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Return conversation with Nicolas Hausdorf, on being a degenerate nomad, on the Jordan Peterson phenomenon, the cultural response, truth and status, innocence & academia, a French banking whistle-blower, Peterson’s naivete, saving the Western narrative, the non-psychological approach, oblivious to propaganda, Leo Strauss & the noble lie, a caricature of postmodernism, identity politics, vulgarized knowledge, going all the way back ti the Garden to locate the rot, trauma & fragmentation, resistance to seeing the trauma, crucial fictions, McGill & MKULTRA, a subversive aesthetic, speaking truth, censorship via the Left & Right, university cults, saying No to say Yes, what Peterson is saying yes to, engaging with the mainstream, radical disenchantment, technology of decentralization, recognizing a complex, crazy psychological experiments in the 20th century, overdoses of knowledge, the Munk debate, the JBP opposition, holding a space for ambiguity, a polarizing presence, when two intelligences meet, Peterson & Trump, jokers in the pack, Peterson’s low-resolution map, an avoidance strategy, the incarnation of a dialectic, Peterson’s voice, the medium and the message, self-sacrifice, a cultural control system & the creation of a YouTube celebrity, Peterson’s blind-spot, the ambiguity of innocence, a Jordan Borg, a man with a mission, respecting the moment, future-orientation, sacrificing the moment, being too much in the Now, Alex Jones and the conspiracy sphere, the US elite in disarray, the state apparatus, ordering the world, interesting times.
Nicolas’ essay on Jordan Peterson: https://jacobitemag.com/2018/01/25/historiography-wars/ –
Nicolas’ blog with Tarron Ruiz-Avila: http://therealityoftheobserver.blogspot.com/
Songs: “I’m Going Insane” & “15 Bistro” by Lee Maddeford; “Copyright Kills Kids in Africa” by Jesus & the Christians; “Flatbed Truck That Is Running You Ragged” by We Is Shore Dedicated
fantastisch !
I think Peterson has a fever.. and the only cure is.. more words
absolutely beautiful background painting in the image this week. who dunnit ?
We find strong evidence that father absence negatively affects children’s social-emotional development, particularly by increasing externalizing behavior.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3904543/
I get nuance. I get scholarship (classics major). But Hausdorf lost me when uttered this snarky remark, ‘when knowledge is vulgarized’. How deliciously medieval and monastic! I can hear centuries of abbots holding forth with such dicta.
We all get the post, post (to the nth) modern inclination to expand discussions by considering every point (of an argument) and every nuance of that point to infinity. (Ironically, the same inclination (and Hausdorf’s overall thesis) of medieval scholasticism.) There are thousands and thousands of unread dissertations in American libraries filled with such “scholarship”.
But most of the vulgus do not live in their heads as such. Yes, they mostly live in a two bit world. Yes or no, right or wrong and, maybe, two shades of gray. Yes, in many cases, that is limiting. Yes, they can easily be whipped up to do this or that mass wrong, but in itself, there’s nothing morally wrong with such a disposition. These vulgus, traditionally, have kept the lights on, made the product, or grew the food, etc., etc. How is one to communicate on any scale with common folks without doing what Peterson is doing?
Incidentally, I’m no follower or shill for Peterson. I know a little of his work. Maps of meaning, etc. But I do see my children’s generation as troubled. Overall, they can do very little. “Do” being the operative word. Few can use their hands for anything other than making keystrokes. The idea that a young man should know how to build a basic structure out of wood or metal or grow a row of beans or vegetables is completely alien to huge percentage of this group. Hell, they don’t know how to maintain structures others have built or cook the food others have grown. (See the huge rise in the service and restaurant industries. How many of these companies were floated on the bleeding stock exchanges before the millennial generation?) Overall, they are fat and lazy. (No, this is not their fault for the most part. It generally lies with their parents.)
These kids don’t need nuances: they need purpose and fulfillment. Peterson may be limited. He may call for a neoliberal, Western retrenchment which may be questionable, but as Hausdorf admits, culture is changing and changing quickly. (He cites how quickly it has changed in a year.) Why not see Peterson as a flywheel? A phenomenon which seeks to steady mankind as it deals with the bubble age we live in? (By bubble, I’m referring to the astronomical amounts of debt states have created, since, say, the turn of this century, and the artificial world this has created. As a mental exercise, consider the standard of living, the standard of human discourse, if one were to subtract this global amount of debt? Incidentally, Jasun, I don’t recall you ever discussing this concept: the artificial age in which we live because of the psychological game played by central banks…?)
Best,
Wes
hmm, I know I answered this but it’s not showing up….
I haven’t discussed this because I am not qualified to do so, probably, or it just hasn’t come up while in the cold flow….
I do not see JBP as steadying anything
I wasn’t suggesting he is being successful as a flywheel. I’m suggesting it was his initial motivation. Naïve? Absolutely! Anyone who thinks they are going to save Western academia needs their heads examined. (Pun intended.) That ship has long sailed.
Media facetime is always counterproductive. What has happened to JBP subsequently is partially fame, fortune and healthy dose of liking to hear himself talk.
There’s a reason why saints are generally not known in their lifetimes. They quietly go about their work and exemplary lives.
As for my question, re: the artificial, financial bubble age in which we live, I think it’s crucial to consider. It’s the silent hangman’s platform on which we all stand (and pontificate).
Perhaps you could get someone like Hans Herman Hoppe to interview on the subject?
Maybe it’s because I’m old, but I’m still genuinely baffled by the, uhm, “interest” in Peterson. When can this obsession(?) be considered a mania, possibly a pathology (OCD) afflicting those obsessed(?).
the answer may be in the question: you are paying attention, does that mean you are obsessed with figuring out why so many people are obsessed? Or simply interested?