Comments by "LS O\x27Brien" (@lsobrien) on "Then & Now"
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Another brilliant, well-informed video. I can't get over the absolute gall of Peterson attacking "dogmatic ideologues".
His overwhelming fear of leftists, and the Bolsheviks he assumes they all really are, is garnered primarily from his veneration of pseudo-scientific Jungian archetypes (which once he was candid enough to compare with star signs). And is reinforced by a dogmatic interpretation of Russian literature and a neoconservative reading of the Cold War.
For the latter he cites the Black Book of Communism. He tells audiences that Marx’s utopian schemes have led to 100 million deaths, “and that’s just a conservative estimate”. Given that the Black Book’s compiler has been criticised for inflating his estimate in order to get such a ‘nice,’ round figure (it lends the speeches of demagogues far more punch), Peterson is again eschewing the thorny matter of facts.
Funnily enough, this total denunciation of an economic system, along with the messianic reaction entailed, in fact mirrors something from the early 20th century. Those who, citing the carnage of the First World War, Tran-Atlantic slavery, the virtual disappearance of the red races, Leopold’s Congo, the left-over feudal superstitions and pogroms, the millions dying as a result of either the limits of free markets, or the wilful malice of its practitioners (take the British response to the potato plague and multiple Indian famines), declared capitalism irredeemable. Followed by the pronouncement that their tragically compromised guidelines would solve all.
But they, persecuted by the tsar’s secret police and hounded by armed right-wing thugs, perhaps had better justification when they succumbed to paranoia.
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Great vid, as usual.
We must admit that nukes have left us in a deadlock: no single nation can live with them and certainly not without them. "The intransigence, it seems, is a function of the weapons themselves," as Martin Amis said during one of his wiser moments.
Günther Anders claimed the Keepers made us Titans, but the psychological toll was immense. This is what it means to be post-human.
“The infinite longing some of us still experience is a nostalgia for finitude, the good old finitude of the past; in other words, some of us long to be rid of our Titanism, and to be men again, men like those of the golden age of yesterday. Needless to say, this longing is as romantic and utopian as was that of the Luddites; and like all longings of this kind, it weakens those who indulge in it, while it strengthens the self-assurance of those who are sufficiently unimaginative and unscrupulous to put to actual use the omnipotence they possess.”
The prospects for those who oppose the tools of omnicide are hopeless. If - when - our worst fears materialise, we won't even get the luxury of, "told you so."
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Jordan Peterson: "the feminine dragon of Chaos proves a great danger to man's sense of Being, which begins with a clean bed. That is very important, I really think that. And this is something the Left doesn't understand, it doesn't even feature in the Communist Manifesto, which, let's say, is where all the trouble started. The pOsTmOdErNnEoMaRxIsTs of course, with their bloody, and, let's say, utopian pursuit of equity, which, erm, Pareto disproved anyway, and, to give the Devil his due, is... sob... have we talked about lipstick in the workplace yet?"
You: "this man's thinking is first rate."
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Pangloss was a professor of Voltaire’s invention, who, despite living in a world where rape, destitution, war and weaponised stupidity were all commonplace, insisted that this was the “best of all possible worlds”. Certainly living between the ivory tower and the highest courts of the land helped in maintaining the delusion. But even when he was forced face-to-face with just some of the horrors produced by his species, his insufferable brand of Optimism, that had made him a star in salons across Europe, prevented him from registering them.
So it is with Pinker. His grand thesis goes: as capitalism went global, so did Liberalism, and they, together, became the source of all good things. Passed over is the brutal institution of capitalism, of which Marx (capitalism’s greatest surveyor yet) was only too aware.
“The discovery of gold and silver in America, the extirpation, enslavement and entombment in mines of the aboriginal population, the beginning of the conquest and looting of the East Indies, the turning of Africa into a warren for the commercial hunting of black-skins, signalised the rosy dawn of … capitalist production.”
Blankly ignored is the forceful imposition of state-backed capital in the “Third World,” an invention of that those Victorian decades. An overlooked and tragic period explored by Mike Davis, during which perhaps 60 million perished. It was the IdEaS of Locke, Hobbes, Malthus and the race scientists which carried the day.
It is often said, by Pinker and others, that “capitalism lifted millions out of poverty,” without considering what it is was that dispossessed them to begin with. Morons on message boards may be excused, a “leading public intellectual” can not.
But even if you could disregard the explosion of those dark, satanic mills, and our vast “underclass” of slaves, on which the whole beast — from its very inception — depends, you’re still left with the looming cliff edge. Capitalism, and its insidious cult of growth, is not sustainable.
Liberal Capitalism saw off feudalism, Fascism, Communism and countless threats from the Third World; it can’t, it seems, survive hegemonic domination. Building upon Karl Polanyi’s concerns about disembedded markets, Wolfgang Streeck has written:
“…Having no opposition may actually be more of a liability for capitalism than an asset. Social systems thrive on internal heterogenity, on a pluralism of organising principles protecting them from dedicating themselves entirely to a single purpose, crowding out other goals that must also be attended to if the system is to be sustainable.”
Without the counterforces of trade unionism and socialism, capital accumulation — that “mad quest for singularity” — has made Progress synonymous with suicide: the telos, fittingly, of Professor Pangloss’s logos.
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But outside of the usual concerns about “SJWs” spreading their influence within, American, Canadian and British institutions are essentially above reproach for Peterson. He never allows himself — or anyone within screeching distance — a critique of the fundamentals. Even if these societies have come to be ruled by chaotic free markets, invisible hands, increasingly unwritten rules and the unaccountable high priests of Credit, his idealisation of the superstructure knows no bounds. And besides, all you need is competence, and you too could rise to the top of these dominance hierarchies. (Which, again, seemingly crumble outside of their respective national borders.) So what are you complaining about? Isn’t that all that matters?
Another epoch-defining quote:
“In societies that are well functioning — not in comparison to a hypothetical utopia, but contrasted with other existing or historical cultures — competence, not power, is a prime determiner of status. Competence. Ability. Skill. Not power. This is obvious both anecdotally and factually. No one with brain cancer is equity-minded enough to refuse the service of the surgeon with the best education, the best reputation and, perhaps, the highest earnings.”
I’m sorry, but is this really, truly one of the great minds of the age? Someone who thinks anecdotes and facts are by definition mutually exclusive (he embellishes a lot at dinner parties?), and thinks he can get by without ever defining what he means by vital, foundational concepts like competence and power?
He also has the tendency of insisting “competence is power,” even though, and he’s in a distinct minority among social scientists here, he suggests the latter shares no correlation with status. All without stopping to assess whether being competent in a position of power itself justifies the existence of those roles. And can we assume he means, here, those Anglo-American countries he typically heaps praise upon, even if he chose vagueness when committing ink to the page?
Consider how he appends the above with not a single scientific source, even though he assures us there are facts which support his case. Instead he returns to his screed against the usual suspects. What am I to conclude other than by asking, “what is Peterson fudging?”
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