Posted on 08/14/2018 4:17:43 PM PDT by RoosterRedux
My first introduction to Jordan B. Peterson, a University of Toronto clinical psychologist, came by way of an interview that began trending on social media last week. Peterson was pressed by the British journalist Cathy Newman to explain several of his controversial views. But what struck me, far more than any position he took, was the method his interviewer employed. It was the most prominent, striking example Ive seen yet of an unfortunate trend in modern communication.
First, a person says something. Then, another person restates what they purportedly said so as to make it seem as if their view is as offensive, hostile, or absurd.
Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, and various Fox News hosts all feature and reward this rhetorical technique. And the Peterson interview has so many moments of this kind that each successive example calls attention to itself until the attentive viewer cant help but wonder what drives the interviewer to keep inflating the nature of Petersons claims, instead of addressing what he actually said.
This isnt meant as a global condemnation of this interviewers quality or past work. As with her subject, I havent seen enough of it to render any overall judgmentand it is sometimes useful to respond to an evasive subject with an unusually blunt restatement of their views to draw them out or to force them to clarify their ideas.
(Excerpt) Read more at theatlantic.com ...
It is or at least was a Psychology fad. When I was in the VA hospital after I got scraped up off the highway I had to do a disability series of “interviews.” One was with a psych. She kept thinking she heard me say something psychopathic. I fed it right back to her, “I think I hear you saying that you want me to fit into one of your boxes,” etc. She got frustrated and gave up. I was NOT looking for disability but because I wound up in a VA hospital instead of the civilian one after I got scraped up off the highway with no insurance card but a DD213(or is that 214? I don’t remember) in my pocket I had to do all that stuff.
A DD-214 IIRC...thanks for serving.
I have always had a deep distrust of psychiatrists and psychologists. Of all the ones I have ever met, they come across to me as raging leftists...and they seem more disturbed than their patients they would treat.
I don’t think I have ever known a conservative one, but the cross section I have encountered personally are only a handful.
OTOH, I know they can serve a purpose for people who really need them. So I don’t want to demonize them.
Yes, that's the skillful thing! He never lost his composure. And then, at one point, his come-back made her temporarily speechless.
At which point, Peterson said, "I gotcha." LOL!
Peterson is a class act and a highly skilled debater with so many facts at his disposal. And yet, he doesn't play the Ted Cruz game of talking over the listener's head. He explains his reasons by pointing to actual research people can look up.
LOL!!! Well done, sir!
Thanks. I’m glad you got it!
The head psych at Santa Fe Community College which was a prestigious institution even as a to year school, Maria was my boss's girlfriend and I saw a lot of her in the jewelery store where I worked. She was a real mess of neuroses herself and sucked in an unbelievable line from the boss, whose last name was, aptly, Nutt, and wound up just barely fending off incarceration after joining him in his mafia dreams. This Phd recipient got off by convincing the jury that she was ignorant and naive.
I will demonize them until the psychopathic cows come home. I have met and dealt with-directly or peripherally a number of them and have reached the conclusion that all those who are not in the employ of private companies for purposes of marketing strategy are frauds. The field is fraudulent, the professors are frauds and students are taught to be frauds. It is purely a racket.
In a way Peterson reminds me of William F Buckley- unflappable, knows his stuff and is a master of logic.
The psychologist’s ploy is, “I think I hear you saying,” used to maneuver the client into one of the psych’s preferred boxes.
I have spent my life studying the Word, and pursuing truth. Someone like him is more useful to those who have not.
I get more from a thoughtful writer like Lewis or Chesterton.
I have to admit I agree with you on this...
I must admit, one of my favorite books is “The Screwtape Letters”!
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