Posted on 03/14/2021 6:47:28 AM PDT by Kaslin
“If you think tough men are dangerous, wait until you see what weak men are capable of.” - Jordan Petersen
Fascist. Toxic. Is he left or is he right? To postmodernists, he’s a formidable foe. To ideologues, he’s a mystery. To atheists, he’s a problem. Canadian professor and political commentator Jordan Peterson might be the most significant mind of our day, yet even with high tech mass exposure, most coverage gets him wrong.
At the University of Toronto, Professor Peterson’s rise to fame came with his “here I stand” moment that challenged the change in Canadian law for the mandatory use of gender pronouns. His controversial opinions sparked a flame that attracted considerable attention to his sizable library of lectures on the Internet, everything from Piaget to Pinocchio.
Petersen promotes the hero archetype, or manliness, defined by ancient stories
He derives his project from a deep concern with the direction of Western history, informed by a vast knowledge of philosophy and religion. Where his arguments do take a hard stand is when calling out ideas that contradict nature or dismiss human need. Ideas made destructive by the toxic forces of postmodernism and Marxism.
YouTube gave him a platform from which to reach a generation of males desperate to speak truth back to the growing anti-male, anti-West, anti-family bias. For many, Peterson was a welcomed father figure, who filled a sizable hole left by the culture’s move toward the radical left. His book, "12 Rules for Life" restored their pride with a simple tenet, “Clean your room.”
Peterson passes through America’s divided mind because he operates in multiple worlds at once, organized by what he refers to as “the logos” — truth spoken into creation. The same word is used for Christ in the Gospel of John. Maps of Meaning reflect a triumvirate mind with an uncommon sophistication absent in political thought.
Peterson also travels a path between philosophical nihilism and religious fundamentalism, his penetrating mind a lens focused through Carl Jung’s prism of archetypal story. The story allows for non-partisan, universal, life lesson appeal to all human audiences.
Confusion is caused when the listeners require ideological purity and cordon off spheres in the divided brain: no overlap between conservative and liberal views, or critical thought (academic) and faith, or progress and the fixed natural order. For narrow thinkers his independent mind wreaks havoc.
With the aid of postmodernism, Peterson, the well-trained professor, detects modern cultural ills rampant in the academy today. Not for its challenge or even its suspicion, but for the fact that in the name of deconstructed ideology it joins with Marxism to do just that. Peterson argues the system won’t stand.
Where postmodernism has a helpful role in added perspective, but without the fortitude of positive philosophy, it becomes another political tool to rewrite history, distort gender relations, and break down traditional life, traveled by generations of lived Judeo-Christian souls.
Peterson identifies Marx as a source of the threat, perhaps as equal to the influence of Nietzsche on the Nazis.
In certain hands, Marx becomes political division replacing individual virtue or redemption with suspicion and political power, intending to destroy the role of the male.
Nietzsche warned that the end of Christianity would leave open a door to the very nihilism of which Peterson warns his audience. Postmodernism would tear down the sacred system, and Marxism would serve as the new religion. Peterson warns while we know when the right goes too far, we do not know when the left has reached extremes.
Peterson is a transformational figure, able to separate the contingent from the constant in history. In other words, when reflecting on the West’s philosophical and religious roots or great literature, he knows how not to throw the baby out with the bathwater.
He seeks a way to transform the power of logos into a new perspective, able to withstand the radical left. Not escapist religion, as Marx promotes, but the redemption of our present world, one life at a time. Peterson cautions, before you can change the world, you must change yourself. Take responsibility, speak the truth, train your mind, and in doing so you will save the world!
In other words, strive to be the archetypal male.
^
Jordan Peterson calls himself Jungian, which is maybe a little more than a atheist. However, I believe in the existence of a knowing all-powerful God, because of DNA. How can any non-believer explain DNA? One of the tiniest strands of matter yet the most complex? And that everybody has their own individual strand of DNA that is unique to each person and nobody else has it?
I saw his interview with Cathy Newman, and I’ve been a fan ever since.
He’s sort of our modern equivalent of C. S. Lewis, but without the overt Christian label. Regarding Christianity, he seems to share my opinion about it before I gave my life to Christ.
I was cleaning up the ditch around our property (the “Adopt a highway” people are taking time off because of the Rona flu). I found a dead Coyote as well as a black bag full of coyote bones. They were clean as a whistle. I actually kept the backbone vertebre because they are all attached and they fit together like a jigsaw puzzle, and yet have freedom of movement.
It is a design marvel with every part of it designed for a function. And people think that just throwing a lot of years at evolution allows it to accidentally be designed.
When you consider that the design and function of a single cell and its place in the environment to keep it alive is more complex than a modern Porsche, it seems kinda silly to think it just accidentally came about.
And then, like you said, there’s DNA.
There was a debate on Theism between Sam Harris and Jordan Peterson. Jordan is obviously, at the very least, a “friend” of theists. Sam could not compete, IMO.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HK5M1BrQeG8
Part 1 of the long (really long) version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jey_CzIOfYE
I sometimes wonder if Peterson could be a modern age “Saul” (who became Paul).
Step one, become famous for blistering intelligence and perspective. We’re just waiting for step two: Add God.
>>Peterson warns while we know when the right goes too far, we do not know when the left has reached extremes.
The Left has no guardrails. This has been proven over and over again for over 200 years, since the French Revolution.
There Are No Guardrails On The Left
https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/3929301/posts
I always had a feeling that Jordan Peterson would find his way back to Christ. I think he’s there, or almost there.
Thanks for posting.
Right after my first baby was born at 9 pounds 13 ounces, a total miracle, I exclaimed to the midwives in a northern California hospital, “you just have to believe in God after witnessing the birth of a perfect baby, who nine months earlier was a dividing egg”?
JP is an acquired taste and I don’t have it. Philosophically he is all over the place.
In the end, it's the Lord having to come into someone's life and change it...just like Paul.
Maoism and Stalinism isn’t too far?
Exactly right. That is why it is a fool’s errand to continue arguing ad-nausium with the same people. It is what is meant (IMO) by “Shake the dust off your feet.”.
Fact is, we all tend to get bogged down in such discussions because it can be fun to argue, partly because there is a possibility (though slim) that you can “win”.
I’ve actually stopped arguing with atheists and agnostics on some site by saying pretty much exactly that. They get seriously offended sometimes, but that can be a good thing. They’ll think about it and come to Jesus, if they are a lost sheep. If they are a goat, they won’t, which means I’m wasting my time and offending them is irrelevant.
Either way, there are lots of lost sheep out there that need the good news. I was one of them at one time.
Why get that deep into it? Just watch himshred the alert every chance he gets and enjoy it.
Shred the Left**
Good post, thanks.
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His last interview I saw he was sort of a Deist. He acknowledged God as helping him through his withdrawal crisis.
He speaks highly of Christ but does not seem to know Him in a saving way. He is well familiar with scripture but tends to approach it as significant, excellent, but ultimately non authoritative.
Listening to him with a firm biblical standpoint, I have enjoyed his work. I think he is a remarkable man. But I won’t follow him blindly.
Excellent article. Thanks for posting.
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