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by theoreticalmal 17 days ago
“Treat yourself like someone you are responsible for helping” - Jordan Peterson
2 comments

Nice basic advice but ironic coming from him
I like to think of pre-12 Rules Peterson and post-12 Rules Peterson as two separate people.

Some mix of the fame, coordinated bad-faith campaigns against him and the Benzos broke the man's brain.

But you go back to his lecture series and TV show appearances from 2017 and prior and the man is lucid and insightful.

Broken clocks and all.
There's no shortage of other clocks to cite.
That said somewhat the same thing? I despise the guy as much as the next person, but it's a useful thing to think about, regardless. Who cares who said it?
I wish he hadn't said that ! :-)
He has said a lot f things I agree with, and also some stuff that seems intellectually and morally bananas; particularly around gender and sexuality. There was a point something shifted and he took, imo, a darker turn. Maybe it was his wife's illness, his own addiction challenges, or perhaps he was a victim of his own success and lost too much humility.

Probably a combination of those plus factors we aren't privy to.

I don't really know how to take the measure of a man and probably I'm not qualified to. I don't think he was evil though. People are complicated and not at all black and white.

Addiction, fame, loss, he was early on the anti-woke stuff, which became a major cultural flashpoint, money.

Believe it or not, he was a pretty good academic at one point.

In the audiobooks of 12 rules (which he narrated himself) there are some patches that are pretty touching and heartfelt.

I saw him in an interview with channel 4 news in the UK where the reporter boorishly tried to trap him constantly, to no avail. But just as you think, 'this is a smart guy', he begins to get incredibly smug and totally insufferable. The guy is a bit of an enigma. Mixed in with the rubbish there are some interesting ideas...