not to ignore, accept or allow such a thing. 

Social problems can only be solved through individual responsibility, because a society is made up of individuals, essentially. And if each individual is irresponsible, the whole of society is irresponsible. Nobody in their right mind would make sich a kid responsible for polluted water and give such silly advice as "take responsibility for your life, listen to my lectures, bootstrap yourself and things will get better".

I mean go ahead, try fixing the excess problems of capitalism and consumer society after having read one book by Marx and Engels and thinking that now you understand what to do. It doesn't work that way. You need to fix yourself before you fix something bigger than yourself. The problems of our world are so complex. You can't just come along and start tinkering around like someone who has just graduated from high school and know wants to perform a 20h surgery. 

And btw, being a clinical psychologist, JBP has studied neurology a fair but, so I doubt that this example with neurological damage due to heavy metals would result in JBP giving this "classical conservative advice". 

I invite you all to take part in discussion about this! 

Edited August 30, 2021 by Tim R

[Raptorsin7]

Not surprising that Leo gave a strawman of JP's position on this. A lot of these leftist content creators who make fun of JP also don't like to admit that personal responsibility is at the heart of any societal progress, but they love to play the blame and shame game.

I think Leo just does these kinds of videos for the views, you would think he has better things to do than do a JP takedown 

[DocWatts]

Not so much a comment on Jordan Peterson who's at least a bit more nuanced about the idea of 'personal responsibility', but the way that 'personal responsibility' is typically used by conservatives is as a highly self serving ego defense mechanism, completely taking for granted the role that privilege and luck have had in thier own success.

"I know that I succeeded because I'm honest and hard working, so if someone else isn't as successful as me it must be because they're lazy."

Edited August 30, 2021 by DocWatts

[captainamerica]

22 minutes ago, DocWatts said:

Not so much a comment on Jordan Peterson who's at least a bit more nuanced about the idea of 'personal responsibility', but the way that 'personal responsibility' is typically used by conservatives is as a highly self serving ego defense mechanism, completely taking for granted the role that privilege and luck have had in thier own success.

"I know that I succeeded because I'm honest and hard working, so if someone else isn't as successful as me it must be because they're lazy."

Well, to be fair, the progressives misuse the luck argument plenty. 

They will piss away their energies and time when they are young. Many waste their precious time and bodily energies so much that even their bodies are not built properly, let alone skill or value for society. Knowledge of SD would literally be perfect, but no other skill for society. They clearly were privileged enough to give time to something that matters.

 

 

A more balanced perspective is:

Most successful people underestimate the role of luck in their successes whereas most failures overestimate the role of bad luck in their lives.

[DocWatts]

9 minutes ago, captainamerica said:

A more balanced perspective is:

Most successful people underestimate the role of luck in their successes whereas most failures overestimate the role of bad luck in their lives.

Sure, and that's not to say that someone's Efforts don't also play a large role in how successful that person is.

But success in our society also depends on having access to social and financial capital so one can actually better themselves through thier efforts. And access to Social and Financial capital is in large part determined by the Birth Lottery (though well functioning redistributive mechanisms can mitigate at least some of this).

Working hard without having access to these things will more than likely result in someone ending up as an exploited Wage Slave.

[Carl-Richard]

I think the overarching point is that JBP uses his ideas about personal responsibility etc. to shut down collectivism in a sort of exclusionary "this is too idealistic and not feasible in reality" kind of way. It's the cynical attitude that he uses to dismiss various forms of social constructivism while protecting his conservative underbelly.

Edited August 31, 2021 by Carl-Richard

[Gesundheit2]

3 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

I think the overarching point is that JBP uses his ideas about personal responsibility etc. to shut down collectivism in a sort of exclusionary "this is too idealistic and not feasible in reality" kind of way. It's the cynical attitude that he uses to dismiss various forms of social constuctivism while protecting his conservative underbelly.

A cynical attitude would be to think that the collective is doomed either way, which is my perspective. I am cynical, Peterson is only delusional.

[Carl-Richard]

1 hour ago, Gesundheit2 said:

A cynical attitude would be to think that the collective is doomed either way, which is my perspective. I am cynical, Peterson is only delusional.

You could say that at this stage, the problem is that "the collective" is not collectivist enough, as its members are participating in and perpetuating rivalrous games. The optimistic attitude to that would be that this will change over time.

[Hello from Russia]

Tbh I feel like he is indeed strawmaning Jordan Peterson big time.

I think Jordan Peterson actually understands and thinks about society from holistic angles as well and I am sure he is pro-social reforms.

While for his audience, he stresses big-time personal responsibility. Leo essentially does the same in his channel, he constantly shoves the message onto your face how important it is to take charge of your life, be disciplined, invest in yourself, etc. Take even his latest video as an example, basically, the same message as JP usually does but in Leo's own unique way and angle

The only difference I see is that Leo talks about big picture stuff way more when JP is giving advice in a sort of therapy/coaching 1v1 way. Perhaps his therapy practice background is influencing this a lot)

Edited August 30, 2021 by Hello from Russia

[Opo]

6 hours ago, Tim R said:

Yes, he says that you must fix yourself first before you go out and attempt to change the word, but that's definitely necessary and I don't see how there could be a viable solution to do this any other way; because if you are completely clueless about the world, about yourself and about society and you then proceed to apply your cluelessness (and possibly resentment, as JBP often points out) in an attempt to fix a broken world, you will make a mess of it and it will be worse than if you had never done it. 

Lol on the irony. 

A retarded person could recognize that America has a bad healthcare and not being a self actualized person shouldn't stop them from voting or whatever else. 

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Obviously this is a social/collective problem. It's not the kid's responsibility that he's sick from the heavy metals. And yet, Leo frames it as though, when this kid would ask JBP what to do about it, JBP would tell this kid that he's responsible for this problem.

No he would recommend solutions from an individual perspective and ignore the collective one. 

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This is certainly not the case and this is not at all an accurate representation of JBP's views. If you think it is, I welcome you to show me a clip where he says anything comparable, where a more or less severe collective problem is entirely passed on to individual responsibility. Also, he never said anything like "stop caring about capitalism, racism, socialism" etc. And certainly not to ignore, accept or allow such a thing. 

I think that you need to watch the video again. 

He won't say it directly but that's what he's doing when he says to fix yourself while ignoring how society is stopping you from doing that. 

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Social problems can only be solved through individual responsibility, because a society is made up of individuals, essentially. And if each individual is irresponsible, the whole of society is irresponsible. Nobody in their right mind would make sich a kid responsible for polluted water and give such silly advice as "take responsibility for your life, listen to my lectures, bootstrap yourself and things will get better".

They would, because they couldn't connect those two things. 

When a kid is bad at school everybody says that he's lazy or stupid while ignoring why is he the way he is. 

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I mean go ahead, try fixing the excess problems of capitalism and consumer society after having read one book by Marx and Engels and thinking that now you understand what to do. It doesn't work that way. You need to fix yourself before you fix something bigger than yourself. The problems of our world are so complex. You can't just come along and start tinkering around like someone who has just graduated from high school and know wants to perform a 20h surgery. 

You don't even need to read a single book to recognize the problems with today's capitalism and go vote for a party that will improve it. 

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And btw, being a clinical psychologist, JBP has studied neurology a fair but, so I doubt that this example with neurological damage due to heavy metals would result in JBP giving this "classical conservative advice". 

Why not?

He couldn't connect heavy metals and brain problems. 

That's why he tried to solve his depression with pills. 

[Dryas]

Eh, idk. He seems like a pretty hardcore individualist to me.

https://youtu.be/XbEs02-LjO4

you might still be bringing up a few valid points though. 

[Leo Gura]

The point is not that JP has zero appreciation of collective issues. But that he doesn't appreciate collective responsibility nearly enough. This is a general problem with most conservatives these days. They have a collectivist shadow.

Conservatives suck at taking collective responsibility -- especially on a global scale. Their collective responsibility tends to be limited to their tribe or nation. Which is not good enough in today's global world.

JP usually speaks about collectivism in a negative way. Which is a huge problem. It misleads his loyal audience by feeding straight into their libertarian biases.

[Leo Gura]

9 hours ago, Tim R said:

where a more or less severe collective problem is entirely passed on to individual responsibility.

JP does this all the time when it comes to political activism on college campuses. Like when students protest about LGBTQ rights or racism, he will say something like, "You guys are being foolish. Go clean your rooms first."

But the biggest problem is how JP ignores many collective issues entirely. Like for example, climate change. I have not heard him talk seriously ever about taking massive collective responsibility for climate change. And we could find dozens more examples like this. When has he ever talked about taking collective responsibility for corporate corruption and lobbying or the excesses of capitalism? Never.

The whole point is that our society and globe has serious problems because people are not looking at problems collectively. And stuff like heavy metal toxicity is directly one such problem. JP spends all this time whining about college feminists, meanwhile our entire population is being poisoned with heavy metals which can only be fixed with strict regulations at the Federal level which no conservative would ever vote for. So my example holds. It is not conservatives like JP who will clean up the water supply, it will be the Cultural Marxists / Socialists who he rails against.

Here are collective issues which are not seriously addressed by JP or any conservative:

• Health care and Big Pharma
• Income inequality
• Pollution
• Climate change
• Corporate corruption & lobbying
• Regulation of Big Tech monopolies
• Excesses of capitalism
• Poverty, welfare systems
• Racism & sexism
• Reparations for slavery
• Access to broadband internet in rural areas
• Regulation of housing market
• Regulation of Wall Street
• Equalizing the education system so it's not based on real estate taxes
• Taxation of gross wealth
• Curbing excessive military spending
• Gun control to reduce mass shootings
• Shoring up voting rights
• Federal jobs programs
• Infrastructure
• Animal extinction, over-fishing, factory farming, coral reefs dying
• BPA and plastics in food

And more

Responsibility for all the above is shirked and offloaded onto the individual or perhaps the local city/state level.

[roopepa]

9 hours ago, Tim R said:

JBP is an individualist and yes, and I think he overemphasizes individualism. But he certainly doesn't ignore or even deny the fact that we are a global collective and that we are a society.

9 hours ago, Tim R said:

He even encourages people to take care of their community, to fix their family and to fix their society.

I'm sure he has said these kind of things. Of course, anyone with even a little bit of brain would understand those things. I think the problem is that he is not taking this collective side as a serious part of his teaching/philosophy. He doesn't seem to realize the depth of the subject.

Compare JP with Leo or Ken Wilber. Leo and Wilber both stress the importance of the collective part in their thinking way more than JP. They don't just mention it, it's a serious part of their philosophy. Balancing the collective and the individual is literally one of the most central themes of Wilbers work.

And this is why:

9 hours ago, Tim R said:

Social problems can only be solved through individual responsibility, because a society is made up of individuals, essentially

What exactly is this "individual"? What is an individual without collective? How does an individual even become "an individual" in the first place? What made you the individual you think you are? How did you even learn that you are an individual human being in the first place?

The thing is... The collective and the individual are not separate. They are unified. These are interconnected in such a way that it is literally impossible to separate them without a fatal misunderstanding.

What you mean by "an individual" and "individual responsibility" is a social construct. Yet, society is built of individuals. Or is it?

This right here is what I believe Leo and Wilber understand, and JP does not. That's why JP is an individualist and resonates with such a large right-wing audience.

[Leo Gura]

The technical term for JP's condition is: collectivist shadow

He's paranoid about Soviet Marxism and that colors all of his political thinking.

[Gregory1]

Hey Leo, thanks for that awesome explanation! 

[Carl-Richard]

6 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

I have not heard him talk seriously ever about taking massive collective responsibility for climate change.

The time he did talk about climate change, he mentioned some study that said people become more environmentally conscious as their country becomes richer, and that there is not much you can do other than to wait for that to happen to the third world countries. He also said "you want to get rid of oil? Hah – good luck with that!". I don't remember any other mindblowing insights from that video lol

Edited August 31, 2021 by Carl-Richard

[Leo Gura]

2 hours ago, Carl-Richard said:

"you want to get rid of oil? Hah – good luck with that!".

Well, he's right there.

However, what he doesn't acknowledge is how his own philosophy feeds that vicious cycle.

Here's a rule of life for ya, bucko: Be the change you wish to see in the world.

[Preety_India]

6 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Here's a rule of life for ya, bucko: Be the change you wish to see in the world.

I'm waiting for your collabs. 

You gotta keep yourself busy on that one. 

So many many YouTubers to talk to.. 

Go go go. 

 

Edited August 31, 2021 by Preety_India

[Leo Gura]

4 minutes ago, Preety_India said:

I'm waiting for your collabs. 

Why would I water down God's widsom with humans??