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Jordan Peterson: Difference between revisions
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This bears resemblance to the traditionalist argument by the English Catholic writer G.K Chesteron, that one should know the purpose a tradition or cultural institution was originally intended to fulfill before one demolishes or reforms it. Thus one could view traditions as a form of "cultural technology". This is known as [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G._K._Chesterton#Chesterton's_fence Chesterton's Fence]. | This bears resemblance to the traditionalist argument by the English Catholic writer G.K Chesteron, that one should know the purpose a tradition or cultural institution was originally intended to fulfill before one demolishes or reforms it. Thus one could view traditions as a form of "cultural technology". This is known as [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G._K._Chesterton#Chesterton's_fence Chesterton's Fence]. | ||
A main mechanism by which Peterson believes chaos to occur is when important beliefs are suddenly challenged (e.g. during a loss of culture or religion). Then the negative human emotional response to this tends to be externalized as aggression, since people "prefer war to be something external, than re-forming [their] challenged beliefs". He sees this to be driven by the most fundamental drive of human cognition, especially male cognition, which is the drive to transform chaos into order. (In this case, people attempt to restore order in the world by force, rather than in their belief system.) He sees much of the world wars and cold wars to be driven by this mechanism, with people externalizing their disagreement about collectivist vs individualist orders of society as aggression. Of course other things cause chaos and conflict as well, e.g. when people cease to have incentives to cooperate and end up in downward spiral of resentment, blaming and revenge, often based on group affiliation which likely ties into tribal instincts (identity politics). In major situations of conflict, he says, people lose the value of the individual and prefer dead over living matter. He says this happens when the group becomes more important than the individual. He claims all major atrocities in human history have been committed by ordinary people who would have been honorable in different historic contexts and with different incentives. | A main mechanism by which Peterson believes chaos to occur is when important beliefs are suddenly challenged (e.g. during a loss of culture or religion). Then the negative human emotional response to this tends to be externalized as aggression, since people "prefer war to be something external, than re-forming [their] challenged beliefs". He sees this to be driven by the most fundamental drive of human cognition, especially male cognition, which is the drive to transform chaos into order. (In this case, people attempt to restore order in the world by force, rather than in their belief system.) | ||
He sees much of the world wars and cold wars to be driven by this mechanism, with people externalizing their disagreement about collectivist vs individualist orders of society as aggression. Of course other things cause chaos and conflict as well, e.g. when people cease to have incentives to cooperate and end up in downward spiral of resentment, blaming and revenge, often based on group affiliation which likely ties into tribal instincts (identity politics). In major situations of conflict, he says, people lose the value of the individual and prefer dead over living matter. He says this happens when the group becomes more important than the individual. He claims all major atrocities in human history have been committed by ordinary people who would have been honorable in different historic contexts and with different incentives. | |||
== Criticism == | == Criticism == | ||