Enforced monogamy, primarily. The rest invites degrees of argumentation.
Now go clean your rooms, incels.
Well he is probably right about that at least. Incels most likely have dirty rooms full of cum socks.
Enforced monogamy is simply the mores of ~<1950. EG no "free love". The irony is no one would approve of polygamy, but Peterson is putting his supposed foot in mouth for rejecting the same thing sans socially condoned "permanence".
Is there evidence that sexually-frustrated violence was lower in the 1950s and before than after? Does Europe, a continent which generally practices "free love", suffer from sexually-frustrated violence at a rate comparable to ours?
Polygamy existed primarily under a patriarchal world in which a wife was effectively the property of her husband. People don't approve of it largely because it generally entails some form of abuse between the man and his women (see: most religious cults, R Kelly, etc). It had nothing to do with free love outside of both entailing one man having sex with multiple women under the same roof, so there is no irony in opposing polygamy while condoning people of either sex to have sexual relationships with whomever they want to.
Peterson is just regurgitating MRA/MGTOW/incel memes because he knows those are his greatest financial supporters. I respect the hustle on his part, but I haven't seen much to support the claims he has made.
Enforced monogamy is simply the mores of ~<1950. EG no "free love". The irony is no one would approve of polygamy, but Peterson is putting his supposed foot in mouth for rejecting the same thing sans socially condoned "permanence".
"Free love" isn't the extent of sexual consciousness post-World War II, and I don't think it's accurate to chalk it up to that.
I think we also need to specify what Peterson is arguing for. He wants all single men to have partners. Enforcing monogamy doesn't mean outlawing polygamy; he means that all single men should have wives. This translates into some kind of regulation that forces women to marry single men. In other words, both men and women should have one partner; but it's more important that men have partners (according to Peterson), and women should be forced to accommodate this. It's proto-Handmaid's Tale, but with quasi-religious fundamentalism masquerading as some kind of weird mytho-philosophy.
This is where I think Peterson puts his foot in his mouth. Any modern opposition to enforced monogamy doesn't have to do with free love; it has to do with the women's movement and advancement of women's rights since the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries. The whole concept of enforced monogamy should be an absurd declaration.
My motivated critics couldn’t contain their joyful glee this week at discovering my hypothetical support for a Handmaid’s Tale-type patriarchal social structure as (let’s say) hinted at in Nellie Bowles’ New York Times article presenting her take on my ideas.
It’s been a truism among anthropologists and biologically-oriented psychologists for decades that all human societies face two primary tasks: regulation of female reproduction (so the babies don’t die, you see) and male aggression (so that everyone doesn’t die). The social enforcement of monogamy happens to be an effective means of addressing both issues, as most societies have come to realize (pair-bonded marriages constituting, as they do, a human universal (see the list of human universals here, derived from Donald Brown’s book by that name).
Here’s something intelligent about the issue, written by antiquark2 on reddit (after the NYT piece appeared and produced its tempest in a tea pot): “Peterson is using well-established anthropological language here: “enforced monogamy” does not mean government-enforced monogamy. “Enforced monogamy” means socially-promoted, culturally-inculcated monogamy, as opposed to genetic monogamy – evolutionarily-dictated monogamy, which does exist in some species (but does not exist in humans). This distinction has been present in anthropological and scientific literature for decades.”
Nowhere in that article is there a quote specifying enforced monogamy meaning forced marriages. Furthermore.
I know, that's always the point, isn't it? He doesn't use the phrase "forced marriage" so he can't be talking about it.
"Enforced monogamy" isn't "well-established anthropological language." It's telling that the source for this claim is fucking reddit. Just do a search for the phrase "enforced monogamy." When anthropologists write about it, they often use it to refer to socially-regulated marriage. Peterson cherry-picks three or so sources. That doesn't constitute "well-established language."
It's fine if Peterson means it in the way he claims, but this is just another example of him having, at best, complete disregard for the language he uses--at worst, he's being willfully dishonest.
An evolutionary conflict often exists between the sexes in regard to female mating patterns. Females can benefit from polyandry, whereas males mating with polyandrous females lose reproductive opportunities because of sperm competition. Where this conflict occurs, the evolution of mechanisms whereby males can control female remating, often at a fitness cost to the female, are expected to evolve. The fitness cost to the female will be increased in systems where a few high status males monopolise mating opportunities and thus have limited sperm supplies.
Reproduction has classically been viewed as a predominantly cooperative process. However, over the last 20 years this concept has steadily yielded ground to one of continual conflict in which the interests of the sexes are typically discordant. Within this framework, males and females are seen to be locked into a perpetual arms race, each adaptation by one sex promoting the evolution of countermeasures in the other sex. However, under strict genetic monogamy, the interests of the sexes become congruent, and hence antagonistic coevolution does not occur.
The article reports that monogamy will be enforced in the U.S. as the law of the land. The U.S. government considers bigamy a crime and is allegedly determined to enforce the law on monogamy. The state of Utah is the object of lesson as its statehood was made conditional on its acceptance and enforcement of the law. The realization of the danger of polygamy allegedly prompted Senator Joseph E. Randell to propose an amendment to the U.S. Constitution in relation to divorce and the right to remarry.
For me, what I do is so interdisciplinary so I’m always worried about this autodidact’s curse, where you’ve read a ton of stuff but you still haven’t actually talked to anyone who knows what’s going on. This is one of the things that I try to do to deal with especially the wisdom of a field. Oftentimes there’s wisdom in a field, where it’s known to people who have thought about it for a long time, but they don’t write it down.
Of course, that’s very hard for the autodidact to find out. “What is the wisdom in your field that you don’t write down?” This is where I try to reach out to people. Generally, I would say I get about a 15 percent response rate for the people saying they’ll at least read something, so I feel like it does give me some good quality control.
Perfect.
The reaction to Peterson's language is widespread--from left-wingers who vehemently disagree, and I wouldn't be surprised if plenty of his loyal supporters are disappointed to learn the real meaning of the phrase.
Here's the issue: clearly many people are misunderstanding the phrase, if indeed Peterson is invoking this "anthropological" concept. There's no reason why anyone outside of anthropology (or evolutionary biology, for that matter) would understand the nuances of a phrase like "enforced monogamy." And given the context of Peterson's remarks, it's completely rational to assume he was talking about enforced marriage.
The fact that Peterson didn't bother to define his terms suggests (to me) that he anticipated the misinterpretation so that he could leap at the chance to point out the left's hypocrisy. But it's not hypocrisy; it's a legitimate reaction to suggestive language. He either has no grasp of discourse beyond his discipline, or he's intentionally sabotaging it.
So, I feel like Peterson is on his way out (intellectually) for putting his foot in his mouth in interviews like this:
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/18/...s-for-life.html#click=https://t.co/ZQRGi2qSqr
Of course, he's likely to retain (and maybe gain) plenty of followers in his current internet subcultures.
I don't see any reason though to assume that he meant forced marriage.
I want to chime in on this briefly. I am someone who was helped immensely by Peterson's lectures. Roughly a year ago I started watching his "Maps of Meaning" lecture series and they have been more beneficial to me than any therapist I've been able to see in person. That particular lecture series was fairly apolitical, aside from the occasional ranting about marxism, so I feel that I was introduced to him as a psychologist first and a political pundit second. Maybe that has made his more political output more palatable to me as I don't exactly align with him politically. Later on, I watched many of his other lectures and interviews including many of a more political nature, basically up until I reached a point of saturation where I felt that his every talking point was something I've heard him go over before.
My point is, I think I know his views fairly well at this point and I largely see him mischaracterized in media. I think there are legitimate grievances to be had with him; as far as I can tell, his understanding of marxism/post-modernism (and by extension, his conspiratorial ravings about an all-pervasive "post-modern marxist" agenda) is really derived entirely from one old obscure book on the subject no one considers authoritative. His calling for marxist professors to be censored is terribly dissonant with his advocacy for free speech. There are other things, too. But his critics usually seem to call him out on the wrong points. For instance, a common mistake is that they think he's being prescriptive when he's not. So they'll accuse him of being against the birth-control pill for simply discussing its societal impact, or of promoting outdated hierarchical structures ("So you're saying that we should organize our societies along the lines of the lobsters?") just for trying to explain hierarchies through something other than a lens of marxist theory. I'm not accusing you or anyone else on this site of making this mistake, I just think this is the line of thinking many journalists follow when they go on to characterize him as some radical traditionalist.
This nytimes article reads to me like a hit piece. What little of it is quoted directly from Peterson seems to have been handpicked to portray him as either an extremist, or a lunatic (such as the parts where he talks about witches and dragons being real) and most of the article just describes the author's own interpretation of Peterson's character and views. She clearly wants to portray him as the patron saint of alt-righters, men's rights activists and other deplorables. I don't think it's grounded in reality, and I don't think Peterson should be discredited as an intellectual because of how he is presented in an article this slanted.
Doesn't Europe generally allow prostitution? Prostitution is the solution for the args of the world in a world that doesn't frown on extramarital sex. Allowing "free love" but generally disallowing sex work is going to leave a not-insignificant number of men SOL. I'm still trying to figure out how the parents didn't "know their son to be someone like that" or whatever, when he's wearing trench coats to school and posting it on FB with cthulu and commie pins on it (if the interwebs is to be believe).
In other news: http://freakonomics.com/podcast/corporate-social-responsibility/
Moral licensing might explain inconsistency in virtue signaling behavior vs actually being a good person. Why you get a feminist calling the police on a black woman over nothing.
He's weaponizing information.
When Peterson argues that hierarchies are found in nature, I balk because the very language/construction is completely contradictory to me. What we mean when we talk about hierarchies isn't--and can't be--found in nature. Hierarchies are our ways of organizing and systematizing the patterns we observe, and in human societies they also become ways of perpetuating particular behaviors and values. Hierarchies, in the sense that humans institute them, don't appear in nonhuman species because such species don't appeal to the existence of hierarchies as justification for their existence (this is part and parcel of hierarchical meaning in human societies; it's basically the linchpin of conservatism). Gazelles don't rise up in revolt against lions, beta chimps don't rebel against the alpha chimps (by which I mean, they don't organize collectively--obviously beta males do challenge alpha males individually).
I understand the point Peterson wants to make: that nonhuman species exhibit particular kinds of organized behavior, and that these behaviors have emerged in hierarchical form in human societies as well. The fact that we can trace these systems back to nonhuman species justifies their existence in human society, and their longevity throughout human history is further evidence that we shouldn't change them. I do grasp the common sense behind this claim; I just don't find it convincing on an intellectual level. It appeals to the nonhuman, or natural, as the ground (i.e. basis) for human behavior and social organization. Such an argument assumes "the human" to be largely unnatural, or descended from nature, and that we need to get back to nature, so to speak (for Peterson, this is his claim that we need to look back to ancient myths, which are somehow closer to nature). This argument assumes a myth of origins--that there's some primeval truth of natural existence that humanity has lost because we're so far from it.
The way I see it, there's nothing less natural about the way we behave today than the way dinosaurs behaved millions of years ago. There is no secret formula in ancient myths or in the behavior of nonhuman species. There are only patterns of behavior--alternatives and variations, repetitions and mutations. When we impose a hierarchical structure onto the way other animals behave, we project some natural or pre-given reason for that behavior into the distant past, as though it existed prior to the emergence of that behavior. But there are no reasons that predate behavior in any intentional or directed sense. The universe didn't have a plan for all living things when it came into existence. That's what I think, anyway. That's my (non-)myth.
If there's one positive thing I can say about Peterson, it's that he's an entertaining literary critic; but he mistakes hermeneutics (i.e. meaning-making, interpretation, a la "maps of meaning") for a code that unlocks reality. Interpretation doesn't unlock hidden meanings. It produces new meanings.
The entire enforced monogamy situation basically proves that Jordan Peterson is a hack, at least as far as politics are concerned, since the only plausible reasons why he would have used that language without clarification are that he meant it at face value or that he planned for people to misunderstand him so that he could push back on their criticisms and act like he was being misrepresented. I believe that the latter is true, which means that he is intentionally trying to exploit a situation that he caused expressly so that he would have a reason to act like his critics are unjustified.
Anyone at his level should be able to tell how such a phrase is likely to be interpreted. If he's even half as eloquent and intellectual as his most ardent followers believe, then this situation is clearly his own doing with the goal of being misinterpreted for his own gains.
Wikipedia's telling me that prostitution is effectively illegal in Canada, France, Norway, Sweden, and Ireland, but legal in most other Western places. fwiw I don't disagree that prostitution probably does help reduce violence at least among some undersexed men, and off the top of my head I know there was a study indicating that rape went down over the period where prostitution in Rhode Island was legal via loophole, but I don't see it as a significant, let alone primary driver of male violence.
Monogamy =/= marriage. Subconsciously substituting one for the other is your (and others) fault, not his.That he could have been verbosely explicit doesn't absolve one for substituting meanings.
So what's your assertion? I'll agree that it's not explicitly the primary driver of all male violence. However, traditional norms on family responsibility were at least a partial check against it.