[api]

> He probably believes that marriage and motherhood are best for most women.

I don’t want to go on a quote hunt. I’ve seen some. But this is the crux of it.

My wife is a stay at home mom. It’s something she’s wanted to do since we were dating. I’m supportive of it, and she’s become kind of the pillar of the whole extended family.

That was her choice. It’s what she wanted. Get it?

It wasn’t my choice. I’d have supported her if she wanted a career. I supported her giving it a try but it wasn’t for her.

It’s definitely not some windbag public intellectual’s choice, or the government’s. The thing you quoted sounds innocuous until a politician gets ahold of it. Then we find out what it really means.

I guess the most damning thing to me is that so many incel and Tate types like him. By its fruit shall it be known. Marxism sounds liberating but if that’s true then why does every Marxist nation turn into a dictatorship or a mafia state?

A lot of things Marx said sound innocuous until politicians and men with guns get hold of them. Then you find out what they really mean.

Any time someone says they know what other people should do with their lives and they have some grand theory of history full of great meaning and purpose all ready to slot people into their appropriate roles, run away.

[hollerith]

I've never heard Peterson (or his wife, who also holds the opinion that most women are better off if they choose motherhood) say that any of the societal changes, e.g., access to contraception and abortion, e.g., broad acceptance of women in the workplace, should be rolled back.

I never heard him or his wife say anything that might suggest that the opinion is anything other advice to women. (And when has Marx or Lenin ever said anything that can be interpreted as nothing more than advice to any individual -- other than the advice to join the collective effort to overthrow the capitalist class?)

Peterson is not shy about criticizing some of the pronouncement of feminists, e.g., "believe all women". He will point out that 1 or 2% of women are sociopaths just like 1 or 2% of men are sociopaths and that if you give sociopaths the opportunity to profit from lying, they will take the opportunity (and a depressingly large fraction of them will take the opportunity even if the only "profit" to be had is the pleasure of ruining someone's life or reputation).

[api]

Have you ever heard them criticize authoritarian conservatives who do believe womens' rights should be rolled back?

Or are they just not saying the quiet part out loud?

Intellectuals say should, which politicians and activists turn into must when people don't listen. That's usually the progression. Marx didn't say to put people into gulags. People were put into gulags when Marxism didn't work as expected. The ideology can't be wrong, so if people aren't doing it well enough they need "encouragement." If the square peg doesn't fit in the round hole, you have to use a hammer.

I'm pretty equal opportunity here. I am deeply skeptical and suspicious of anyone, right left or otherwise, who claims to have a proscriptive Grand Theory of how human beings ought to live. Such ideas usually end up having body counts.

BTW the fact that Peterson has women echoing and support his ideas doesn't mean much. There's plenty of men who subscribe to authoritarian ideologies that involve forcing other men to do things. It's no different.

[hollerith]

I recall more than one time when he complained about the authoritarian impulse in bureaucrats and officials though none in which he complains about conservative officials specifically. He says that everyone must constantly exercise vigilance against this authoritarian impulse.

He complained that he is required (by his commitment to speak in front of audiences) to regularly go through airports because he gets icked out by the authoritarian vibe. He says he tries to stay at mom-and-pop hotels because hotels run by corporations give an authoritarian or at least bureaucratic vibe strong enough to ick him out sometimes.