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Jordan Peterson: Difference between revisions
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{{Quote|Something we cannot see protects us from something we do not understand. The thing we cannot see is culture, in its intrapsychic or internal manifestation. The thing we do not understand is the chaos that gave rise to culture. If the structure of culture is disrupted, unwittingly, chaos returns. We will do anything – anything – to defend ourselves against that return.|Jordan Peterson, 1998 (Descensus ad Inferos)}} | {{Quote|Something we cannot see protects us from something we do not understand. The thing we cannot see is culture, in its intrapsychic or internal manifestation. The thing we do not understand is the chaos that gave rise to culture. If the structure of culture is disrupted, unwittingly, chaos returns. We will do anything – anything – to defend ourselves against that return.|Jordan Peterson, 1998 (Descensus ad Inferos)}} | ||
A main mechanism by which he believes chaos to occur is when important beliefs are suddenly changed (e.g. during a loss of culture or religion) and then the negative human emotion to this tends to be externalized as aggression, since people "prefer war to be something external, than re-forming our challenged beliefs", which he sees to be driven by the most fundamental drive of human cognition to transform chaos into order (in this case people attempt to restore order in the world by force, rather than in their belief system). Of course other things can cause chaos as well, e.g. when people cease to have incentives to cooperate. | A main mechanism by which he believes chaos to occur is when important beliefs are suddenly changed (e.g. during a loss of culture or religion) and then the negative human emotion to this tends to be externalized as aggression, since people "prefer war to be something external, than re-forming our challenged beliefs", which he sees to be driven by the most fundamental drive of human cognition which is to transform chaos into order (in this case people attempt to restore order in the world by force, rather than in their belief system). Of course other things can cause chaos as well, e.g. when people cease to have incentives to cooperate. | ||
Jordan gained criticism from other academics with regards to his narrative about broad philosophical schools that emerged during a time when there was a decline in the institutional foundations of moral objectivism among the Western population. Philosophers who agree with Jordan about college-campus New Left types and political correctness, such as Hegelian philosopher Slajov Zizek were the most prominent in their criticism. In a broadcasted debate, Zizek accused Peterson of a-historical alarmism.<ref>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qsHJ3LvUWTs</ref> He accused Jordan of injecting motives and beliefs into philosophies where there are none, ignoring the contempt post-modernists had towards Marxists, and propagating false conspiracy theories about constructionism and relativism being a Marxist or, "radical leftist", plot to destabilize the West. Jordan is criticized as confusing opinions of, "is", with, "ought". He is criticized as mis-characterizing philosophical schools which address widespread non-objectivity as saying there '''should''' be widespread non-objectivity, or that there should be a death of God. | Jordan gained criticism from other academics with regards to his narrative about broad philosophical schools that emerged during a time when there was a decline in the institutional foundations of moral objectivism among the Western population. Philosophers who agree with Jordan about college-campus New Left types and political correctness, such as Hegelian philosopher Slajov Zizek were the most prominent in their criticism. In a broadcasted debate, Zizek accused Peterson of a-historical alarmism.<ref>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qsHJ3LvUWTs</ref> He accused Jordan of injecting motives and beliefs into philosophies where there are none, ignoring the contempt post-modernists had towards Marxists, and propagating false conspiracy theories about constructionism and relativism being a Marxist or, "radical leftist", plot to destabilize the West. Jordan is criticized as confusing opinions of, "is", with, "ought". He is criticized as mis-characterizing philosophical schools which address widespread non-objectivity as saying there '''should''' be widespread non-objectivity, or that there should be a death of God. | ||