Jordan Peterson
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Because it sounds *incredibly* AI generated (you hear the audio artefacts).
I think it's an AI reading a script, but that doesn't mean it's less wrong in its analysis; I think Jordan Peterson's philosophical position is spurious.
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Fine, so give your interpretation of this specific YouTube sample of Peterson's analogy.
Well, I think independent of this YouTube sample that Peterson makes too many leaps in his reasoning and ignores the genealogical development of western thinking and ethics across history. Where he ascribes much of western culture to Christianity it's clear that if one looks at the influence of Greece and Rome on the history of the west there wouldn't be Christianity in the form it takes in western society if not for Greece and Rome.
As for western civilization in general, especially for America, most of our political structures, civic standards, and civic attitudes that operate in courthouse and law, however flawed they may be, have their roots in Rome, Athens, and Sparta. Most of the early ambition of political development of Western Europe countries whether it was France, Germany, Italy, Byzantium, Britian, or Russia was all an attempt to become a new Rome or bring about a revivification and greater expression of Roman values. Charlamagne for instance was crowned emperor of Rome not king of the Franks. Perhaps more telling is most western Catholics are Roman Catholics as the early church considered itself the new Rome which is why the Pope could crown Charlamagne emperor even though Byzantium was still technically Ancient Eastern Rome. I feel Peterson gives too much credit to Christianity and the Bible than is warranted given the actual history of western countries. Yet, I will say that 2,000 years of Christianity is why most people see and think the ways that they do about morality. One would not have egalitarianism, socialism, civil rights, feminism, secular humanism, and Critical Theory without Christianity, but Christianity doesn't power cultures as much as Paganism does. Even Christian art was fairly simplistic and took a long time to develop and become sophisticated in comparison to say Islamic, Egyptian, Grecian, Babylonian, and Syrian art. It wasn't until European Christians were introduced to Grecian and Roman art, architecture, philosophy, and natural philosophy, did alchemy, great art, modern science and mathematics emerge largely through the Renaissance--(a pagan revaluation of Christain values) which the Protestant Reformation ended promptly.
Yes, the Middle Ages featured advances in scholasticism and logic, but largely Christian European civilization was inferior in its cultural productions in comparison to Islam, early Norse, Germanic, and Celtic societies though they were mostly illiterate, the Poetic Eddas for instance influenced much of the development of fantasy literature in the west. For example, Tolkien didn't invent elves, dwarfs, goblins, or ents they were creatures or beings feature in Norse mythological literature that he adapted along with the Arthurian Legends and Beau Wolf as well as the Iliad, Odyssey, and Aenid whose creations all predate Christianity's conquering of Britian and Scandinavia. It's also no secret that Shakespeare was influenced by Aeschylus, Sophocles, Homer, Euripides, Ovid, and Vergil as well British and Celtic Myth. To add, most of our calendar, holidays, and celebrations are pagan in origin that were Christianized. Yes, Christianity and The Bible have had a big influence on western imagination, thinking, and history don't misunderstand me, but it is not the foundation of western society Paganism is and Christianity is the Neo-cortex.
Even for the Bible its clear to modern scholars that the Gospels were written by Hellenistic Jews or Greek Slaves within the Roman empire who were familiar with stoicism, epicureanism, Platonism, and cynicism which all predate Christianity's emergence historically, so early Christian writers were influenced by these philosophies in their thinking about theology which is why the Bible looks a lot of the way it does in terms of theology and doxology within the new testament, particularly the epistles of Paul and John which is why the first copies of the New Testament are written in Greek, not Hebrew or Latin.
Next Christianity is more a Judaism than it is something all its own which is why Jewish people resented Christians during the early emergences of Christianity, and why antisemitisms was initially and most aggressively practiced by Christians to eliminate their Judaic rivals. Antisemitisms history is much older than the Nazis and is nowhere to be found in the ancient pre-Christian world. People like to point to the sack of Jerusalem as an antisemitic act in history, but Rome conquered Greece which had conquered Judea, so they were rulers over Judea and the Jewish people wanted their freedom and so rebelled and well it wouldn't have mattered if the Athenians or Jews rebled against the Romans just like the Galls the Romans are going to crush you, because that's the way Romans fought war period. That's not to say that the Romans weren't racist, because they certainly thought themselves superior to all other races of people only having real respect for The Greeks, Carthaginians, and Germanic Tribes.
Jordan Peterson isn't real a student of Western history, nor is he a real student of philosophy. I could say more about his lack of philosophical acumen and understanding, but I feel I've gone for long enough here.
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Interesting read, thanks for taking the time. I tend to agree with you, Peterson is not a student of philosophy and history per se. He isn't well read in classics. However, I do think he contributes well in the public discourse. He's also a businessman and found a market fit. You can pretty much what books had the biggest influence on him on his website, and there's not much there that would be considered canon in he west.
Christianity probably IS a tranquilizer of sorts, like Nietzsche said. You could still be a "good" person before Christianity. Some Romans and Greeks were very noble and temperate, others were beastly and brutal. I know that "good" meant something else in the pre-Christian world, I'm using it in it's modern meaning. So it's all a bit of a mixture, both traditions are valuable, although I do agree that the Greco-Roman is both more natural and empowering. Christianity then imposes super ego prohibitions, but that's not necessarily bad either.
As regards to art, I recently watched a good BBC documentary on Boticelli and it was notable how the quality of his work decreased when he was sponsored by the Pope as opposed to the Medicis. At least for me. Although he still made a chilling portrayal of inferno.
Thank you, my pleasure. Yes, I agree with you. I respect Jordan Peterson as a scientist, particularly as a psychologist, evolutionary scientist, and neuroscientist. Also, I think he is absolutely valuable to the contemporary public discourse that lacks a real intellectual conservative voice like Johnathan Bowden. I also respect his business ethics, but he does to me go too far when he starts philosophizing and talking about history, even if I respect his desire to provide an alternative popular perspective to cultural Marxism and critical theory. Okay, I haven't checked out his websites book list. I have taken the Understand myself personality inventory, but again I trust Peterson more as a businessman and scientist than I do a philosopher or historian.
I agree, I don't think Christianity is necessarily bad, but I don't like how Jordan Peterson tries to give the credit for all that's good in western society and history to the Bible and Christianity that to me is his own Protestant bias. Yes, our modern values are an admixture between Greco-Roman-Judaic-Christian.
Again, I agree Boticelli's work was more magnificent under the Medici than the Pope. Indeed.
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- Sep 28, 2008
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Do you really believe/think this
What caused you to arrive at this conclusion?
(I'm not doubting you)
Do you really believe/think this
What caused you to arrive at this conclusion?
(I'm not doubting you)
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I don't see how he's making an argument for "all of the good" here.
To me it's more a blueprint of how language and meaning have formed.
Maybe you can infer that because it's the bible, there is some implication of good there.
But I feel like his argument is more that over time people built up narratives to to convey the complexities of being a human.
And much of that is encapsulated within the bible. Which was ultimately disseminated throughout the zeitgeist.
You can't really deny the linguistic influence of the bible on a vast majority of western civilization.
The way humans relate and understand one another comes from linguistic foundations.
Which is why to a fair degree cultures with significantly different language uses are significantly different in cultural practices.
I mean I do kinda see your point though.
JP has a way of saying personal things without having to say them directly and that's probably the case here.
I don't deny it; I deny its position as the foundational text of western society. As I argue in my post the Bible is far from being even self-contained as The Bible is influenced by Judaism and Grecian Philosophy. Most of the reason these things aren't known is because of Christianity's overwhelming social political power within western culture. The sword and law are more responsible for Christianity's dissemination across the western zeitgeist in its early history than the Bible. Especially given most of Europe was Christian far before the Bible was ever printed. Read my longer post and you'll see why I disagree with Peterson. Well, the real linguistic influence on the vast majority of western culture and European culture in general is proto-European language and myth which is why Europeans believe God is a trinity and why Jesus is casted as a hero when early Christians and jews thought no such thing. Europeans largely have been denied an understanding of their history and Christians were very active in suppressing and eradicating Euro-Pagan history. Any ways, the ideas of Christianity fundamental to the Bible are From the Jews and the Greeks, so according to Peterson, Jews and Greeks would be the precondition for the manifestation of truth, not the Bible. It's only because most people aren't familiar with myth, folk tales, western history, and most western people are Christian that we think Christianity is the foundation of western culture when Western culture in language, imagination, art, and thinking was a thing at least 5,000 years before Christianity ever existed. My theory as to why Western Cultures are currently rejecting Christianity for secularism is because western people are historically Pagan and Christianity is the most recent addition. Indo-Europeans colonized Europe sometime around 3000 BCE, so western Civilization is far older than Christianity therefore Christianity cannot be fundamental.
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Right, and my interpretation of what he was saying vaguely accounted for the longer history.
I don't know where he really falls on his personal understanding of things.
But I interpreted it as the bible being kind of an eventuality/culmination.
This does not exclude other such "inflection points" from occurring in my mind, but perhaps it does his idk.
The oppressive actions of Christians is pretty irrefutable historically lol.
But again, I don't think he was even discussing that.
No, he wasn't. He largely ignores it which is why I can't take his argument seriously.
To me, it's a pseudomorphism something implanted from a Hebraic world which has little to do with the actual development of western cultural attitudes, imagination, and thinking not as much as the myth of the Dragon slayer does.