Comments by "LS O\x27Brien" (@lsobrien) on "Hakim" channel.

  1. Great, concise list. Mike Davis's book is a must read, I particularly like this quote from the intro: Millions died, not outside the “modern world system,” but in the very process of being forcibly incorporated into its economic and political structures. They died in the golden age of Liberal Capitalism; indeed, many were murdered, as we shall see, by the theological application of the sacred principles of Smith, Bentham and Mill.
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  2. It's incredibly telling that not once did you quote Chomsky and Orwell, given that most (if not all) of the positions you attribute to them are false.
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  3.  @alex-sv8ru  In other words, you're against economic democracy.
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  4.  Asimpnamednutsack  Not quite. There's plenty (if not most) liberals who are actually on the Right.
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  5. No. These detractors are too lazy (and wrong) to put in that sort of legwork.
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  6. Brilliant as always. Just ordered Losurdo's book.
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  7. Peterson, it seems, is trying to re-enchant the liberal capitalist ideology which has been so exposed.
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  8. “There isn’t a shred of hard evidence to support any of their [the pomos’] central claims: that Western society is pathologically patriarchal; that the prime lesson of history is that men, rather than nature, were the primary source of the oppression of women (rather than, as in most cases, their partners and supporters); that all hierarchies are based on power and aimed at exclusion. Heirarchies exist for many reasons — some arguably valid, some not — and are incredibly ancient, evolutionary speaking. Do male crustaceans oppress female crustaceans? Should their hierarchies be upended?” Nothing discredits the illusion of a great, gravitational force called Progress more than the recurrence of arguments like this. If you thought “surely we’ve moved past all that,” you had better think again sunshine. First of all, if all the research dependent on the social psychological categories of the ‘in-group’ and ‘out-group’ do not rise to the level of hard evidence, how much of Peterson’s academic work, heavily dependent on similar constructions, can be considered valid? Secondly, the problem with a relying on Is to attain Ought, is that naturalistic justifications can used to defend practically everything and anything. Prior to women’s liberation in western Europe and North America, exactly the same sort of arguments were used to counter calls for female suffrage or equality in the work sphere. Only previous traditionalists would at least do readers the credit of comparing humans with other mammals. (It’s clear today’s Left is in a right old state, but the Right’s newfound prophet is regularly appealing to sea creatures in order to defend the establishment.) By the same token, one might say remind readers of Kropotkin, and his observation that ‘mutual aid’ has determined the success of many, many species. Wolves, bats, walruses, otters and tapirs display incredible levels of cooperation; others like termites, bonobos and macaques, that with egalitarianism to boot. And, in case you’re wondering, they all have that “gotcha!” ingredient serotonin, too. On the level to which Peterson asks us to descend, it would be equally just (and oh-so-intellectually ‘dark’) to argue that Nature is advocating anarcho-syndicalist arrangements for her one creation capable of meta-cognition and systematic critiques. But, none-the-less, a form capitalism practised by a few nations — and, in all of them, established with tremendous savagery — for a miniscule period of history, is for Peterson the ideal state. (Freud ably dispels readers of such simplistic notions, so perhaps our subject didn’t read him as carefully as he did Jung?) The slightest deviation, at least towards one end of the political spectrum, will unleash all sorts of demons. Peterson has also argued that a denunciation of the “male-dominated power hierarchy”, sometimes known as the patriarchy — again, which at every other opportunity he tells audiences doesn’t exist — is a sign of “ingratitude, built on resentment”. The same malady that afflicts the Palestinians. Real wisdom, he claims, comes from recognising that only an “evil tyrant” can be a “wise king”. (The realm of whom, I can’t help feeling, is Sadomasochism.) If this balanced, ‘circle of life’ mysticism really does form the foundation of his worldview, why doesn’t he criticise those propagating the “wise king” absolutists? He’s dedicated many hours to yelling at undergraduates who look to the heads of banks, nations and corporations which dominate their lives, and see evil tyrants. But, surely, aren’t those who always accept the stated ambitions of Western foreign policy makers, who believe that the offices of state are somehow holy (and those who fill them are automatically meritable, despite the evidence), and, say, royalists, just as much a threat to Jung’s delicate balance? I would agree that things are more nuanced than either interpretation allow. Yet, seemingly without fail, when it comes to power, Peterson adopts the role of courtier. Except, of course, when he’s imagining the golden boy of the neoliberal establishment as Lenin 2.0. https://medium.com/@lukeob/seriously-part-two-of-questioning-jordan-petersons-politics-10dfc38b1dd9
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