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Donald J. Robertson

@DonJRobertson

Jun 29, 2023

Last comment about Jordan Peterson, just because I tend to respond to things in my field that are trending on Twitter. (Otherwise nobody new ever reads what you're writing here!)

I really notice that the way his fans talk about him has changed dramatically over time. When he first appeared they would make a big deal out of how he was an "expert" and a prof. of clinical psychology, although he seldom actually wrote about clinical psychology per se.

He would cite scientific studies, which critics found tenuously related to the conclusions he drew from them. (Lobsters anyone?) And his fans would go on about how he allegedly backed up everything he said up with science and logic. (He didn't.)

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Donald J. Robertson

@DonJRobertson

Mar 17, 2023

Andrew Tate on Stoicism. Just watched a 5 min YouTube video where Andrew Tate is interviewed about Stoicism. I might write a short article about this because, well, it neatly encapsulates an extremely common and very insidious misconception about Stoic philosophy.

Basically, he claims to be into Stoicism and that what he learned from it is that feelings, such as intense rage, are feedback, and that they should be channelled into constructive activities like exercise. That's a very common piece of self-improvement advice found online.

Although it sounds, at first glance, like good advice to many people, it's not what Stoic philosophy teaches, and really runs totally contrary to the essence of Stoicism. IMHO, it's also quite bad psychological advice, for the simple reason that I'll explain below.

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Donald J. Robertson

@DonJRobertson

Mar 5, 2023

Jordan Peterson preaches a self-improvement doctrine of extreme personal responsibility, clean your room, etc, but he also implicitly encourages his fans to disown responsibility for their negative emotions by blaming them on other people rather than their own underlying beliefs.

It seems very obvious to me that his whole schtick encourages a victim mentality, which seems in total contradiction to what he claims to be teaching. There's virtually no reference, e.g., to the role of beliefs in shaping emotions like anger.

I think that's why, surprisingly, he avoids any mention of cognitive therapy, the leading evidence-based form of psychotherapy, despite being a former professor of clinical psychology himself, and writing extensively about self-help for confidence, anxiety, depression, etc.

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Donald J. Robertson

@DonJRobertson

Mar 5, 2023

People think that Stoicism is joyless but they're wrong. They're confusing the Greek philosophy called Stoicism with the modern concept of (lowercase) "stoicism", the unemotional coping style. Marcus Aurelius describes the following three sources of happiness in Stoicism...

1. The primary source of happiness (positive emotion) in Stoic philosophy comes from contemplation of our supreme good, which is the concept of moral wisdom or virtue itself, and our capacity for virtue; by clarifying our own values, for instance, we experience deeper happiness.

2. We likewise experience happiness by learning to appreciate the capacity for wisdom and virtue in other people, despite their imperfections, which Marcus Aurelius demonstrates at length in Book One of The Meditations.

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Donald J. Robertson

@DonJRobertson

Mar 4, 2023

Russell Brand is a good example of precisely what Socrates warned us against. He said that the Sophists gave long speeches, refused to let anyone interrupt them or ask questions, changed the subject, launched into prepared speeches, etc., to avoid justifying their claims.

He frequently raises his voice and shouts over the top of people who are trying to question him or disagree with him, makes dubious assertions, and then goes off at tangents to avoid answering questions about them, worse, actually than most politicians.

I think regardless of what the guy is saying, it's pretty easy to show that he's using rhetoric in a way that resembles the ancient Sophists, e.g., it's an objective fact that he often talks over other people, and changes the subject to avoid questions, etc.

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Donald J. Robertson

@DonJRobertson

Mar 3, 2023

Q: Would you consider it hypocritical for someone to pay a ghostwriter to write a self-help book on #Stoicism, so they can pretend they wrote it themselves and publish it under their own name?

I think I've been asked about this maybe three times now. It's not something I would ever agree to do personally. I don't think it's a big deal for a celebrity to have their memoirs ghostwritten but Stoic philosophy is an ethical system that is supposed to value truth.

I was asked once to write Stoic content for a famous influencer, which they wanted to pass off as their own pearls of wisdom. I declined. It just seemed much too insincere on their part to be claiming to teach principles of a philosophy they didn't care about enough to even read.

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