Jordan Peterson: Return of the The Age of Endarkenment

When religion was under siege in the enlightenment Kant saved it from extinction with his anfractious philosophical circumlocutions setting in train the hideoous ratiocinations of lesser Kantians from Schopenhaur Kierkergard Nietzche and the fruitcake company of Post Modernists to the present day no platforming anti free speech multiculturalist quasi fascist political correctness crowd.

Now they have a new champion in Jordan Peterson the youtube poster boy of alienated males  who ostensibly opposed to them is reintroducing a whole new dark age revival under the guise of a psychological analysis of mythical archetypes with a plethora of Jungisms and sociological tropes thrown in for good measure.

A full-on defense and promotion of religion faith and mysticism would not get too far in an age where only 5% of British people even go to church so a novel approach was required. How to present religion faith and mysticism in an interesting unthreatening non-doctrinal non preachifying way without attracting the ire of the new atheists -how effectively to spread the word by flying under false colours of neutral investigation, in the guise of an objective psychological enquiry into the religious mythos.

Thus it was that Jordan Peterson has achieved the seemingly impossible of almost single handedly bringing religion back from the dead and presenting it as a perfect template for understanding modern times,a valid guide and and aid to navigating the perils of the human existential plight.

Herein lies the rub for the very notion that Peterson propounds -that man is born into an existential dilemna and haunted by malevolence at every turn is nothing but an asertion built on sand, on the shaky shot to pieces and discredited and exploded biblical theory of original sin,the Fall, man as a cursed being wandering around beyond the firmly closed gates of Eden,buffeted by the cold winds of circumstance and biologically conditioned moreover to falter and fail through the matrix of his wretched life unless armed with the super consciousness of self awareness that will set him free which itself is a thinly veiled modernised version of religious redemption and salvation through good works.

Not since Kant himself has someone attempted to revive religious faith through such devious underhanded means and one can only marvel at the genius of the execution,the flair and aplomb involved in the operation - the sheer bare faced audacity of such chicanery.

It is hardly surprising that Jordon Peterson has become the champion of the religious right and the right in general with his anti feminist anti political correctness left positioning but those who believe in the smaller limited state should be extremely wary indeed of his solution to our present day ills if it leads straight back into the dark age mysticism from which the human race has only in such recent history so triumphantly and comprehensively extricated itself.

Dumbass Reshuffle

A government cabinet hired on the criteria of race,ethnicity gender and age is something so profoundly immoral and disturbing that it should be unequivocally condemned. The tired diversity meme was used as justification but as the word is entirely devoid of meaning the only response can be diversity of what? The answer being of course diversity of the non essential meaningless categories of race ethnicity age and gender -the ugly manifestation of the anti conceptual mentality writ large.

It is immoral in the extreme to judge someone by such perceptual criteria as race ethnicity gender and age, let alone apply such empty criteria when hiring them -it is the height of such anti intellectualism and primitive,irrationalism that any political party that behaves in such a way has forfeited the right to any trust or respect of the public and should be treated with the contempt it so richly deserves.

The Madness of Jordan Peterson

He is a bit of a Youtube phenemonon with a large folowing,very prolific and oftentimes engaging but the social psychologist has a metaphysic and epistemology from hell which frequently manifests itself in mad extreme manifestations of near stream of conciousness psychobabble and gibberish delivered in a manic semi demented fashion quite alarming to behold.

Now this is a problem for the reason that most of his talks are lectures given to a class of young impressionable students and here I think there is a definite breach of academic standards and violation of codes of conduct and ethics for he makes no attempt to present both sides of any issue and  is engaged in naked outright academic activism and tendentiousness.

He majors in Jungian mysticism,forever alluding to archetypes and expressed in pseudo academic intellectual manner designed it would seem to bamboozle his listeners rather than to enlighten them.

Arbitrary unsubstantiated assertions trip from his tongue with rapid fire alacrity making it hard for the untutored mind to detect the logical flaws,apriori leaps of reason false assumptions and bizarre conclusions arrived at all at breakneck speed.

Peterson makes much of his contempt for the post modernist movement which is ironic since most of his conclusions are congruent with it and he is fond of name checking some of the worst suspects of that movement such as Nietzche who prefigured it and Piaget whose ambition we are told was to reconcile faith and science which is telling for Peterson's whole schtick appears to be just that a convoluted pretzelogical foray into circle squaring neatly disguised as an examination of mythical archetypes drawing heavily on biblical stories as templated for the human existential dilemna.

There is much dishonesty in this,much disengenuousness and when confronted directly with the question do you believe in God Peterson is unable to answer it prefering evasion instead,  declaring that such a question is designed to pigeonhole him.

There is much that is good and beneficial for the viewer in many of his videos not least his ability to instruct the lost and damaged bringing them back to individual responsibily and it is undoubtedly the case that his psychologicial insights and observations can at times be mesmerisingly brilliant and elucidating, liberating many young people from the spiral of depression,negative thoughts and destructive behaviours that can potentially ruin lives and blight aspirations and for this he is to be unreservedly commended.

Oh but the metaphysics and epistemology  are simply appalling! The biological determinism,the denial of free will implicit in his harping on the subcultural norms of ancient non civilisations,his drawing on the lives of semi barbarian peoples of the middle and dark ages and further back still -as if such monsters could possibly be a template for understanding modern man in any way shape or form - simply preposterous.

What of any value can possible be learned from such pre renaissance,enlightenment pro reason and scientific cultures,why dwell on their subhuman behaviours as if anything could possibly be extrapolated from them to shape and inform and throw any light whatoever on the modern mind with its sophistication and adherence for the most part, to reason and logic over mysticism and brute force? Blank-out.

The question is why go to such elaborate lengths to dwell on the pre renaissance cultures to emphasise the nihilistic Nietzchean view of the human dilemna and then attempt to transcend and negate  it all with positive thinking,self help inspirational talks? The setting up of a straw man followed by a Dale Carnegie pep talk -all very odd bizarre and contradictory.