Karl Marx’s home life was a hot mess. Jordan Peterson can’t keep his room clean. So what?
Why are we posting articles that treat Jordan Peterson like a legitimate academic and not a discredited hate monger?
Is it though? The entire piece is taking a swing at his “put your life in order before criticizing” shit him and his fans do in the political arena. I don’t see the article speaking positively of him.
It shows a picture of him next to Karl Marx, refers to him primarily as a psychologist, and lists his claim to fame as telling people to clean their rooms. It comes out the gate trying to paint a legitimizing picture of him, then offers the kind of criticism you’d offer a legitimate academic.
Literally does not mention that he nearly lost his license to practice due to his behavior online. A search for ‘trans’ doesn’t turn up a thing in the article written about a man who’s become famous for his transphobia.
Jordan Peterson doesn’t deserve to have his ideas taken seriously, to be mentioned in the same breath as Karl Marx, or to be propped up in any public space that doesn’t call him out for his transphobia and inhumanity. This article does all three. Shameful.
Marx is being juxtaposed here because the article the author is addressing did that; he’s not equating the two, nor is he trying to legitimize lobster man (the dude’s already gotten on mainstream platforms and has a fuckton of fans—that ship has sailed). The CurrentAffairs audience is expected to already be familiar with this guy on account of the fact that it’s a niche libertarian socialist magazine that writes critical pieces about him every so often. The author agrees that he’s a charlatan and intellectual fraud that peddles reactionary bullshit to depressed young men.
If you want to do a deeper dive into why lobster man sucks (or share other pieces that do), then that would be a good contribution to the comments section here. Or post it to the beehive, provided that it’s socialist critique. Either would be welcome.
Literally most people do not have any idea who Jordan Peterson is. Everybody on Beehaw probably does, but that doesn’t help an article that’s going to be introducing this guy for the first time to likely a significant number of its readers.
Queer folks and leftists tend to be aware of this guy on the one hand, and transphobes and a certain brand of conservative on the other. Other than that? It’s not like he’s a household name.
There’s no need to treat him like he’s important and fail to address why he’s a problem at all.
Queer folks and leftists tend to be aware of this guy on the one hand
Guess who the CurrentAffairs demographic is. :D
Literally a magazine for internet socialists, who absolutely know who this guy is, especially if they’ve been reading it for awhile. Your average Joe Schmoe doesn’t know what CurrentAffairs magazine is. More people know who lobster man is, honestly.
Peterson is a hack, and has stepped far outside of what he actually can comment on.
He is not the intellectual powerhouse that he is purported to be. It’s funny that he is even mentioned in the same article as Karl Marx, especially since he uses Marx as a boogeyman.
Fuck Peterson and his kermit voice lending life to regressive politics.
Can you name one specific thing he’s said that supports “regressive politics”?
Peterson fat shaming that sports illustrated model and acting all moralistic about it is pretty fucking regressive, or does that not count somehow?
What irritates me most isn’t the fat shaming, although that’s gross on its own, it’s when he’ll use it as a scapegoat for the downfall of our society. It’s not the greedy corporations paying bullshit wages, it’s bigger women being allowed to model, thats the root of all our problems…
Hard to put my own shit in order when the world does everything it can to prevent it.
Setting aside the sad man that is Peterson, this rhetoric has always existed in some form throughout history as a way to shut down criticism.
Whether through ‘whatabout-ism’ (which points out issues on the side of the criticizer in order to assert their lack of ground to criticize), or through claims of lack of experience or knowledge (which must be ‘made up for’ to whatever extent the dismiss-er feels is warranted before they will accept criticism, which is probably never), this rhetorical device is just a trick to discount and dismiss.
The CurrentAffairs author seems to be taking this claim at face value, insomuch as they spend much more time attempting to validate Marx, rather than discussing the bad-faith employment of this argumentation.
Instead of devoting a whole article to attempting to somehow disprove the relevance of literal cleanliness to political acumen or the ‘right’ to speak on politics, it might have been better spent examining the purpose of these types of claims, or the mechanisms by which they function. There is one line- the literal last line of the article- in which “ad hominem” is said; it should not take that long, or require that much prefatory work, to name “I (selectively) don’t listen to you because your room/body/desk/life is dirty” as such.
“Put your affairs in order” say the people that have their affairs managed by a team of servants.
Jordan Peterson’s room was unclean about five years ago. Since then he’s done a much better job of keeping it clean.
I tend to focus on my own stuff for the most part, but people are changing the political landscape around me so I’m tempted to get involved to protect my own life from the disruption.