Don't fall prey to the most subversive smear tactic yet: The "cult" claim

Whenever you open a thread here that contains 1000+ words, your knee-jerk reaction might be to close the tab and move on. I'm guilty of that myself. In this case, however, if you've been on the cusp of falling victim to this rather insidious strategy, I recommend you keep on reading. If you've been paying close attention, you've probably registered the nature of attacks on Jordan Peterson. They come in waves. First, they tried the transphobe strategy. It didn't work. Then, they tried the sexist strategy. That didn't work either. Last month's trend was the racist strategy. It's becoming increasingly apparent that the flavor of the month is the claim that Jordan Peterson is a cult leader. This, one has to admit, is incredibly clever, because it's supposed to function as a deep psychological assault. It sows a seed of self-doubt. Once the seed has been sown, the payload should go something like,

(a) "Oh, I do suppose I like him quite a bit. Oh yeah, he is earning quite a bit of money. Yes, my life has changed since I started listening ..."
(b) "Have I just been brainwashed? Am I just a blindly following cult member?"

Credit is due where credit is due. This is rather ingenius. Nobody wants to be a part of a cult. Nobody wants to feel manipulated and deindividualized. If the seed of doubt is sown, the payload should elicit a fear response. Even if the payload does not fully succeed, it might lead a fan to, at the very least, take a large step back, in fear of the possibility that they might be in the brainwashing process.So, let's take a good hard look at what a cult actually is, and do some comparisons.
Because there is little consensus regarding the term itself, I had to search quite a bit to find something which wasn't impossibly abstract. I found this one, which I believe to be quite accurate:A typical cult has a charismatic, unaccountable leader, persuades by coercion and exploits its members, economically, sexually or in some other way.

[Charismatic] Well-spoken, highly-educated. Let's play devil's advocate and check this one off.

[Unaccountable] Complete miss. Peterson argues for his points very openly and tells everyone who listens to hack at it if they find anything wrong. He is also very open about his own faults.

[Persuades by coercion] No point in spending time on this one, as it simply does not apply.

[Exploit: Economically] Peterson has never asked for money. He opened his Patreon, and people flocked to it in support. It was never solicited.

[Exploit: Sexually] :D

[Exploit: Other] I'm trying my best, but I really can't think of anything. Can you?

Now let's take a more holistic approach.

Other urls found in this thread:

reddit.com/r/JordanPeterson/comments/7v61yq/dont_fall_prey_to_the_most_subversive_smear/
youtube.com/watch?v=xgOg0c_ql8g
twitter.com/AnonBabble

One of the key components of the cult strategy is the claim that Peterson's ultimate goal is to destroy social justice and progress (in the positive sense) by brainwashing his followers with pseudo-meaningful word soups. Essentially, you have been dazzled into a trance by a masterful manipulator who seeks to exploit your waking dreamstate, placing you in his vanguard against human rights and progress. To accomplish this, he subversively labels the enemy post-modernism to give you a target. Once again, it's quite ingenius. Who the hell wants to take any part in that, right?

[Destroying justice and progress] So, once again, here is the claim that Jordan Peterson is actually an avatar of the patriarchy who wants to oppress minorities. However, through his 9001+ IQ, he has invented a tactic nobody has ever thought of before, which is the strategy of acting like an egalitarian who wants to strengthen individuals and eliminate group conflict for four decades. What a sly fox he is.

[Brainwash] I include this one because it's one I've seen thrown around. The biggest problem with this accusation is that very few of Peterson's ideas are truly his own. He draws on concepts, theories and syntheses from Rogers, Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, Freud, Jung, Heidegger (and many more) and extracts out the information most relevant to living a respectable, meaningful life. He is not making any outlandish claims, and most importantly, unlike a prototypical cult leader, he is not selling comforting lies to lull you into a deadly embrace. Much on the contrary, Peterson's message is more like "get off your ass, stop blaming everyone else, do something productive." If you were a cultleader who wanted to seduce vulnerable people into your cult, is that the type of message you'd sell? TL;DR: This is a load of piss.

[Exploiting post-modernism] This one really does require a post on its own, because it could almost qualify as a different strategy. This one is also particularly popular on Veeky Forums. Regardless, let's run through some of the most important points.

Basically, the claim here is that Peterson is a paranoid maniac who blames everything on post-modernism (which he misunderstands). This is untrue from the get-go. Peterson's qualm with post-modernism is that as a philosophical school of thought, post-modernism was an attack on objectivity itself. This is not some misconstrual: subjectivism is actually the integral axiom of post-modernism itself. As such, Peterson rightfully attacks post-modernism (as have many other intellectual powerhouses before Peterson) and points it out as a link in a longer chain that lead to the current subjectivist, social constructivist, group identity madness we are seeing today.

Whenever you open a thread here that contains 1000+ words, your knee-jerk reaction might be to close the tab and move on. I'm guilty of that myself. In this case, however, if you've been on the cusp of falling victim to this rather insidious strategy, I recommend you keep on reading. If you've been paying close attention, you've probably registered the nature of attacks on Scientology. They come in waves. First, they tried the transphobe strategy. It didn't work. Then, they tried the sexist strategy. That didn't work either. Last month's trend was the racist strategy. It's becoming increasingly apparent that the flavor of the month is the claim that David Miscavige is a cult leader. This, one has to admit, is incredibly clever, because it's supposed to function as a deep psychological assault. It sows a seed of self-doubt.

In order words, the post-modern component of the famous post-modern neo-marxist term refers to the part of the an individual which has dispensed with rationality and objectivity. It really isn't more complicated than that (of course, his opponents would like to have you believe that it is).

So, are you really just a poor angry white male brainwashed into a subversive, facist cult? I think the real clincher here is that just by writing this, someone could accuse me of the same thing. I wouldn't be surprised if I was named his primary disciple. Third time: this shit is ingeniuous.

Jordan Peterson has rocked the boat. He stuck his neck out in a time of cultural nuclear war and by some miracle he's still succeeding. I really do think war is an appropriate term here, and as such, there will be deceitful strategies, as we have already seen. However, identification is defusion.

In closing remarks, ask yourself what feels more right. Are you a mindless victim to a manipulative mastermind who is exploiting you to destroy human rights and re-establish the imperium of the patriarchy? Are you just a brainwashed footsoldier?

Or are you someone who, for a decade or for longer, has been incrementally fed up with the perpetual assault on rationality, common sense and objectivity? Are you someone who recoils when you see that the universities are too busy coddling and steralizing the future generations to properly educate them? Are you someone who is so tired of ideological false dichotomies that you could pretty much collapse on the spot? And finally, have you, like millions of others, recognized a man who might actually be capable of restoring order in a time of chaos and untruth?

If the latter is true, then do the only thing the man has ever asked of you: Get off your ass. Stop blaming everyone else. Don't be a victim. Do something productive. Do something meaningful. In the end, it's the least cult-like thing you could possibly do.

TL;DR: The "cult" claim is just the latest wave in a sea of desperate attacks on Jordan Peterson. This time, however, instead of attacking the man himself, they are going after his fanbase. The strategy is to sow seeds of fear and self-doubt, with a varying payload. Don't fall for it.

I'm not even mad

u wrote all that text as a prop for this weak troll? reexamine ur life

BUGS.. WHAT DID WE TELL YOU ABOUT THE CARROTS

pretty much right.
the funniest part about it is that he's basically telling young white men to "grow up and clean your room" and some people are genuinely frightened. it should tell you everything you need to know about where we're headed

btw didnt mean to link that post

Anonymous strangers making fun of someone is not equal to a worldwide culture-destroying conspiracy.