You've clearly put more thought into his words than he did. The guy basically had to admit to knowing nothing about Marxism in his debate with Slavoj Zizek, nor could he give a single example of one of these post-modern cultural Marxist that have apparently taken over higher learning. Not to mention post-modernism and Marxism are essentially mutually exclusive.
This is a really insightful post. Thank you.
In the sense that liberalism is an entirely separate ideology, I guess that's true. In the sense that he thinks leftists want to limit people's freedoms, let's just say that he's a hypocrite and leave it at that.
Which aspects exactly. As far as I've seen he's right when he says gender has only a small part to play in the pay gap. I think most people know that by now though?
The economists don't. The following is a decent overview on the topic, including some discussion on methodology and how not to do things.
I'll take time to read this. My opinion is that straight up sexism only explains part of the wage gap, there's so many other reasons that go into creating the gap.
Top post.
I'm sure all that's true, but again, it doesn't really matter whether they're formally conflicting to a person versed in ideology and philosphy. That doesn't mean that strong elements from them can't coexist as a cultural construct in people's minds on a large scale.
Thanks, great post. There are so many reasons to be skeptical of "Cultural Marxism". One which hit hard at home was when the far-right terrorist of the 22 July attacks specifically referred to Cultural Marxism as perhaps the reason de'tre in his manifesto. I read the manifesto at the time, and initially found it to be the craziest thing I'd ever read. Of course, later it became clear that he had basically plagiarized almost all of it, but that's neither here nor there.
Which elements, specifically?
I'm not sure I buy that, although I recognise that's what the dictionary definition says. Conservatives also seem very happy to promote the creative destruction of capitalism, the institutional destruction of Brexit etc. Certainly much of conservatism seems driven by the desire to protect what you have, but it's more complicated than that.
Depends on the tax to be honest (and many extremely wealthy people do in fact advocate for higher taxes). But there are other motivations - the motivation to protect your belongings from other people, a reaction to the threat of confiscation by the government, a belief that hard work is deserving of reward, an individualist dislike of being told what to do by others, a philosophical belief that you are the best judge of how to spend your money, a sense that personal freedom extends to money as well as personal behaviour etc. What might look like selfishness might be grounded in other attitudes.
I'd be careful applying modern political labels to the patricians of Ancient Rome, there wasn't really an ideological separation between the various Republican ruling classes.
Even if you ignore the data, common sense and life experience should tell you that gender is an important factor in the pay gap. Women have babies. Men don’t. Time out of work on maternity leave can change a person’s priorities. And people tend to have their first baby at an age when their career is either just about to take off, or flatline.
Both of those are valid statements to make, with context. Stalin, for example, was in many ways a conservative, reigning in and outright going back on many of the cultural experiments of the early Soviet Union. He obviously wasn't a fan of capitalism, but capitalism and conservatism aren't completely bound together. Just take a look at how quickly and easily Russia went from the communist Soviet Union to the ultra-conservative orthodox country we have today.
Sorry I wasn't clear, I agree. I meant straight up sexism. I think men and women have genuinely different outlooks on what they want to do, which isn't explained by nurture alone.
I think so too. Although you can’t ignore the role that society (and upbringing) plays in shaping those outlooks.
yeh it certainly does have an impact. But it’s annoying to me that money is so powerful...as if it’s the end goal of life. There was a study recently that found women were disadvantaged because they weren’t as ambitious as men to get into the top universities. The conclusion was to advise women to be more ambitious! everything seems to be chasing the money, everything is in the context of money earned rather than what men and women actually want to do with their lives.
I actually agree about the equality of opportunity spiel and also that there are more factors to the gender pay gap issue. But I'd disagree on his conclusions that equal opportunity is commonplace, and that sexism is an irrelevant part of the pay gap.
I see that @NotThatSoph has provided a good, in-depth resource on the subject, but I'll give some words of my own.
I agree equal opportunity isn’t there and I think it would be interesting to see what would happen if it was. I’m not saying sexism is irrelevant but I’d hope in it’s purist form it’s not very common.
Ah, good old PZ Myers. I used to read his blog (lol blogs in current year). For some reason I stopped, I seem to recall there was some controversy, but as far as I can tell from his twitter and blog he's still fighting the good cause. He certainly hasn't fallen into the regressive Gamergate-ish trap that many other prominent internet atheists fell into.
Im not arguing sexism doesn’t play a part, I just suspect it’s a small part of the problem. why do we need to eradicate the differences? Is that a good idea?
I wasn't claiming you were, more that Peterson seems to claim sexism is irrelevant.
I'm not really familiar with him to be honest, just couldn't find the original peterson interview!
Quality post. I'm sorry you missed the point. Are you really saying that people can't internalize elements from seemingly contradictory ideologies?
perfect example of why 'debating" any conservative is just a waste of time.
Which elements, in particular?
third time's a charm...which elements, in particular?
I'd say the most normal/prominent ones are deconstructionism of eatablished "truths" based in tradition (in a loose sense, not strictly what Derrida specifically wrote on) and the zero sum thinking that is often extrapolated from Marxism, rightly or wrongly so.
So, do you really believe it's impossible to have contradicting views of that sort? I mean, since you saw it fit to mock my earlier post stating that.
"deconstructionism of eatablished "truths" based in tradition" is such a board concept that it could be applied to almost anything. Liberalism was at one time a deconstructist view of established "truths, Christianity as well(Does that make Peterson a postmodernist!!!) So I'm not sure why this should be used to link postmodernism and Marxism.
People can have contradicting views on all sorts of things but that alone isn't enough to say "postmodern Marxism" is a real thing. Maybe you can answer the question Peterson couldn't which is where are these postmodern Marxists ? Just name a couple.
Is this the spiritual spin off to the my dad wrote a porno podcast?
Oh shit, I need to check that out
That whole group of people that seemed to have formed a club are all as smart as they are dumb.
Agree that Peterson is a massive ideologue though I don't think he can bring himself to admit it. To himself. Actually I see everything that is beyond his narrow field of true expertize, his theorizing about pretty much everything mumbo jumbo, as him vomiting his neuroses upon the world under many different pretenses from self-help to valiantly fighting the culture war against cultural marxists. He dresses this up in science and logic but its deeply skewed as you say. Ultimately I just see a guy that is very unhappy, well in truth he is clinically depressed, and its his way of trying to deal with this and other deep rooted frustrations. There is a lot of insecurity and bigotry in there, the same such bigotry he says he is fighting against, though he has at times admitted that he knows deep down he is not a good guy. I think he thinks himself very brave for a) admitting this, and b) fighting against himself. When really in actuality I believe he just repackages his bigotry and fear into something that doesn't betray his self determined moral compass, using "studies" and Jungian woowoo as his whipping boys.
Of course not. KirkDuyt's post was obviously facetious, although playing on a serious theme, and I agree with much of what he wrote later on.
Isn't that a pretty postmodern characterization of Marx' materialism?
Its a load of bollox really from a very misguided man.
Very very nicely put.
Agree. After the fact
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