Thread by @mhbx

@Title9Jen HI, I'll come back later, prob on the morrow w a better summary w some links for you. I'll do a quick reply for the moment. JP has become something of a phenom. He does make some actual & apparent counter-intuitive to the current wisdom of the culture. This has provoked a

@Title9Jen 2/ quite a backlash. The clip is indicative of the sort of things he gets into. He is self described as a bit pugnatious. He finds a fellow traveler in Jonathan Haidt, but recognizes that Haidt is much more soft spoken, and thus more palatable in general conversation.

@Title9Jen 3/ Their basic field of interest is the academy. JP is a 30+ year professor at Harvard & Toronto. His original claim to fame lie in his refusal to submit to the Canadian Gov dictating what words he HAD to use when addressing Trans people. His argument being there is a large and

@Title9Jen 4/ substantial difference between Free Speech, when you can say what you want without gov censor, and the Gov dictating what speech you will use. He is a principled man. Such firmness is interpreted these days by some, in this case, primarily by the left, as being out of touch.

@Title9Jen 5/ It leads to responses like the one at the head of this. People hear him say things he is not saying. It is easy to see how they can hear what they do. He is not trying to couch his language in a way that will avoid their trip wires. But that is just the point...

@Title9Jen 6/ He expects grown ups to act like it. He expects people with whom he dialogs to pay attention and engage in the issue at hand, and hopefully not from a dogmatic place. But mostly people are triggered bec he won't submit to the norms. Like the issue of gender.

@Title9Jen 7/ Already I can see a long essay is forming. To properly understand JP you have to spend some time with him. He is not "right", though his impact on the society is starting to be palpable. Such that he has expressed concern that it may be getting out of hand & he may have to

@Title9Jen 8/ pull back. His book 12 Rules for Life en.wikipedia.org/wiki/12_Rules_… has become something of a global phenom. This also has some people upset. It also does not curry the gentle favor, but calls for people to be where they are and then get to where they want to go. It’s a message

@Title9Jen 9/ that is easily misunderstood in these days of coddling the children so they rarely get to struggle through failure to understand success.
Boy this is a poor summary.... it is, as JP routinely says, complicated!
Let me pull back and start anew.

@Title9Jen 10/ I first heard JP on a podcast w him and Sam Harris. It was deadly. As was a 2nd one they had. I wrote him off. But some time later through a complex of people that came to be described tongue-in-cheek as "The Intellectual Dark Web I came to deeply respect what he had to say.

@Title9Jen 11/ What I have learned about JP is that he is usually thinking on a different level than his detractors. They want to catch him in a thought that violates the current standards, he wants to elevate to the largest scope of the issue. It creates a lot of unnecessary friction.

@Title9Jen 12/ Take the example of the clip. He actually is saying we have not yet figured out the deep long term impact of the pill. His horizon is "its only been 50years we don't know yet". Not, as he is being pilloried for, "he hates women. and wants to abolish the pill". Or

@Title9Jen 13/ "/the pill destroyed western civilization".
I'll arbitrarily stop here fully aware that this bit did not accomplish what I set out to do. I have never written a summary of JP, and find that to do so well I'll need to think about it more. On a personal note I have found JP

@Title9Jen 14/ a mixed bag. I respect him deeply for how he thinks, and the evident care, I would say Love, even, that he brings to his thinking. Listen to him describe how people who have been affected by his teachings affect him and all the nonsense becomes v.small. Or his moving

@Title9Jen 15/ compassion and empathy he expressed when dealing with a question about suicide.He is fearless about being open & live in integrity and in that strength, he is capable of unusual vulnerability. Here.. I found the clip...See what you think.

@Title9Jen 16/ He understands the hard complexity and difficulties of life at a level of depth that is uncommon. I think it is this quality of going deep below the surface that pesters his detractors. They hear a word that is in the catalog of sanctioned words w only the meaning they

@Title9Jen 17/ ascribe. He does not play on those rules. And so upsets the conversation... As such he is an iconoclast for our time. As such he does not heel to the dictates of what is at the leading edge of society. He particularly despises "The post-modern thinking" where nothing is

@Title9Jen 18/ real. Where all truth is determined solely by your experience. Thus truth is demoted to simply "what is your truth". Another major shibboleth of the University world.
Anyway I'll close w this: When I was a kid, 15ish, I read the new word Gulag Archipelago Solzhenitsyn.

@Title9Jen 19/ It was life changing, even then. Peterson was similarily affected by that book and all that it meant. He is the single person I have heard discuss this book that understood it as I did, was affected by it as I was. And he has gone quite a bit deeper with it.

@Title9Jen 20/ Point? JP says a lot of things, sometimes they trigger people. Mostly he has a significant basis for his opinions. There are entire subjects were I disagree w his conclusions. But I respect them. And can understand how he arrived at them.

@Title9Jen 21/ I'll leave off w this. This interview ended up being another major "highlight" propelling him to popular fame. You may not like it? Let me know. I think you'll at least see the precision he tries to bring to a debate/discussion.