Talking Basement-Dwellers With Jordan Peterson, Reddit’s New Favorite Philosopher

nymag.com/selectall/2018/02/jordan-peterson-reddits-new-favorite-philosopher.html

>“Why not sit in your mother’s basement and eat Cheetos and play video games and watch pornography?” Jordan Peterson asks me. For the record, he means it rhetorically, as the existential plight of modern man; my mother doesn’t even have a basement. We’re on the balcony of an Airbnb in a luxury loft in downtown Los Angeles, overlooking an unpopulated swimming pool. “That’s a perfectly valid question,” he says. “It’s certainly pleasurable, and not very onerous, moment to moment.”

>We’re roughly four uninterrupted minutes into the answer to my first question: What about this particular historical moment has made Peterson, a University of Toronto professor in L.A. to lecture to a sold-out crowd at the Orpheum Theatre, a sudden celebrity as the author of a best-selling new book, 12 Rules for Life; the star of a wildly successful lecture tour across North America and Europe; a candidate, David Brooks says, for the title of the West’s “most influential public intellectual”? “I think the answer to that is actually to be found in an old story,” Peterson began. “There’s an idea that, especially in a moment of crisis, you have to go into the belly of the beast and rescue your father from the depths of chaos. Well, that’s what I’m doing.”

>The father in this parable is — I think — stable, individualist, Western democracy; the “depths of chaos” are (again, if I’m following him) the “postmodern neo-Marxist” attacking truth and meaning, and thus threatening the stability of prosperous industrial nations. At its core, Peterson’s basic intellectual project is a familiar conservative one: He stands for natural order, individualism, and responsibility in opposition to what he sees as the looming totalitarianism of the “radical left”; he says that, while responsibility must be balanced with “rights and freedoms,” we’ve been emphasizing rights “for, like, 60 years. Enough!”

Other urls found in this thread:

youtube.com/watch?v=U1wWtqCwpFw
twitter.com/jordanbpeterson/status/949652812664799233
twitter.com/NSFWRedditVideo

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>Reddit’s New Favorite Philosopher

Petersonfags will never recover from this

What if I just want to rescue a qt6.5 and share doritos and mountain dew with her while playing vidya?

Who is /our/ philosopher? Zizek? Land?

Stefan Molyneux

There's literally nothing wrong with being a redditor.

It's a compliment

t. reddit

...

You’ll die a virgin.

Oh really?

I seriously want to fucking kill myself this isn't even a joke anymore

>Reddit's new favourite philosopher
I wonder what effect is this going to have on the psyche of Veeky Forumsitizens.

Cheer up

get out

Stable individualist western democracy is what caused this problem to begin with. If you base your philosophy on "I'll do whatever I want", of course there are going to be a whole load of sodomites pushing for legitimising their disgusting fetish, and a whole bunch of people dropping out of society because they can't be bothered.

Why is he complaining now that his philosophy has reached it's logical conclusion? It's people like this that make me think liberals are honestly retarded. They are completely unable to see the consequences of their ideology.

>NYMag.com

>I'm living in my parents basement because gay people can get married

Truly powerful posting from the right

If that's all it is, why care so much, user?

You should go back, then

The structure of a society and the ideal way to live within that structure are not the same thing. Peterson's argument would most likely be that stable individualist western democracies are the best way to build a society, and sober, competent responsibility is the best way for an individual to live within that structure.

hey user did you know lit is short for literature

The "right" have always been feeble neoliberal faggots that fold under imaginary adversities. It's not the modern world's fault you have no sexual value and woke up from a vidya coma at 26 with nothing to show for it.

>sober, competent responsibility
has he not met people?

He is a shill for productivism and the upper classes that make money off the poor sucker's work

Which society is it that works well with a non-productive populace?

i.e. a shill for wage slavery. He just wishes the world now to be like it was in his childhood, like every other boomer

>He just wishes the world now to be like it was in his childhood, like every other boomer
It really is that fucking simple. Can't wait till they're gone.

Imagine if leftypol hadn't completely lost the ability to honestly confront their opponents' arguments.

these freaks don't want equality, they want cultural marxism, they want to be placed on a pedestal and rape children in the open street, they actively relish victimhood.
>muh politically correct victim lifestyle is subversive and edgy despite the fact it is agressively pushed by academia, Bill Nye and all major corporations

I'm starting to think that Jordan Peterson is the antichrist at this point. What does he have to say on accelerationism?

I think you're projecting

Where were you when Peterson was BTFO by Sam Harris?

youtube.com/watch?v=U1wWtqCwpFw

Stirner, you fucking spook.

The structure of society encourage the basis of thought of the populace. It is true a responsible individual will likely attain success under this system, but to criticise others because they want to live the NEET life is contrary to the very spirit of liberalism. NEETs are making a perfectly rational decision by doing exactly what they want. If think this is worthy of criticism, it is necessary to abandon Liberalism as the premise of your argument in favour of a more authoritarian, moralistic outlook.

It is logically impossible to shill for Liberalism and responsibility at the same time.

>Max Read
Max Read what?

Why is Peterson the new forced meme here and what are his philosophies?

twitter.com/jordanbpeterson/status/949652812664799233

He's just a watered down Jung. Its doubtful even he knows what he believes. Its clear his sole interest is appearing wise and erudite while hiding the fact behind a thin veneer of "aww shucks" self-deprecation in typical leaf fashion.

Just goes to show how reddit this place has become

Not all societies were based on the maximization of productivity. Indians in the Pacific Northwest were "rich" by pre-industrial standards, meaning that it was easy for them to obtain adequate food, shelter, and other necessities. They spent a lot of their time devoted to fine arts and elaborate religious/social ceremonies, things which would be considered "non-productive" leisure activities today.

Their economic system centered around feasts known as Potlatches. These feasts were venues to conspicuously destroy or give away wealth (storeable food, slaves, canoes, etc.). The more you let go, the more respect you gained from the community. It was a display of power, like conspicuous consumption. Of course, if you had more wealth in the first place you'd be able to destroy more of it, but holding onto such resources for an extended period of time would have been seen as a source of shame or weakness. This resulted in a strange dynamic when they began to work for the British. Depending on the season, they were either extremely hard workers (preparing for the upcoming potlach) or could not be motivated to work at all.

This practice was banned in Canada at the start of the 20th century because it was "contrary to Christian capitalist" values. A government official named Gilbert Sproat, convinced that potlatches could not continue, wrote to the Prime Minister saying "It is not possible that the Indians can acquire property, or can become industrious with any good result, while under the influence of ... the potlatch".

So, their economic system was outlawed because it was not based on the accumulation of wealth.
This is not to romanticize their lifestyle, as I already mentioned slavery was widespread and some tribes were quite violent. Just wanted to provide an example of an alternate, "non-productive" economic system for you.

>some tribes were quite violent
nigger where I'm from there are vast bogs filled with slaves who were buried during these ceremonies, they would almost always consecrate good-faith dealings with their neighbors by killing their slaves in honor of the agreements and mutual respect between them, and you, as big man, always stood the most to gain from throwing the party in the first place. It was about as oriented towards wealth redistribution as a food drive or a charity ball.

Never said it was about wealth redistribution, I said it was closer to conspicuous consumption than anything "charitable." It was a display of power. If you can cavalierly slaughter a bunch of slaves, you'd be doing well by their standards.

But that's not why it was banned, it was banned specifically because it didn't motivate them to be "industrious"

1. On the surface he's the only human being currently willing to attempt pulling of a semisuccessful interpretation of an academic that indirectly defends the many points of outrage and disgust directing the opinions and beliefs of young reactionaries.

2. Self-improvement, individualism, defense of hierarchies.

>reactionary
>is a democrat
umm, no sweetie, try again

>Interview with a former Gawker editor.

I wish most online ""journalists"" would fucking stop, take a look at what they've been doing, then never have any interaction with any human being, online or otherwise, again.

I defended the Peterson reddit meme until this tweet

Interesting, this is an argument I haven't heard before

Not wasting my time listening to idiots argue about things they don't understand.

Considering you all abide customs and barely can hold an argument without finding counter arguments, even when you say you hold some belief, I could be convinced most of you would fit in with Pyrrhonian Sceptics. But given enough time, I'm sure there are other possibilities for y/our thinker.

>“Why not sit in your mother’s basement and eat Cheetos and play video games and watch pornography?” Jordan Peterson asks me. For the record, he means it rhetorically, as the existential plight of modern man; my mother doesn’t even have a basement. We’re on the balcony of an Airbnb in a luxury loft in downtown Los Angeles, overlooking an unpopulated swimming pool. “That’s a perfectly valid question,” he says. “It’s certainly pleasurable, and not very onerous, moment to moment.”
What a fucking idiot. The hedonists slam dunked this one 2000 years ago.

Probably Zizek, since he's a tortured, reviled figure from all sides, who writes hideous books filled with excessive jargon.
First as Tragedy was really good though.

There are no "petersonfags". It's autistic, massively spergy centre-left posters throwing ironic le epic trole temper tantrums at other posters in an attempt to bait them, all to foster discussion about how /pol/TARD pissbaby dudbero neckbeard chud bigots are such virgin incel FUCKING RACIST SEXIST etc etc. The average right winger on this board is more knowledgeable than the average left winger, especially after the slow mass-memeification of stirner zizek etc that started as niche in-jokes at the beginning of the life span of this board. Now every retard and their mother is a legal epic doggo seize le MEMES of production reddit communist. No one here likes peterson or sam harris or rupi kuar or whoever people pretend to defend to get a rise out of posters and troll le epic style.

He's attempting to fix the problem that Nietzsche prescribed, though he should elucidate that the dearth of meaning in the 21st century comes at the hands of both faux-Marxists and Dawkinsites alike. He's also doing a good job of making Jung relevant, which is direly needed in a social order that truly puts self awareness and mental health last.
>>Foucault and Derrida wrote as poetic philosophers in direct response to the scientific rationalism that arose out of the Enlightenment. Their entire approach is one of non-action so to use their ideas to push a power-relations-based political force is an error of interpreting them (Peterson misses this, to be fair)
>>Jung also saw the fundamental limitation of scientific rationalism and introduced personality types, a concept that greatly expands the empathy-focused moral relativist stance within said poetic framework

Industrial society is only preposterous until you actually live within it. Then the absurdity is ultimately directed at you, the individual, because it's inescapable.

His whole point is we need to be existentialists and drill into the ineffectiveness of our social order as exemplars of moral awareness. (if you have any ambition, at least, you should proceed through life mindfully and in pursuit of clarity above anything).

Unfortunately there are a lot of people here who unironically like Peterson

Fair enough, they are both idiots but Sam Harris is at least sapient enough to understand Peterson's bullshit and pull off a serviceable immitation of it.

Literally no one does? Are you unable to detect facetiousness and bad unfunny bait threads?

Palindromes confirms, Peterson for antichrist

>making Jung revelant
Using Jung of all people to prop his existential Christianity is not making anyone revelant

>
>The structure of a society and the ideal way to live within that structure are not the same thing.

What do you think society is made of? It's an aggregate of people making life choices concurrently. You have to start from a bottom-up approach otherwise you risk lending us the collective fate of a dictatorship.

Xi seems decent enough at running a ship but how often do you find an auteur social architect not turning their land into a dumpster fire? Peterson's approach accounts for the internal and external/social dynamisms of psyche that such a position inherits at the end of the revolution.

I've read most of Jung's work and I think Peterson gets a 90.

>“There’s an idea that, especially in a moment of crisis, you have to go into the belly of the beast and rescue your father from the depths of chaos. Well, that’s what I’m doing.”

I get that it's his first soft profile in NYmag, but must he use the same allegory every time?

He already knows his followers will lap it up

>Reddit’s New Favorite Philosopher
LMAO. We actually mock him non stop on reddit. Just see what happened to /r/badphilosophy to get what I'm talking about. We mocked Peterson so much that we had to make an special subreddit (/r/enoughpetersonspam) to keep doing it because badphil was starting to become pure Peterson bashing. If anything people on Veeky Forums and /pol/ are the ones defending him.

Can you explain?

>implying bad philosophy is representative of reddit as a whole
One great sub doesn't mean the rest of the site isn't shit.

Why does this place have such a huge complex about Reddit? It's clear by how often it's mentioned that more people on here use it then they'd like to admit. If they truly didn't like it then they would ignore it.

Jung's psychoanaylsis have no oughts, it isn't a lifestyle. And indeed it is molded by Jung to explain (not advocate) Gnosticism in his later years. Something that is a literal antithesis of Christianity.

In truth I actually do like Peterson and appreciate him introducing disaffected youth to the western canon in a time when we have serious university classes devoted to Harry Potter, but the fact that he uses that same example in many of his lectures, plus the introduction of his most famous book, Maps of Meaning, and he's using it once again here in such a clearly rehearsed manner just makes my eyes roll.

Zizek or Stirner

/r/badphilosophy is a trash heap echo chamber for pathetic, resentful, and bitter philosophy students and dilettantes who want to feel superior without doing anything. I bet you like Existentialist Comics too.

>We
GO BACK

>everyone is pretending to be retarded
Now this is damage control

> because my commie verysmart friends don’t like him, all of Reddit doesn’t like him
/r/badphilosophy is such a fucking cesspool.

there's a lot wrong with being a redditor. you wouldn't know anything about it because you're a redditor.

You get that the point of the badsomething subs is to ridicule how dumb the other subs are when trying to be intellectual, right? /r/badphilosophy literally exists as an antithesis of the rest of reddit.
/r/badphilosophy is perhaps still a bit too reddit, but at least most of them know what they are talking about, unlike the /pol/tards here who think they get postmodernism because they saw a video of Peterson talking about it.

how

From a look at /r/badphilosophy it seems like a bunch of average philosophy students who seem to all agree with each other making fun of anyone mentioning stuff they don't like
In other words, it's reddit and like all other parts of reddit, only thinks it's superior to the rest while being just as shit
The ONLY good sub was /r/fatpeoplehate.

Read up on the Cyreniacs and Epicurians

Plato desu

This reads like Notes from Underground I want more

Aristotle, Nietzsche and Heidegger. If you don't agree with this, you don't belong here. FACT.

>Aristotle
>not Heraclitus
wtf is wrong with you and your understanding of the latter two?

What color slaves we talking here?

>this place
run on back would you

why does it feel like this board gets worse by the day

It's been unironically raided by leftists.

Red, like them

Oh, yeah, the leftists, sure, and not the /pol/acks and their jewish boogieman or the Petersonfags complaining about postmodernism without having a clue of what they're talking about. If anything the leftists are the only ones that care about literature anymore. Not that it's a surprise though.

I think I’ve established from this board that actual academics > unironic Veeky Forums posters > Catholics > normies > fedoras > /pol/tards > fucking progressives

That doesn't sound so different from Veeky Forums, except that they have actually studied philosophy unlike most of the people here.

>the commies are raiding muh imaginary safe space

Imagine this solipsistic paranoia

b8? This board, among others, has been ruined by ignorant /pol/tards who just can't seem to be ignored. They're just pseuds with limited life experience who, upon realizing that the argument is going to be lost, revert to antisemitism and soy-related posting

I don't like Peterson too much, but if /r/badphilosophy thinks he's so bad then he must be doing something good.

LMAO look at this dumb piece of shit. Do you think you're so smart? You're just a brainlet like your daddy Peterson. Now go back to /pol/ and don't come back.

>hurr durr the leftists are ruining a literature board
No, dumbass. The reason why this board is getting worse day by day is for brainlets like you who want to push their right wing shit over everyone's throat. There's a reason why virtually every intellectual is a leftist and it's not some jew conspiracy.

I'm really getting tired of your kind. We should start making people like you to feel unwelcome. You already have /pol/. Go there. This place doesn't belong to you.

Any other good lecturers on youtube? At this point I don't care about the subject. I need it for background while I do other stuff. The only condition is that you are not required to write. Math is cool and all, but I can't do all the calculations in my head.

pls respond