Critiquing Jordan Peterson Save for later Reblogpost

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Dr. Peterson says at the beginning  of his discussion with Stephen Blackwood, that we are at an inflection point. We are trying to decide where to move our culture in the future. We are making tremendous technological progress, but where do we aim our culture?

Fair point, but my point or criticism of his pondering our future is, our culture will be largely Islamic in a few generations:

https://linkyou.blog/islam-europeans-and-evolution-and-patriarchy/

So: What culture, you might ask? In a few decades France and Germany will be Islamic, for instance. Can we say we have the same culture at that point? How will replacing Europeans with people from around the Islamic world affect “our culture”? Will our culture survive? Will it be the same culture? Will it function the way it does now? How much is European originated culture dependent on the same lineage of people…Europeans? What about science? Why did most of it originate in European-origin cultures? Why is that? Perhaps part of the reason that science flourished in Europe, was because of it’s Christian religious background? I don’t think we have honest answers to those questions yet.

So Islam is taking over demographically. But what about native Europeans? Elon Musk gives a convincing answer:

I certainly agree with Professor Peterson that we are at an inflection point, and that it is powered by science and technology. Since we are quickly becoming an Islamic culture, thanks to the immigration policies of our elites, looking forward, it’s fair to ask: What is the general record of Islamic cultures….when it comes to science, for instance? Answer: It is pretty dismal. They have very little technical or social innovation. Why is that? Douglas Murray converses with Gad Saad about all the fiction about “Islamic inventions”

Let’s get the opinion of two men I respect. Two men of science, both much smarter than myself:

Steven Weinberg and Neil DeGrasse Tyson:

Steven Weinberg is an American theoretical physicist and Nobel Laureate co-winner in Physics for his contributions with Abdus Salam and Sheldon Glashow to the unification of the weak force and electromagnetic interaction between elementary particles. Neil DeGrasse Tyson is an American scientist and well known public educator on science.

Steven Weinberg and Neil DeGrasse Tyson discuss in this video, how Islam flourished very briefly as an intellectual and science culture, then 10:04: “The 12 Century kicks in. And then you get the influence of this scholar. Imam Hamid al-Ghazali. And so, out of his work, you get the philosophy that mathematics is the work of the devil. And nothing good can come of that philosophy. That combined with other philosophical codifications of what Islam was and would become, the entire intellectual foundation of Islamic <science and technology> collapsed and it has not recovered since.” 11:25 “We all know that tomorrow’s economy will be founded on innovations in science and technology. And that gets cut short if we lose our civilization.” Professor Weinberg at beginning: “I would say that although as shown by this statement, there is opposition to specific scientific ideas within Western Christianity, there’s not really opposition to the idea of science itself. Only to some of it’s conclusions. I think this is different in the world of Islam. And it’s really quite tragic, because as we know, Islam led the world, in science in the 9th Century….There was a reaction against science in the Islamic world, in the 12th Century, and it was not a reaction against any one particular conclusion of science, as against the very idea of laws of nature…..Islamic science really ended by the end of the 12th Century. And today we have the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt that calls for an end in education in science.”

So in Europe and North America, where most of the future is being invented, science originated in a Christian based culture, with very substantial contributions from Jewish Europeans who founded Christianity and share our Judaeo-Christian ethics…..and science is the key to our future, and we wish to replace much of our population from an alternative culture that is openly hostile to science for the last roughly 1,000 years? Is this a good idea…in the Current Year? Or have we lost our collective minds?

On transferring potential into reality, at 22:48 in the Jordan Peterson video: “And the way that is to be done properly is with truth. And I think all of those ideas are integral to the Judaeo-Christian substrate, of Western Culture. They’re fundamental ideas”

Oh darn, the cat is out of the bag. Turns out we have a Judaeo-Christian culture, much different than an Islamic culture…..so we want to graft an Islamic plant, onto a Judaeo-Christian one, with very different and very deep views on the world.

So, yes Professor Peterson is right about many, many things, too numerous to mention here. And he is silent on the question of demographic transformation in the West, far as I know. And Professor Peterson can’t tackle all questions, I have no idea what his opinion is on this topic, but I’d just like to say the obvious to anyone who has turned on the television set or walked out the front door in the past 20 years: We are radically transforming our population and we need a debate, on the ramifications.

Because Professor Peterson is right: We are at a cultural inflection point, due to technology. Where do we go from here? My question: Will the proper support and use of technology still go on, in an Islamic Europe? An Islamic America? I wonder.

If the Arab world is any indication, our prospects are dismal. Science education is the very bottom tier in all Arab countries, for obvious reasons: the Muslim elites don’t like it. Muslim children in those countries do very, very poorly by world standards. This is public knowledge, easily verified by public records:

https://www.meforum.org/306/why-does-the-muslim-world-lag-in-science

By contrast to Islam,  Christianity may be the very religion that was central to the creation of science. In The Victory of Reason, Professor Rodney Stark lays out his case:

“Many books have been written about the success of the West, analyzing why Europe was able to pull ahead of the rest of the world by the end of the Middle Ages. The most common explanations cite the West’s superior geography, commerce, and technology. Completely overlooked is the fact that faith in reason, rooted in Christianity’s commitment to rational theology, made all these developments possible. Simply put, the conventional wisdom that Western success depended upon overcoming religious barriers to progress is utter nonsense.In The Victory of Reason, Rodney Stark advances a revolutionary, controversial, and long overdue idea: that Christianity and its related institutions are, in fact, directly responsible for the most significant intellectual, political, scientific, and economic breakthroughs of the past millennium. In Stark’s view, what has propelled the West is not the tension between secular and nonsecular society, nor the pitting of science and the humanities against religious belief. Christian theology, Stark asserts, is the very font of reason: While the world’s other great belief systems emphasized mystery, obedience, or introspection, Christianity alone embraced logic and reason as the path toward enlightenment, freedom, and progress. That is what made all the difference”….from Amazon review of Stark’s book.

So European elites are in the midst of replacing the Judaeo-Christian heritage culture, with an Islamic one? The self-hatred of the progressive left, who is pushing this, knows no bounds. Replacing a population of Christians and Jews, whose ancestors invented science and the modern world, with a replacement population from a religion that has been actively hostile to science and reason for about 1,000 years? And people think this will turn out well? One population is completely transferable to another? Is that how it works? Could you take a million white Christians from the American mid-west, stick them in Egypt and all would be well? After trying that for a few years we could bring in Dr. Phil and ask his key question: “How’s that working for you?”….Could you take many millions of Muslims and replace much of the post-Christian population of Europe and all would be well? They will become European in their thinking? I guess we shall find out.

Question for the reader: Do you think I have “Islamophobia”?…..or perhaps, do you think I have what used to be called “A generally broad and reasonably accurate picture of the past?”….or perhaps I have what used to be called “an education?”….what is my “sin”?

To any Muslim out there, how do you feel about free speech? Science?

Dr. Peterson is at war with the radical left, because they are centered on group identity too much. Dr. Peterson wishes to strengthen the individual…..starting with “Clean your room”. There are very good reasons for this: He knows the dangers of group-think, as one of the world’s leading scholars on the far left garbage of communism, he is acutely aware of the dangers of communism and the philosophy of centering identity based on group identity and competing groups within a society. Collectivism and tribalism can go very very badly in humans. I totally agree with Dr. Peterson on this point. As a young person in my church, I met an escaped refugee from Communism, when it still ruled Russia and the U.S.S.R. Mr. Ivan Popov described at our meeting how he had been tortured by communists and thrown in a giant hole in the ground for months…for his religious beliefs. I hate communism too. Post modernism has been following that same collectivist trail for decades at university, dividing up society into economic, racial and sexual tribes that hate each other, indoctrinating young people to hate the West and base their identity on economic groups….like the communists did with the proletariat and bourgeoisie.  That collectivist philosophy is where we get some of inter-sectionality from and the cancer of feminism from. They are pigs eating at the same trough. That’s why men are leaving universities in droves: Feminist radical misandry is rampant on campus as feminists target men….especially white men.

Today, hatred is only morally promoted, if the target of that hatred is white men.

In the Jordan Peterson interview at top of this post, he is at his best, on a tear about feminism and post-modernism, between 1 hour, 3 minutes…..till 1 hour 7 minutes…..

Hatred of men is in the air on campus. In the 60s it was “Peace” and “Love” and “Groovy” and “Make love, not war” on campus. Now it’s “white men are privileged” and “smash the Patriarchy” and “end phallocentric oppressive European culture” and “mansplaining” and “toxic masculinity must go”…..All this hatred of men is rooted in group identity and brainwashing and training young women, to hate young men.

I’m in complete agreement with Professor Peterson on his critique of feminism and post modernism and collectivist communism. I dealt with it on another couple of blog posts:

https://linkyou.blog/answering-sir-roger-scruton-part-1/

https://linkyou.blog/the-broken-psychology-of-feminism/

Feminism has got to go. It’s social cancer. It’s got to go, along with it’s academic cancer twin of post-modernism. The best way to deal with it, is free speech: intense criticism. Post-modernism is ruthless in it’s criticism of the West. I say the academics should be just as critical of post-modernism and feminism: tear them both apart, intellectually, by opening up universities themselves to methods of criticism.

https://linkyou.blog/science-social-stability-and-feminism/

Dr. Peterson is doing an admirable job speaking out on the horrors of communism, feminism, post-modernism. But an even larger danger lurks: Islam.

So because of all this danger to our psyche, that arise from group politics like feminism and post-modernism and communism, Dr. Peterson says we must form our identities based on the sovereignty of the individual….not the group.

Sounds good at first…..in theory.

However, let’s have a closer look:

Individual vs group identity, which is right? Dr. Peterson thinks we can build a future, based on the sovereignty of the individual. I think that’s wrong. Why do I think he is wrong? People only have power and identity, based on groups and group identity.

Group based identity is winning. Why? Humans are tribal. Islam understands that and they embrace that, they push a fanatical group based religion, they subjugate their women and breed at high rates. In European based societies by contrast, feminism dominates women’s thought. Feminism also understands tribalism and the power it can wield. Thanks to feminism, European women want careers and are materialistic, have no respect for their men. Feminism gives European women a group identity based on common female interests….and has transformed our society.

But a broader question must now be asked:

How is this little feminist project turning out for us, as a culture?

Here’s the practical historical problem for Dr. Peterson: European origin societies gave women the vote, then the feminists took over the university. A bunch of social changes, including feminism and a scientific changes, has transformed Western women beyond recognition of what they were socially, a hundred years ago. For instance, they focus on career so much, they don’t even have enough children to keep the population stable. All advanced economies are in severe demographic decline according to Elon Musk in his video “No More Kids”…on you-tube.

By now this is common knowledge.

I cover these changes here:   https://linkyou.blog/feminism-technology-and-evolution/

Now European women breed at very low rates and these same women are the political force welcome new immigrants in, which effectively is replacing themselves and European men…..en masse. So the facts speak for themselves: Because of these trends, much of the advanced West….especially Europe, will be largely Islamic in a few decades. Europeans are going extinct in Europe.

Will this end Western civilization? It might. I fully support modern women participating in the modern world, but unless we want to go extinct, Western women need to have children. They are not doing so and by that choice, inspired by feminism, there is a good likelihood that Western Civilization could go extinct in a few generations.

So I do definitely support women’s participation in the modern world, but I also believe that, based on our current cultural pattern, I’ll say this about feminism: Other than destroying Western Civilization, feminism was a good idea.

Dr. Peterson wants to push a narrative of individualism as the answer to the problems of identity politics.

However, cultures based on individualism can only exist if the people who support that philosophy, if those people actually exist in the future. That is becoming more problematic, looking down the road a few years.

Again: will that cultural replacement work….when it happens, will we still be a stable culture that embraces science and the future?

Meanwhile Dr. Peterson tells European men to think of themselves as individuals, not member of a group. If we listen to him we go extinct. White European men are the only group not allowed to decide if they want to continue to exist or not. After inventing 97% of all science and technology, white men are now being told you are not welcome in modern life, we don’t want you here, you can exit the stage from evolution. A key question in this is, what goes with them, if white males exit the stage? My answer: White European men have created a culture based on the individual…..the very thing Professor Peterson wishes to thrive.

Here are some practical problems about individualism, which Professor Peterson pushes:

Individualism works among some European men, but it does not work among European women, they are collectivists…..as expressed in feminism, with it’s commitment to political power based on genitalia and gender.  My suspicion is that all human females are like this, based on evolution: women evolved as smaller, weaker than men, they get pregnant, they need men for protection and resources. Their view in life is based on this dependency and women evolved a group ethic and collective identity that is stronger than the male sense of being part of a group. Voting patterns world wide reflect this tendency. Perhaps that’s why individualism works better in men than women…especially white Western men. As well as not working as well with women, I contend that individualism does not work well on non-Europeans. Not nearly as well as it works on Europeans. They survive based on group identity…in competition with other groups. I’ve known many Chinese and Japanese and Koreans. They seem to have a much more conformist culture, than do whites.

Dr. Peterson’s message on strengthening the individual is, he is telling non-Europeans: be like us, be European.

That won’t work.

Responsibility as the center of life?….is a core Peterson message. Take up your cross and follow me, Jesus said. Where did Dr. Peterson’s message come from? What are it’s origins? Dr. Peterson grew up in a Christian family, absorbed Christian values and beliefs and part of the ethic he believes in is personal sacrifice. But that is a potential problem in bringing his message to the masses. Practical question: Will the Muslims also sacrifice?…for the good of others?…for Christians? Will women sacrifice?….for the good of men? It seems to me the Christian ideal of offering up your life in sacrifice is a fine ideal….in theory. But something has to be gained from that sacrifice. Pure sacrifice with no payoff just doesn’t work. That is the flaw in Peterson’s logic: men are to sacrifice, but in a Peterson’s universe feminism still exist and men are to sacrifice, nothing in male female relations is repaired, men will still be treated as garbage. Be responsible? Yes, for sure. It gives your life meaning, to set against the suffering that life will give to you. those are core Peterson messages and they are all true and noble. But these are thoroughly Christian ideals sold, without the Christ. Sacrifice of that kind is far easier to engender in people, if they believe in God….and Dr. Peterson is not in the marketing of religion. Nor is Dr. Peterson selling faith. He is selling the psychology of Christianity, without the Christ, with vague references to “transcendence”. Dr. Peterson is selling an atheistic Christianity. That will never hold, long term. You can’t build a culture around that. It’s like having a pot of mostly water, throwing a few vegetables in it, then calling it soup.

And Muslims will not embrace ideas pulled right out of the Bible. Maybe that’s why so few Muslims show up at his events.

Then there is the problem of women. They don’t show up, either. I’m not picking on women, when I say this. I suspect the reason is, life treats women differently than men, based on biology. If you are a woman, nature itself makes you a woman. There is far less need to tell women to mature, than men, because women are the center of life. Things like pregnancy happen to women, as they are the center of life. Women evolved to sacrifice for their children. They don’t need lessons in responsible sacrifice. Men do.

Men do because men are additions to women, who are the center of family, of life. Nature is about women, in mammalian evolution. Men need to be told to grow up, be responsible, to sacrifice…..for women. Kind of tough to do when you get crapped on daily for your “toxic masculinity” and are told you are the source of every evil in the world. It’s sort of like spitting in someone’s face and them asking you to loan a hundred dollars, and would they drop around the house and mow the lawn? So Dr. Peterson’s message is really mostly about men, and European based men of Christian origin. His philosophy doesn’t cover half the human population, which are female, nor non-whites for the most part, who don’t find his message appealing. It is, dare say, a message embedded in post-Christian European intellectual male culture….and solidly rooted in the male need to sacrifice when women have children in a committed relationship. Sounds like he’s trying to revive The Patriarchy and male sacrifice. Will that work?

So now Dr. Peterson tells European men to be individuals, not collectivists, as part of a group. What are the practical effects of this advice? Individuals on their own are weak. He is in effect telling them to be weak, give up and lose and be subsumed and defeated by other groups. I saw a video of an interview with people who left a Dr. Peterson lecture in Vancouver. The people leaving the lecture noted:

-the audience was almost entirely people of European background

-only a tiny number of Chinese, Japanese, Korean or people of ethnic background who were clearly not European

-most of the people who were there were men

-most of the people who were there were European men

I understand why Dr. Peterson’s message is found to be so appealing, to so many. Many many parts of his message are appealing and I’m only picking on one part, I don’t like. But his error, while singular, is a fundamental flaw that undercuts the whole message. But I’m not saying the message won’t work. I’m saying the message won’t work very long, in our current world. But in a theoretical political world we could imagine, where there is no feminism and no immigration from the Third World, no Islam, his message would make perfect sense. That world actually existed in the 1950s….but not now. In the current world, a world where Islam is taking over, his message of individualism makes no sense, if there is no caveat installed on that message. It’s a message of defeat. He is telling men of European background to be individuals…which renders them weak, defenseless and isolated. Don’t protect your interests, is the message. Everyone else…feminists and Islamist’s…are forming groups, to promote their interests…while Islam takes over, genetically. He actually thinks this pattern will work?

It’s like organizing a soccer match along these rules: one team can only use their feet to kick forward the ball. The other team can kick the ball, or throw it from person to person, with their hands.

No it won’t work. Men need to organize to protect their interests, like everyone else. If everyone is playing identity politics, we must too, or we will lose.

I talked about a caveat a minute ago. A rider, to add to Dr. Peterson’s view on the individual, to make them make more sense.

Here it is:

Dr. Peterson would say: Think like an individual, as your primary focus, not as a member of a group.

My modification of Dr. Peterson’s message: Think like an individual, act within a group.

Do both.

Humans are tribal, let’s face it. Nothing we can do about it. That’s why most of the money is held by smartly designed groups called “corporations”. This came out of our evolution, so we may as well take advantage of it. I cover that here, in this blog:

https://linkyou.blog/capitalism-2-0/

Find a cause you believe in and dedicate yourself to it, working with others….even if that cause is individualism.

….I would be perfectly happy to give up my views, if it can be shown that all the other groups in society are suddenly disbanding, not pursuing their collective interests. We all know that won’t happen.

Individualism on it’s own, without acting within a group, won’t work. If there were no immigration, no other competing cultures coming in, to European origin societies, or if the rate of immigration was very low, then assimilation into our culture might transform people from other cultures, into individualists…..like we are. It seems to me, individualism mostly works on white men. So I think Professor Peterson is actually setting white males up for a fall. Be weak, don’t form a herd, don’t look after your interests, and go clean your room…..

My view: you just be an isolated individual? You’re gonna be eaten.

Don’t be lunch!

Last word to Sam Harris: