Reply to Stoicism and Jordan Peterson popularity with young men

Forum Index » Off-Topic

Reply to "Stoicism and Jordan Peterson popularity with young men"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]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[/quote]

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.[/quote]

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.
[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics