If Mort Divine ruled the world

[Einherjar86]

No, but not being arbitrary doesn't make them necessary either. The reason I linked the Aeon piece is that it critiques the tendency by progressives and conservatives to reify descriptive (or performative) behavior as prescriptive behavior.

Conservatives see that most young boys do play with trucks, and so most young boys should play with trucks. Progressives see that most young boys do play with trucks, and so most young boys should not play with trucks. Opposite responses yet similar in kind. According to Butler, neither side can claim virtue over the other based on prescription since doing so it a metaphysical argument.

Also, I'd be interested in an experiment that gave monkeys a mix of Barbie and G.I. Joe dolls and see what the breakdown is... I wonder if the male monkeys would just cross their arms and be like "what's with all these girly toys?"

 

[Dak]

No, but not being arbitrary doesn't make them necessary either. The reason I linked the Aeon piece is that it critiques the tendency by progressives and conservatives to reify descriptive (or performative) behavior as prescriptive behavior.

Conservatives see that most young boys do play with trucks, and so most young boys should play with trucks. Progressives see that most young boys do play with trucks, and so most young boys should not play with trucks. Opposite responses yet similar in kind. According to Butler, neither side can claim virtue over the other based on prescription since doing so it a metaphysical argument.

Also, I'd be interested in an experiment that gave monkeys a mix of Barbie and G.I. Joe dolls and see what the breakdown is... I wonder if the male monkeys would just cross their arms and be like "what's with all these girly toys?"

Re: Dolls, it's possible. Or the males would try to use them as some sort of tool and discover they weren't much use as such.

There are more examples than just trucks, and the research suggests that thing oriented vs people oriented are not on the same continuum either. I don't think it's a stretch to say that societies function more smoothly when they seek to work with benign tendencies of humans than against them. Of course, if one is a "hyper" progressive, there are no human tendencies except to power, which is bad when males have it, and everything males have and do is power. So males + trucks = rape.

 

[CiG]

Also, I'd be interested in an experiment that gave monkeys a mix of Barbie and G.I. Joe dolls and see what the breakdown is... I wonder if the male monkeys would just cross their arms and be like "what's with all these girly toys?"

Better yet, throw in Barbie's pink Porsche alongside the red truck and make it really interesting.

 

[Dak]

Better yet, throw in Barbie's pink Porsche alongside the red truck and make it really interesting.

I know I've read that pink wasn't always considered a girl color. I don't know the degree to which that is true, but I wouldn't be surprised of color trends were to some degree facilitated by the necessity of ease of marketing/production in the industrial age.

 

[CiG]

Agreed, colour is probably almost 100% arbitrary. In the same way a monkey isn't going to notice the difference between girls and boys dolls, they will also not notice the difference between gender-coloured vehicles and that was my only point lol.

 

[Dak]

https://mobile.nytimes.com/2018/01/...l?referer=android-app://com.google.android.gm

So JP has made it into the NYT. Brooks doesn't "put him on blast", but I didn't think his writeup showed any understanding of Peterson at all. The comment section was better than I expected. Plenty of people with a positive take on JP. There were enough 'bigot' comments. I can't say I was surprised, but it was amusing to see how many ripped him for saying 'rehashed' or 'uninspired' stuff like "stand up straight" and "clean your room". Of course they aren't new directives, that's almost the point. I'd be interested in seeing the posture and rooms of those commenters.

 

[Einherjar86]

Chaos, the eternal feminine, is also the crushing force of sexual selection. Women are choosy maters. … Most men do not meet female human standards.

What a fucking sensationalist piece of shit.

 

[CiG]

Great counter-argument.

 

[Einherjar86]

 

[CiG]

 

[Dak]

What a fucking sensationalist piece of shit.

Internet dating data has shown that women rate 80% of males below average in attractiveness. Even if women have other metrics than attractiveness, those usually include either criminality, intelligence, or large incomes. All of which exclude the normal middle. He's not wrong.

On a completely separate note, I'm surprised you don't find his interest in fiction and myth as informative as a positive. He puts more stock into those things, as well as Freud, than I do.

 

[CiG]

JP's views on postmodernism are clunky and so everything else he says is horseshit, didn't you know?

If the average woman views the average man as something to fix or improve upon it makes perfect sense that most men are below most women's standards.

 

[Einherjar86]

Internet dating data has shown that women rate 80% of males below average in attractiveness. Even if women have other metrics than attractiveness, those usually include either criminality, intelligence, or large incomes. All of which exclude the normal middle. He's not wrong.

He's not right either. Internet dating data reflects a selected group of people.

On a completely separate note, I'm surprised you don't find his interest in fiction and myth as informative as a positive. He puts more stock into those things, as well as Freud, than I do.

Oh man, this is exactly why I despise him! He mythologizes the feminine into cosmic chaos, or some such bullshit. This is why literature is important, because it has resisted and dispelled such myths. If you think modern fiction is mythical in character, then you're seriously mistaken.

Also, if fiction and mythos is your logic here, then you can't degrade literary criticism in one breath and then praise Peterson's comments the next.

JP's views on postmodernism are clunky and so everything else he says is horseshit, didn't you know?

I think Peterson is mostly a pseudo-intellectual in large part, to be honest.

 

[CiG]

I think Peterson is mostly a pseudo-intellectual in large part, to be honest.

Fair enough. Seems like the lazy kind of criticism people who can't debunk or disprove or defeat an individual and his/her sayings use to me.

He mythologizes the feminine into cosmic chaos, or some such bullshit.

Another one of those instances where it seems like you've not heard anything he's said.

 

[Dak]

He's not right either. Internet dating data reflects a selected group of people.

Yeah, the not-sort of people you think are backwards.

Oh man, this is exactly why I despise him! He mythologizes the feminine into cosmic chaos, or some such bullshit. This is exactly why literature is important, because it has resisted and dispelled such myths. If you think modern fiction is mythical in character, then you're seriously mistaken.

Also, if fiction and mythos is your logic here, then you can't degrade literary criticism in one breath and then praise Peterson's comments the next.

I think Peterson is mostly a pseudo-intellectual in large part, to be honest.

I don't care all that much about modern fiction or ancient fiction, and Peterson's neo-Freudianism is a point of departure as it concerns modern psychology. However, it doesn't overly affect him towards being wrong about prescriptive solutions.

The sticking point is that I and Peterson both find critical theory and post-modernism as a whole to be generally pseudo-intellectual, and people leaning towards critical theory/post-modernism find the opposing views to be pseudo-intellectual. It's a rather formidable impasse.

 

[Einherjar86]

The sticking point is that I and Peterson both find critical theory and post-modernism as a whole to be generally pseudo-intellectual, and people leaning towards critical theory/post-modernism find the opposing views to be pseudo-intellectual. It's a rather formidable impasse.

Agreed. But just know that in academia, he's widely regarded as a hack. In the words of one particular individual on Peterson: "It may just be that I spent enough of my life as an overconfident dipshit libertarian brainlessly repeating potted tropes to know it when I see it. He's at best a high-quality algorithm. Can't actually think."

That's basically what I get from his videos.

Another one of those instances where it seems like you've not heard anything he's said.

Chaos, the eternal feminine, is also the crushing force of sexual selection. Women are choosy maters. … Most men do not meet female human standards.

Reinterpret that for me then, boss.

 

[CiG]

Reinterpret that for me then, boss.

 

[Einherjar86]

I can't watch that right now, but the very fact that it's titled "The Feminine Unknown" is so ridiculous.

Please, explain it in your own words.

 

[CiG]

I know my own expressive limitations so I'm not going to change this into a thing where I have my comment picked apart instead of JP's views on this subject, so I'll just do this.

From Maps of Meaning:



Feminine symbolism and its relation to the concept of the unknown (synonymous with chaos in this context) isn't something JP invented btw, contrary to your earlier implication that he mythologizes it into cosmic chaos. He's referencing thousands of years of symbolism from a multitude of different civilizations.

 

[Einherjar86]

Feminine symbolism and its relation to the concept of the unknown (synonymous with chaos in this context) isn't something JP invented btw, contrary to your earlier implication that he mythologizes it into cosmic chaos. He's referencing thousands of years of symbolism from a multitude of different civilizations.

I realize that. The problem is that he believes it.