What makes Jordan Peterson's self-help program different from any other charlatan's?

He has zero knowledge on post-modernism and still acts as if he knows all of its "tricks" and acts as if people in the contemporary era actually give a shit about Derrida.

His basic argument is "years ago we thought everything had meaning, now we know it doesn't really, but let's still pretend it does because it makes me feel good".

well some greasy church pastor selling self-published "17 WAYS YOU CAN CHANGE YOUR LIFE!!!" lists on Amazon for 99c a pop is a little different from a clinical psychologist with a PhD from McGill giving you advice

is there something wrong with trying to find meaning in life

Not at all. It's looking for meaning in places where this is none or deluding yourself that you'll find it heavily residing in society rather than from yourself.

What the "past-authoring" program comes down to is that if you can actually confront the stuff that gives you grief, but you are (for one reason or another) averse to actually dealing with, you'll be able to get over it, or at least not have it weigh on you like it might if you just ignore it. I don't think this is particularly controversial.
The "future-authoring" is just making you actually state and think clearly about your goals and how you want to achieve them, which—surprise, surprise—actually helps you meet those goals.
So what makes him not a charlatan is that he doesn't actually give prescriptive advice on what to do with your life, he just provides structure and incentive for uncomfortable introspection.

Kermit the Fraud

>PHD in psychology

Lol, wow, impressive!

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>he expects meaning to exist in some tangible 'truth' form

German detected.

This. He's doing cksssic shrink stuff but at a mass social media level. It's pretty impressive memetics.

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I've seen him around enough to be interested. Can someone post the best starter pack? Is there a book or YouTube link that is best to start on?

I dislike him.

youtu.be/07Ys4tQPRis
This is the best vid to get his opinions and how he thinks.

Which is the best part of it. I'm attending his psych lectures on the Bible, and am friends with some of his former thesis students.

This is how I see it: he doesn't appear to be selling anything other than the idea that individuals are way more powerful than they realize. It floors me when I look at how weak I was a few years ago washing dishes for minimum wage, and essentially incapable of doing things because I didn't put myself into new environments.

As you said, he isn't prescribing exactly what to do. He isn't like some life coaches are, who tell you to do this and that. He actually gets people to articulate their ideas, and formulate their own thoughts, rather than relying strictly on others. He does a good job of wedding individuals and community, rather than being on the extreme end of on e spectrum.

He also recognizes the quality of memes, which is a plus.

Under playlists on his youtube page, everything is nicely sorted. Start with the personality series and then do the Maps of Meaning one. Personality is more traditional psych, but it's a better introduction to his work and his thinking than being thrown into the deep end right away. The guy also repeats himself and his stories with some frequency, so I recommend not doing the two sets at the same time otherwise they'll blend too much.

youtube.com/user/JordanPetersonVideos/playlists

>and acts as if people in the contemporary era actually give a shit about Derrida.
Or, you know, that people are the unconscious exponents of dead philosophers, with individuals often being fragments of exponents of various philosophers. This is why a single neo-marxist cuck might be a decent human being and perfectly fine to have a conversation with, but en mass they degenerate to their common Marxist ideology and all vestiges of humanity vanish.

His actual premise being that almost none of these people actually know what ideas are infesting their belief structures, they just act them out like puppets on a string.

>charlatan
>literally paints a vivid picture while he reverse engineers motives and exposes the true definition of the individuals intent, whether they know it or not, to the point any teenager could follow...

The man was built for this moment in time.

While some assnaut scientist who has his own head up his own ass, all while he beats off to the sound of his own voice while he berates the most obvious offenders and offenses, while offering no true definitive cause or reasoning for the situation that manifested.....here comes Jordan Peterson, exposing the shit out of everyone.

His talk on tragedy vs evil is worth listening to.