@@ItalianStallionBDM Hitchens is good when it comes to religion, the problem they bring up with Hitchens is his war mongering. Though they did tend to misrepresent his history in doing so, they brought to light the fact that he used his intellect and charm for the wrong reason. This is not to equate Hitchens with the atrocity that is Jordan Peterson, but simply relaying why people can latch onto an intellectual who clearly is wrong about a particular subject.
Hitchens sells for his wit, charm, humour, eloquence, writing talent, wisdom, political/history expertise, brilliance with banter and scathing public put-downs. Peterson sells for some other reasons, I assume.
Peterson sells because his constant word salad makes him sound intelligent to young kids. those young kids also love to validate themselves by listening to adults tell them what they want to hear, which happens to be libertarian-esque philosophy. it also makes them feel good to hear people claiming that colleges and universities are "dominated by Marxists with a far leftist agenda"
@@Reprodestruxion Vidal and Hitchens may well have suffered from the same disorder, Wernicke Korsakoff syndrome. It is the result of a life time of excessive alcohol abuse. It explains, in part, Hitchens' support for the 2nd Iraq war, his Islamophobia and (for example) Vidal's falling in love with Timothy McVeigh. This is a theory (however far-fetched) that I concocted to alleviate my disappointment with the late in life decisions of Hitchens. Gore was somewhat over-rated, due to being an American dissident with charisma and from an establishment family. A very rare bird.
Hitchen was a drunk neocon Trotskiat who made a case for war in the Middle East in support of the Israeli policies. He was an atheist who later in life found out his mother was a jew so he became the best budy for the US military industrial complex and the Christian Zionists. Watch his debate with George Galloway. He becomes so drunk and walks off the stage.
I was a huge Hitchens fan when he was alive. I still appreciate his writing style and quick wit in conversation, even if his views on Iraq and a few other issues only seem more ridiculous as time goes on.
I honestly don't even think his take on Iraq was that out-there. Hitchens actually travelled to Iraq. He saw the Ba'ath regime in action and his point I think was: there was going to be a post-Ba'ath Iraq one way or another, and it never was going to be pretty. No matter what the real intentions of the US were, toppling Hussain wasn't the bad part. I still find it unconvincing when people say the US "destabilized" the region... Insinuating a 1984-style fascist state was in any way stable. The way it was handled amounted to a war crime, but I am personally not convinced that the region would be in better shape if the Ba'ath party still held power today.
@@IsawUupThere The problem is that Hitchens took a subject that was happening around the world then just applied it to Iraq. Iraq is not a unique scenario, and in fact is comparable to many US allies in how awful their governments are.
@@IsawUupThere > _Insinuating a 1984-style fascist state was in any way stable._ It was. Here's one way: it wasn't ravaged by sectarian violence and it didn't have large portions of it carved out to form a Salafi fundamentalst, terrorist quasi-state.
The amount of ill feeling people give toward Christopher Hitchens the journalist is slightly bizarre, since he clearly had no military power and could not wave a war fan about, ordering troops from numerous countries where to engage the opposition. To read so many personal attacks on his character for this issue seems unusual, and from so many people who would otherwise be sympathetic to Lenin and Trotsky's actions (orators with actual military power). I forget, are we saying Trotsky was a good or bad Marxist in this century?
Hitchens was a marxist but more neocon towards the end of his life with foreign policy. In fact in the interview he gave for newsnight shortly before his death he reiterated his marxist views.
@@MrMjdc If only he had the same take on Iraq as he did on Vietnam. His disdain for religion is what ultimately made him so hawkish I believe, on top of the Johnny Walker black.
Peterson actually does a fine job representing psychiatric literature. His political and religious views are less compelling, but he's worth paying attention to on the merit of his psychiatric insights alone. So to accuse him of not being well read purely on the basis of your disagreements with his politics... Well, that's just some ugly, tribalistic posturing. It's possible to disagree with someone's politics without caricaturing them as a demon.
@@sterlingveil He's not actually famous for his representations of psychiatric literature though. He's quite clearly not well read on the stuff that he earned his fame bloviating about - Marxism, postmodernism and politics in general.
@@Junebug89 He's not actually famous for his representations of psychiatric literature though. Sure he is. It's just that the (mis)labeling of cultural marxism that triggers you, and that's what you focus on. His social critiques also have merit, though. Even though I disagree with him apparently from an economic view.
Jordan Peterson’a emotionality has come about as a result of some big troubles in his personal life. You can find out more with some searches. It involves addiction, cancer, family dying all around him.
Fat dude red tshirt admits to having disdain for atheism and likely never had good pussy in his life. I can understand why the swagger and intellect Hitch had rubs him wrong.
"Forgotten were the elementary rules of logic, that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence and that what can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence." (Hitchens)
Paxsali Hitchens was vastly overrated. The reasons given by the guy in the clip sound plausible, e.g he sounded smart and he was quick witted. As for real substance, he was very limited and shallow. He was a really good crowd pleaser, his brother Peter is “less fun”, but more level headed in his analysis.
Naveed Munir - Peter Hitchens is a far right, pro-brexit, anti-immigration, anti-trans, anti-gay, anti-all-things-“eViL mOnOlItHiC lEfT”, anti-vaccine, anti-masker. The guy is a kook. Just because he sounds more boring doesn’t mean he’s more level headed, it’s performative thoughtfulness to make it seem like his bigotries are thought-out and valid.
it's impossible to say who or what Hitchens would support or like if he should've lived, but then again I guess we can assume some things but otherwise it's unclear. One thing I hated was this thread on youtube comments where they said if he would've lived he would've supported Trump. WTF!
Hitch thought the Kurds were finally gonna get justice so he "hitched" his wagon to the war. If he were alive today I hope he would recognize his delusion.
I’m not sure he’d ever admit he was wrong on the matter, but I do think if he were alive he’d be utterly defeated, depressed, and furious at the current state of affairs. It seems as though everything he actively fought against has grown much worse over the last decade. He made a serious error supporting Bush and the invasion, but the principles that drove him to that were honourable. He just became a little delusional late in life, almost like he knew he didn’t have much time left and wanted desperately to get shit done, and the quickest route to that (in theory) was to grab the ring of power and smash his enemies with the full weight of the US military.
3:21 Peterson's ability to speak compellingly to audiences is something that was earlier remarked on by a Canadian professor, academic and colleague of Peterson - when they were last on good terms, anyway. This is the same professor who unilaterally hired him at Toronto, despite the entire panel interviewing him being against the decision and believing Peterson was unfit for the post because "an eccentric". This professor later regretted this decision during the Bill C-16 saga. Peterson informed him, if I recall correctly, that he studied - over the course of several years - the speeches of fascist leaders and despots, incl. Hitler, trying to comprehend what was in their personality that gave them the power to tap into the will of people as they did and get them to do their bidding. In the same part of that article, Peterson confessed that he had ambitions to start a church (not for the reasons you'd expect though). Post edit: in retrospect, this was also noted by a former student of his - shortly after he was hired at Toronto. This same student confided in the professor above that though compelling in his command of audiences, Peterson had an unsettling habit of often injecting opinion in his lecturers and stating it as if it were fact.
@@unitedfools3493 I'd encourage you to study his arguments more carefully, during his debates and writings on the subject the possession of WMDs played second fiddle to the crimes against humanity, the environment and the suffering of the Iraqi people, particularly the Kurds. All of which was demonstrably true, regardless of it being presented by any established public figure.
Edward Wilson we supported many of Saddam crimes and in 2003 we didn’t go in there on the premise of establishing democracy but claimed that he has WMD and 9/11 connections
@@umar1083 were not talking about the government arguments though, but those put forward by Hitchen's which you either choose to be ignoring out of convenience or ignorance. It is also worth pointing out that the US government had explicitly stated that it wanted regime change in Iraq for years prior to the invasion and that Toni Blair, the British prime minister at the time, made Saddam's rule the central issue in his 2003 speach to the house of commons and had been arguing it since the late 90's. And I think it's also worth mentioning that the correction of a mistake, in this case to support Saddam, is something that should be applauded rather than used as a cheap point trying to paint all those who supported the war as hypocrites.
It’s so weird that fans of hitchens now talk about him like some sort of mystical superhero. I thought he taught you against wish-thinking? Lol I’m sure he would’ve personally owned everyone you don’t like dude
I never really hated Peterson. I honestly just find him irrelevant, yet overly popular. The simple truth of the matter is that his bread and butter is talking of surface level issues with a large amount of generic and semi sensible points. At its most inert, it is talking of hygiene and drive, like a self help guru; at his most ridiculous, he speaks on politiics, symbology, or religion in the most inconsistent and senseless way possible. There is no facts, just a haphazard ideal. So it is hard to critique when there is not enough substance to bring up. Both Brooks and Burgis were right to equate it to 'dreams.' When he does bring in substance, it is less factual, and more hypothetical in nature. These points can be broken and corrected, but he usually makes more of these mistakes in interviews and he ends up shutting down and break off rather than doubling down. It's a defense mechanism, but it somehow embarrasses him slightly less; that is, until he starts asserting that he is being attacked, and then it's zero-sum in term of debate.
There's a Jungian thread behind everything Peterson believes. That's the root of the problem. Literally everything related to Jung is ethereal and nebulous, almost bordering on religiosity when taken in the context of modern psychological knowledge. Peterson is old school and outdated, even in his own field.
9:00 I've made this observation myself: if dudes are left to themselves for too long, no matter the time or place, they will start obsessing over womens clothes until they convince themselves that the future of civilization and morality itself hang by a pair of panties.
@@ttheway2life157 The over use of jargon can obscure the point. Brooks can come across as arrogant. It's obvious that he was a huge admirer of Christopher Hitchens. But Michael does not have the charisma to pull it off. I think that as he gets older he might get less obnoxious. I have no strong objections to his politics, only his rhetorical tactics alienate many people who might otherwise be enlightened. He would do well to observe Sam Seder and show him more respect.
@@Alsatiagent to be honest arrogance could be confidence in what you are saying. we like to hide our intelligence and the actually stupid people are the loudest.
@@Alsatiagent Nah, Seder exists, we don't need another one. For what it's worth, I found Majority Report first, but never bothered subscribing - he felt incredibly arrogant and confrontative to me. The Michael Brooks Show, however, I'm subscribed to. Among US news/political commentators, I find him to be the only (!) conscientious and thus serious leftist. (I'm not counting his frequent guest Richard Wolff, since I consider him a news/economics commentator in his broadcasting)
Interesting takes from the whole team. I have frequently thought that it would have been incredibly helpful to have had Hitchens contributions at this strange and crucial time, but the comments here have made me rethink this completely. You are right that in his final years, he had stopped having many of the useful and important debates that advanced left positions, and maybe he would have risen to the moment presented by Corbyn, Podemos, Bernie etc, but it's not a given. I certainly think Peterson would have been exposed by Hitchens and wouldn't have been as influential as he has been.
Hitchens was a genius. Peterson is also smart. When he sticks to discussing psychology he's actually quite good. He fumbles and falls on his face when he starts talking about religion, post modernism and gender pronouns. All his rationality then flies out the window, but it was great for him financially. He found out how to monetize right wing SJWs.
Who famously didn't read any Marx until he had a career built on bashing him and his work. Too late to change his mind when he has millions of rabid fans lapping up what he's pissing out.
There’s nothing inherently wrong with atheism as a position, and characters like Harris and the late Hitchens (warmongering, Islamophobia) shouldn’t have a monopoly on the label. I would agree that dunking on the naïveté of religious people, while entertaining, isn’t the most important priority nor is it productive in any way
Comparing that Peterson guy to Hitchens is like comparing Nickleback to Led Zeppelin. Or Dear Abby to Socrates. Rare disagreemen here. Im a huge Majority fan and appreciate the important work you guys do. Respect. But, I found the Peterson / Hitchens comparative segment. weak, and frankly, a bit insulting to both his following, the people he turned on to many important, and here-to-then not widely known topics. And Hitchens himself. Though he assuredly wouldnt rankle over it. If he were able to join this penis-envy for intellectuals segment, your points would have been shredded by with more insight, brilliance, cleverness , mastery of vocabulary, economy of words and deftness then everyone in that room combined could muster. (Actually, Michael Brooks is incredibly good. ) With that awseone Oxford English elocution. Which, after all is a dominant factor for his grateful fans to tune into his well spoken views? Thank you for making me aware of this. Saved me 100$ on my next therapy visit. Ill Patreon it... He provoked millions to learn about Jefferson, Martin Luther King. Thatcher. Reagan..God, The Bible warts and all. I researched his claims. They held up.. And God is still not great. Reagans 8 years still permeate every day of our existence . His debunking myths of history and backing it up with evidence..Not to mention, his class at debates. Yes. Wrong on Iraq, other issues towards the end of his life. As cancer ate away at him. We'll add heartlessness to the segments grievance list. Peterson is a dangerous, lying hack. Horrible speaker. Worse writer. Nice job "Logic" teacher.
Hitchens just lost it with his support of the Iraq war at the end. I'm pretty sure it was a combination of becoming globally famous, his acceptance at certain dinner parties and his old fashioned patriarchal values (famously said that women can't be funny and that he wouldn't want his wife to work) kind of cornering him into this reflexive anti-new left position . Its a shame, really. He was a rhetorical powerhouse with a grasp on the English language that reminds me of Orwell. Peterson just sounds like a two bit shyster to be honest. What surprises me is how so many people seem to have lost their bullshit meters and just accept his rubbish as intellectualism.
ARE you actually comparing these two? Hitchens never pretended to be an expert in anything, except his own experience. Hitchens never even suggested to anyone the "right" way to live. He might have been intentionally provocative, sometimes. He explained his support for the Iraq war almost entirely in terms of his personal attachment to the Kurds.
I don’t think these two are equivalent, even tho Hitchens did have some yikes takes back in his day. Jordan is 95% negative and harmful, Hitchens did some good advocacy
A critic of religion is so important its been a massive part of our history and is still a massive part of our culture all over the world. Its affected humans so much in bad ways for 1000s of years and still manipulated minds and communities today. Its is important to critic religion and to do it in an intellectual way. And people like Hitchens did this especially in America when atheism is so unpopular and especially in the 2000s. Hitchens focused on religion because its one of the most important topics, to say its sad he focused on religion just shows your not interested in the topic but in reality a lot of people do.
Actually the most arrogant statement someone can make is that they were created by a divine being, and that they're going to have eternal happiness because of that.
@Lolo Vanolo Hitchens was pro-Palestine, so please give some evidence. He was a liberal internationalist. The Iraqi Communist Party supported the Iraq War, bot just neocons.
Hitchens wasn't wasting his time attacking religion. If I hadn't been challenged by atheists I wouldn't have gotten into my bible and become an atheist. Before I became an atheist I voted for Mike Huckabee in the 2008 primary. Now I'm voting for Bernie. If I was still a Christian there's no way I would have voted for someone like Bernie.
I think the reason for Peterson’s success goes far beyond rhetoric. Whatever else you think about him, his work is aimed people affected by the disappearance of civic bonds and the rise of mass alienation. Unfortunately, his critics haven’t really responded with a compelling project that gives these people a sense of belonging.
i merely want to add that the first time that i saw Hitchens, i whispered to my mate, ‘is he trying to be Gore Vidal?’ to which he responded, ‘ohmigod, you hit the nail on the head!’ in any case, do look into Gore Vidal (his views on his family)…and :enjoy his *wit* .
Hitchens has more brain power than everyone on this set combined. The idea that he wasted his time be trying to defend the most oppressed women in the world, shows these guys don't give a rat's ass about ppls wellbeing. They are only ideologues that love to hear their own voice.
Oh god no:( Don’t put these two next to each other! Hitchens wasn’t always a neocon idiot arguing against the children’s version of religion.. He was a leftist who spent his life exposing the imperialist tendencies of The West..His books taught me so much about polemics..
It seems odd that Michael Brooks (8:33) would shrug off the actions of the new atheists from 15 years previous, while living on a planet which is still absolutely overrun with the religious on six continents. Brooks mentioned two contemporary world affairs, and yet one of the two is directly related to Christopher Hitchens' writings in later life. As for the relevance of C. Hitchens' work in the past and present: the Americas alone are so religious, the topic of faith affects voter decisions in each of the nations within the Americas. It is still permissible to kill LGBT citizens without repercussions in some countries of South America, Africa, and Western Asia, due to the absolving of sin by faith leaders for murdering 'sinners.' The federation of Russia is partly influenced by the intolerant dogmas of the East Orthodox Christian Church. The fights between nations in the middle East are at least as much about politics as religion, especially the brazen breaches of peace every few years by theocratic militias. How disconnected from world affairs is Mr Brooks? Did Brooks not notice the thousands of citizens repeatedly shouting "Death to Israel " at the public mourning for Gen. Qasem Soleimani last week in theocratic Iran (Jan 7, 2020)?
Although in the final years Hitchens became a one man religion-baiting roadshow, he was undoubtedly incredibly compelling in all his incarnations. Peterson offers self-help aphorisms for bedwetters.
Despite his latter politics Hitchens was always a fantastic polemic writer. He helped my intellectual development when I was in my early teens so I hold him in some regard. Peterson isn’t worth paying attention to.
Hitchens' atheist debating was pointless, "sad", "dunking on people"? I think all the religious people he spoke before would BEG TO DIFFER, and would instead dismiss what YOU are saying, since you so casually dismiss them.
I don't think Peterson's rural Canadian background plays much of a role in how people percieve him, I'm sure a lot of his fans don't even know about his background. I think what's much more important about Peterson is his academic posturing. Everything about the way he presents himself just screams "I'm an intellectual and I'm right about everything, please take me seriously" That appeals to a lot of people who place massive importance on being smart in an academic, intellectual sort of way. They want all their beliefs to be told to them by someone who seems like they've put immense amounts of thought into everything. In his fans' minds, any thought that's expressed in an intellectual way inherently has a lot more value. I think his "I'm totally correct about everything" vibe also appeals to people who want a father figure, they can easily turn Peterson into their daddy because he's so authoritative. Just my 2 cents :)
Hitchens had a life full of things that he later looked back on and was openly embarrassed about. So despite his less-than-awesome stances on some things, there's hope that if he was still around he'd have viewed them with as much humility as he did his Trotskyist roots and many other things. Obviously, we can't know. But there's at least reason to believe. And as bad as a lot of his foreign policy ideas seemed to be, he was pretty deeply familiar with the Middle East and almost seemed idealistic about the whole thing. The way he spoke about the effects of fundamentalist and conservative Islam was largely from the perspective of horror at it's fetters on women's autonomy and human freedom and dignity in general. He also didn't harp on Islam the way many of his contemporaries did (and still do) from a position of extreme ignorance and distance as well as stating on multiple occasions that all religions and superstitions were equal in their potential to be dangerous and destructive because it was "the surrender of the mind" and "the wish to be a slave" and "a martyr" that makes em dangerous, not necessarily the texts. There was a certain logic to his conclusions and he was very funny, charming and had a writing style that was unique and enjoyable. Don't need to agree with him to appreciate certain things about him. It makes me fuckin sick to Sam Harris, Bill Mahar and others use his name constantly because I could easily see him shitting on em pretty hard right now and don't find it likely that he'd stand on stage with a Peterson as anything but an enemy. We saw him shit on what would be called "SJW" types now since waaay back. But he did it in such a way as to say "I agree with your righteous goals and rage, but you're being a counterproductive child", not the bs we see the IDW skids doing. It's a shame Hitchens didn't keep better company at the end. They've done a lot of fuck up his legacy.
Explain this to me, I'm a regular on this show.. Bernie is my political hero and I cant stand Jordan Peterson but I do like Christopher Hitchens. His epic take down of religion will forever keep him in high regard in my mind. Sam goes with Same Harris. My not agree with their foreign policy but they helped me shake of the shackles of religion
I think had Jordan Peterson just been a professor and psychologist he’d be fine. I never read his book, but it seems like a decent self help book with pretty standard recommendations. But I think he got way too famous, too fast bc he got in a speech debate in Canada. Even that was fine to me, it’s a debate worth having. Then he attacked pc culture, which a massive percentage of the population actually agrees with him on. So he got super famous. Then he started sounding off on a bunch of stuff like Marxism and climate change that he knows nothing about.
You're losing a lot of points with me today for saying that Hitchens is a repackaged George Bush, Michael. I recommend you listen to more of Hitchens because he's nothing like Bush. I'm going to have to scrutinize your opinions on things more carefully going forward if that is really what you think about Christopher Hitchens.
Check out Christopher Hitchens debate with Chris Hedges years ago. Hitchens getting progressively more drunk on scotch during the debate ended by accusing Hedges of being a terrorist sympathizer. That pretty much sums up Hitchen's politics at that time and that is how many ended up remembering him.
poo shoveler I get what he's saying. There are a lot of obnoxious an overbearing atheists, especially online. As someone who used to be an atheist who now has more of a pagan view of the world, atheists, especially online can be really arrogant and obnoxious and just as angry and determined to convert people as religious folks are. Yes, religion has definitely been used as a tool of oppression over the centuries (especially to people who share my views). But nowadays atheists can be just as exhausting to deal with as bigoted christians, especially if you're vocal or unashamed of having any sort of spiritual view of existence.
If it were that simple, I'd agree with you. The problem is when many atheists simplify complicated political processes as "religious" just because they have religious elements. Many islamic fundamentalist ideologies took hold as a direct response to european imperialism. Many of the wars attributed to "religion" across history were deeply politically motivated. Many atheists feel if you took religion out of the equation it would serve as a panacea for all of the world's problems, and this is an incredibly reductive assessment. What you (or I), personally, believe in isn't important to me. There have been many sociologists who have noted the value religion can have with regards to social cohesion, social capital, and establishing thin trust within communities. Don't throw the baby out with the bath water is all I'm saying. Atheist regimes have not, historically, been pure of religious intolerence, and one only has to look at France's oppression of religious freedoms in North Africa (or modern France), the USSR's oppression of Jews and Orthodox christians, or China's oppression of Tibetan Buddhists and Muslim Uighurs to see that religious persecution is not restricted to religous zealots. Religion is often not the source of persecution, so much as a tool manipulated to justify it. Pointing the finger soley at religion not only takes attention away from other sources, but may, ironically, in turn serve as a justification for persecuting religious groups in pursuit of a belief system (in this case, ironically, the belief in no relgious beliefs). That, imo, is why someone on the left may find atheism exhausting.
@@pete2389 that's unrelated to atheism... Atheism is just a response to religious claims. If he has a problem with how others view other cultures he should just stick to critiquing the views and not tie them to the atheism. There are both atheists and non atheists that have warped views of the Muslim world.
@@pooshoveler I don't believe in a religion. I also do my best not to impose that perspective on others. There is a difference between not believing in a religion and pushing that perspective on religious people while blaming religion for issues which are largely political in nature. If you feel you are the former, then this doesn't apply to you. But you have to admit, a lot of atheist fall into that second category.
@@autumnfiinch I agree that some people can be annoying with any world view. And the funny thing is that I went to an atheist Meetup and I found some of them hard to tolerate. But I'm not going to lump all atheists into that group or even conflate atheism with a cult. It doesn't tell you anything other than their stance on gods. There are libertarian atheists, humanist atheists, nihilist atheists, etc... It's like saying your tired of non Bigfoot believers. That's why I said it was vapid. Vapid just means lacking substance. It's not really a deep dig or anything. I still like watching Brooks talk about world politics.
My partner got 12 Rules for Life from a friend as a gift. They read it and advised me to read it, because they thought the “clean your room” advise was good. I couldn’t get past the Introduction because the tone of the writing was so smug and patronizing. I didn’t get how they could just ignore that and read through it.
I would have loved to hear Hitch debate Trump although Trump would never get in the same room. Can you imagine Hitch taking the piss out of Trump and Trump not even realizing it.
I agree with the rest of comments. Hitchens had style and was brilliant, if maybe self-servingly contrarian. Peterson is a run-of-the-mill reactionary with a deep understanding of Jung that he tries to apply to everything.
This contrast could have been made within one family, wheeling in Peter Hitchens in place of Peterson. "If that's Marxism I'm not a Marxist" -Karl Marx.
Many of the people writing that Peterson and Hitchens do not belong in the same sentence have not watched the video. Ben does say that Hitchens is very different from Peterson and had better arguments and humour. He is only trying to say that some similar characteristics make them both attractive to audience - language and rhetoric. One may or may not agree with him, but he is not comparing the two.
Ironically, it sells so well, because of the current social climate in our society. So he owes his fame and fortune, which is what he holds dear, to what he laments.
Because both are very confident world views that aren't that hard to hold. There is more detail to it than the default social democrat / anti-war liberal positions that most people who are young hold, it has an enemy and it is out of the mainstream enough to be appealing in a deeply imperfect world. Simultaneously though it isn't that hard amongst those who generally believe it to hold. I was never under any pressure from religion when I was an anti-theist nor really meaningfully threatened by post-modernist leftist feminists or whatever when I liked Peterson, I knew about 5 people with beliefs strong enough to care either way. Obviously it doesn't account for a lot of stuff but it is kinda easy to get into and makes you feel powerful.
Hitchens was at worst selfish in his later days and at best a committed Marxist to the end (despite his statements to the contrary) who took CCoHPR 1844 seriously. He was a soldier, a wit, not a true academic, of course. I don't know why that makes him bad though, the religious right are among the main intellectual enemies we face. Perhaps the message is meant to stop the praise of Christopher Hitchens. But he was someone, because of my age group, who really inspired me to read pHiLoSoPhY and take things seriously.
@Lolo Vanolo this is disgusting antisemitism and I denounce it. Hitchens mentioned his Jewish heritage as a foil against Israeli Nationalists so he could be more nuanced about Hezbollah
I don't agree with Hitchen's later-life foreign policy opinions, especially about Iraq, but to dismiss his work exposing the massive harm that religion has done and is continuing to do all over the world as complaining about people who believe in fairy tales is incredibly disingenuous. That subtitle for God Is Not Great is spot on and I especially salute him for being unapologetically direct about the atrocities of religion. You don't have to jump the shark to critique parts of his views and actions. I thought you were more nuanced in your takes than that.
Please read Christopher Hitchens' "Mortality", a work he penned while dying from terminal cancer. I depart from him on several topics, but you cannot read the whole of "Mortality" without respecting Hitchens' wit and candor on some level. I don't know much about the other guy you mention.
Literally was going to say the same. "As exhausted by athesim as I am..." Okay buddy 👌🏻, as if atheists haven't been exhausted by religious dogma for a couple milennia... 🙄
I would assume it's about the New Atheists, who looked good (and did good work, to a certain extent) when they dunked on creationists, but were often revealed to have major deficiencies in their arguments when they tackled topics other than religion. The New Atheists also inspired UA-cam Atheists, who had even less substance and wit, and who got rapidly diminishing returns from criticizing the same boring religious fundamentalists. Much of the original UA-cam Atheist community disappeared up its own ass during the Atheism+ (combining atheism with progressive views on social issues) and elevatorgate (when a female atheist UA-camr was creeped on at a convention) incidents. The death blows to the original combative, bloodsports style of UA-cam atheism was Anita Sarkeesian's Kickstarter and finally gamergate, where most of the remaining UA-cam atheists were revealed to be reactionaries. Right now, there are maybe a handful of original UA-cam atheists left, with AronRa and potholer54 being the least objectionable and most educational when it comes to actual evolutionary and climate science. The new crop of UA-cam atheists who got their start in the past 5 years are far better than the old crop, since their politics range from progressive to center-left, and they provide genuinely helpful content to people who are struggling with reactionary religious communities. The new UA-cam atheists still have a few problems with transphobia and anti-socialist sophistry on certain channels, but they are for the most part much better than the original UA-cam atheists. Unfortunately, the mix of simplistic atheism, fetishism of "debate" and reactionary politics that killed the original UA-cam atheists is still around, it's just moved over to the "logic bros" like Sargon, Mauler and countless channels with cartoon avatars of animals in suits. And indeed the focus of these channels is not on atheism, it's on reactionary politics and content-free performative "debates" (AKA bloodsports). And in a twist I never would have thought possible until one of my friends did it 10 years ago, several of these channels are so attached to reactionary politics that they abandon their atheism and sometimes start justifying the same right wing Christianity that created the original New Atheists and UA-cam atheists.
I could be wrong but Brooks dabbles in the Dharmic faiths. Every once in a while he talks about meditation and has even been on silent retreats. Maybe he spiritual but not religious.
because they both can produce soundbites even in the middle of an analytical argument and those make them audible to general audience who care less about actual depth of their answer but more about being able to hear what they want to hear from them. hitchen's are even have special term called hitchslap. obviously they are profound in their argument but that's not something that makes them popular.
I'd always seen Hitchens' desire to aim his guns at religion for his final years was as a reaction to 9/11 and Islamic terrorism, not just because he wanted to have a general go at people who believe in fairytales.
This is an apt comparison. The entire "New Atheist" rhetorical flair of people like Hitchens (who was admittedly the best among the New Atheist authors) is based on winning easy arguments against silly people like fundamentalist Christians. Rhetorical skill =/= logical rigor, that's the point here people
Well Hitchens had also his charme that worked for him and he was very passionate when it came to his stance against religion. He would not talk about subjects he was not informed about like he was an expert, that is whatr Peterson does. He never said that he really studied anything about the left or is an expert. I mean I am not aware of such a statement from him, but he sure acts like it. Hitchens would just ignore some facts or would not care for them, especially when it came to the war on terror or the second golf war. But the points made in the video make sense, but in a broader sense, Hitchens was not a fraud like Peterson. I feel sad when I listen or read some of the stuff Hitchens has said because his intellect could have been used for something more productive, but I respect his dedication. He was nonapologetic and I love that about him. There is almost nothing that Peteron has said that I agree with and I find it pretty sad that he is out witting so many people on television or podiums or whatever. It is not hard to show how flaved his arguments are.
This comment section shows Ben’s point. Hitchens was one of the loudest cheerleaders of a war (based on a lie) that killed at least a million people. Yet years after his death people will still flock to videos and post vitriol in response to fair and objective criticism of their idol.
So it sells because they can articulate their point of view? What about the content? I've read JP twice now and I'm looking for counter arguments to his work.
I get it: given that men are more competitive & disagreeable by nature, the last 2000 years of patriarchy don't count. The RCC still fights tooth & nail to keep women out of office - yet nuns started hospitals (like mine) just as the industrial war complex got rolling. Jordan mocks the idea of protest: yet Jesus stood against the Roman Empire & Jewish collusion. Moses stood against Egyptian oppression - the birth of Human Rights, Women Voting Rights, Abolition, etc, etc. IQ may be "a good indicator for income" but I don't see the connection btw IQ & making moral decisions "to bring order out of chaos". Ted Bundy was a smart guy. Aboriginal culture has something to say here. But hey - who can argue with the Prof? love the Michael Brooks Show!
The clip of Peterson ranting on things he does not understand and blaming his out group for not understanding is what Freud and Jung would call a projection. I have no idea why Peterson can’t see the phenomenon of basic projection being he is a person who has studied psychology or the Psychoanalytic tradition. Sometimes Peterson demonstrates being a reasonably competent psychotherapist. But in my opinion Peterson destroyed his own career by indulging in polemical ad hominem attacks, straw manning, and ignorant second hand creations of a bogeyman demonstrating the worst of scholarly rigor. My masters thesis was written comparing the work of Carl Jung with Foucault, Derrida, and Deleuze. Peterson does not understand Jung very well because Jung was saying their is a distinction between the abstract universal archetype and the cultural manifestation of an archetype. Peterson conflates these two ideas all the time. It would be like taking Chomsky’s Universal Grammar theory and then proclaiming that English is the best most universal language. And if you look at the famous Chomsky Foucault debate this is what Foucault’s primary issue was. That a priori ideas are structural in and of themselves. Chomsky had an interesting counter argument that amounted to describing another a priori abstraction. But it is because Foucault noticed that people like Peterson’s would have the tendency to overly universalize that Foucault took a more radical position. Derrida also had an idea similar to Jung namely that symbols (Jung) and text (Derrida) have multiple interpretations (from Heraclitus). Neither say what Peterson claims that all interpretations are equally valid that is a straw man argument. But they do claim that multiple interpretations will occur. Peterson on the other hand will say his symbolic interpretations are the best without much justification as to why. I don’t mind that Peterson has such interpretations, but he ends up proving the postmodernist correct. Why is Peterson’s interpretations more correct, important and useful than someone else’s? If I were Peterson’s thesis advisor I would probably point him in the direction of Max Weber and Jürgen Habermas. Because both had a similar thesis that Western Culture should look toward Protestant and Jewish religion to help us understand the presumptions we make in secular capitalism. But in so doing Peterson would run the risk of being categorized as a so-called Cultural Marxist. I do however agree with Peterson that identity politics is a problem and resorts to types of sub-cultural tribalism. I also think that people on the left and right are loosing a sense of foundational thinking but I think his rants are lousy critiques. The left does not critique social contract ideas very well if they have not read John Locke, Hobbes, Rousseau, Jefferson and others, because they don’t know what the social contract is. While the right at this point can’t critique the left critique because they too have no clue as to what they are supposedly defending. Which leads to another problem that Peterson points out, higher standards in academia which formulate real arguments. But Peterson needs to start with himself, read the original text and criticize it.
Unfortunately many people are attracted to assertiveness. It doesn't matter what you say, as long as you're perceived as having strong convictions. This benefits the right-wing, because from my experience the right is much more self-assured while the left is often full of self-doubt.
Oh my god the *seething* hatred on display in that Peterson clip, what ever happened to the “reasonable debate” stuff these IDW guys peddle? Literally the straw man of a fictional Marxist has made JBP nearly cry from anger in the space of a 40 second clip!
Wow, without guys like hitch you guys wouldn't exist as a show. It took that snarky delivery beat back the ridiculous statements many evangelicals would put out. People forget about the climate of discourse 12 years ago.
Was surprised to see Hitchens and Incel Kermit compared
PowdaToastFace Killah incel kermit lmaoooooo
"They both have accents" seemed to he the extent of the comparison. Weird video that I didnt see the point of
@@ItalianStallionBDM Hitchens is good when it comes to religion, the problem they bring up with Hitchens is his war mongering. Though they did tend to misrepresent his history in doing so, they brought to light the fact that he used his intellect and charm for the wrong reason.
This is not to equate Hitchens with the atrocity that is Jordan Peterson, but simply relaying why people can latch onto an intellectual who clearly is wrong about a particular subject.
@@ocek2744 correct, just read some heated exchanges between marx and bakunin, bakunin was an anti-semite (along with the rest of europe it seemed)
oraz the last thing I wanted to do was come across as “friendly”
I almost went with “you sound like you say ‘fck you mom!’ often”
But here we are
Hitchens sells for his wit, charm, humour, eloquence, writing talent, wisdom, political/history expertise, brilliance with banter and scathing public put-downs. Peterson sells for some other reasons, I assume.
Peterson sells because his constant word salad makes him sound intelligent to young kids. those young kids also love to validate themselves by listening to adults tell them what they want to hear, which happens to be libertarian-esque philosophy. it also makes them feel good to hear people claiming that colleges and universities are "dominated by Marxists with a far leftist agenda"
@@b1bbscraz3y Man I wish JP was right about universities being these bastions of leftism, that would be rad.
@Clifford your big red God Nah.
Peterson is a grifter
Clifford your big red God Hitchens towards the end of his life had lost it, alcohol took its toll, but he was a lot more well read than Peterson.
Peterson isn't fit to tie Hitchens shoelaces with his tongue.
Reddy Salted so did Peterson...
@@Reprodestruxion Vidal and Hitchens may well have suffered from the same disorder, Wernicke Korsakoff syndrome. It is the result of a life time of excessive alcohol abuse. It explains, in part, Hitchens' support for the 2nd Iraq war, his Islamophobia and (for example) Vidal's falling in love with Timothy McVeigh. This is a theory (however far-fetched) that I concocted to alleviate my disappointment with the late in life decisions of Hitchens. Gore was somewhat over-rated, due to being an American dissident with charisma and from an establishment family. A very rare bird.
@@Reprodestruxion Noam Chomsky and Michael Parenti
GoddyofWar true
Hitchen was a drunk neocon Trotskiat who made a case for war in the Middle East in support of the Israeli policies. He was an atheist who later in life found out his mother was a jew so he became the best budy for the US military industrial complex and the Christian Zionists. Watch his debate with George Galloway. He becomes so drunk and walks off the stage.
The capitalists always find their compelling Petersons to use.
@Cpt Fleck Keep them hungry so they can control onward.
"screw you jordan, you don't know my dreamscape, how dare you" haha
I was a huge Hitchens fan when he was alive. I still appreciate his writing style and quick wit in conversation, even if his views on Iraq and a few other issues only seem more ridiculous as time goes on.
I honestly don't even think his take on Iraq was that out-there. Hitchens actually travelled to Iraq. He saw the Ba'ath regime in action and his point I think was: there was going to be a post-Ba'ath Iraq one way or another, and it never was going to be pretty. No matter what the real intentions of the US were, toppling Hussain wasn't the bad part.
I still find it unconvincing when people say the US "destabilized" the region... Insinuating a 1984-style fascist state was in any way stable.
The way it was handled amounted to a war crime, but I am personally not convinced that the region would be in better shape if the Ba'ath party still held power today.
@@IsawUupThere The problem is that Hitchens took a subject that was happening around the world then just applied it to Iraq. Iraq is not a unique scenario, and in fact is comparable to many US allies in how awful their governments are.
@@IsawUupThere it's completely out there to assume a US intervention was in anyway going to be positive for Iraq
@@IsawUupThere > _Insinuating a 1984-style fascist state was in any way stable._
It was. Here's one way: it wasn't ravaged by sectarian violence and it didn't have large portions of it carved out to form a Salafi fundamentalst, terrorist quasi-state.
The amount of ill feeling people give toward Christopher Hitchens the journalist is slightly bizarre, since he clearly had no military power and could not wave a war fan about, ordering troops from numerous countries where to engage the opposition. To read so many personal attacks on his character for this issue seems unusual, and from so many people who would otherwise be sympathetic to Lenin and Trotsky's actions (orators with actual military power). I forget, are we saying Trotsky was a good or bad Marxist in this century?
Hitchens and Peterson don't even belong in the same sentence. Bad comparison despite Hitchens bad neocons takes.
Hitchens was a marxist but more neocon towards the end of his life with foreign policy. In fact in the interview he gave for newsnight shortly before his death he reiterated his marxist views.
@@MrMjdc If only he had the same take on Iraq as he did on Vietnam. His disdain for religion is what ultimately made him so hawkish I believe, on top of the Johnny Walker black.
@@shyguy2075 i love JW Black but its mittelshelf booze... Hitch could afford better
@@MrMjdc at the core of his support for the war was the philosophy of anti fascism. The Baath party of Iraq was a fascist party
@Lolo Vanolo I would say this is a strawman fallacy but I can’t help but feel you’re just being straight up disingenuous.
Hitchens was actually well read. Peterson is a joke.
Peterson actually does a fine job representing psychiatric literature. His political and religious views are less compelling, but he's worth paying attention to on the merit of his psychiatric insights alone.
So to accuse him of not being well read purely on the basis of your disagreements with his politics... Well, that's just some ugly, tribalistic posturing. It's possible to disagree with someone's politics without caricaturing them as a demon.
@@sterlingveil He's not actually famous for his representations of psychiatric literature though. He's quite clearly not well read on the stuff that he earned his fame bloviating about - Marxism, postmodernism and politics in general.
If he were alive, Hitchens wouldn't stand Peterson and his nonsense, imo. I think he would shit on JP for fun.
@@Junebug89 He's not actually famous for his representations of psychiatric literature though.
Sure he is. It's just that the (mis)labeling of cultural marxism that triggers you, and that's what you focus on. His social critiques also have merit, though. Even though I disagree with him apparently from an economic view.
Yeah. I was confused as to why they were in the same statement.
My favorite part of that Peterson video is that he works himself up so much he’s on the verge of crying, but calls us emotional
Jordan Peterson’a emotionality has come about as a result of some big troubles in his personal life. You can find out more with some searches. It involves addiction, cancer, family dying all around him.
To compare the two is absurd. At least hitch had style and charisma. Admittedly only watched the first few mins of vid so far
Jordan Peterson seems to act like a loser and an incell, I wonder why he is so popular amongst young men 😂
@@rafaelmelo2576 Because he always places women as the blame and young men as the victims. Incels love that shit.
Fat dude red tshirt admits to having disdain for atheism and likely never had good pussy in his life. I can understand why the swagger and intellect Hitch had rubs him wrong.
Its not just absurd. Its very offensive. Hitchens was an incredible writer, world-traveller and iconoclast, lumping him with the IDW guys is moronic
Hitchens was a superb writer, and politically in conflict with himself, which I find to be far more interesting.
"Forgotten were the elementary rules of logic, that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence and that what can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence." (Hitchens)
Throwing Peterson in together with Hitchens actually uplifts Peterson and downplays Hitchens significance. LOSE:LOSE story.
Pay attention to the comparison being made.
@@RebornLegacy Did you pay attention to CNN's recent comparison of Bernie Sanders with Ayatollah Khamenei?
@@Paxsali
Did you pay attention to these nuts on your chin?
Paxsali Hitchens was vastly overrated. The reasons given by the guy in the clip sound plausible, e.g he sounded smart and he was quick witted. As for real substance, he was very limited and shallow. He was a really good crowd pleaser, his brother Peter is “less fun”, but more level headed in his analysis.
Naveed Munir - Peter Hitchens is a far right, pro-brexit, anti-immigration, anti-trans, anti-gay, anti-all-things-“eViL mOnOlItHiC lEfT”, anti-vaccine, anti-masker. The guy is a kook. Just because he sounds more boring doesn’t mean he’s more level headed, it’s performative thoughtfulness to make it seem like his bigotries are thought-out and valid.
Jordan Peterson, the king of straw-manning the other side.
Peterson would get a Hitchslap from Hitchens
So hard. It would have been epic. Unlike Sam Harris, Hitchens would actually beat Peterson over the head with his own pseudo-intellectual nonsense.
it's impossible to say who or what Hitchens would support or like if he should've lived, but then again I guess we can assume some things but otherwise it's unclear. One thing I hated was this thread on youtube comments where they said if he would've lived he would've supported Trump. WTF!
@Sammy N like what?
Hitch thought the Kurds were finally gonna get justice so he "hitched" his wagon to the war. If he were alive today I hope he would recognize his delusion.
@G L.C Yea, sad.
I’m not sure he’d ever admit he was wrong on the matter, but I do think if he were alive he’d be utterly defeated, depressed, and furious at the current state of affairs. It seems as though everything he actively fought against has grown much worse over the last decade. He made a serious error supporting Bush and the invasion, but the principles that drove him to that were honourable. He just became a little delusional late in life, almost like he knew he didn’t have much time left and wanted desperately to get shit done, and the quickest route to that (in theory) was to grab the ring of power and smash his enemies with the full weight of the US military.
@@invanorm Agreed.
Someone should write a book called “america is Not Great: How Patriotism Ruins Everything.”
America Is Not Great: How Capitalism Ruins Everything
Patriotism isn't the issue, it's how some nutters interpret patriotism.
There's a difference between patriotism and nationalism its the latter that is an issue.
"America is Not Great: How Moronism Ruins Everything."
"America is not great: How thinking you're number 1 ruins everything"
"Never be a spectator of unfairness or stupidity. The grave will supply plenty of time for silence." (Hitchens)
Hitchens would bury this chump
We are taking about the dude in the hockey shirt referring to Hitchens right?
I like Jordan a lot, despite what my ego might think about him...
3:21 Peterson's ability to speak compellingly to audiences is something that was earlier remarked on by a Canadian professor, academic and colleague of Peterson - when they were last on good terms, anyway. This is the same professor who unilaterally hired him at Toronto, despite the entire panel interviewing him being against the decision and believing Peterson was unfit for the post because "an eccentric". This professor later regretted this decision during the Bill C-16 saga.
Peterson informed him, if I recall correctly, that he studied - over the course of several years - the speeches of fascist leaders and despots, incl. Hitler, trying to comprehend what was in their personality that gave them the power to tap into the will of people as they did and get them to do their bidding. In the same part of that article, Peterson confessed that he had ambitions to start a church (not for the reasons you'd expect though).
Post edit: in retrospect, this was also noted by a former student of his - shortly after he was hired at Toronto. This same student confided in the professor above that though compelling in his command of audiences, Peterson had an unsettling habit of often injecting opinion in his lecturers and stating it as if it were fact.
how did "bucko" become the meme when the man has literally said "think again, sunshine" in an especially frail voice
Not absolutely sure, but maybe it was Chapo Trap House. Unless Peterson used it himself.
Not sure if you're really asking, but it may be because words with punchier consonants are funnier i.e. b, p, f, k, t. Just a guess though
@@Capitalismhater It was certainly rhetorical and I agree. "bucko" has more bite, plus he's said it dozens more in his works
Hitchens had his blind-spots. But both of these presenters have failed to recognize his true worth and stature.
The best compliment I ever got was someone said I had a vein of Hitchens in my arguments. I'll die happy for that.
Hitchens hates dogma, not the piercing reality of glory.
His Iraq war support says otherwise. It says he was a brainwashed idiot who believed in establishment media propaganda.
@@unitedfools3493 I'd encourage you to study his arguments more carefully, during his debates and writings on the subject the possession of WMDs played second fiddle to the crimes against humanity, the environment and the suffering of the Iraqi people, particularly the Kurds. All of which was demonstrably true, regardless of it being presented by any established public figure.
Edward Wilson we supported many of Saddam crimes and in 2003 we didn’t go in there on the premise of establishing democracy but claimed that he has WMD and 9/11 connections
Edward Wilson and don’t try to justify the war just saying
@@umar1083 were not talking about the government arguments though, but those put forward by Hitchen's which you either choose to be ignoring out of convenience or ignorance.
It is also worth pointing out that the US government had explicitly stated that it wanted regime change in Iraq for years prior to the invasion and that Toni Blair, the British prime minister at the time, made Saddam's rule the central issue in his 2003 speach to the house of commons and had been arguing it since the late 90's.
And I think it's also worth mentioning that the correction of a mistake, in this case to support Saddam, is something that should be applauded rather than used as a cheap point trying to paint all those who supported the war as hypocrites.
"I always think it's a sign of victory when they move on to the ad hominem." (Hitchens)
Boy Freitag Do most things people try to say to you go over your head? Or are you just incorrigible?
Boy Freitag What would I be arguing against-Your histrionics?
I'm not a drama fan.
@Boy Freitag i thought you knew and were against Ad Hominems.
ooooof the Irony
You can't compare Hitch and Peterson. One is a charlatan, the other is a contrarian, that being Hitchens.
Peterson is the exact opposite of Hitch.
Too bad Mr. Hitchens isn't around to completely demolish this smug duo, although he probably would not have wanted to punch down that far.
It’s so weird that fans of hitchens now talk about him like some sort of mystical superhero. I thought he taught you against wish-thinking? Lol I’m sure he would’ve personally owned everyone you don’t like dude
I never really hated Peterson. I honestly just find him irrelevant, yet overly popular. The simple truth of the matter is that his bread and butter is talking of surface level issues with a large amount of generic and semi sensible points. At its most inert, it is talking of hygiene and drive, like a self help guru; at his most ridiculous, he speaks on politiics, symbology, or religion in the most inconsistent and senseless way possible. There is no facts, just a haphazard ideal. So it is hard to critique when there is not enough substance to bring up. Both Brooks and Burgis were right to equate it to 'dreams.'
When he does bring in substance, it is less factual, and more hypothetical in nature. These points can be broken and corrected, but he usually makes more of these mistakes in interviews and he ends up shutting down and break off rather than doubling down. It's a defense mechanism, but it somehow embarrasses him slightly less; that is, until he starts asserting that he is being attacked, and then it's zero-sum in term of debate.
There's a Jungian thread behind everything Peterson believes. That's the root of the problem. Literally everything related to Jung is ethereal and nebulous, almost bordering on religiosity when taken in the context of modern psychological knowledge. Peterson is old school and outdated, even in his own field.
You could hate him for lying about bill c-16 and spreading trans panic.
Look up some of the 1980's Hitchens appearances on CSPAN.
they are fantastic
9:00 I've made this observation myself: if dudes are left to themselves for too long, no matter the time or place, they will start obsessing over womens clothes until they convince themselves that the future of civilization and morality itself hang by a pair of panties.
I think the Peterson fad is largely over
I can't say for certain, but I'd guess him getting his ass handed to him by Zizek didn't do him any favors.
Oh, I wish you are right!
Wrong bucko! He came back from the dead! Believe In Jordan Peterson and you shall be saved from the Postmodern Neo-Marxist devils!
He sounds like Julia Child with a cold.
I like Michael he is highly intelligent and thoughtful. He does tend to get a little pedantic at times., though.
Whats wrong with that?
@@ttheway2life157 Not OP but I think that it's a rhetorically weak strategy. It allows people to take you out of context and attack your pedantism
@@ttheway2life157 The over use of jargon can obscure the point. Brooks can come across as arrogant. It's obvious that he was a huge admirer of Christopher Hitchens. But Michael does not have the charisma to pull it off. I think that as he gets older he might get less obnoxious. I have no strong objections to his politics, only his rhetorical tactics alienate many people who might otherwise be enlightened. He would do well to observe Sam Seder and show him more respect.
@@Alsatiagent to be honest arrogance could be confidence in what you are saying. we like to hide our intelligence and the actually stupid people are the loudest.
@@Alsatiagent Nah, Seder exists, we don't need another one. For what it's worth, I found Majority Report first, but never bothered subscribing - he felt incredibly arrogant and confrontative to me. The Michael Brooks Show, however, I'm subscribed to. Among US news/political commentators, I find him to be the only (!) conscientious and thus serious leftist. (I'm not counting his frequent guest Richard Wolff, since I consider him a news/economics commentator in his broadcasting)
The guy, who's read "The Communist Manifesto" one time, when he was 18 years old is apparently the "expert" on Marxism.
Even if that is true, which i highly doubt, does that realy matter Or does it rather matter, if it makes sense what he has to say about it?
Interesting takes from the whole team. I have frequently thought that it would have been incredibly helpful to have had Hitchens contributions at this strange and crucial time, but the comments here have made me rethink this completely. You are right that in his final years, he had stopped having many of the useful and important debates that advanced left positions, and maybe he would have risen to the moment presented by Corbyn, Podemos, Bernie etc, but it's not a given. I certainly think Peterson would have been exposed by Hitchens and wouldn't have been as influential as he has been.
Hitchens was a genius.
Peterson is also smart. When he sticks to discussing psychology he's actually quite good. He fumbles and falls on his face when he starts talking about religion, post modernism and gender pronouns. All his rationality then flies out the window, but it was great for him financially. He found out how to monetize right wing SJWs.
You don't understand it(Marxism)..."
This from a guy who famously didn't read any Marx until a year or so ago.
Who famously didn't read any Marx until he had a career built on bashing him and his work. Too late to change his mind when he has millions of rabid fans lapping up what he's pissing out.
Damn this rant of Peterson was painful to go through.... this man is pathetic
There’s nothing inherently wrong with atheism as a position, and characters like Harris and the late Hitchens (warmongering, Islamophobia) shouldn’t have a monopoly on the label. I would agree that dunking on the naïveté of religious people, while entertaining, isn’t the most important priority nor is it productive in any way
Comparing that Peterson guy to Hitchens is like comparing Nickleback to Led Zeppelin.
Or Dear Abby to Socrates.
Rare disagreemen here. Im a huge Majority fan and appreciate the important work you guys do. Respect.
But, I found the Peterson / Hitchens comparative segment. weak, and frankly, a bit insulting to both his following, the people he turned on to many important, and here-to-then not widely known topics. And Hitchens himself.
Though he assuredly wouldnt rankle over it.
If he were able to join this penis-envy for intellectuals segment, your points would have been shredded by
with more insight, brilliance, cleverness , mastery of vocabulary, economy of words and deftness then everyone in that room combined could muster. (Actually, Michael Brooks is incredibly good. )
With that awseone Oxford English elocution.
Which, after all is a dominant factor for his grateful fans to tune into his well spoken views? Thank you for making me aware of this. Saved me 100$ on my next therapy visit.
Ill Patreon it...
He provoked millions to learn about Jefferson, Martin Luther King. Thatcher. Reagan..God, The Bible warts and all. I researched his claims. They held up.. And God is still not great. Reagans 8 years still permeate every day of our existence . His debunking myths of history and backing it up with evidence..Not to mention, his class at debates.
Yes. Wrong on Iraq, other issues towards the end of his life. As cancer ate away at him.
We'll add heartlessness to the segments grievance list.
Peterson is a dangerous, lying hack. Horrible speaker. Worse writer.
Nice job "Logic" teacher.
I didn't expect that after watching 15 minutes of this the answer would amount to "he speaks funny"
Its Ben Burgis. He never really adds anything of use.
Thank you! I was thinking the same thing!
Hitchens just lost it with his support of the Iraq war at the end. I'm pretty sure it was a combination of becoming globally famous, his acceptance at certain dinner parties and his old fashioned patriarchal values (famously said that women can't be funny and that he wouldn't want his wife to work) kind of cornering him into this reflexive anti-new left position . Its a shame, really. He was a rhetorical powerhouse with a grasp on the English language that reminds me of Orwell. Peterson just sounds like a two bit shyster to be honest. What surprises me is how so many people seem to have lost their bullshit meters and just accept his rubbish as intellectualism.
I blame his brother for corrupting him.
ARE you actually comparing these two? Hitchens never pretended to be an expert in anything, except his own experience. Hitchens never even suggested to anyone the "right" way to live. He might have been intentionally provocative, sometimes. He explained his support for the Iraq war almost entirely in terms of his personal attachment to the Kurds.
I don’t think these two are equivalent, even tho Hitchens did have some yikes takes back in his day. Jordan is 95% negative and harmful, Hitchens did some good advocacy
A critic of religion is so important its been a massive part of our history and is still a massive part of our culture all over the world. Its affected humans so much in bad ways for 1000s of years and still manipulated minds and communities today. Its is important to critic religion and to do it in an intellectual way. And people like Hitchens did this especially in America when atheism is so unpopular and especially in the 2000s. Hitchens focused on religion because its one of the most important topics, to say its sad he focused on religion just shows your not interested in the topic but in reality a lot of people do.
Hitchens is actually well-read and well-articulated, unlike Peterson!
and peterson isn't well-read and well-articulated? If stupid was a day, you'd be a month.
@@dondada7058 awww 😂
Hitch was hilarious and his appearances on Washington Journal in the 80s and 90s are exceptionally good.
Hitch and Brian Lamb. Name a more iconic duo.
His not dumb he knows there's big business in tricking young men .
I really object to the fact that UA-cam thinks I want to watch Peterson videos because I also watch Hitchens videos.
Actually the most arrogant statement someone can make is that they were created by a divine being, and that they're going to have eternal happiness because of that.
Hitchens agreed with you on Myanmar and Israel and broadly on economics and social issues man
@Lolo Vanolo Hitchens was pro-Palestine, so please give some evidence. He was a liberal internationalist. The Iraqi Communist Party supported the Iraq War, bot just neocons.
Hitchens wasn't wasting his time attacking religion. If I hadn't been challenged by atheists I wouldn't have gotten into my bible and become an atheist. Before I became an atheist I voted for Mike Huckabee in the 2008 primary. Now I'm voting for Bernie. If I was still a Christian there's no way I would have voted for someone like Bernie.
I think the reason for Peterson’s success goes far beyond rhetoric. Whatever else you think about him, his work is aimed people affected by the disappearance of civic bonds and the rise of mass alienation. Unfortunately, his critics haven’t really responded with a compelling project that gives these people a sense of belonging.
i merely want to add that the first time that i saw Hitchens, i whispered to my mate, ‘is he trying to be Gore Vidal?’ to which he responded, ‘ohmigod, you hit the nail on the head!’
in any case, do look into Gore Vidal (his views on his family)…and :enjoy his *wit* .
Hitchens has more brain power than everyone on this set combined. The idea that he wasted his time be trying to defend the most oppressed women in the world, shows these guys don't give a rat's ass about ppls wellbeing. They are only ideologues that love to hear their own voice.
Oh god no:(
Don’t put these two next to each other!
Hitchens wasn’t always a neocon idiot arguing against the children’s version of religion..
He was a leftist who spent his life exposing the imperialist tendencies of The West..His books taught me so much about polemics..
It seems odd that Michael Brooks (8:33) would shrug off the actions of the new atheists from 15 years previous, while living on a planet which is still absolutely overrun with the religious on six continents. Brooks mentioned two contemporary world affairs, and yet one of the two is directly related to Christopher Hitchens' writings in later life. As for the relevance of C. Hitchens' work in the past and present: the Americas alone are so religious, the topic of faith affects voter decisions in each of the nations within the Americas. It is still permissible to kill LGBT citizens without repercussions in some countries of South America, Africa, and Western Asia, due to the absolving of sin by faith leaders for murdering 'sinners.' The federation of Russia is partly influenced by the intolerant dogmas of the East Orthodox Christian Church. The fights between nations in the middle East are at least as much about politics as religion, especially the brazen breaches of peace every few years by theocratic militias. How disconnected from world affairs is Mr Brooks? Did Brooks not notice the thousands of citizens repeatedly shouting "Death to Israel " at the public mourning for Gen. Qasem Soleimani last week in theocratic Iran (Jan 7, 2020)?
Although in the final years Hitchens became a one man religion-baiting roadshow, he was undoubtedly incredibly compelling in all his incarnations. Peterson offers self-help aphorisms for bedwetters.
Despite his latter politics Hitchens was always a fantastic polemic writer. He helped my intellectual development when I was in my early teens so I hold him in some regard. Peterson isn’t worth paying attention to.
Lolo Vanolo I don’t “suck” anyone, pal.
Hope this helps.
Hitchens' atheist debating was pointless, "sad", "dunking on people"? I think all the religious people he spoke before would BEG TO DIFFER, and would instead dismiss what YOU are saying, since you so casually dismiss them.
If conservatives were like Hitch, we would be so much better off.
I don't think Peterson's rural Canadian background plays much of a role in how people percieve him, I'm sure a lot of his fans don't even know about his background. I think what's much more important about Peterson is his academic posturing. Everything about the way he presents himself just screams "I'm an intellectual and I'm right about everything, please take me seriously"
That appeals to a lot of people who place massive importance on being smart in an academic, intellectual sort of way. They want all their beliefs to be told to them by someone who seems like they've put immense amounts of thought into everything. In his fans' minds, any thought that's expressed in an intellectual way inherently has a lot more value.
I think his "I'm totally correct about everything" vibe also appeals to people who want a father figure, they can easily turn Peterson into their daddy because he's so authoritative.
Just my 2 cents :)
Imagine a Christopher Hitchens Jordan Peterson debate off wow
Amazing topic. Needs a whole series of shows and guests. This smash and grab admin has been a long time in the making.
Hitchens had a life full of things that he later looked back on and was openly embarrassed about. So despite his less-than-awesome stances on some things, there's hope that if he was still around he'd have viewed them with as much humility as he did his Trotskyist roots and many other things. Obviously, we can't know. But there's at least reason to believe. And as bad as a lot of his foreign policy ideas seemed to be, he was pretty deeply familiar with the Middle East and almost seemed idealistic about the whole thing. The way he spoke about the effects of fundamentalist and conservative Islam was largely from the perspective of horror at it's fetters on women's autonomy and human freedom and dignity in general. He also didn't harp on Islam the way many of his contemporaries did (and still do) from a position of extreme ignorance and distance as well as stating on multiple occasions that all religions and superstitions were equal in their potential to be dangerous and destructive because it was "the surrender of the mind" and "the wish to be a slave" and "a martyr" that makes em dangerous, not necessarily the texts. There was a certain logic to his conclusions and he was very funny, charming and had a writing style that was unique and enjoyable. Don't need to agree with him to appreciate certain things about him.
It makes me fuckin sick to Sam Harris, Bill Mahar and others use his name constantly because I could easily see him shitting on em pretty hard right now and don't find it likely that he'd stand on stage with a Peterson as anything but an enemy. We saw him shit on what would be called "SJW" types now since waaay back. But he did it in such a way as to say "I agree with your righteous goals and rage, but you're being a counterproductive child", not the bs we see the IDW skids doing. It's a shame Hitchens didn't keep better company at the end. They've done a lot of fuck up his legacy.
I agree
miss you Michael
Didn’t realize brooks was such a sensitive religious person
Explain this to me, I'm a regular on this show.. Bernie is my political hero and I cant stand Jordan Peterson but I do like Christopher Hitchens. His epic take down of religion will forever keep him in high regard in my mind. Sam goes with Same Harris. My not agree with their foreign policy but they helped me shake of the shackles of religion
I think had Jordan Peterson just been a professor and psychologist he’d be fine. I never read his book, but it seems like a decent self help book with pretty standard recommendations. But I think he got way too famous, too fast bc he got in a speech debate in Canada. Even that was fine to me, it’s a debate worth having. Then he attacked pc culture, which a massive percentage of the population actually agrees with him on. So he got super famous. Then he started sounding off on a bunch of stuff like Marxism and climate change that he knows nothing about.
You're losing a lot of points with me today for saying that Hitchens is a repackaged George Bush, Michael. I recommend you listen to more of Hitchens because he's nothing like Bush. I'm going to have to scrutinize your opinions on things more carefully going forward if that is really what you think about Christopher Hitchens.
Check out Christopher Hitchens debate with Chris Hedges years ago. Hitchens getting progressively more drunk on scotch during the debate ended by accusing Hedges of being a terrorist sympathizer. That pretty much sums up Hitchen's politics at that time and that is how many ended up remembering him.
...these guys first met at a Jordan Peterson conference? THESE two guys? ...what? ...but... ...my brain hurts....
I don't understand how you get exhausted with atheism. Either you believe in a god or you don't. That's kind of a vapid comment.
poo shoveler I get what he's saying. There are a lot of obnoxious an overbearing atheists, especially online. As someone who used to be an atheist who now has more of a pagan view of the world, atheists, especially online can be really arrogant and obnoxious and just as angry and determined to convert people as religious folks are. Yes, religion has definitely been used as a tool of oppression over the centuries (especially to people who share my views). But nowadays atheists can be just as exhausting to deal with as bigoted christians, especially if you're vocal or unashamed of having any sort of spiritual view of existence.
If it were that simple, I'd agree with you. The problem is when many atheists simplify complicated political processes as "religious" just because they have religious elements. Many islamic fundamentalist ideologies took hold as a direct response to european imperialism. Many of the wars attributed to "religion" across history were deeply politically motivated. Many atheists feel if you took religion out of the equation it would serve as a panacea for all of the world's problems, and this is an incredibly reductive assessment.
What you (or I), personally, believe in isn't important to me. There have been many sociologists who have noted the value religion can have with regards to social cohesion, social capital, and establishing thin trust within communities. Don't throw the baby out with the bath water is all I'm saying. Atheist regimes have not, historically, been pure of religious intolerence, and one only has to look at France's oppression of religious freedoms in North Africa (or modern France), the USSR's oppression of Jews and Orthodox christians, or China's oppression of Tibetan Buddhists and Muslim Uighurs to see that religious persecution is not restricted to religous zealots.
Religion is often not the source of persecution, so much as a tool manipulated to justify it. Pointing the finger soley at religion not only takes attention away from other sources, but may, ironically, in turn serve as a justification for persecuting religious groups in pursuit of a belief system (in this case, ironically, the belief in no relgious beliefs). That, imo, is why someone on the left may find atheism exhausting.
@@pete2389 that's unrelated to atheism... Atheism is just a response to religious claims. If he has a problem with how others view other cultures he should just stick to critiquing the views and not tie them to the atheism. There are both atheists and non atheists that have warped views of the Muslim world.
@@pooshoveler I don't believe in a religion. I also do my best not to impose that perspective on others. There is a difference between not believing in a religion and pushing that perspective on religious people while blaming religion for issues which are largely political in nature. If you feel you are the former, then this doesn't apply to you. But you have to admit, a lot of atheist fall into that second category.
@@autumnfiinch I agree that some people can be annoying with any world view. And the funny thing is that I went to an atheist Meetup and I found some of them hard to tolerate. But I'm not going to lump all atheists into that group or even conflate atheism with a cult. It doesn't tell you anything other than their stance on gods. There are libertarian atheists, humanist atheists, nihilist atheists, etc... It's like saying your tired of non Bigfoot believers.
That's why I said it was vapid. Vapid just means lacking substance. It's not really a deep dig or anything. I still like watching Brooks talk about world politics.
My partner got 12 Rules for Life from a friend as a gift. They read it and advised me to read it, because they thought the “clean your room” advise was good. I couldn’t get past the Introduction because the tone of the writing was so smug and patronizing. I didn’t get how they could just ignore that and read through it.
I would have loved to hear Hitch debate Trump although Trump would never get in the same room. Can you imagine Hitch taking the piss out of Trump and Trump not even realizing it.
It couldn't possibly be that they have good and relevant points that resonate with people.
I agree with the rest of comments.
Hitchens had style and was brilliant, if maybe self-servingly contrarian.
Peterson is a run-of-the-mill reactionary with a deep understanding of Jung that he tries to apply to everything.
This contrast could have been made within one family, wheeling in Peter Hitchens in place of Peterson.
"If that's Marxism I'm not a Marxist" -Karl Marx.
Martin James "Thank God I am not a Jungian." - Carl Jung
Foucault actually has a similar quote. But I don't knw it off hand.
Can we please start calling it the "pseudointellectual dark web" now?
Many of the people writing that Peterson and Hitchens do not belong in the same sentence have not watched the video. Ben does say that Hitchens is very different from Peterson and had better arguments and humour. He is only trying to say that some similar characteristics make them both attractive to audience - language and rhetoric. One may or may not agree with him, but he is not comparing the two.
Wait - your conclusion is that it just comes down to their accent??? WTF did I just watch?? Michael Brooks Show for the Fail. 🤦🏻♂️🤦🏻♂️🤦🏻♂️
A complete and deliberate misunderstanding on Hitchens positions. His position on Iraq is an old school left wing position.
Alcohol abuse degraded Hitchens morally and intellectually.
Ironically, it sells so well, because of the current social climate in our society. So he owes his fame and fortune, which is what he holds dear, to what he laments.
Because both are very confident world views that aren't that hard to hold. There is more detail to it than the default social democrat / anti-war liberal positions that most people who are young hold, it has an enemy and it is out of the mainstream enough to be appealing in a deeply imperfect world.
Simultaneously though it isn't that hard amongst those who generally believe it to hold. I was never under any pressure from religion when I was an anti-theist nor really meaningfully threatened by post-modernist leftist feminists or whatever when I liked Peterson, I knew about 5 people with beliefs strong enough to care either way.
Obviously it doesn't account for a lot of stuff but it is kinda easy to get into and makes you feel powerful.
Hitchens was at worst selfish in his later days and at best a committed Marxist to the end (despite his statements to the contrary) who took CCoHPR 1844 seriously. He was a soldier, a wit, not a true academic, of course. I don't know why that makes him bad though, the religious right are among the main intellectual enemies we face.
Perhaps the message is meant to stop the praise of Christopher Hitchens. But he was someone, because of my age group, who really inspired me to read pHiLoSoPhY and take things seriously.
@Lolo Vanolo this is disgusting antisemitism and I denounce it.
Hitchens mentioned his Jewish heritage as a foil against Israeli Nationalists so he could be more nuanced about Hezbollah
I don't agree with Hitchen's later-life foreign policy opinions, especially about Iraq, but to dismiss his work exposing the massive harm that religion has done and is continuing to do all over the world as complaining about people who believe in fairy tales is incredibly disingenuous.
That subtitle for God Is Not Great is spot on and I especially salute him for being unapologetically direct about the atrocities of religion.
You don't have to jump the shark to critique parts of his views and actions. I thought you were more nuanced in your takes than that.
Please read Christopher Hitchens' "Mortality", a work he penned while dying from terminal cancer. I depart from him on several topics, but you cannot read the whole of "Mortality" without respecting Hitchens' wit and candor on some level. I don't know much about the other guy you mention.
">As exhausted by atheism as I am
What's that all about?
Literally was going to say the same.
"As exhausted by athesim as I am..."
Okay buddy 👌🏻, as if atheists haven't been exhausted by religious dogma for a couple milennia... 🙄
I would assume it's about the New Atheists, who looked good (and did good work, to a certain extent) when they dunked on creationists, but were often revealed to have major deficiencies in their arguments when they tackled topics other than religion. The New Atheists also inspired UA-cam Atheists, who had even less substance and wit, and who got rapidly diminishing returns from criticizing the same boring religious fundamentalists. Much of the original UA-cam Atheist community disappeared up its own ass during the Atheism+ (combining atheism with progressive views on social issues) and elevatorgate (when a female atheist UA-camr was creeped on at a convention) incidents. The death blows to the original combative, bloodsports style of UA-cam atheism was Anita Sarkeesian's Kickstarter and finally gamergate, where most of the remaining UA-cam atheists were revealed to be reactionaries.
Right now, there are maybe a handful of original UA-cam atheists left, with AronRa and potholer54 being the least objectionable and most educational when it comes to actual evolutionary and climate science. The new crop of UA-cam atheists who got their start in the past 5 years are far better than the old crop, since their politics range from progressive to center-left, and they provide genuinely helpful content to people who are struggling with reactionary religious communities. The new UA-cam atheists still have a few problems with transphobia and anti-socialist sophistry on certain channels, but they are for the most part much better than the original UA-cam atheists.
Unfortunately, the mix of simplistic atheism, fetishism of "debate" and reactionary politics that killed the original UA-cam atheists is still around, it's just moved over to the "logic bros" like Sargon, Mauler and countless channels with cartoon avatars of animals in suits. And indeed the focus of these channels is not on atheism, it's on reactionary politics and content-free performative "debates" (AKA bloodsports). And in a twist I never would have thought possible until one of my friends did it 10 years ago, several of these channels are so attached to reactionary politics that they abandon their atheism and sometimes start justifying the same right wing Christianity that created the original New Atheists and UA-cam atheists.
I could be wrong but Brooks dabbles in the Dharmic faiths. Every once in a while he talks about meditation and has even been on silent retreats. Maybe he spiritual but not religious.
Because Michael has massive jew/white guilt and Muslims are never wrong.
because they both can produce soundbites even in the middle of an analytical argument and those make them audible to general audience who care less about actual depth of their answer but more about being able to hear what they want to hear from them. hitchen's are even have special term called hitchslap.
obviously they are profound in their argument but that's not something that makes them popular.
I'd always seen Hitchens' desire to aim his guns at religion for his final years was as a reaction to 9/11 and Islamic terrorism, not just because he wanted to have a general go at people who believe in fairytales.
Also Hitchens beloved mother went on a spiritual/religous kick with a man she took up with and commit suicide so there was a lot of personal pain.
@@roryteal5940 wow, I didn't know that
How are the two even comparable?
Hitchens fan base isn't made up of incels.
This is an apt comparison. The entire "New Atheist" rhetorical flair of people like Hitchens (who was admittedly the best among the New Atheist authors) is based on winning easy arguments against silly people like fundamentalist Christians. Rhetorical skill =/= logical rigor, that's the point here people
Well Hitchens had also his charme that worked for him and he was very passionate when it came to his stance against religion. He would not talk about subjects he was not informed about like he was an expert, that is whatr Peterson does. He never said that he really studied anything about the left or is an expert. I mean I am not aware of such a statement from him, but he sure acts like it. Hitchens would just ignore some facts or would not care for them, especially when it came to the war on terror or the second golf war. But the points made in the video make sense, but in a broader sense, Hitchens was not a fraud like Peterson. I feel sad when I listen or read some of the stuff Hitchens has said because his intellect could have been used for something more productive, but I respect his dedication. He was nonapologetic and I love that about him. There is almost nothing that Peteron has said that I agree with and I find it pretty sad that he is out witting so many people on television or podiums or whatever. It is not hard to show how flaved his arguments are.
This comment section shows Ben’s point. Hitchens was one of the loudest cheerleaders of a war (based on a lie) that killed at least a million people. Yet years after his death people will still flock to videos and post vitriol in response to fair and objective criticism of their idol.
So it sells because they can articulate their point of view? What about the content? I've read JP twice now and I'm looking for counter arguments to his work.
what you fail to grasp is that peterson understands Jung and Freud-----that gives him an incredible advantage
Peterson can't find his dick with a microscope---He "understands" very little about Jung and Freud.
I get it: given that men are more competitive & disagreeable by nature, the last 2000 years of patriarchy don't count. The RCC still fights tooth & nail to keep women out of office - yet nuns started hospitals (like mine) just as the industrial war complex got rolling. Jordan mocks the idea of protest: yet Jesus stood against the Roman Empire & Jewish collusion. Moses stood against Egyptian oppression - the birth of Human Rights, Women Voting Rights, Abolition, etc, etc. IQ may be "a good indicator for income" but I don't see the connection btw IQ & making moral decisions "to bring order out of chaos". Ted Bundy was a smart guy. Aboriginal culture has something to say here. But hey - who can argue with the Prof? love the Michael Brooks Show!
The clip of Peterson ranting on things he does not understand and blaming his out group for not understanding is what Freud and Jung would call a projection.
I have no idea why Peterson can’t see the phenomenon of basic projection being he is a person who has studied psychology or the Psychoanalytic tradition.
Sometimes Peterson demonstrates being a reasonably competent psychotherapist.
But in my opinion Peterson destroyed his own career by indulging in polemical ad hominem attacks, straw manning, and ignorant second hand creations of a bogeyman demonstrating the worst of scholarly rigor.
My masters thesis was written comparing the work of Carl Jung with Foucault, Derrida, and Deleuze.
Peterson does not understand Jung very well because Jung was saying their is a distinction between the abstract universal archetype and the cultural manifestation of an archetype. Peterson conflates these two ideas all the time.
It would be like taking Chomsky’s Universal Grammar theory and then proclaiming that English is the best most universal language.
And if you look at the famous Chomsky Foucault debate this is what Foucault’s primary issue was. That a priori ideas are structural in and of themselves. Chomsky had an interesting counter argument that amounted to describing another a priori abstraction.
But it is because Foucault noticed that people like Peterson’s would have the tendency to overly universalize that Foucault took a more radical position.
Derrida also had an idea similar to Jung namely that symbols (Jung) and text (Derrida) have multiple interpretations (from Heraclitus). Neither say what Peterson claims that all interpretations are equally valid that is a straw man argument. But they do claim that multiple interpretations will occur. Peterson on the other hand will say his symbolic interpretations are the best without much justification as to why.
I don’t mind that Peterson has such interpretations, but he ends up proving the postmodernist correct.
Why is Peterson’s interpretations more correct, important and useful than someone else’s?
If I were Peterson’s thesis advisor I would probably point him in the direction of Max Weber and Jürgen Habermas. Because both had a similar thesis that Western Culture should look toward Protestant and Jewish religion to help us understand the presumptions we make in secular capitalism. But in so doing Peterson would run the risk of being categorized as a so-called Cultural Marxist.
I do however agree with Peterson that identity politics is a problem and resorts to types of sub-cultural tribalism. I also think that people on the left and right are loosing a sense of foundational thinking but I think his rants are lousy critiques.
The left does not critique social contract ideas very well if they have not read John Locke, Hobbes, Rousseau, Jefferson and others, because they don’t know what the social contract is. While the right at this point can’t critique the left critique because they too have no clue as to what they are supposedly defending.
Which leads to another problem that Peterson points out, higher standards in academia which formulate real arguments. But Peterson needs to start with himself, read the original text and criticize it.
Unfortunately many people are attracted to assertiveness. It doesn't matter what you say, as long as you're perceived as having strong convictions. This benefits the right-wing, because from my experience the right is much more self-assured while the left is often full of self-doubt.
Oh my god the *seething* hatred on display in that Peterson clip, what ever happened to the “reasonable debate” stuff these IDW guys peddle? Literally the straw man of a fictional Marxist has made JBP nearly cry from anger in the space of a 40 second clip!
Wow, without guys like hitch you guys wouldn't exist as a show. It took that snarky delivery beat back the ridiculous statements many evangelicals would put out. People forget about the climate of discourse 12 years ago.