JP - Update: A new teacher?
Last night I fell asleep listening to Teal’s “How Nice Guys Kill” where she is talking of nice as “insincere pretending to be nice – having a nice persona - but not having any compassion”. People have to learn to see people, and this can only come from seeing that we are conditioned. I then woke up with Jordan Peterson banging on, and rather than being the danger I previously assessed him as through the sleep haze there was maybe good advice.
Jordan was sufficiently good that I am writing this blog as a balance to previous Peterson blogs. Personally I still don’t trust him and there are so many sound spiritual teachers; why are people going to him? Back in 2018 I evaluated a man who intentionally was teaching the alt-right, he took up alt-right positions and attracted that audience – see the people in the talk I discussed. To me he was cherry-picking in his thinking, starting from alt-right positions he cherry-picked spiritual teachings coming up with his 12 Rules (1-6 and 7-12) that I explained were short.
Because of the favourable impression amidst the sleep haze I listened more deeply. According to this interview he has just returned from Oxford and Cambridge where he is of “cult status” – not making any suggestion of his being a cult leader but there might well be “cult followers around him”; dangers but not cult dangers. Is his audience still the same - it sounded not? His interview focus was his job – don’t know his title clinical psychologist or psychotherapist? – no intention of putting him down. Listening to how he described his clinical approach it was good. He focussed on his experience with clients and how he had learned to do his job. If he has changed and this is what he is doing in that change, the fact that he has a following is good. In 2018 he was the darling of the alt-right, if this is what his lectures are about now he will not be such a darling.
Through a conversation with a friend it seems life has dished stuff out to Jordan, in that conversation it appears he did not cope well but I don’t know so that might be unfair. Towards the end of the interview his voice was shaking at times and he mentioned tears, that is not the harsh alt-right of 2018. I like shaking and tears but at the same time that means he has things to learn; in the conversation with the friend that was also the impression but again this is a judgement and judging is not a correct process.
5 years on given all this I don’t have the downer on Peterson. Avoid the older stuff where he was dogmatic, chauvinist, antagonistic and by comparison arrogant. Now listen to his advice as a clinical psychologist.
Throughout the interview there were references to the left, I wasn’t 100% in agreement but most sounded more tolerant than 2018’s perception and things I could say. When he drew comparisons between the creative of left and meticulous of right (around 45.20) I could imagine saying something like that, but how much of the right’s meticulousness is based on the fact that they have the money to do the spade-work? When I listen to Bojo there is no meticulousness, yet behind his scenes I bet he has backroom boys who cover up some of his erratic and ill-conceived rhetoric. The lefties I knew never had the time to study and be precise, sadly many didn’t care; it was an evident weakness on the left – NOT Angie speaks.
In 2018 I said he was dangerous, how dangerous is he now? Based on this interview he is not, I can understand why the interviewer had picked up enough for personal development. I have no problem mixing clinical psychology with the spiritual – clinical psychology could be well-being. Then turn well-being into the spiritual, maybe the shaking in his voice is concerned with that turning?
Having let go of the historical mindset of the evaluation in 2018 , I listened again. He began with thinking on the bed calling it meditation. Deeply thinking about your own struggle in life is a positive thing, but for me it is not what meditation is about. Next he spoke of 3 stages of a Jungian approach – undifferentiated self of childhood, building a persona with an avatar to hide behind when coping in society, and then being authentic. There’s a lot of stuff in Jung, I have been interested in breaking into it because there was inspiration from eastern religion but there was just too much – an intellectual rather than spiritual journey. I suspect that the stage of “authentic” for Jung was concerned with collective unconscious which has more to do with the truth of consciousness than it does of simply speaking some form of truth.
But his 3 stages are sound if undeveloped; my understanding of these 3 stages would be love at birth, the conditioning of upbringing that leads to self-esteem and coping with society - then letting go of the egos of that self-esteem, and in that letting go process reconnecting with consciousness through Unity and the development of the 5 Dhamma comrades. Jordan appears to be speaking of a truth-speaking authenticity entrenched in the sankhara of reason, very much a “church of Reason” approach towards authentic reasoning rather than the autonomy of path or the Authentic Self of spiritual liberation that Pastor Michael talks of.
He then went on to speak of job dissatisfaction and a way someone can cope with that dissatisfaction. The podcast, “Diary of a CEO”, is also looking for truth but within the job arena. There is no tathata or perception of patriarchy, whilst both speak of truth neither speak of the truth of the way things are. Because there is no genuine tathata both are tacitly supportive of and supported by patriarchy. This is a mellowing-down of his previous alt-right position, acceptance of society as patriarchy and trying to find a way through it – a good well-being position – as opposed to the more heinous alt-right advocacy that I evaluated in 2018.
This reminds me of Google’s meditation or McMindfulness. Whilst purporting to be radical, all it is is the well-being of happiness in the jobs the patriarchy provides – even the Tate Fortress is that but far more focussed. And yet it is called truth by Jordan and the interviewer. Whilst I am critical of all 3, if it helps dealing with the job and that’s what you want, go for it. But it is not radical or path or deeper truth, it is well-being – fitting in with the patriarchy.
Jordan turned the interview towards his version of the 3 Jungian stages but the interviewer began with being honest in his relationship. Previously his persona had formed the relationship ie nothing genuine. It was when he began to be more genuine in himself that the relationship started to work. How far did this truth-speaking go? In bill’s case there were no relationships because there was only the shell persona – think of college and first job. When he started on the path – upheaval, some relationships came because he was being true to himself. Whilst Jordan does not speak of path, speaking some form of truth about yourself in relationship is the beginning of the end of conditioning – persona. How far does that truth-telling go? The podcaster is not on his path but has found some level of truth in what he does and in his relationship. But how far does his truth go? How far does Jordan’s search for truth go?
When discussing Pinocchio (6 mins) Jordan asked “who sets the role?” and “who is pulling the strings?”, and he answered Jung’s myths. Why isn’t there the answer of personal and social conditioning? He recognises that the persona is required for society but does not see that persona coming from conditioning. When conditioning is recognised then we ask “where does conditioning come from?”. And there are the two aspects – nature’s upbringing based on conditioning, and the social imposition of conditioning that is added by patriarchy. Jordan is recognising the process but is avoiding going down the road of seeing patriarchy. What happens if he sees patriarchy? No longer is there acceptability, truth does not bring with it being accepted.
Jordan raised the “Adventure of Life” and the podcaster spoke of people he met stifled by fear. Jordan turned it to “making a plan” for success within society (patriarchy). But what abut a path that goes beyond conditioning? How many of the people the podcaster met were stifled by fear of following their own paths that had nothing to do with jobs? At upheaval bill chose compassion and jobs that came from compassion – houseparent then teaching; the choice came from the path – a spiritual choice. Neither the podcaster nor Jordan are giving voice to this spiritual choice that some stifled by fear want to make.
Asked “How are you feeling?” [57.00], he said “brilliantly and terribly”; terribly led to the shaking and tears. I would like to think that the tears are the tears of his path pushing through his patriarchal truth trying to establish a genuine truth that is path based on a recognition of a genuine patriarchal tathata. Living with the sadness of compassion is part of the path – tears at appropriate times, but the inner guide pushes through with tears when the intellect or ego is preventing the path from emerging. Clinging to patriarchy for whatever reason could bring uncontrolled tears, compassion can bring tears but then they are controlled – expressive. If I am correct let us hope Jordan will let the truth in – for his sake. “Truth will save the world” – having “faith that truth beauty and love will save the world”; nothing better than that. But for truth beauty and love there can be no clinging to ego, what I believe has some connection to the source of Jordan’s tears.
A big question is “Why the popularity of Jordan Peterson?” Back in the time of my first evaluation it was about his audience - typically that appalling little arrogant squirm of a neighbour, the Lincoln marketing who wanted to bait a person who reached out in friendship just because he thought I was a leftie who would rise to the bait. What this talk of Jordan's and that squirm of one-upmanship are about are miles apart. This squirm was not concerned with personal truth, unlike the podcaster – and Jordan now.
Undoubtedly Jordan arose with the fashion of the manosphere (if that still exists), his analysis gave those jerks some plausibility. Is there still a dark web of intellectuals whose commonality was anti-socialism? He was a part of that funding. That is the Jordan I was discussing in my evaluation of 2018.
But it appears that life has bashed into that clinging, and he is a changed man who can talk of love as the path. Do those guys want him now? Are they cherry-picking the alt-right Jordan? Certainly the podcaster wasn’t. Yet the podcaster was part of the intellectual right, a successful small business person like the guy who interviewed the Tate Fortress. They made money to be able to podcast. Whilst Tate Fortress advocates Jordan love and beauty are not part of the Fortress and only certain levels of truth.
So why Jordan now? Is it just history? He still advocates patriarchy so he hasn’t lost that backing but love beauty and truth are inimical to patriarchy. So why Jordan? Maybe it’s just his history?
Don’t know enough of what is happening now.
The integrated path of compassion, insight and creativity - the struggle for GAIA. 
