The reason Jordan Peterson is amazing to me and why I think it is that he is going viral is because he is healing the divide between the nihilistic atheists and the dogmatic moralists.
The scientific revolution was an amazing thing. It gave humans the power to command nature as you'd think a magician would. It was a light so bright, nothing seemed out of it's reach. Not even god.
The accuracy of the scientific method pulled the carpet from underneath the physics beliefs of the religious. Their moral sensibilities were suddenly transformed from the 'word of god', to something like bias based delusions.
This is about the time Nietzsche famously proclaimed that 'God is dead'. But that was not the end of the quote.
He effectively said that god is dead and we have killed him. And that there won't be enough water to wash away the blood.
A few generations later. We saw the rise of communism. And with it, the most bloody, and horrendous mass murders the world has ever seen. Like gigantic meat grinders with scientific precision, millions and millions of people were killed, at the altar of the communist state. All by atheists.
Lenin was an atheist, Mao was an atheist, Stalin was an atheist.
Their deeds make the Hitler look like an amateur.
Coincidence? I don't think so. Morality up to that point rested on the shoulders of the biblical gods. On the assumptions of the bible's literal interpretations.
The stories in these old books served as lessons that survived millennia, captured in stories and distilled by memory.
Bare in mind, many of the stories in these old books are far older than their written form and were at one point passed down through oral tradition.
And so, morality went away and the scientific machine was unleashed without a moral compass.
At least the authoritarian theocracies didn't have the technology to kill millions.
On the flip side. The more morally inclined were left neutered. Without solid ground on which to build the ethics they saw as self-evident. Weakened by the embarrassment that their literal interpretations of the old books had been utterly debunked.
What Jordan Peterson is doing, is trying to rebuild the foundation of ethics. Not from literal interpretations of the Bible, nor from utopian, detached idealization.
But from rationality and evolutionary psychology.
And turns out, that if you start to look at these old stories as powerful dreams, as art that rose to prominence through free market-ish story telling, as pre-scientific anthropomorphised thought, as a kind of fiction that spoke of our own nature and the nature of the world, well, a lot of things start to make a lot more sense.
People are hungry for meaning. Hungry for responsibility. Hungry for a light with which to walk through this dark forest we call the life.
And Peterson is doing amazing work by extracting ideas from these old and popular tales, the archetypes of which are seen all over the world across cultures and time.
I expect his psycho evolutionary analysis of the Bible will start a new generation of thought and will make history.
To not take this work seriously. Or at the least this, to not take this great challenge seriously, is to not care about the epic conflict that engulfs our world.
Now, perhaps you are busy, or perhaps you are fighting the good fight within your own realm and niche. That's fine. Do your thing. We need people to do their thing. We need people to do what they are best at.
But please. Don't get in the way.
Here's a good place to start if you are interested in these ideas. And let’s talk. :)
Brilliant summary and I wholeheartedly agree!
People are hungry for meaning. Hungry for responsibility. Hungry for a light with which to walk through this dark forest we call the life
Exzellent quote. Yours or Peterson as source?
Mine. :) Though inspired by him for sure.
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Great stuff Juan, excited to see you getting more active here :-)
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cool! very interesting thanks!
A couple things.
Lenin, Mao and Stalin may have been atheists. But they didn't get there alone. They were carefully prepared for those positions much like the politicians and dictators are today. They are figureheads or puppets for a much more powerful group that doesn't care for the spotlight.
Can we really take ques on ethics from a guy that doesn't even recognize the state as unethical?
People are hungry for something real because they've been steered so far from it. It's pretty clear the system is molded by the elite and the method they have embraced is called Cultural Marxism. They've clearly taken the institutions. He may have noticed the symptoms but I'm not even sure he's even recognized the larger picture.
I'm not a critic of what he's suggesting, he is pointing out what should be obvious. I give him credit for standing up but I'm so far he's talked some of the talk, there's quite a bit to go before he's identified this is another rabbit hole.
I don't know how much you've listened to his work, but i get the sense that not enough. Because he is strong on both points you brought up. critisizing the state and cultural, marxism. Is he an anarchist? probably not yet, def a minarchist or liberitarian though.
but that's a matter of time in a way tho, lately im disappointed with anarchists. Crypto anarchy is the best thing they have going. Otherwise they are kind of irrelevant.
Peterson is exactly what we need right now. He is a multi-disciplinary genius, and he has his finger on the pulse of popular culture. And he very purposefully chose to frame his critique of social marxism and SJWs and feminists and postmodernism with the beautiful frame of evolutionary science. He is a fisher of men, and his net is the Logos disguised as anarchy. Young men, especially atheist or agnostic, are literally flocking to him.
so true. :)
Thanks for the upvote, juansgalt. Just to let you know, (and I'm not follow-begging) :) my first reason for posting here was to spread the word about Dr. Peterson. I have a few threads started, but only being here 1 month, no traction on them.... I want discussions to take place here, because there are souls to harvest here :)
Check out my blog for a few more articles... we need all the Peterson followers to stay tight on steemit :)
Lol let the soul harvesting begin. xD
Ill check out your blog, Tnx Thomas.
You might be expecting him to be your Messiah. That's not gonna happen. He'll just tell you to clean your bloody room.
Not looking for a Messiah, Just standing up for the good.
I was talking to mikeonfire
gotcha
yeah. the argument here is that the scientific refolution and the death of god spread accross the east taking out their medieval moral structures and turning them to communist nihilism. Hence the soil was fertile for populist authoritarian take over.
Statistically speaking. There's always some dude smart enough and fucked up enough to talk his way to the top.
Who does not think the state is unethical? Peterson? I see him critique the state regularly.
"Their deeds make the Nazis look like amateurs."
You really dont know what an amateur is right. You believe that socialists were more efficient then the german Nazis?
I'm looking at the murder rate. so yea, incompetent economic policy is far more effective at mass slaughter then military means, pre nukes.
Following rules isnt morality. Morality didnt go away with religion. It never existed through it.
morality has always existed, how many people understand or act by it is a separate question and the more I learn the less cynical I become.
Prof. Peterson is going viral for a wide variety of reasons, not the least of which are the ones mentioned in this article. He quickly became one of my favorite people in the world.
I believe the real reason he's going viral is that he managed to articulate extremely complex views that most reasonable people already have and have themselves been unable to argue as convincingly. I loved his Bible study series even as a Buddhist.