Read your own words. Beautiful example of a clickbait sentence. Boils complex ideas into a clever parallel construction. It’s catnip for anyone who already knows what you’re talking about and agrees, but useless for anyone who cares about nuance.
Good analysis. Looks like he may now be a bit mind controlled. I’m glad you still have some sympathy for him. His past work still stands up and was quite brilliant. We all loose it eventually. I’m another old guy and know what happens.
given that you’re able to see his crash out, i wouldn’t put yourself in the same category. he went from making what i thought was an excellent speech to the US congress about the dangers of online speech surveillance and censorship, to joining a soros-founded, ADL sponsored speech surveillance institution in about a year - a perfect inversion of his stated principles.
Well said. Afraid I’m the same. Jordan P has been on an all meat diet for 3 years now - could possibly have something to do with his lack of judgement.
Re: so-called “carnivore diet”. I’m always reminded of Rogan telling about some of his friends getting quite aggressive while on the diet. Not surprising, considering it’s a predator’s diet.
I think it has much more to do with his changing of friend groups. He's much closer in touch with the DW people as co-workers now, and I think it's rubbed off on him, especially since Ben Shapiro in his spat with Candace was very explicit (and to his credit, very transparent and open about it) that DW had a pro-Israel stance as a publishing outlet.
And fwiw, I don't think Ben had some grand master Jew plan to rope in JBP expressly to turn him into a Zionist enforcer. I think at the time, Ben genuinely wanted JBP to find a place to land after his rehab, and back then, his dying popularity, and probably offered him a spot for a mutual, strictly business, money making venture, possibly to charitably (as in, from a friend) offer some retirement and health benefit options that I'm sure JBP lacked as an unemployed, rogue professor. And then the rest of the chips fell into place organically, to me. We know who Ben is, no one knew Oct. 7 would happen, no one knew how much dissidence there was on the right about it (*I* certainly didn't, prior to that), and JBP was sort of at the wrong place, at the wrong time, with the wrong people, on the wrong trajectory to fall into that role, all the stars aligned.
Sure it’s easy to be swayed by Jewish intelligence and they really are smarter than most. Peterson loves smart people. Personally I can be swayed by both sides as both have strong motivations. Can’t decide. However Israel is surrounded by enemies and will probably eventually fall. Then it will be our turn unfortunately.
no one knows as far were the estimate of their nukes in the 80's it s hard to believe the lesser 70ish of today and it s more likely they never stopped making new they probably have more than France . If they are able to steal hypersonic knowledge factored with the exponential rate of orthodox . it s not the number which matter it s the weapons and the will .Arabs are far far to be in position to step up on defense technology . it ll take far more generation than overcome Europe from the inside
I came to Peterson in his second era - and he saved my life. I was in a dark place, subject in many ways to what the disaffected young men he was infamous for reaching were struggling with, and I couldn’t get enough of him. I kept a rent free room for him in my head for years and am in a much better place for it now. I cherish Maps, both Rules for Life, I like his recent book on the Bible too - and found what I’ve seen of the Daily Wire biblical conversations just as powerful as his solo Biblical Lectures series. I have a huge amount of gratitude, and love, for him. But I don’t watch him anymore. Not as a rule. I make exceptions if I really want to hear from the guest - and then I find that sometimes Peterson conducts a great interview, and sometimes he just feels manic, the guest struggles to get a word in, and it’s painful to watch. And I remember him talking about how conversation is a dance, and I remember how sophisticated he used to be on that floor, and I think there is something wrong too. It’s sad. And I’ve seen streaks of nastiness too. And that’s even more sad to watch in this guy who was my fucking hero.
I feel you. If it’s any comfort, recall that he stated himself in his earlier days that the fame and pressure would eventually wreck him, which he accepted and had made his peace with. Can’t recall what interview it was, but he said something to the effect of “you have to ride the wave as best you can until it crashes”. The old classic of “living long enough to become the villain/sellout” instantiated once again.
Nah, I haven’t seen that one. One with Russel Brand comes to mind. I think the interview was about 20 minutes in before Jordan allowed Russel to speak - and then he wasn’t allowed to complete a thought before Jordan jumped back in with a monologue about a divergent set of themes and ideas, which Russel would try to form into a question when he was finally given a few seconds to jump in! There was another with Pageau, and a Muslim guy, set up to compare and contrast faith traditions and ideas - and it could have been great, both great speakers on the matter, but Jordan was so excited he couldn’t shut up, again. And you can see people being so gentle and patient with him - but ultimately sitting for a long form conversation that they may as well not be involved in at all. Sounds like Musk was same, because he wouldn’t let Don Lemon or some other lemon drone on indefinitely - he’d stop them right there and make his presence felt in the conversation. But it feels like a lot of people have a lot of affection for Jordan and are experiencing a dear man who is not fully in control of his behaviour, so they don’t want to be aggressive. He’s turning into the old veteran at the pub who’s barely comprehensible, but everyone knows he’s put a lot into life, and now if we have to sit with him and do our best impression of human connection while he motors on about all kinds - well, it’s the least we can do.
Jordan Peterson has the emotional maturity of a 12 year old, and as you say, his knowledge of Zionist ideology, the Mandate period, the history of Palestine and Palestinians, and the circumstances of the creation of the Israeli state could fit on the head of a pin. He has no explanation for the hundreds of thousands of groups of Jews worldwide who are anti-Zionist and anti-genocide and have been since the 19th c. Clearly he must think they are not experts in their own religion. Many of those Jews speaking out now are Israelis, and are intimately familiar with Israel's actions and politics. Peterson is a huge embarrassment.
There were very few problems before that. In the Ottoman Empire, Sephardic and Mizrahi Jews got along fine with their Muslim and Christian neighbors. Multiple authors have written about this fact. When Islam conquered Palestine after the Byzantine Empire, they did not force Christians and Jews to convert to Islam. In fact Muslims allowed Jews into Jerusalem for the first time in 500 years. Nevertheless, there were tax advantages to being Muslim, so over time many Jews and Christians did convert. Torah Jews still talk about how close they were with their Muslim neighbors in Jerusalem--they lived in the same neighborhoods and babysat each other's children. They also took part in each other's religious feasts.
Very few problems for whom? The idea that the middle eastern muslims were getting along with their christian neighbours prior to Israel is laughable. What Israel is doing in Gaza is horrible. But the idea that without the jews muslims are just friendly people who want to be left alone is absolutely insane.
I stand by everything I said in the above comment, which can be verified in multiple works of history quoting multiple primary sources. Of course no group of humans ever perfectly gets along, including groups of all Christians or all Jews.
Nice straw man. We were talking about the Ottoman Empire and about Palestine specifically. We are not talking about the Middle Ages or about extremists in Eastern Europe, which you would not be mentioning if you knew a damned thing about the history of the last 100 years.
I'm confused. Are you talking about the history of Jews being expelled from various countries IN EUROPE over the ages? Or about Jews being expelled from Middle Eastern countries in response to the Nakba. when Zionists expelled 750,000 Palestinians from Palestine, butchered, burned and raped 7500, and poisoned their village wells with typhoid? If you're talking about the latter, it's important to realize that Zionist terrorist cells deliberately stoked fear among Jews living in those Middle Eastern countries to try to get them to come to Israel. But whatever "expulsions" you are talking about, they have nothing to do with Palestinians. All the expelling goes the other way. Please read Rosemarie Esber, Under the Cover of War, the single best book on the Nakba.
Why don't you tell me what you think Zionism is? What is its history? What characterized the original proponents of Zionism? How did observant Jews react to the idea of Zionism when it was introduced to them? Are modern anti-Zionist Jews anti-Semitic? Who are the Palestinians? What is their ethnic heritage, their DNA? Are they actual Arabs, or is that just an indication of the language they speak? How long have Palestinians been in Palestine?
Jordan Peterson has lost the plot. Personally, I don't think his psyche was capable of processing the results of his fame, and while watching his mental health fade, he's grasping at straws to maintain a cohesive worldview that he can embrace, and not be castigated. Basically, he's captured to avoid controversy.
Psychology is a bullshit social science, but his mental decline is obvious. He really should just retire from the public eye, and call it a career, otherwise, before it's over, he's going to have a complete breakdown, really embarrass himself, and his end will be the undoing of every smart thing that he ever said.
His early YouTube lectures where he said that having responsibility was probably more important to a man’s well being than any other thing was huge to me. Changed that sense of dread I had of leaving college in to a far more productive mindset. Shame what he’s become.
Slavoj Žižek is himself a postmodern neo-Marxist- the dodge about Hegelian dialectics is exactly that- a dodge. Sure, he's a lot more nuanced than most, but his preferred end state is collective ownership and egalitarianism. The problem is that he's sceptical of purely decentralized, non-state solutions to achieving these ends, and in the absence of a mechanism, then its top-down state authoritarianism as a default. If he was arguing for Coase Theorem and modest land values taxes, exempting the non-corporatized large-scale agricultural sector, I might be inclined to believe him- but he's deliberately vague on pragmatic approaches to creating a fairer world.
Besides if Slavoj Žižek doesn't satisfy your requirement for postmodern neo-Marxists both Herbert Marcuse and Frantz Fanon are prime examples of the types which spawned a legion of divisive critical theorists intent upon destroying anything good about the West.
The problem with Douglas Murray's argument on the Rogan podcast was failing to put forth the right argument on Israel and Gaza. The appeal to knowledge fallacy was the wrong approach, even though there is a perfectly valid point to be made about those who only sample the views and critiques of those whose views align with their preferred narrative.
Here's the problem. It's perfectly reasonable to be critical and angry about Israel's approach to the conflict. Setting the end goal of the conflict to the destruction of Hamas, or the destruction of Hamas to the point that it's incapable of mounting offensive actions in the medium term, is not only militarily infeasible, but also effectively a license to open-ended war without end. Sure, recovering the hostages is a valid objective- and one which justifies Israel's continued actions in Gaza, but the destruction of Hamas objective is simply untenable.
The correct argument on Gaza is that its perfectly valid to angry about the actions of the Israel government in perpetuating the conflict, provided one is significantly more angry about the actions of Hamas and, crucially, those Palestinians who support Hamas. Hamas had been in power in Gaza for nearly 18 years. Their every effort has been dedicated to turning Gaza into an underground fortress from which they can wage war on Israel. Despite 400 miles of tunnels, they made absolutely no provision for sheltering the civilian population. Indeed, they know they cannot win a conventional war, or wear Israel down with reported atrocities, so their strategy all along has been leading up to a human sacrifice approach which spends the lives of innocent women and children as a cynical currency to turn the world against Israel.
That's the thing that people forget when they watch fresh visions of babies butchered and limbs lost on X, over and over again. This was all planned by Hamas for nearly two decades. They knew the only way they could weaken Israel's position was to cynically sacrifice their own civilians and hope this form of acknowledged asymmetric warfare would pay dividends in the end. It's perfectly valid to feel angry at Israel for falling into the trap of following Yahya Sinwar masterplan, but unless one is just as angry with Palestinian Hamas leader in Qatar who doesn't even emotionally react when his two sons are killed, then one has lost all sight of where the lion's share of the blame resides. There are even plenty of videos of Palestinian fathers and mothers on X celebrating the martyrdom of those they purport to love, if one has the stomach to watch them.
It's easy to criticise Israel for bombing hospitals, schools and universities without asking the question- who made them legitimate military targets under the rules of war? It's easy to look at the devastation of housing in Gaza and question the logic, if one doesn't accept that every third house contains weapons and munitions, with enough booby trapped in advance to make house clearances militarily infeasible. So yes, it's perfectly valid to criticise Israel for Gaza, provided one is significantly more critical of Hamas and those Palestinians who support Hamas.
Also, your highlighting of a 2023 study doesn't detract from the earlier study in late 2019 which showed that 'The Dark Triad traits predict authoritarian political correctness and
Ah yes, the old "They're hiding behind human shields, of course we had to shoot the human shields!".
18 years ago, 40% of the population voted for Hamas. Today, 50% of the population wasn't even alive then, which means only 20% of the current population voted for Hamas. The rest of your argument about who we should be angry at is irrelevant.
Unironically yes, by sending the message that using human shields is a tactic that works you end up with more victims being used as human shields. If a terrorist knows that talking a human shield will still end in death less victims will be used as human shields because the effort does not outway the outcome. But you’re willfully quoting propaganda statistics so why am I wasting breath on you anyway?
Your point doesn’t get around the fact that the biggest roadblock to Palestinians achieving their own rights and sovereign state, without depriving Israelis of their rights and state, is not Israel, but Hamas and other Palestinian leadership groups.
I’m sure there were plenty of Germans in World War II who weren’t good Nazis. Does it necessarily then follow that the Allies shouldn’t have fought the war against the Nazis?
I don’t know. Was Hitler supported and even secretly funded by FDR and the Democrat party? Did Hitler’s invasion of Poland play right into FDR’s hands and keep him from getting deposed and jailed for corruption?
It's more accurate to say that the Nazis borrowed heavily from the FDR regime for their public works programme. They were great admirers of the 'achievements' of American progressivism, although on race the Nazis were more closely aligned with Woodrow Wilson than FDR.
I know that many American industrialists were in bed with the Nazis, but I don't think there is much merit to the argument that FDR supported the Nazis. It's truer to say that FDR might have been more initially sceptical of Churchill's realisation of the historic threat of Hitler than many historians suppose, and somewhat persuaded by the desire to see Hitler as possible figurehead for institutional forced looking to establish a bulwark against communism.
People forget that history is muddle. Politicians have a habit of making grave mistakes through the sin of permission and then come to vehemently oppose the force of which they were initially permissively ambivalent. The truer observation is that politicians are institutionally inclined to make cynical moral compromises in pursuit of a supposed greater good.
The darker side of the coin was in the Pacific. Cordell Hull's oil embargo was deliberately construed to provoke the Japanese to war. Don't get me wrong. FDR wasn't a cynic in pursuit of trade imperialism. He was full of Wilsonian idealism and missionary zeal for imposing democracy, commerce and trade- making the niave assumption that democracy is the birth right of all peoples, irrespective of culture and creed. It's the sort of hopeless optimism which led to the Forever Wars. “The peace of the world depends upon the prosperity of the world… America must lead not with armies but with commerce and the example of democracy.”
In practice, the philosophy all but guarantees wars. The British were at least smart enough to leave people alone to govern according to their traditions and beliefs, understanding that the key was appealing to vanity and avarice of local leaders, whilst creating an emerging native middle class (in the British sense) of property holders with strong property rights. The Sepoy Mutiny taught to avoid messing with people's religions, despite their earlier Christian missionary zeal.
Democracy is not the natural state of man. If anything it's a fragile and precarious thing. It usually occurs through the slow inculcation of natural rights and is the work of generations. More often than not, it's paid for with the blood of patriots.
The best understanding of FDR is be obtained through one of my favourite C. S. Lewis quotes: “Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”
People forget that FDR did everything in his power to undermine the Commerce Clause of the Constitution in pursuit of Federalism. Perhaps the most nefarious of his aims was to destroy perfectly good food in the pursuit of agricultural stabilisation, especially at a time when so many people were hungry. In 1933, 10 million acres of cotton were ploughed under, and 6 million pigs were slaughtered. This did not improve land, labour, or capital efficiency but sought to raise prices through scarcity.
It was also a tax and spend policy, paid for by added taxes to basic food processing- like milling or animal slaughter- raising food prices for poor people struggling to feed their children. Understandably this provoked a huge public backlash, although in 1936 a majority were willing to swallow the bitter pill in return for employment. It doesn't sound at all like the FDR one was taught about in school or can find in history books, does it? Ironically, if one remembers one's West Wing- Jed Bartlett was no FDR, despite idolising the false memory of the man.
In many ways, although FDR and Trump have diametrically opposed philosophies, with FDR seeking to federalise and indirectly corporatize commerce, and Trump seeking a return to heterodox localism, to unleash investment and empower entrepreneurship, they share the same ambivalence to the courts, their rulings and the pursuit of legal means to circumvent them. Pick your ideological poison. One man's public good, is another man's road to tyranny. Political leaders are best understand as neither sinners nor saints, wearing their very own ideological blinders in pursuit of a particular focus and vision for a better society. Still, I suppose we should at least admire them for their conviction and a lack of the deep cynicism so common to politics, even as we recognise the dangers.
Geary Johansen: "It's more accurate to say that the Nazis borrowed heavily from the FDR regime for their public works programme."
You got it exactly backwards. It was the FDR regime who adopted the plans of the National Socialists once they saw how successful the Germans were at reviving their economy and governmental institutions.
You raised an interesting question, so I decided to try a deeper dive on Grok- although it’s generally difficult to get any of the current AIs to shift to their Sandbox setting. Grok is generally better than most on controversial subject matters.
With a little probing and nuanced questions I managed to get Grok to admit that both Nazi Germany and FDRs New Deal program were probably more than a little influenced by Mussolini’s Italy. It’s important to note that both the Nazis and FDR came to power in 1933, and were running concurrent programs in an era when state-led interventions weren’t uncommon.
Most people focus on the trains under Fascism. Mussolini probably deserves more credit for his public health measures to combat malaria. It’s a shame there is no viable argument that Mussolini helped popularise Gin & Tonic, but one can be relatively assured that knowing the American and British propensity to crack jokes when the opportunity to drink presents itself, plenty of jokes were probably made on the subject.
Even Churchill was a little beguiled by Mussolini, but only in a specific context:
“If I had been an Italian, I am sure I should have been wholeheartedly with you from start to finish in your triumphant struggle against the bestial appetites and passions of Leninism… Your movement has rendered a service to the whole world.”
I suggest you read his books, and then some of the books which he has and has not read - by his own admission. Jordan Peterson is a seething nutcase, as is obvious from what he says. I wrote a report calling him that last year, but I don’t like linking in peoples replies so you will have to look it up. I also went to his conference and was unconvinced by the neoliberal Zionism he is selling, with a dash of Jung, to his audience.
Speaking of JP Golem and psychiatric drugs. Just as there are incremental stages in dosage, there are incremental stages in any Golem that both serves, and is served to the public by, Supremacy Inc.
It follows the carrot on the stick model. The first two stages outlined by Keith were the carrot.
The third stage, as the essay makes unmistakably clear, is the stick.
Put bluntly, JP was already a Golem at Stage I. He was handpicked and served in stages.
After all, exactly who do you think owns and controls youtube?
And his target audience (targeted by youtube, a component of the hostile elite) was then, and is now, those who are intellectually lazy, but desperate for guidance (because their families and fathers are not doing the job). That’s why their defense of him then was just as obnoxious and creepy, and anti-intellectual, as his defense of Zionism is now. There's a sadomasochistic, messianic aura to it all.
Just as psychiatric drugs have destroyed an already weak man, so too has he destroyed his already weak audience. And they were weakened by the very people JP Golem serves. How? By the hostile elite’s relentless attacks on Western Civilization, SWM, and above all, The Western Canon.
No one whose intellectual, cultural, and spiritual life (same thing) is grounded in a thorough and intimate knowledge of the canon* needs a shallow, weird, and creepy, pseudo-intellectual like JP Golem. They can see right through him in an instant. Just as anyone with a reasonable amount of knowledge in a particular trade can identify a charlatan, just as any real, experienced soldier knows in their bones Stolen Valor when they see it and responds accordingly and without hesitation.
Why do you think the hostile elite targeted the Western canon. It was their way of lobotmizing the entire Western world. And what was put in its place? Pop Culture, of whom JP Golem is a mere pseudo-intellectual deposit served to a gullible audience devoid of judgment, by a hate-filled and hositle elite devoid of conscience (and judgment). Seriously, can you imagine, not just admiring, but actually worshiping a deposit dropped from the bowels of Supremacy Inc., while ignoring the very canon that can save you from, by preparing you for, creeps like JP Golem and his handlers?
*Quality of knowledge, not quantity of books read.
Totally substanceless, weightless essay, as usual Keith. Peterson is clearly correct in ascribing extreme malevolence and psychopathy to large parts of the antisemite sphere. His participation in the 'Christ is King' article is laudable, especially when you have non-Christians like Jake Shields openly admitting that they use the phrase as a dogwhistle for Jew hatred, which is literal blasphemy against Jesus and means he's going to hell.
Are the Jews who proudly say they should wipe out Amalek and rape POWs also psychopaths? The mainstream opinion in Israel and the Jewish lobbies in America.
The lifelong transformation of men is destroyed by the relentless fear-porn, pornography, black magick, money magick, unavoidable in the world today. Whether you like it or not these dark activities are controlled and promoted by Jews, primarily. Men are made by culture. When that culture is perverted and evil men become evil. Modern Men are forced to pass through years of darkness, being constantly bombarded with satanic signs and messages. This is a giant problem, much bigger than any man, even a celebrity, can rectify. It is humanity’s destiny now to go through this vast and dark culture scape.
The path of Peterson has made me certain of a few things. Benzos are awful and should be thrown in a fiery pit. I know family members who lives are ruined from it. And that Daily Wire seemed to be the finish line on being ruined.
I miss peak Peterson. When I want to remember who he was I go back to the speech he gave at that one University that Akira the Don did a track too.
Also, ruining Peterson is not helping my antisemitism.
I think he started with this stuff before DW. He has doubled down way more since the deal though. It's hard to say much because has signed in 2022 before Israel was as hot of a topic
He was a breath of fresh air when he was trying to help people feel less helpless and he encouraged people to be better. But then he went political and lost all the credibility and authority he had. A shame.
Jordan’s journey: From clean your room to ethnically cleanse Gaza. He’s so stunning and brave.
Clickbait thinking hardly elevates you above Petersen, even given his faults.
Fair, fair…But still funny.
Read your own words. Beautiful example of a clickbait sentence. Boils complex ideas into a clever parallel construction. It’s catnip for anyone who already knows what you’re talking about and agrees, but useless for anyone who cares about nuance.
There's no nuance to cheering on a holocaust.
What is clickbait thinking?
It's horrifying as you pointed out quite eloquently.
Good analysis. Looks like he may now be a bit mind controlled. I’m glad you still have some sympathy for him. His past work still stands up and was quite brilliant. We all loose it eventually. I’m another old guy and know what happens.
given that you’re able to see his crash out, i wouldn’t put yourself in the same category. he went from making what i thought was an excellent speech to the US congress about the dangers of online speech surveillance and censorship, to joining a soros-founded, ADL sponsored speech surveillance institution in about a year - a perfect inversion of his stated principles.
The real trick is knowing when. It’s like knowing when to shut up, a skill I’m still trying to master.
Well said. Afraid I’m the same. Jordan P has been on an all meat diet for 3 years now - could possibly have something to do with his lack of judgement.
Re: so-called “carnivore diet”. I’m always reminded of Rogan telling about some of his friends getting quite aggressive while on the diet. Not surprising, considering it’s a predator’s diet.
I think it has much more to do with his changing of friend groups. He's much closer in touch with the DW people as co-workers now, and I think it's rubbed off on him, especially since Ben Shapiro in his spat with Candace was very explicit (and to his credit, very transparent and open about it) that DW had a pro-Israel stance as a publishing outlet.
And fwiw, I don't think Ben had some grand master Jew plan to rope in JBP expressly to turn him into a Zionist enforcer. I think at the time, Ben genuinely wanted JBP to find a place to land after his rehab, and back then, his dying popularity, and probably offered him a spot for a mutual, strictly business, money making venture, possibly to charitably (as in, from a friend) offer some retirement and health benefit options that I'm sure JBP lacked as an unemployed, rogue professor. And then the rest of the chips fell into place organically, to me. We know who Ben is, no one knew Oct. 7 would happen, no one knew how much dissidence there was on the right about it (*I* certainly didn't, prior to that), and JBP was sort of at the wrong place, at the wrong time, with the wrong people, on the wrong trajectory to fall into that role, all the stars aligned.
Sure it’s easy to be swayed by Jewish intelligence and they really are smarter than most. Peterson loves smart people. Personally I can be swayed by both sides as both have strong motivations. Can’t decide. However Israel is surrounded by enemies and will probably eventually fall. Then it will be our turn unfortunately.
no one knows as far were the estimate of their nukes in the 80's it s hard to believe the lesser 70ish of today and it s more likely they never stopped making new they probably have more than France . If they are able to steal hypersonic knowledge factored with the exponential rate of orthodox . it s not the number which matter it s the weapons and the will .Arabs are far far to be in position to step up on defense technology . it ll take far more generation than overcome Europe from the inside
I came to Peterson in his second era - and he saved my life. I was in a dark place, subject in many ways to what the disaffected young men he was infamous for reaching were struggling with, and I couldn’t get enough of him. I kept a rent free room for him in my head for years and am in a much better place for it now. I cherish Maps, both Rules for Life, I like his recent book on the Bible too - and found what I’ve seen of the Daily Wire biblical conversations just as powerful as his solo Biblical Lectures series. I have a huge amount of gratitude, and love, for him. But I don’t watch him anymore. Not as a rule. I make exceptions if I really want to hear from the guest - and then I find that sometimes Peterson conducts a great interview, and sometimes he just feels manic, the guest struggles to get a word in, and it’s painful to watch. And I remember him talking about how conversation is a dance, and I remember how sophisticated he used to be on that floor, and I think there is something wrong too. It’s sad. And I’ve seen streaks of nastiness too. And that’s even more sad to watch in this guy who was my fucking hero.
I feel you. If it’s any comfort, recall that he stated himself in his earlier days that the fame and pressure would eventually wreck him, which he accepted and had made his peace with. Can’t recall what interview it was, but he said something to the effect of “you have to ride the wave as best you can until it crashes”. The old classic of “living long enough to become the villain/sellout” instantiated once again.
He seems to default to professor mode.
Nah, I haven’t seen that one. One with Russel Brand comes to mind. I think the interview was about 20 minutes in before Jordan allowed Russel to speak - and then he wasn’t allowed to complete a thought before Jordan jumped back in with a monologue about a divergent set of themes and ideas, which Russel would try to form into a question when he was finally given a few seconds to jump in! There was another with Pageau, and a Muslim guy, set up to compare and contrast faith traditions and ideas - and it could have been great, both great speakers on the matter, but Jordan was so excited he couldn’t shut up, again. And you can see people being so gentle and patient with him - but ultimately sitting for a long form conversation that they may as well not be involved in at all. Sounds like Musk was same, because he wouldn’t let Don Lemon or some other lemon drone on indefinitely - he’d stop them right there and make his presence felt in the conversation. But it feels like a lot of people have a lot of affection for Jordan and are experiencing a dear man who is not fully in control of his behaviour, so they don’t want to be aggressive. He’s turning into the old veteran at the pub who’s barely comprehensible, but everyone knows he’s put a lot into life, and now if we have to sit with him and do our best impression of human connection while he motors on about all kinds - well, it’s the least we can do.
Well Musk is rather a bore to listen to.
Jordan Peterson has the emotional maturity of a 12 year old, and as you say, his knowledge of Zionist ideology, the Mandate period, the history of Palestine and Palestinians, and the circumstances of the creation of the Israeli state could fit on the head of a pin. He has no explanation for the hundreds of thousands of groups of Jews worldwide who are anti-Zionist and anti-genocide and have been since the 19th c. Clearly he must think they are not experts in their own religion. Many of those Jews speaking out now are Israelis, and are intimately familiar with Israel's actions and politics. Peterson is a huge embarrassment.
Zionism has only been around for 130 years, what was the problem before that ?
There were very few problems before that. In the Ottoman Empire, Sephardic and Mizrahi Jews got along fine with their Muslim and Christian neighbors. Multiple authors have written about this fact. When Islam conquered Palestine after the Byzantine Empire, they did not force Christians and Jews to convert to Islam. In fact Muslims allowed Jews into Jerusalem for the first time in 500 years. Nevertheless, there were tax advantages to being Muslim, so over time many Jews and Christians did convert. Torah Jews still talk about how close they were with their Muslim neighbors in Jerusalem--they lived in the same neighborhoods and babysat each other's children. They also took part in each other's religious feasts.
Very few problems for whom? The idea that the middle eastern muslims were getting along with their christian neighbours prior to Israel is laughable. What Israel is doing in Gaza is horrible. But the idea that without the jews muslims are just friendly people who want to be left alone is absolutely insane.
I stand by everything I said in the above comment, which can be verified in multiple works of history quoting multiple primary sources. Of course no group of humans ever perfectly gets along, including groups of all Christians or all Jews.
Like the crusades? Or muslim incursions into eastern and Europe via Greece, Bulgaria, Romania etc?
Nice straw man. We were talking about the Ottoman Empire and about Palestine specifically. We are not talking about the Middle Ages or about extremists in Eastern Europe, which you would not be mentioning if you knew a damned thing about the history of the last 100 years.
This recent book is an eye-opener: The Fall of Israel: The Degradation of Israel's Politics, Economy & Military by Dr. Dan Steinbock
All the expulsions must just be a misunderstanding then.
I'm confused. Are you talking about the history of Jews being expelled from various countries IN EUROPE over the ages? Or about Jews being expelled from Middle Eastern countries in response to the Nakba. when Zionists expelled 750,000 Palestinians from Palestine, butchered, burned and raped 7500, and poisoned their village wells with typhoid? If you're talking about the latter, it's important to realize that Zionist terrorist cells deliberately stoked fear among Jews living in those Middle Eastern countries to try to get them to come to Israel. But whatever "expulsions" you are talking about, they have nothing to do with Palestinians. All the expelling goes the other way. Please read Rosemarie Esber, Under the Cover of War, the single best book on the Nakba.
Keep lying jew
???????
Mfw when I realise antizionism was antisemitism all alone.
Why don't you tell me what you think Zionism is? What is its history? What characterized the original proponents of Zionism? How did observant Jews react to the idea of Zionism when it was introduced to them? Are modern anti-Zionist Jews anti-Semitic? Who are the Palestinians? What is their ethnic heritage, their DNA? Are they actual Arabs, or is that just an indication of the language they speak? How long have Palestinians been in Palestine?
You sound really knowledgeable about this subject. You don’t sound deranged at all.
Jordan Peterson has lost the plot. Personally, I don't think his psyche was capable of processing the results of his fame, and while watching his mental health fade, he's grasping at straws to maintain a cohesive worldview that he can embrace, and not be castigated. Basically, he's captured to avoid controversy.
Psychology is a bullshit social science, but his mental decline is obvious. He really should just retire from the public eye, and call it a career, otherwise, before it's over, he's going to have a complete breakdown, really embarrass himself, and his end will be the undoing of every smart thing that he ever said.
His early YouTube lectures where he said that having responsibility was probably more important to a man’s well being than any other thing was huge to me. Changed that sense of dread I had of leaving college in to a far more productive mindset. Shame what he’s become.
Slavoj Žižek is himself a postmodern neo-Marxist- the dodge about Hegelian dialectics is exactly that- a dodge. Sure, he's a lot more nuanced than most, but his preferred end state is collective ownership and egalitarianism. The problem is that he's sceptical of purely decentralized, non-state solutions to achieving these ends, and in the absence of a mechanism, then its top-down state authoritarianism as a default. If he was arguing for Coase Theorem and modest land values taxes, exempting the non-corporatized large-scale agricultural sector, I might be inclined to believe him- but he's deliberately vague on pragmatic approaches to creating a fairer world.
Besides if Slavoj Žižek doesn't satisfy your requirement for postmodern neo-Marxists both Herbert Marcuse and Frantz Fanon are prime examples of the types which spawned a legion of divisive critical theorists intent upon destroying anything good about the West.
The problem with Douglas Murray's argument on the Rogan podcast was failing to put forth the right argument on Israel and Gaza. The appeal to knowledge fallacy was the wrong approach, even though there is a perfectly valid point to be made about those who only sample the views and critiques of those whose views align with their preferred narrative.
Here's the problem. It's perfectly reasonable to be critical and angry about Israel's approach to the conflict. Setting the end goal of the conflict to the destruction of Hamas, or the destruction of Hamas to the point that it's incapable of mounting offensive actions in the medium term, is not only militarily infeasible, but also effectively a license to open-ended war without end. Sure, recovering the hostages is a valid objective- and one which justifies Israel's continued actions in Gaza, but the destruction of Hamas objective is simply untenable.
The correct argument on Gaza is that its perfectly valid to angry about the actions of the Israel government in perpetuating the conflict, provided one is significantly more angry about the actions of Hamas and, crucially, those Palestinians who support Hamas. Hamas had been in power in Gaza for nearly 18 years. Their every effort has been dedicated to turning Gaza into an underground fortress from which they can wage war on Israel. Despite 400 miles of tunnels, they made absolutely no provision for sheltering the civilian population. Indeed, they know they cannot win a conventional war, or wear Israel down with reported atrocities, so their strategy all along has been leading up to a human sacrifice approach which spends the lives of innocent women and children as a cynical currency to turn the world against Israel.
That's the thing that people forget when they watch fresh visions of babies butchered and limbs lost on X, over and over again. This was all planned by Hamas for nearly two decades. They knew the only way they could weaken Israel's position was to cynically sacrifice their own civilians and hope this form of acknowledged asymmetric warfare would pay dividends in the end. It's perfectly valid to feel angry at Israel for falling into the trap of following Yahya Sinwar masterplan, but unless one is just as angry with Palestinian Hamas leader in Qatar who doesn't even emotionally react when his two sons are killed, then one has lost all sight of where the lion's share of the blame resides. There are even plenty of videos of Palestinian fathers and mothers on X celebrating the martyrdom of those they purport to love, if one has the stomach to watch them.
It's easy to criticise Israel for bombing hospitals, schools and universities without asking the question- who made them legitimate military targets under the rules of war? It's easy to look at the devastation of housing in Gaza and question the logic, if one doesn't accept that every third house contains weapons and munitions, with enough booby trapped in advance to make house clearances militarily infeasible. So yes, it's perfectly valid to criticise Israel for Gaza, provided one is significantly more critical of Hamas and those Palestinians who support Hamas.
Also, your highlighting of a 2023 study doesn't detract from the earlier study in late 2019 which showed that 'The Dark Triad traits predict authoritarian political correctness and
alt-right attitudes.' https://scottbarrykaufman.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Moss-OConnor.pdf?ref=quillette.com
Here is the original Zaid Jilani article in Quillette on the subject: https://quillette.com/2020/08/03/the-woke-left-v-the-alt-right-a-new-study-shows-theyre-more-alike-than-either-side-realizes/
Ah yes, the old "They're hiding behind human shields, of course we had to shoot the human shields!".
18 years ago, 40% of the population voted for Hamas. Today, 50% of the population wasn't even alive then, which means only 20% of the current population voted for Hamas. The rest of your argument about who we should be angry at is irrelevant.
Unironically yes, by sending the message that using human shields is a tactic that works you end up with more victims being used as human shields. If a terrorist knows that talking a human shield will still end in death less victims will be used as human shields because the effort does not outway the outcome. But you’re willfully quoting propaganda statistics so why am I wasting breath on you anyway?
So war crimes and genocide are okay. Got it. You’re a piece of shif. Got it.
You're much too kind to this waste of food, Mike RN.
Anubyss is obviously a sociopathic murder-worshiper - like the 97% of the israeli jewish population who agree with him.
Your point doesn’t get around the fact that the biggest roadblock to Palestinians achieving their own rights and sovereign state, without depriving Israelis of their rights and state, is not Israel, but Hamas and other Palestinian leadership groups.
I’m sure there were plenty of Germans in World War II who weren’t good Nazis. Does it necessarily then follow that the Allies shouldn’t have fought the war against the Nazis?
I don’t know. Was Hitler supported and even secretly funded by FDR and the Democrat party? Did Hitler’s invasion of Poland play right into FDR’s hands and keep him from getting deposed and jailed for corruption?
It's more accurate to say that the Nazis borrowed heavily from the FDR regime for their public works programme. They were great admirers of the 'achievements' of American progressivism, although on race the Nazis were more closely aligned with Woodrow Wilson than FDR.
I know that many American industrialists were in bed with the Nazis, but I don't think there is much merit to the argument that FDR supported the Nazis. It's truer to say that FDR might have been more initially sceptical of Churchill's realisation of the historic threat of Hitler than many historians suppose, and somewhat persuaded by the desire to see Hitler as possible figurehead for institutional forced looking to establish a bulwark against communism.
People forget that history is muddle. Politicians have a habit of making grave mistakes through the sin of permission and then come to vehemently oppose the force of which they were initially permissively ambivalent. The truer observation is that politicians are institutionally inclined to make cynical moral compromises in pursuit of a supposed greater good.
The darker side of the coin was in the Pacific. Cordell Hull's oil embargo was deliberately construed to provoke the Japanese to war. Don't get me wrong. FDR wasn't a cynic in pursuit of trade imperialism. He was full of Wilsonian idealism and missionary zeal for imposing democracy, commerce and trade- making the niave assumption that democracy is the birth right of all peoples, irrespective of culture and creed. It's the sort of hopeless optimism which led to the Forever Wars. “The peace of the world depends upon the prosperity of the world… America must lead not with armies but with commerce and the example of democracy.”
In practice, the philosophy all but guarantees wars. The British were at least smart enough to leave people alone to govern according to their traditions and beliefs, understanding that the key was appealing to vanity and avarice of local leaders, whilst creating an emerging native middle class (in the British sense) of property holders with strong property rights. The Sepoy Mutiny taught to avoid messing with people's religions, despite their earlier Christian missionary zeal.
Democracy is not the natural state of man. If anything it's a fragile and precarious thing. It usually occurs through the slow inculcation of natural rights and is the work of generations. More often than not, it's paid for with the blood of patriots.
The best understanding of FDR is be obtained through one of my favourite C. S. Lewis quotes: “Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”
People forget that FDR did everything in his power to undermine the Commerce Clause of the Constitution in pursuit of Federalism. Perhaps the most nefarious of his aims was to destroy perfectly good food in the pursuit of agricultural stabilisation, especially at a time when so many people were hungry. In 1933, 10 million acres of cotton were ploughed under, and 6 million pigs were slaughtered. This did not improve land, labour, or capital efficiency but sought to raise prices through scarcity.
It was also a tax and spend policy, paid for by added taxes to basic food processing- like milling or animal slaughter- raising food prices for poor people struggling to feed their children. Understandably this provoked a huge public backlash, although in 1936 a majority were willing to swallow the bitter pill in return for employment. It doesn't sound at all like the FDR one was taught about in school or can find in history books, does it? Ironically, if one remembers one's West Wing- Jed Bartlett was no FDR, despite idolising the false memory of the man.
In many ways, although FDR and Trump have diametrically opposed philosophies, with FDR seeking to federalise and indirectly corporatize commerce, and Trump seeking a return to heterodox localism, to unleash investment and empower entrepreneurship, they share the same ambivalence to the courts, their rulings and the pursuit of legal means to circumvent them. Pick your ideological poison. One man's public good, is another man's road to tyranny. Political leaders are best understand as neither sinners nor saints, wearing their very own ideological blinders in pursuit of a particular focus and vision for a better society. Still, I suppose we should at least admire them for their conviction and a lack of the deep cynicism so common to politics, even as we recognise the dangers.
Geary Johansen: "It's more accurate to say that the Nazis borrowed heavily from the FDR regime for their public works programme."
You got it exactly backwards. It was the FDR regime who adopted the plans of the National Socialists once they saw how successful the Germans were at reviving their economy and governmental institutions.
You raised an interesting question, so I decided to try a deeper dive on Grok- although it’s generally difficult to get any of the current AIs to shift to their Sandbox setting. Grok is generally better than most on controversial subject matters.
With a little probing and nuanced questions I managed to get Grok to admit that both Nazi Germany and FDRs New Deal program were probably more than a little influenced by Mussolini’s Italy. It’s important to note that both the Nazis and FDR came to power in 1933, and were running concurrent programs in an era when state-led interventions weren’t uncommon.
Most people focus on the trains under Fascism. Mussolini probably deserves more credit for his public health measures to combat malaria. It’s a shame there is no viable argument that Mussolini helped popularise Gin & Tonic, but one can be relatively assured that knowing the American and British propensity to crack jokes when the opportunity to drink presents itself, plenty of jokes were probably made on the subject.
Even Churchill was a little beguiled by Mussolini, but only in a specific context:
“If I had been an Italian, I am sure I should have been wholeheartedly with you from start to finish in your triumphant struggle against the bestial appetites and passions of Leninism… Your movement has rendered a service to the whole world.”
I suggest you read his books, and then some of the books which he has and has not read - by his own admission. Jordan Peterson is a seething nutcase, as is obvious from what he says. I wrote a report calling him that last year, but I don’t like linking in peoples replies so you will have to look it up. I also went to his conference and was unconvinced by the neoliberal Zionism he is selling, with a dash of Jung, to his audience.
Great essay! Thank you!
Speaking of JP Golem and psychiatric drugs. Just as there are incremental stages in dosage, there are incremental stages in any Golem that both serves, and is served to the public by, Supremacy Inc.
It follows the carrot on the stick model. The first two stages outlined by Keith were the carrot.
The third stage, as the essay makes unmistakably clear, is the stick.
Put bluntly, JP was already a Golem at Stage I. He was handpicked and served in stages.
After all, exactly who do you think owns and controls youtube?
And his target audience (targeted by youtube, a component of the hostile elite) was then, and is now, those who are intellectually lazy, but desperate for guidance (because their families and fathers are not doing the job). That’s why their defense of him then was just as obnoxious and creepy, and anti-intellectual, as his defense of Zionism is now. There's a sadomasochistic, messianic aura to it all.
Just as psychiatric drugs have destroyed an already weak man, so too has he destroyed his already weak audience. And they were weakened by the very people JP Golem serves. How? By the hostile elite’s relentless attacks on Western Civilization, SWM, and above all, The Western Canon.
No one whose intellectual, cultural, and spiritual life (same thing) is grounded in a thorough and intimate knowledge of the canon* needs a shallow, weird, and creepy, pseudo-intellectual like JP Golem. They can see right through him in an instant. Just as anyone with a reasonable amount of knowledge in a particular trade can identify a charlatan, just as any real, experienced soldier knows in their bones Stolen Valor when they see it and responds accordingly and without hesitation.
Why do you think the hostile elite targeted the Western canon. It was their way of lobotmizing the entire Western world. And what was put in its place? Pop Culture, of whom JP Golem is a mere pseudo-intellectual deposit served to a gullible audience devoid of judgment, by a hate-filled and hositle elite devoid of conscience (and judgment). Seriously, can you imagine, not just admiring, but actually worshiping a deposit dropped from the bowels of Supremacy Inc., while ignoring the very canon that can save you from, by preparing you for, creeps like JP Golem and his handlers?
*Quality of knowledge, not quantity of books read.
Totally substanceless, weightless essay, as usual Keith. Peterson is clearly correct in ascribing extreme malevolence and psychopathy to large parts of the antisemite sphere. His participation in the 'Christ is King' article is laudable, especially when you have non-Christians like Jake Shields openly admitting that they use the phrase as a dogwhistle for Jew hatred, which is literal blasphemy against Jesus and means he's going to hell.
Are the Jews who proudly say they should wipe out Amalek and rape POWs also psychopaths? The mainstream opinion in Israel and the Jewish lobbies in America.
He’s just yet another ZioGrifter. Nothing to see here.
Sadly he once had me fooled.
Even bought the audio book of his Maps of Meaning.
He is a grifter not unlike Douglas Murray and it's amazing how similar these zionist bigots actually are, especially non Jewish?Christian zionazis.
The lifelong transformation of men is destroyed by the relentless fear-porn, pornography, black magick, money magick, unavoidable in the world today. Whether you like it or not these dark activities are controlled and promoted by Jews, primarily. Men are made by culture. When that culture is perverted and evil men become evil. Modern Men are forced to pass through years of darkness, being constantly bombarded with satanic signs and messages. This is a giant problem, much bigger than any man, even a celebrity, can rectify. It is humanity’s destiny now to go through this vast and dark culture scape.
The path of Peterson has made me certain of a few things. Benzos are awful and should be thrown in a fiery pit. I know family members who lives are ruined from it. And that Daily Wire seemed to be the finish line on being ruined.
I miss peak Peterson. When I want to remember who he was I go back to the speech he gave at that one University that Akira the Don did a track too.
Also, ruining Peterson is not helping my antisemitism.
Do you think he has been blackmailed?
I don't think they need to. Apparently his Daily Wire deal was huge
I think he started with this stuff before DW. He has doubled down way more since the deal though. It's hard to say much because has signed in 2022 before Israel was as hot of a topic
Jimmy Dore said he got $50 mio.
He was a breath of fresh air when he was trying to help people feel less helpless and he encouraged people to be better. But then he went political and lost all the credibility and authority he had. A shame.