Stoicism and Jordan Peterson popularity with young men

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think one reason that both Stoicism and Jordan Peterson are popular with young men these days is that they both are telling men that the issues they are having with their own life are within their own control and that they have the power to improve their lives themselves. This is very empowering to men, especially many who feel adrift in the world today.

Jordan Peterson in particular speaks to many men who are just drifting. These men are working dead-end meaningless jobs, they often don't have a wife or kids or even a serious relationship. They feel useless in the world today and don't know what to do about it. Jordan Peterson tells them what to do.

Look at his 12 rules for life as an example. This is how he got his start. Not exactly right wing propaganda. This is straight up good advice for anyone for the most part.

1) Fix your posture
2) Care for yourself the way you care for others
3) Stick with people who want the best for you
4) Improve your own game instead of playing others'
5) Teach your children to abide by society's rules
6) Get your house in order before criticizing others
7) Focus on a higher purpose, not instant gratification
8) Find & live your personal truth
9) Learn to be a good listener
10) Define your problem precisely to make it manageable
11) Accept that inequality exists
12) Take time to appreciate the good things in life

None of this is bad advice, but it's also disingenuous to pretend like the table of contents is all he has to say. If he'd written a book that said "clean your room," but not "you exist, like a lobster, in a dominance hierarchy in which there are winners and losers," he wouldn't have many haters or many fans.

[Anonymous]

Just another grifter in a long line of successful hypocrites who make a lot of money off the gullible and stupid by selling “Do as I say, not as I do.”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Just another grifter in a long line of successful hypocrites who make a lot of money off the gullible and stupid by selling “Do as I say, not as I do.”

Precisely this. You've said it all!

Men: you don't need Jordan Peterson to tell you to "clean your room." You should've just listened to your mom all those years ago. See how easy that is?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’ve never heard of this guy. Is this like Glennon Doyle for men? Why does everyone need a guru (or a, *shudder*, thought-leader) these days?

Great analogy. The difference is that Jordan Peterson is right-adjacent. He's sort of a gateway to more hard-right ideologies, if you want to follow his philosophy to its natural conclusions.

Curious what you see those to be?

You can read Peterson's own words about what that means:

Recently, a young man named Alek Minassian drove through Toronto trying to kill people with his van. Ten were killed, and he has been charged with first-degree murder for their deaths, and with attempted murder for 16 people who were injured. Mr. Minassian declared himself to be part of a misogynist group whose members call themselves incels. The term is short for “involuntary celibates,” though the group has evolved into a male supremacist movement made up of people — some celibate, some not — who believe that women should be treated as sexual objects with few rights. Some believe in forced “sexual redistribution,” in which a governing body would intervene in women’s lives to force them into sexual relationships.

Violent attacks are what happens when men do not have partners, Mr. Peterson says, and society needs to work to make sure those men are married.

“He was angry at God because women were rejecting him,” Mr. Peterson says of the Toronto killer. “The cure for that is enforced monogamy. That’s actually why monogamy emerges.”

Mr. Peterson does not pause when he says this. Enforced monogamy is, to him, simply a rational solution. Otherwise women will all only go for the most high-status men, he explains, and that couldn’t make either gender happy in the end.

“Half the men fail,” he says, meaning that they don’t procreate. “And no one cares about the men who fail.”

I laugh, because it is absurd.

“You’re laughing about them,” he says, giving me a disappointed look. “That’s because you’re female.”

But aside from interventions that would redistribute sex, Mr. Peterson is staunchly against what he calls “equality of outcomes,” or efforts to equalize society. He usually calls them pathological or evil.

He agrees that this is inconsistent. But preventing hordes of single men from violence, he believes, is necessary for the stability of society. Enforced monogamy helps neutralize that.

In situations where there is too much mate choice, “a small percentage of the guys have hyper-access to women, and so they don’t form relationships with women,” he said. “And the women hate that.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/18/style/jordan-peterson-12-rules-for-life.html

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think one reason that both Stoicism and Jordan Peterson are popular with young men these days is that they both are telling men that the issues they are having with their own life are within their own control and that they have the power to improve their lives themselves. This is very empowering to men, especially many who feel adrift in the world today.

Jordan Peterson in particular speaks to many men who are just drifting. These men are working dead-end meaningless jobs, they often don't have a wife or kids or even a serious relationship. They feel useless in the world today and don't know what to do about it. Jordan Peterson tells them what to do.

Look at his 12 rules for life as an example. This is how he got his start. Not exactly right wing propaganda. This is straight up good advice for anyone for the most part.

1) Fix your posture
2) Care for yourself the way you care for others
3) Stick with people who want the best for you
4) Improve your own game instead of playing others'
5) Teach your children to abide by society's rules
6) Get your house in order before criticizing others
7) Focus on a higher purpose, not instant gratification
8) Find & live your personal truth
9) Learn to be a good listener
10) Define your problem precisely to make it manageable
11) Accept that inequality exists
12) Take time to appreciate the good things in life

None of this is bad advice, but it's also disingenuous to pretend like the table of contents is all he has to say. If he'd written a book that said "clean your room," but not "you exist, like a lobster, in a dominance hierarchy in which there are winners and losers," he wouldn't have many haters or many fans.

Yup, this is it. He starts with some pretty mundane stuff like these 12 items, which are pretty fine, if not particularly insightful or original. Then, once you start nodding along to this, he goes off into some pretty weird places about how society should be structured and how various participants need to behave within that structure, which are absurd and can lead to some dark places.

It's also funny to see people from the right complaining about shutting down speech given the efforts in places like Florida to allow parents to sue schools and teachers if they teach something that makes a student uncomfortable. As expected, the ones yelling the most about snowflakes were the snowflakes all along.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just another grifter in a long line of successful hypocrites who make a lot of money off the gullible and stupid by selling “Do as I say, not as I do.”

Precisely this. You've said it all!

Men: you don't need Jordan Peterson to tell you to "clean your room." You should've just listened to your mom all those years ago. See how easy that is?

Have you ever read or listened to Jordan Peterson?

I admit I haven't. I've only read commentaries on him. Which is why I also know posts like yours are just plain stupid. You can use the same argument for just about anything out there. Don't listen or read anyone, shrieked the man, because they're just grifters! When it really means you most likely align with a certain political outlook whose consensus has decided Jordan Peterson is wrong/horrible/bigoted/whatever so therefore he is only a nasty grifter manipulating people rather than someone with valid ideas and commentaries.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just another grifter in a long line of successful hypocrites who make a lot of money off the gullible and stupid by selling “Do as I say, not as I do.”

Precisely this. You've said it all!

Men: you don't need Jordan Peterson to tell you to "clean your room." You should've just listened to your mom all those years ago. See how easy that is?

Have you ever read or listened to Jordan Peterson?

I admit I haven't. I've only read commentaries on him. Which is why I also know posts like yours are just plain stupid. You can use the same argument for just about anything out there. Don't listen or read anyone, shrieked the man, because they're just grifters! When it really means you most likely align with a certain political outlook whose consensus has decided Jordan Peterson is wrong/horrible/bigoted/whatever so therefore he is only a nasty grifter manipulating people rather than someone with valid ideas and commentaries.

I’m the PP who called him a grifter and I’ve read his book, which is full of tedious idiocy but is a masterclass on how to sell successfully to the stupid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’ve never heard of this guy. Is this like Glennon Doyle for men? Why does everyone need a guru (or a, *shudder*, thought-leader) these days?

Great analogy. The difference is that Jordan Peterson is right-adjacent. He's sort of a gateway to more hard-right ideologies, if you want to follow his philosophy to its natural conclusions.

Curious what you see those to be?

You can read Peterson's own words about what that means:

Recently, a young man named Alek Minassian drove through Toronto trying to kill people with his van. Ten were killed, and he has been charged with first-degree murder for their deaths, and with attempted murder for 16 people who were injured. Mr. Minassian declared himself to be part of a misogynist group whose members call themselves incels. The term is short for “involuntary celibates,” though the group has evolved into a male supremacist movement made up of people — some celibate, some not — who believe that women should be treated as sexual objects with few rights. Some believe in forced “sexual redistribution,” in which a governing body would intervene in women’s lives to force them into sexual relationships.

Violent attacks are what happens when men do not have partners, Mr. Peterson says, and society needs to work to make sure those men are married.

“He was angry at God because women were rejecting him,” Mr. Peterson says of the Toronto killer. “The cure for that is enforced monogamy. That’s actually why monogamy emerges.”

Mr. Peterson does not pause when he says this. Enforced monogamy is, to him, simply a rational solution. Otherwise women will all only go for the most high-status men, he explains, and that couldn’t make either gender happy in the end.

“Half the men fail,” he says, meaning that they don’t procreate. “And no one cares about the men who fail.”

I laugh, because it is absurd.

“You’re laughing about them,” he says, giving me a disappointed look. “That’s because you’re female.”

But aside from interventions that would redistribute sex, Mr. Peterson is staunchly against what he calls “equality of outcomes,” or efforts to equalize society. He usually calls them pathological or evil.

He agrees that this is inconsistent. But preventing hordes of single men from violence, he believes, is necessary for the stability of society. Enforced monogamy helps neutralize that.

In situations where there is too much mate choice, “a small percentage of the guys have hyper-access to women, and so they don’t form relationships with women,” he said. “And the women hate that.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/18/style/jordan-peterson-12-rules-for-life.html

Well that is horrifying.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’ve never heard of this guy. Is this like Glennon Doyle for men? Why does everyone need a guru (or a, *shudder*, thought-leader) these days?

Great analogy. The difference is that Jordan Peterson is right-adjacent. He's sort of a gateway to more hard-right ideologies, if you want to follow his philosophy to its natural conclusions.

Curious what you see those to be?

You can read Peterson's own words about what that means:

Recently, a young man named Alek Minassian drove through Toronto trying to kill people with his van. Ten were killed, and he has been charged with first-degree murder for their deaths, and with attempted murder for 16 people who were injured. Mr. Minassian declared himself to be part of a misogynist group whose members call themselves incels. The term is short for “involuntary celibates,” though the group has evolved into a male supremacist movement made up of people — some celibate, some not — who believe that women should be treated as sexual objects with few rights. Some believe in forced “sexual redistribution,” in which a governing body would intervene in women’s lives to force them into sexual relationships.

Violent attacks are what happens when men do not have partners, Mr. Peterson says, and society needs to work to make sure those men are married.

“He was angry at God because women were rejecting him,” Mr. Peterson says of the Toronto killer. “The cure for that is enforced monogamy. That’s actually why monogamy emerges.”

Mr. Peterson does not pause when he says this. Enforced monogamy is, to him, simply a rational solution. Otherwise women will all only go for the most high-status men, he explains, and that couldn’t make either gender happy in the end.

“Half the men fail,” he says, meaning that they don’t procreate. “And no one cares about the men who fail.”

I laugh, because it is absurd.

“You’re laughing about them,” he says, giving me a disappointed look. “That’s because you’re female.”

But aside from interventions that would redistribute sex, Mr. Peterson is staunchly against what he calls “equality of outcomes,” or efforts to equalize society. He usually calls them pathological or evil.

He agrees that this is inconsistent. But preventing hordes of single men from violence, he believes, is necessary for the stability of society. Enforced monogamy helps neutralize that.

In situations where there is too much mate choice, “a small percentage of the guys have hyper-access to women, and so they don’t form relationships with women,” he said. “And the women hate that.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/18/style/jordan-peterson-12-rules-for-life.html

Well that is horrifying.

You should read the relationship forum.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:His opinion should not be allowed.

This is exactly the problem with Leftists. Can't handle differing opinions and so they must be cancelled. Grow up

Im on the left and cancel culture annoys me, too. The left is keeping comedians on eggshells and it sucks.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:His opinion should not be allowed.

This is exactly the problem with Leftists. Can't handle differing opinions and so they must be cancelled. Grow up

This is a massive problem for the left. If you don’t like what Jordan Peterson says, don’t listen.

Really?

Read this and then tell us if you still agree:

https://humanevents.com/2021/09/28/nearly-25-of-college-students-say-its-acceptable-to-use-violence-to-shut-down-controversial-speakers/

Im on the left and you’re completely missing the point and helping to ruin the country. The point is that he should be allowed to say what he wants weather you agree or not. Wow

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:His opinion should not be allowed.

This is exactly the problem with Leftists. Can't handle differing opinions and so they must be cancelled. Grow up

Imagine being so dumb that you respond to trolls posting the most provocative thing possible. And imagine being even dumber that you try to attribute a political ideology to such trolls.

Wow how do you even look in the mirror, PP?

Different poster, but you’re probably on a million different threads posting, ‘trolls’ relentless. You’re the worst kind of poster that isn’t intelligent to engage in a conversation but just yell troll because it’s so far fetched they have a different opinion than you, so it absolutely must be trolling, right?

[Anonymous]

Jordan Peterson is just a rambling fool

[Anonymous]

He is asinine. My husband’s religion is JoeRoganism and therefore of course he follows Jordan Peterson commandments and it’s going to end our marriage.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:He is asinine. My husband’s religion is JoeRoganism and therefore of course he follows Jordan Peterson commandments and it’s going to end our marriage.

You’ll be better off without him!