Order has to overcome chaos
I’m reading a piece from 2018 by Massimo Pigliucci on Jordan Peterson and Stoicism, so you get to read some of it too.
The question at hand is not whether there are some similarities between what Peterson writes and what the Stoics teach. Such similarities are indubitably there. Then again, “pick yourself up and do the right thing,” or “endure what life throws at you” are not exclusively Stoic concepts. They are found pretty much everywhere, in one form or another, from Christianity to Judaism, from Buddhism to Confucianism. And yet I’m not aware of anyone making the argument that Peterson is a Stoic-Christian-Judeo-Buddhist-Confucian. The issue, rather, is whether there are sufficient deep similarities between Peterson and Stoicism. I will argue that not only the answer is no, but that the sort of worldview Peterson advances is, in fact, anti-Stoic.
The first bit of Petersonian advice we encounter in Vacula’s post is “clean your room and get your life in order.” Which is good advice, the sort that my mom used to give me. But that didn’t make her a Stoic. The crucial part of the Stoic advice is that it tells us how to get our life in order: by practicing the four cardinal virtues of prudence, courage, justice, and temperance; and it explains to us why we ought to do it: because virtue is the only thing that is always good (it can’t be used for bad, by definition), as argued by Socrates in the Euthydemus.
Peterson, by contrast, gets this imperative from his adoption of Carl Jung’s views about the perennial opposition between logos and eros, where logos represents order, and it is masculine, while eros represents chaos, and it is feminine. From which Peterson further derives that it is both good and natural for men to control women (order has to overcome chaos).
It’s pretty hilarious when you think about it. All those wars humanity has been afflicted with over the millennia? Those are women’s doing are they? (Of course they are! What was the Trojan War but a war over a woman? Totally her doing, obviously!)
But more than hilarious it’s profoundly irritating. Ho yus, we’re order and you’re chaos and it’s got nothing to do with the fact that we can break your jaw with a punch, it’s entirely because YOU ARE CHAOS, BITCHES.
Updating to clarify: Massimo of course goes on to say Jung is talking “a lot of pseudoscientific and pseudophilosophical nonsense.” I’m laughing/shouting at Jung & Peterson, not Massimo.
It seems to me that a bit of laughing/shouting at Pigliucci might also be a good idea. What are all these “other genders, which Peterson, again pseudoscientifically, simply denies out of existence”? Is it pseudoscience to say that there are two sexes?
And before I accept that Peterson thinks that it is “both good and natural for men to control women” I would like to know where he said that. I have not been able to find it. Can anyone help with that?
Most of JBP’s stuff is on YouTube, which is my absolute least favourite way to consume information. But here are some examples of his approach to women that I have seen transcribed (quoting from 2017 article in a University of Toronto student newspaper https://thevarsity.ca/2017/10/08/jordan-peterson-i-dont-think-that-men-can-control-crazy-women/):
BTW, Peterson is also an AGW denier – e.g. see https://www.theguardian.com/environment/commentisfree/2023/feb/02/jordan-petersons-zombie-climate-contrarianism-follows-a-well-worn-path
Heh…the subject of Peterson came up in a subreddit a while back. Someone posted a most excellent take-down, in which they argued that Peterson’s whole shtick is a kind of rhetorical dodge.
Peterson stakes out provocative positions and argues them at length. But if you try to challenge him–on anything: facts, arguments, conclusions, implications–he denies saying that. And if you pull the transcript and read it, you find that, well, he didn’t say that. He argued it at length but never actually said the thing. So he never gets called on anything.
OK, so what he’s telling us is that he’s stuck in Junior High School.
If I’m talking to a man who wouldn’t fight with me (or a man) under any circumstances, then I realize I am talking to someone who has mastered the art of self-control and that is something I respect. Pugilism and violence are for people who believe their needs are always more important than the other, and they will crumble him rather than reason with him. And a lot of those men do not do the talking, the arguing, or the pushing – they go straight to violence. That’s not a sign of someone to respect; it’s a sign of someone to avoid.
Jungians see Masculine and Feminine as parts of every human personality. It’s irritating, but it’s not about actual men controlling actual women. “Chaos” is equated with the unconscious, which contains all potentials, and inspiration, among other things.
It’s all a bit of a mish-mash of Eastern mysticism with other traditions, plus lots of talk of “the psyche” thrown in. But it doesn’t reduce to Chaos Bad, Order Good. You’re supposed to find a balance, or something. I don’t remember exactly–but of course it’s not all that easy to pin this stuff down. Whatever little gems of insight might possibly be gleaned tend to get mired in mush.
Never have gone in for that macho BS. Most of these ill educated people think life is more about competition than cooperation — in my view they would be wrong. Also I don’t see how being orderly or disorganized can be a masculine or feminine trait in the least. Show some proof, I have seen both in both, and I didn’t just fall off the turnip wagon. I call BS.
Seanna Watson @2
I don’t know if he’s a denier of AGW. A recent guest of his was Judith Curry, who accepts AGW but is skeptical of some of the current climate models. She’s a “denier” in that she doesn’t go along with the consensus, but she doesn’t deny AGW.
I mean these masculine-feminine theories are not only rubbish, they are not even interesting. If JP appeals to young men, it’s because he promotes this snake in the grass philosophy. Be “mad, bad, and dangerous to know” rather than be someone who is helpful, kind, and reliably trustworthy. He himself is no paragon of the dangerous, aggressive, unintelligent male type, yet he promotes this? Fecking weird if you ask me.
Sorry about the holds, Steven. I don’t know what prompted them, I don’t see any change in your sign-in.
Steven @4 Right, so junior high.
Seanna @# 2:
In an ideal world, I suppose, everyone has their whatever needs fulfilled, but none at the expense of anyone else’s needs. Guru figures, such as Peterson, also have an inner need for others to heed them, admire them, follow and obey, while warning all against doing the same for any rival gurus, whose own needs must therefore go wanting.
Men who go around picking fights here and there with other men tend to finish up with flattened faces, and with a certain resemblance to the proverbial buffalo turd. I take it from the look of him that Peterson has been smart enough not to fall into that category. But it is possible that fewer men than he thinks fall into the “wouldn’t fight with you under any circumstances whatsoever” category, since anyone of the belief that they are fighting for their life can become a surprisingly fierce and determined opponent.
The Japanese samurai knew that.
If Peterson talks that tough, you would think he would work on lowering his voice a bit. It’s hard to fear him.
Omar @12,
I have a theory (which is mine) that the reason small dogs have a tendency to be yappy and belligerent with much larger dogs is because they’re signalling “you may be bigger and tougher than me, but I am crazy and will be way more trouble than it’s worth!” And since, in the absence of humans with their nice vets with antibiotics, infection means that even a small animal can inflict a wound that could seriously threaten the health of a larger animal, so evolution has encouraged larger animals to recognize such signals and acknowledge that yeah, it’s probably not worth it.
(I know that probably the bigger reason is that owners of small dogs don’t bother to train them not to be yappy little jerks, because they find it cute and harmless, while big dogs who bark are scary.)
Screechy @# 14:
The Vikings I believe had a category of crazy warriors they called the ‘berserks’ whom they sent in to lead ther charges and serve as front-line troops. They kept on doing it, so it must have worked. (Killed two birds with one stone, if you take my meaning.)
My wife had a “dear little” (her term for him; I had others) Maltese-Shitsu cross dog (with emphasis on the ‘Shit’ part) which would cheerfully take on any Alsatian; which latter would invariably cringe or clear out with its tail between its legs. I put that down to the Alsatians’ coming rapidly to the conclusion that the Maltese-Shitsu probably had some terrible and highly contagious brain disease.
My information is that one Alsatian he bailed up some time ago is still refusing to come out of its cage down at the local RSPCA dog pound.
Not always, though. Sorry to be OT, but we have a small yappy dog and we do not find it cute. We have had many different people work with us on training him, but he chooses not to be trained. Don’t assume it’s always the owner. Sometimes it’s the dog.
Steven,
I’ve noticed the same thing… and it falls right in line with the Peterson-fans’ only defence of the many terrible and stupid things he says: that you have to have read or listened to every single word he has ever said in order to put all the stupid, terrible things he’s come out with together into a context that makes it all pure angelic genius.
You know what? I think I prefer to remain ignorant.
On a similar note, it’s interesting that for someone who doesn’t seem very careful about sense or consistency in what he says, Peterson is awfully careful about how he says it.
Take the quote above:
“Any circumstances whatsoever”? Really? When he begins, he’s talking about a discussion becoming heated. Now he’s talking about any circumstance whatsoever. It’s nothing but a weasel phrase for implausible deniability. If people accuse him of promoting violence or violent attitudes he can weasel out of it by pointing to this sentence. His words are full of weasely little clauses like that. It rather falls in line with the rhetorical dodge idea.