
Why Can't People Hear What Jordan Peterson Is Actually Saying? - mpweiher
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/01/putting-monsterpaint-onjordan-peterson/550859/?single_page=true
======
LocalH
This trend of people modifying someone's words and then projecting those
modified words onto them has been more and more widespread. I see it as
intellectually dishonest, and as depriving someone of their own agency in the
context of discourse. Everyone has a right to speak for themselves, and this
mindset erodes that right.

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squozzer
Because some people don't want to hear what he's saying.

And it would have looked unseemly to just shout him down or throw him out of
the studio.

So Ms. Newman used rhetorical landmines. But he's had practice dealing with
those devices because he lectures smart alecky kids almost daily.

~~~
julioneander
It's almost like she helped him get his point across, it was clearly an "Us vs
Them" debate for her, she pushed it hard, and Peterson defused her with his
argumentation and composture.

It's kinda sad how things have gotten to this football team filosophy where
you defend your side no matter what. I'm glad Peterson is having all this
reach, even though I don't agree 100% with all he says.

~~~
brad0
I’m curious what you don’t agree with. Could you go into detail?

~~~
julioneander
Not with what he said in the interview, I wasn't clear about that, it's more
about some of the concepts that he goes about in his biblical series and in
some interviews, can't find a link right now.

For example, the concept that truth can be anectodal instead of empirical (as
derived from grand narratives and the reason why religious stories hold so
much weight in western civilization) is still something that twists my brain.
I believe there is a greater truth behind these stories, and what we tell each
other are abstractions and pieces of those underlying truths. To understand
and explain these narratives is to mine for what actually valuable for us, and
telling them is a way of "triggering" our minds into going through the process
in which those truths manifest themselves... but maybe that's the only way we
can achieve a protocol of sharing primitive truths with our communication.

I think that's a part of it. Funny enough I found Jordan Peterson through HN a
while back when someone linked his Maps of Meaning lectures in a thread about
what books or articles changed their lives. Now we're here talking about his
philosophies.

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plurinshael
While I like Petersen's message and analytical competence quite a bit, in this
interview he makes the mistake that a lot of highly intelligent people make:
he states the truth at his level of intelligence and training and expects the
other person to understand perfectly. "If you've correctly listened to my
exact construction of words, you should understand." He could do better at
connecting with her, on a relational level and not only an intellectual one.
(Which, yes, is much more of an abstract concept and is typically a lot harder
for intellectual people, and is definitely a lot harder when someone seems
hostile.)

He still does a good job of articulating the nuances of his position, but
needs perhaps a little more connective tissue to let her know "I'm not against
women! Hear me out." And I don't mean to let her off the hook, because she
inappropriately framed his arguments a number of times.

It's incredibly difficult to think on your feet in front of an
audience/camera, let alone actually learn and genuinely absorb an entirely new
level of complexity for something you already think you know. I appreciate
what Petersen's saying about how the gender gap _as described_ is a myth, and
he articulates his reason for saying so: it's actually an 18-factor gap. But
after he explains this and she continues to use the phrase gender gap multiple
times to challenge his view, that's where he needed to identify that she has
not correctly processed his real view, and stop her: "But ok it shouldn't be
called a gender gap: based on the data, it's an 18-factor gap. Do you see what
I'm saying?"

Connective tissue; reading your audience.

~~~
paulddraper
I won't say that you don't have a valid point in general.

But in this situation, IMO Petersen did a fantastic job of being personable,
clear, and helpful. Especially considering he was granted one sentence at a
time.

If it was any less "intellectual", it'd be a interview with a fifth-grader.

~~~
julioneander
Jordan Peterson analyzed the interview to greater detail in this video:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E6qBxn_hFDQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E6qBxn_hFDQ)

He goes full on clinical psychologist on what he thinks happened, and also
where he thinks he could have lead the interview for better. According to him,
he was not dealing with Cathy Newman the person, but rather a personification
of an ideology. It's very interesting to hear, also for the remainder of the
interview.

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paulddraper
There's a strong tendency to divide the world into with us and against is,
allies and enemies, for us and against us. Government, social justice, social
media. It's as if we are trying to recreate a two party platform in every
area.

And it's disappointing.

The same happened with James Damore. His points have been frequently
misinterpreted, despite the careful language used. Only in a very crude sense
was it an "Anti-diversity" memo; the thesis was Google should shift attention
from equality of outcome gender diversity to other forms.

Peterson is an even more distinctive example because it went back and forth
many times (and was a better venue).

I hope we see more people like Peterson. Not necessarily people who think the
same as him, but people who have rational unallied perspectives.

~~~
mpweiher
> despite the careful language used

That seems to be the advantage of the interview format: Jordan Peterson had
the (repeated/continuous) opportunity to correct the
misrepresentation/distortion of his words. James Damore was not given that
chance.

~~~
paulddraper
Yep, the medium/venue was a huge help for Peterson. And shows the existence of
the problem that much more.

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RickS
Peterson's relationships with feminism and youth activism are very touchy
subjects, both because of factors addressed in the article, and because
Peterson engages them with a vitrol that's absent from most of his other work.
I'm a huge proponent of most of his lectures, but readily concede that he gets
combative there in ways that are unproductive if not shortsighted. The
Guardian had a review of his new book that, while blind to some nuance, landed
some reasonable blows against him.

My advice to anyone looking to form an opinion on Peterson: Begin with his
Maps of Meaning series on youtube. They're ~2hr lectures on the intersection
of biology, religion, and morality, and they are the most illuminating
rationale of world religion, its motivation, and its persistence, that I've
ever read. He's frequently referred to as "Christian" because that's an easy
set of values for readers to recognize, but dig into the lectures and you'll
find that he's only "Christian" because the christian framework of morality is
a subset of a larger and more universal moral framework common across time and
cultures.

~~~
paulddraper
What....what part of the interview had "a vitrol that's absent from most of
his other work"?

Or are your comments reserved exclusively for things other than the posted
link?

~~~
RickS
The text of the posted link covers a subset of an interview. I'm speaking
about things outside the posted link's text. I haven't watched the video it
refers to in full.

Here's a good example I saw recently (eyeballing the timeline here, perhaps go
back farther for context): [https://youtu.be/OD-
VCRNIp-U?t=21m17s](https://youtu.be/OD-VCRNIp-U?t=21m17s)

It's tough, when discussing activism and political engagement, especially by
youth and typically w/r/t left-wing politics and especially feminism, to get
Peterson to detach universities' far-left activism from activism in general.
This is especially unusual given his gift for engaging with topics in
enormously broad scopes.

