Myth and Mayhem: A Leftist Critique of Jordan Peterson

by Ben Burgis, Conrad Hamilton, Matthew McManus

Jordan Peterson rocketed to fame in the 2010s and has preached on everything from the evils of postmodern neo-Marxism to the mating habits of lobsters ever since then. The Left has since leveled many criticisms about the Canadian psychologist, characterizing him as everything from an apologist for the alt-right to simply not being interesting or profound. Myth and A Leftist Critique of Jordan Peterson is intended as a comprehensive critical look at all aspects of his thought, from the philosophical depths to the mundane heights. Written by four authors who each look at a different element of his thought, it shows why taking Peterson seriously doesn't mean embracing him. Includes an introduction by Slavoj Zizek

Genres: Philosophy, Politics, Nonfiction, Science, Psychology

256 pages, Kindle Edition

First published April 24, 2020

About the author

Ben Burgis is a graduate of Clarion West, and he has an MFA in Creative Writing from the Stonecoast program in Maine. He writes speculative fiction and realist fiction and grocery lists and Facebook status updates and academic papers. (He has a PhD from the University of Miami, and currently holds a post-doctoral fellowship at Yonsei University in South Korea.) His work has appeared in places like Podcastle and GigaNotoSaurus and Youngstown State University’s literary review Jenny. His story “Dark Coffee, Bright Light and the Paradoxes of Omnipotence” appeared in Prime Books’ anthology People of the Book: A Decade of Jewish Science Fiction & Fantasy.

Reviews

[Peshawa Jalal Muhammad · Rating 5 out of 5]

As an avid listener of Peterson, I decided to read this book to know the views of the leftist of the most public intellectual and clinical psychologist articulately. Peterson has contributed much to my life , made me try to get to know myself better and read more . it's also one of his "rules" that one should listen to what other people say because they might know something which one doesn't know and that might be helpful. but what does Jordan Peterson really say? are his points and arguments valid? does he really "give the devil his due?
in this book written by four leftist writers and which the famous Slovenian Marxist philosopher Slavoj Zizek wrote the introduction, a whole lot of scientific, logical, political, philosophical and historical flaws are uncovered (since they're covered by excellent rhetorics!) in Peterson's works , mainly his lectures and his two books. the reader learns the hyper-reductionistic arguments of the Canadian self-help psychologist.
Peterson does a great job talking about his clinical work and conveying everyday psychological manifestations and human relations. what he really goes wrong on is the transformation of psychological and mythological (based on the works of Carl Jung) concepts unto domains like politics and economy . despite inventing neologisms like his famous " postmodern neomarxism" and some others like that, he accounts for false expertise and pseudofacts in explaining philosophies like Marxism and postmodernism. as one of the writers later satirically puts "put your understanding in basic order before you criticize 150 years of critical theory".

[Tiago F · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jordan Peterson has had a big influence on me. I don't consider him a guru, and I didn't care to follow the drama that arose out of his popularity, but I found his ideas in Maps of Meaning highly useful. I discovered him in 2016, roughly when he started to get popular, and I completely loved his university lectures. In fact, his "Personality and its Transformations" university course was what inspired me to pursue a degree in psychology a year after.

But as I finished his university lectures and his book, everything I saw from him started to become highly repetitive, and I discovered other thinkers that tackled the same problems as he did, and afterward I didn't care about Peterson too much afterward. But this was roughly when he started to get super popular and also getting more and more into politics. While I wasn't following him per se, he kept appearing on my feed for one reason or another. And when he did, it was often hit articles that were complete non-sense, misinterpreting his work and trying to frame him for every possible evil. I didn't have much of an interest in defending him, because I didn't want to be associated with his followers as he kept getting more and more politized and branding his content as self-help. Which I considered a shameful transformation of his work.

But nevertheless, seeing him constantly attacked without good criticisms always irked me. Even more so because I always thought that you could easily make some decent arguments against his political and philosophical views. So why were the ones that came up always so misguided and bizarre? This is why I largely hate politics, and the Peterson phenomenon only made me want me to stay away even further from it. It seems to poison everything it touches.

But I once came across a video that was rebutting some of his ideas. I didn't agree with it, but I was impressed by how charitable it was and didn't resort to mischaracterizations. I later discovered that the guy was involved in a book specifically about rebutting Peterson. Eager to see some well-made criticism of him that wasn't completely ideological, I figured I should give it a shot.

The book was a hit and miss. Overall, it still the better criticism I've ever seen against Peterson, but still left a lot to be desired. Some of my disagreements are ones that I can't confidently say that they're wrong. I would consider them as different political views, and as I'm not an expert on politics nor economics, they can certainly be right (although I don't think they are, otherwise I wouldn't disagree).

But there are a few criticisms which I don't think are fair. I initially wrote down every single one of them and planned to address each one, but they end up being over 30, and I don't have the patience to go through them nor would it be appropriate for a simple book review. But there were a few criticisms that I still think are quite popular. Basic but still misunderstood. I will cover 3 as examples. First, I hate how Peterson uses the term "post-modern neo-marxists", and there are several problems with it which are worthy of much criticism. However, a common attack is that where are those "post-modern neo-marxists", as for example asked by Zizek? As if for an ideology to manifest it has to have an official club. This barely happens with philosophical schools of thought, let alone a cultural and political movement. That was never Peterson's point. While I disagree with the connection of Marxism and Postmodernism in the terms he puts it, in certain forms, it is undeniable that they greatly overlap, and even Zizek admitted this during the debate. If you can replace a single word from an ideology and it works close to perfect in another, you will have a tough time arguing that there is no commonality.

Another is that somehow an individual is prohibited from acting in the political or social world. This is often associated with the "clean your room" phrase. What he suggests is that your well-being is dependent on things that are under your control, so starting there is good advice. Even more so because changing social and political problems are incredibly complex, and Peterson is mostly talking towards an audience that is just started to get into these topics. It doesn't negate political and social action, it's just basic advice that it's easier to start with smaller problems and problems that you can actually solve. It amazes me that this is so criticized as if it was such a political far-right perspective when it such a basic recommendation that goes back to Seneca and Epictetus of practice the simple things first.

Lastly, the bloody lobster and this one come up a fair bit in the book. They always frame it as if he uses lobsters as evidence that hierarchy is inevitable. And what they have in mind is that then justifies the current hierarchy. That's not what he argues. His example of the lobster is that we inherent biological systems that are primed for hierarchies and it's natural for them to develop. He mentions this against the view that hierarchies, by themselves, are something one ought to abolish at all cost. He is simply pointing out that we're primed for it and hierarchies by themselves don't have to be viewed as an absolute evil. Rather, we should assess if the hierarchy is valid or not. And this is a major theme in maps of meaning which goes exactly in the opposite direction of this rebuttal.

These are just a few ones in the book that are popular and I've seen being made often, but there were many more. But not everything was bad. The beginning of the book described Peterson's philosophy, and I found this was done quite well. Certainly better than anything I've seen from someone arguing against him. I think some of it was still misinterpreted, or badly attacked, but I can't expect to agree with everything. After the introduction of his philosophy, an introduction of his rise to the political sphere was explained. Again, I didn't agree with how many things were framed but provides a good timeline and the context for the rest of the book.

After the introduction, it has several chapters by different authors. I liked this approach. For one, it gives more strength to the criticisms that they're coming from different people, and even more so from different backgrounds. But this also had the consequence of making the book seem a bit disjointed at times. Some articles seemed quite ideological at times, while others I found very good.

For example, Matthew McManus made the point that Peterson's account of the rise of nihilism was the scientific revolution and the division of the objective and subjective. This is certainly true but there were also many other factors that played a role, which he goes into it. Peterson's philosophical system is incredibly vast, which has the tendency to shrink and crush events and ideas to better fit the narrative. But once you dig deeper into them, his account is a bit oversimplified, which puts his higher-order arguments into doubt. Another good criticism is when Peterson simply gets stuff wrong. For example, he misquotes the bible several times by not understanding or explaining the surrounding context. This is the type of mistake that most certainly should be addressed. It is easy to correct and doesn't require ideological battles.

Perhaps what I think Peterson misunderstands the most is postmodernism. There was almost a whole chapter about it, and I found it incredibly well done. It is a similar problem to what I mentioned above, he oversimplifies, a lot. Even more so things he doesn't have a deep knowledge of. This is made worse because I think he can get quite arrogant at times, which compounds this problem. Because now not only does he not understand Derrida, but he thinks he understands Derrida, and if that's cast into doubt, he certainly does not think he should look deeper into it. This also happens frequently regarding the social sciences, which while I think Peterson's critique of it has some validity, he certainly dismisses them too quickly and has a very shallow understanding of it in most cases.

My favorite chapter was one of the last ones, which debunks Peterson's "10 flawed propositions" of Marxism which he stated at Zizek's debate. And this is quite telling because I'm certainly not a fan of Marxism. But the chapter was incredibly well written. It directly addressed Peterson's point very carefully, and showed why it's wrong or misframing Marx's position. It wasn't ideological at all, which I can't say for other sections of the book. I didn't agree with most of it, but it was the best rebuttal of the book, and I found it very interesting to read.

I was right in thinking that this book would rise higher than the typical articles that are written against Peterson. They're much more carefully crafted, and they tend to address the points more directly without strawman's or just accusing him of sexism, transphobia, and so forth. Nevertheless, I still found that many rebuttals were misunderstandings of his position and could have been better made. But I'm also conscious of my own bias. I don't put against an ideal hypothetical book in which their interpretation lines exactly with mine and I agree with everything. I got this book exactly because I wanted what I shared with Peterson challenged. Sometimes done well and others not so well, that was achieved.

What I disliked the most, regardless of the specific counter-argument, is the overall Marxist overtone of the entire book. It was way stronger than I expected, and in some ways was disappointing because economics the aspect I cared about the least. However, because I am so new to it, I also enjoyed reading some nuanced positions about Marxism that I wasn't exposed to before and increased my respect for it.

What I took the most value from Peterson's work was Jung's ideas, and they are not touched often in the book. When they are and offer some criticism, I found it badly made every single it. Jung's analysis of the female and masculine archetypes was constantly interpreted as an oppressive/patriarchial framework. And in one essay, it almost uses it to justify Peterson's "anti-feminist". The very same schema is used by Camille Paglia, and I don't think it's wise to call her anti-feminist.

If you're interested in criticisms against Peterson, this is certainly the best you're going to get. It has some flaws, but likewise, it makes some great points and explores them in-depth. Just take into account that most of the criticism is within the political and economic sphere, which I think the shallowest thing to take from Peterson, although I understand that they're more concerned with his cultural and political impact.

If you like his ideas, it's worth reading. Just be patient with it. There are many arguments that irked me due to how ideological they seem or how they seem to completely miss the point. But it's always easy to think that your view is the current one. If you want your beliefs to be shaken (assuming they have some overlap with Peterson), I recommend reading this.

[Tara Brabazon · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an absolutely outstanding book. It is subtle, careful, considered and expansive. I often tell students to stretch - to ensure that their arguments are well presented and developed. This book - with a steady hand - methodically moves through Jordan Peterson's ideas. This book crushes those ideas to dust.

From 'postmodern neomarxists' to 'radical feminists,' this monograph shows how lobsters and evolutionary biology are not the foundation for a history of ideas. Powerful.

[Bruce Timple · Rating 2 out of 5]

I've seldom come across a more ideologically-agenda-driven book. These poor out-of-date neo-Marxist lefties are really shallow in their understanding of Peterson's work, and obviously hugely frustrated that Peterson is such a formidable intellect.

There are a few interesting passages in their book, revealing some care and research, but insofar as the authors all attempt to reduce Peterson's arguments to sound-bites taken out of context, and despite the overwhelming evidence and data in support of Peterson - and the overwhelming evidence of Peterson's lifetime HARD WORK set against the shallow posturing and laziness of the advocates of identity politics - they are nowhere.

How I wish that academics would re-discover their true calling: to undertake THOROUGH research and argue and follow truth wherever it might lead, however uncomforatble - the way Peterson does.

These poor sods are motivated by their latent lifelong disappointment in the failure of their peculiar type of marxism - and the failures of socialist experiments all over the world and throughout history - not to mention the eventual exposure of the immoral genocides perpetrated by the great socialist experiments. Their approach really needs to be :"Our theory didn't work. Let's re-examine that theory. Let's turn instead to the evidence." Instead they attempt to shoot down the people who articulate clearly why their theory is barren and devoid of morality.

This is a very bad book about a truly great intellectual.

[Ietrio · Rating 1 out of 5]

Governmental bureaucrats ganging up on the guy who upsets their political agendas. Or how the tax money is used to give them a carefree life so they can write "critiques".

[Jerrett Lyday · Rating 3 out of 5]

So, here’s the thing about this book...it’s good. It is a fair critique of Peterson’s work, particularly Part I which deals with Maps of Meaning as type of early ground to Peterson’s later thought on “post-modern neomarxists” (lol). However, the critique is so solid, that it makes finishing the book very difficult. By the time the reader makes it to Burgess’ essay, what little thread of respect they may have had for Peterson as a “serious” academic has been lost, and Peterson just isn’t worth caring about anymore.

[Han Far · Rating 3 out of 5]

3,5

[Leonard Janke · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book does a fairly good job of showing that Jordan Peterson is often talking way outside of his field of expertise and getting many things wrong in his commentaries on Marxism and post-modernism. It also does a good job in showing that his notions of "chaos" versus "order" are lacking in rigor and that he has not provided a convincing case, beyond intuition, when arguing that societies naturally tend toward patriarchy since women are naturally associated with chaos and men with order. The quality of the writing varies from author to author, but, in all cases, they throw in ample amounts of humor; something which is much more lacking in Peterson's work.

The most effective critiques have to do with the lack of rigor in Peterson's main books. Yes, he does not attempt to define his key notions of "chaos" versus "order" beyond giving lengthy examples of both. True, there are no references to many key points that Peterson makes, for instance, regarding Derrida and Marxism. Yes, in general, it seems when Peterson tries to make points of what societies naturally tend toward he tends to provide only supporting and omit contrary evidence: e.g . women being associated with chaos. Possibly most stinging are the critiques of Peterson's "Law of the Jungle” (or lobsters, perhaps?) notion of Christianity backed by biblical quotes which are taken way out of context.

Overall the portrait is of Jordan Peterson appealing mostly on the basis of the confidence he projects along with other qualities that make him a good speaker. Ultimately, the authors present Jordan Peterson as an over glorified, tough love, self-help guru, too often speaking on matters he knows little about, but, even in matter that he does, not presenting his case with requisite rigor.

The book, though overall generally effective in making its case, does have many shortcomings:

The main problem seems to be that it is not really clear who the target audience for the book is. Approximately half the time the discussions do provide enough detail, even of basics, and the writing is clear enough, that the critiques can be seen to be convincing even to readers who are not full time academics. In other cases, the writing is not at all clear. The place where this is the most egregious is when discussing what Derrida really meant. Here many undefined term are used. Even looking things up on Kindle just leads to "not found" entries for many of the terms used. Maybe full time academics can understand the discussion, but I doubt that even motivated folks who are not academics can. Or, perhaps, and this is my strong suspicion, many post-modernists deliberately write a bunch of gobbledygook which is comprehensible to no one but just part of a massive fraud. (Hence the success of the the Sokal and "Grievance Studies" affairs in demonstrating as much). Conrad Hamilton's "explanation" of Derrida will probably just re-enforce many readers notions that the field is filed with fraudulent windbags.

Similarly, only partly effective was Hamilton's detailing what Peterson got wrong in his debate with Zizek on Marxism. Yes, Peterson makes enough admissions and other errors to show that he has done very little actual reading of Marx. Indeed, if he had read even Engels' Socialism: Utopian and Scientific or, better yet, Sowell's Marxism: Philosophy and Economics which are very short summaries he would not have made as many errors as he did. At the same time, Hamilton's discussion of all the things Peterson got wrong has its own problems. In some case it is being rather pedantic. Although Marx might not have claimed that nothing capitalists do constitutes valid labor, Marx and Engels do explicitly refer to them as being superfluous. The other problem with Hamilton's explanation of what Peterson got wrong is that it quickly breezes through Marxist counter points to Peterson's claim. There is not sufficient explanation or references for those not already familiar with current classical Marxist critiques of capitalism and, indeed, many of the claims made are dubious. For instance, it is merely stated, without evidence, that capitalism is responsible for rising inequality. A highly plausible alternative explanation is that it is actually central bank intervention doing various forms of money printing that is mostly responsible.

In some cases the authors go a little too far in their speculations regarding Peterson possibly into the territories of projecting their own feelings or problems with the left onto Peterson and his philosophy. An example of this is the idea that Peterson must have left Harvard for the University of Toronto because he realized he could not hack it at Harvard. Is this just the author projecting his own feeling that he cannot see anyone rejecting Harvard (surely the highest credential in leftist circles) for another university for any reason beyond not being able to hack it there? Anyone who has gone to college at all can clearly see that some of the professors seem to be at the right level institution in terms of name recognition, but others seem like they could be at bigger name institution but, for whatever reason, choose somewhere else (prefer a different city? closer to family? Or gasp just do not like Harvard culture, as was the case with Justice Thomas) .

As for projecting problems with the left onto Peterson, a good example is of him mainly using motte and bailey tactics. Anyone who is at all critical of the left surely is intimately familiar with their motte-and-bailey tactics. No they do not want to take your guns away they just want this next "common sense" measure and that will be it. Meanwhile, the ratchet tightens up as we see in Canada where now not even a domestic incident is needed to justify tightening guns laws: something that happened in the United States will do.

The final thing to say about this book is that if its goal was merely to discredit Peterson's guru status it makes a good case. (Of course, practically, it will not make a dent in his status at all since Peterson will likely sell at least hundreds of times as many copies of his books than this book will sell.) Also, in many ways, although the book does discredit the exact thing Peterson says it does not do much regarding the more general themes Peterson is appealing to. Is it strictly true that one cannot be a "post modern neo-Marxist" because of the contradictions between the theories? Yes, if you are talking post-modernism as it was in 1960's until its supposed death in the late 1980's. But how about the evolution of post-modernist ideas after that? Specifically into what James Lindsay and Helen Pluckrose called "applied post-modernism" in which some truths can, perhaps, be known, namely the post moderns truths regarding power, and then "reified post-modernism" in which they become beyond question, indeed to the point where anyone who does question them becomes cancellable. It would be a smaller market, but a book critiquing James Lindsay would be a good follow up to this one. By Lindsay and Pluckrose's account in Cynical Theories: How Activist Scholarship Made Everything about Race, Gender, and Identity—and Why This Harms Everybody post-modernism and neo-Marxism evolved to meet each other like a hand in glove in woke'ism. Peterson’s response in the Zizek debate also hints at why.

Along the same lines, throughout the book the notion of post modern neo-Marxists is met with scorn, partly because it is said to be mixing oil with water but also because, according to the authors, the theories are highly contested and indeed, non-dominate in academia. If this is indeed the case, one wonders why so many students, nearly all in my experience, come out of college completely "woke" to the extent that they do not even know what the criticisms of woke'ism are. Either the authors are not being honest, are not being adequately introspective regarding themselves and their profession, or they are doing a terrible job of opposing woke'ism which they say they disagree with (this book using the 90's term "PC" instead of the currently used word "woke").

[Skip · Rating 4 out of 5]

Myth and Mayhem is in many ways an excellent book. It's authors go to great lengths to not only refute Peterson but also provide a counter-narrative. Throughout the book, the authors argue against different parts of Peterson's world-view and arguments and show them to be lacking.

Fans of Peterson's work would struggle to convincingly argue that the authors are arguing in bad faith or attacking strawmen. In fact, the book takes great pains to credit Peterson where he is correct and even criticises others who have unfairly criticised Peterson or focused on irrelevant aspects. Often when criticism is levelled at Peterson his supporters will counter by saying his detractors clearly haven't read enough of his work - this criticism certainly does not apply to Myth and Mayhem which begins (after a lengthy foreword by Slavoj Žižek) by going through Peterson's background and previous work in almost forensic detail.

With the books singular focus on refuting Jordan Peterson, it certainly does not set out to be a best-seller, however, if I were to mention only one criticism it would be that some of the arguments and language flew a little over my head - which left some sections hard to fully comprehend. If the goal of the book was to reach a similar audience as Peterson I'd say this issue is a hindrance. That said if the book is aimed at a more academic audience - or at least one better read in leftist theory than I - then I'd say it's perfectly pitched and provides a powerful and detailed critique of both Peterson's more academic and popular book.

[Robert Kipa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Where to begin… firstly, the book is chock full of sentences like:

“Unlike Heidegger, whom from the concluding chapter of ‘Being and Time’ on often struggled to detach the ontological concept of Being from the limitations of phenomenological idealism, Peterson seems quite willing to interpret ontology in normative idealist terms.”

So better buckle up now, Bucko.

Next, take a shot every time Conrad Hamilton uses the phrase “tout court” and his essay might become more interesting to non-critical-theorists or philosopher academics. It succeeds, though, in getting the point across: there’s more to post-structuralism than meets Peterson’s eye.

The same goes for Peterson’s Marxism. Honestly, I started skimming generously by this point. But the damage had already been done.

See, the great thing about Peterson is he speaks with zeal, conviction, and erudition. The problem is that those same qualities often conceal underlying misrepresentations, contradictions, and general ambiguity in some of his arguments.

The authors do a pretty good job of sussing out those instances of fallacy at length, with maybe a little much straight-out dissing thrown in. The book is well-cited but horrendously edited. I don’t know if it’s just my e-copy, but there are missing words and minor typos every other chapter.

Overall, 3.5/5

[Benjamin Britton · Rating 4 out of 5]

“The wide popularity of Jordan Peterson is proof that the liberal-conservative ‘silent majority’ finally found its voice”

“The cracks in his advocacy of cold facts against politically-correct dogmas are easy to discern.”

“But this kind of easy criticism avoids the difficult question: how could such a weird ‘theory’ find such a wide echo?”

“Jacques Lacan wrote that, even if what a jealous husband claims about his wife (that she sleeps around with other men) is all true, his jealousy is still a pathological phenomenon: the pathological element being the husband’s need for jealousy as the only way to retain his dignity—identity, even”

“Likewise, causes of problems immanent to today’s global capitalism are projected onto an external intruder”

“The alt-right obsession with Cultural Marxism (Peterson’s ‘postmodern neo-Marxism’) signals its rejection of the fact that the phenomena they criticize as effects of the Cultural Marxist plot (moral degradation, sexual promiscuity, consumerist hedonism, etc.), are actually the outcomes of the immanent dynamics of late capitalism itself. (In The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism (1976), Daniel Bell describes how the unbounded drive of modern capitalism undermines the moral foundations of the original ‘Protestant ethic’ that ushered in capitalism itself”

“The turn towards culture as a key component of capitalist reproduction, and, concomitant to it, the commodification of cultural life itself, is precisely what enables capital’s expanded reproduction (think of today’s explosion of art biennales: Venice, Kassel, etc.): although they habitually present themselves as a form of resistance towards global capitalism and its commodification of everything, they are, in their mode of organization, the ultimate form of art as a moment of capitalist self-reproduction.”

“The term ‘Cultural Marxism..,
projects (or rather, transposes) the immanent antagonism of our socio-economic life onto an external cause because it cannot, for them, emerge out of the antagonisms and tensions of our own societies”

“Unfortunately, the liberal-leftist reaction to anti-immigrant populism is often no better than the way it is treated by its opponents”

“as obsessional neurotics, they both resort to ‘factual lies’ when they serve what populists perceive as the higher Truth of their Cause”

“All too often, PC-liberals proceed in a similar way: they pass in silence over actual differences in the ‘ways of life’ between refugees and Europeans, since even mentioning them may be seen to promote Eurocentrism”

“PC partisans also practise this ‘lying with truth’: in its fight against racism and sexism, it mostly quotes crucial facts, but it often gives them a wrong twist”

“the PC-liberals use its true points (detecting sexism and racism in language and so on) to reassert its moral superiority and thus prevent true social change.”

“And this is why Peterson’s outbursts are so efficient, although (or, perhaps, because) he ignores the inner antagonisms and inconsistencies of the liberal project itself: the tension between liberals who are ready to condone racist and sexist jokes on account of the freedom of speech, and the PC regulators who want to censor them as an obstacle to the freedom and dignity of the victims of such jokes, is immanent to the liberal project and has nothing to do with an authentic Left”

“the problem with him does not reside in his lies, but in the partial truths that sustain his lies”

“Just a couple of remarks in reply to numerous critiques of my comment on Jordan Peterson. I see two levels in his work. First, there is his liberal analysis and critique of PC, LGBTQ+ issues etc., with regard to how they supposedly pose a danger to our freedoms”

“My difference with him is that—while critical of many stances and political practices of PC, identity politics, or LGBTQ+ positions—I nonetheless see in them an often inadequate and distorted expression of very real and pressing problems”

“the suffering of transgender people is absolutely all too real”

“The way racist and sexist oppression works in a developed liberal society is much more refined (but no less efficient) than in its direct brutal form, and the most dangerous mistake is to attribute women’s inferior social position to their own ‘free’ choice”

“I find Peterson’s fixation on political correctness and other targets as the extreme outgrowth of ‘cultural Marxism’ (a bloc which, in its ‘postmodern neo-Marxist’ form, comprises the Frankfurt School, the ‘French’ poststructuralist deconstructionism, identity politics, gender and queer theories, etc.) to have numerous problems.”

“The notion of ‘postmodern neo-Marxism’ (or its more insidious form, ‘cultural Marxism’), manipulated by some secret communist centre and aiming to destroy Western freedoms, is a pure alt-right conspiracy theory (and the fact that it can be mobilized as part of a ‘liberal’ defence of our freedoms says something about the immanent weaknesses of the liberal project)”

“there is no unified field of ‘cultural Marxism”

“Frankfurt School are among the most vicious denigrators of the ‘French thought”

“many ‘cultural Marxists’ are fiercely critical of identity politics”

“any positive reference to the Frankfurt School, or the ‘French thought’, was prohibited in socialist countries”

“Finally, while I admit (and analyse in my books) the so-called ‘totalitarian’ excesses of political correctness and some transgender orientations which bear witness to a weird will to legalize, prohibit and regulate, I see in this tendency no trace of ‘radical Left’ but, on the contrary, a version of liberalism gone astray in its effort to protect and guarantee freedoms”

“Liberalism was always an inconsistent project ridden with antagonisms and tensions.”

“If I were to indulge in paranoiac speculations, I would be much more inclined to say that the politically-correct obsessive regulations (like the obligatory naming of different sexual identities, with legal measures if one violates them) are rather a left-liberal plot to destroy an authentic radical-Left movement”

“The ‘cultural’ focus of PC-liberalism and MeToo is, to put it in a simplified way, a desperate attempt to avoid the confrontation with actual economic and political problems, i.e., to locate women’s oppression and racism in its socio-economic context: the moment one mentions these problems, one is accused of vulgar ‘class reductionism’.”

“I cannot but notice the irony of how Peterson and I are both marginalized by the official academic community”

“Most of the attacks on me are now precisely from left-Liberals (Chomsky; the outcry against my critique of LGBTQ+ ideology; etc.)”

“It is typical that many comments on the debate pointed out how Peterson’s and my position are really not so distinct, which is literally true in the sense that, from their standpoint, they cannot see the difference between the two of us: I am as suspicious as Peterson.”

“Yes, a human life of freedom and dignity does not consist just in searching for happiness (no matter how much we spiritualize it) or in the effort to actualize one’s inner potentials—we have to find some meaningful Cause beyond the mere struggle for pleasurable survival”

“Modernity means that yes, we should carry the burden, but the main burden is freedom itself—we are responsible for our burdens”

“So yes, we need a story which gives meaning to our life—but it remains our story: we are responsible for it; it emerges against the background of ultimate meaninglessness”

“don’t fall in love with your suffering: never presume that your suffering is in itself a proof of your ethical value, or your authenticity. In psychoanalysis, the term for this is ‘surplus-enjoyment’: enjoyment generated by pain itself (that is, renunciation of pleasure can easily turn into pleasure of renunciation itself).”

“through this renouncing of their Particular roots, multicultural liberals reserve for themselves the universal position, graciously soliciting others to assert their Particular identity. White multiculturalist liberals thus embody the lie of identity politics.”

“What I sincerely don’t get is Peterson’s designation of the position he is most critical about (not as the usual ‘cultural Marxists’, but): ‘postmodern neo-Marxists’. Nobody calls himself or herself that, so it’s a critical term—but does it hold?”

“think I know what he has in mind: the politically-correct, multicultural, anti-Eurocentric, etc. mess. But, where are Marxists among them?”

“Peterson seems to oppose ‘postmodern neo-Marxism’ to the Western Judeo-Christian legacy. I find this opposition weird.”

“First, post-modernism and Marxism are incompatible: the theory of post-modernism emerged as a critique of Marxism (in Lyotard and others). The ultimate post-modernists are today conservatives themselves”

“Once traditional authority loses its substantial power, it is not possible to return to it—all such returns are today a post-modern fake.”

“If we compare Donald Trump with Bernie Sanders, Trump is a post-modern politician at its purest, while Sanders is an old-fashioned moralist”

“The very term ‘postmodern neo-Marxism’ reminds me of the typical totalitarian procedure of combining the two opposite trends into one figure of the enemy (like the ‘Judeo-Bolshevik plot’ in fascism)”

“Second, can one imagine anything more ‘Western’ than post-modernism or Marxism?”

“But which Western tradition are we talking about?”

“As for me, that is why I am unabashedly Eurocentric—it always strikes me how the very leftist critique of Eurocentrism is formulated in terms which only have sense within the Western tradition”

“Peterson condemns historicist relativism, but a historical approach does not necessarily entail relativism. The easiest way to detect a historical break is when society accepts that something (which was hitherto a common practice) is simply not acceptable”

“Another oft-repeated Peterson-motif is the idea that, according to the ‘postmodern neo-Marxists’, the capitalist West is characterized by ‘tyrannical patriarchy”

“Again, I sincerely don’t know which ‘neo-Marxists’ claim that patriarchy is the result of the capitalist West”

“Marx says the exact contrary: in one of the most famous passages from The Communist Manifesto, he writes that it is precisely capitalism itself which tends to undermine all traditional patriarchal hierarchies”

“Frankfurt School (the origin of ‘cultural Marxism’), Max Horkheimer is far from just condemning modern patriarchal family—he describes how the paternal role model can provide to a youngster a stable support to resist social pressure. As his colleague Adorno pointed out, totalitarian leaders like Hitler are not paternal figures”

“obsession of post-colonial and feminist theorists with patriarchy”

“inability to confront the fact that the predominant type of subjectivity in the developed-West today is a hedonist subject whose ultimate goal in life is to realize its potentials and, as they say, re-invent itself again and again by changing its fluid identity”

“What annoys me are theorists who present this type of subjectivity as something subversive of capitalist patriarchal order: I think such fluid subjectivity is the main fork of subjectivity in today’s capitalism.”

“Nature is not a completely determinist order; it is, in some sense, ontologically-incomplete, full of improvisations”

“Let me quote T.S. Eliot, the great conservative, who wrote, ‘what happens when a new work of art is created is something that happens simultaneously to all the works of art which preceded it...the past should be altered by the present as much as the present is directed by the past”

“This holds not only for works of art but for the entire cultural tradition”

“Does Christianity not break radically with the traditional order of hierarchy? It’s not just that in spite of all our natural and cultural differences, the same divine spark dwells in everyone, but that this divine spark enables us to create the Holy Spirit, a community in which hierarchic family values are abolished”

“Democracy extends this logic to the political space: in spite of all differences in competence, the ultimate decision should stay with all of us—the wager of democracy being precisely that we should not give all power to ‘competent’ experts”

“And I, it is well known, am far from believing in ordinary people’s wisdom: we often need a master-figure to push us out of our inertia and (I am not afraid to say this) force us to be free.”

“Freedom and responsibility hurt, they require an effort. But the highest function of a true master is precisely to awaken us to our freedom.”

“I think that social power and authority cannot be directly-grounded in competence: in our human universe, power (in the sense of exerting authority) is effectively something much more mysterious, even ‘irrational”

“Christ was justified by the fact of being God’s son—not by his capacities”

“Here I simply claim that there is no such authority in nature: lobsters have hierarchy, but the top lobster among them has no authority; he rules by force, but he does not exert power in the human sense”

“In principle, capitalism abolishes traditional hierarchies and introduces personal freedom and equality; but are financial and power inequalities really grounded in different competences? (Liberal economist Thomas Piketty, in his Capital in the Twenty-First Century, provides an immense amount of data here...)”

“Another Peterson-motif is that, when an individual (or, presumably, a society) is in crisis, one has to offer it a mythic narrative, a story that enables it to organize its confused experience as a meaningful Whole”

“Hitler was one of the greatest story-tellers of the twentieth century”

“Hitler provided a story, a plot (which was precisely that of the ‘Jewish plot’): we are in this mess because of the Jews”

“One of the most stupid wisdoms is: ‘An enemy is someone whose story you have not heard.”

“Furthermore, ideological stories always locate our experiences into a social field”

“What if, in trying to achieve the first, you discover that your house is in disorder because of what is wrong in the world?”

“predominant liberal ideology prevents individuals to put their houses in order”

“The ultimate big story that guarantees meaning is, of course, religion”

“Religion (that is, certain fundamentalist versions of it) is still an opium of the people.”

“Mike Pompeo recently said it is ‘possible’ that President Donald Trump was sent by God to save Israel from Iran: ‘I am confident that the Lord is at work here,’ he added”

“there are two other main opiums of the people at work today: opium and the people.”

“Imagine such a similar act today: Mexico and Colombia acting to defend their drug cartels and declaring war on the US for behaving in a non-civilized way by preventing free opium trade.”

“But is schematic egalitarianism also not ideological? Yes—but is Marxism really egalitarian? Marx mostly mentions ‘equality’ only to make the point that it is an exclusively political notion, and, as a political value, that it is a distinctively bourgeois value”

“Marx thinks the idea of equality is actually a vehicle for bourgeois class oppression, and something quite distinct from the communist goal of the abolition of classes”

“Marx even makes the standard argument that equal right ‘can consist only in the application of an equal standard; but unequal individuals (and they would not be different individuals if they were not unequal) are measurable only by an equal standard insofar as they are brought under an equal point of view, are taken from one definite side only’.”

“Is there, in today’s US, really ‘too much equality’? Does a simple overview of the situation not point exactly in the opposite direction”

“Look at Bernie Sanders’ programme: it is just a version of what was, half a century ago in Europe, the predominant social democracy, but is today decried as a threat to the American way of life”

“Equality can also be a creating-of the space for as many as possible individuals to develop their potentials.”

“The basic difference between us was so evident that there was no need in that context to reassert it violently. And, ultimately, this difference is in our view of the present constellation of humanity: the way I see it, Peterson is much too optimistic—he thinks that capitalism will be able to manage its problems, while I think that we are approaching a global emergency-state, and that only a radical change can give us a chance.”

“Expressed with such symbolic efficiency, we find in this book a true violence impressing itself.”

Slavoj Žižek

[Aaron Turing · Rating 4 out of 5]

I like Peterson but this is good.

[Claire Abs]

to-read