@Matt, I have nothing against you personally, and the "larvae" bit wasn't directed at you.
Matt Gregory wrote:Someone who kills innocent people and kills himself has a big existential problem
Most human beings haven't killed anyone, yet they have big existential problems. Just because those problems aren't expressed through violent actions doesn't mean they are less significant. My issue though is with making serial killers germane to a discussion about young men in the first place. That is precisely the sort of exercise in misandry which has become quotidian in feminist (not necessarily SJW) circles.
I think he's arguing that monogamy was a pillar of the construction of our free society, it evolved over thousands of years because that reproductive strategy is what works the best.
The real pillar of human civilisation is the extended family, with a flexible combination of monogamy and polygamy depending on ability to sustain a large household (=monogamy for the majority of men and their wives). That is what "works the best" in historical and practical terms. It is nonsense to assert that monogamy within the context of modern nuclear families has evolved from monogamy within the context of extended families. Indeed assertions of this kind are invariably made by those who covet praxis of a romanticised version of the former, and are desperately searching for a rationale.
I think what he is really aiming for is education on how to successfully date and manage a monogamous relationship, because most relationships fail due to simple mismanagement, and he has a lot of advice about that. For example, you don't try to resolve an argument by threatening to leave the relationship. That just destroys any trust you could have.
If you are living in a society where arguments can end a marriage, it doesn't make sense to enter one to begin with. Moreover, in such societies, men can be and are legally deprived of their assets, income, children and freedom by the government in case such a relationship ends, which is statistically likely to happen. This state of affairs
is in direct opposition to the only reliably demonstrated function of marriage. That being the rearing of children to eventually replace parents' roles in localised economies comprised of large families and their collectively-owned and -operated (usually agrarian) assets.
In industrialised societies, the function of marriage need not, and indeed cannot, happen efficiently within the *only* environment which has proven itself suitable for it. There are better ways to ensure both parents participate in and are responsible for the rearing of their children without the risks (for men) and contradictions which have thus far accompanied attempts to preserve what is in effect a distortion of real marriage. Valid attempts are already being made, for example shared parenting laws in the country of Europe.
On an unrelated note, Peterson is saying nothing remotely new or groundbreaking here. The average agony aunt probably offers a less agonising edition of the same narrative.
Marriage and sexuality of any kind has nothing to do with "wisdom" as that term is defined on GF.
Sure it does. A stable society has lot more potential for wisdom than a violent society.
This is an obviously problematic and flawed argument if evaluated on empirical grounds i.e. sociologically/historically/etc. I'm guessing you intend a broader/more philosophical context. While a degree of free time and the fulfilment of basic needs are essential to the pursuit of wisdom, most functioning societies can offer those. And to reiterate, theories about proper sexual relations have nothing to do with wisdom, which is the categorical rejection of all delusions.
Attachment to women and sex is the most common and powerful of all delusions. The way in which that attachment manifests itself i.e. stable, chaotic, pseudo-philosophical fantasy, monogamous, heterosexual, transtesticle etc., is *totally* irrelevant to wisdom itself. There are differences in rationality in certain instances (*actual* vs make-believe traditional marriage, for instance), but such differences are trivial in light of the fact that any rationality (instead of pretense to that effect, which is usual) is severely stunted by the inevitably pervasive irrational elements. If thirsty young men interested in wisdom are told that implementing conjugal fantasies, and even the real thing, will increase the number of wise people then the opposite shall transpire. None of this is to say that wisdom and sexual reproduction are so mutually opposed they cannot at least cohabit (they do and have), or even watch movies together once in a while. There are hard limits though, like everything else in life.
Nietzsche understood that nihilism was the denial of reality once it becomes undeniable yet cannot bring one happiness. His great realisation was that the solution to that lies not, as all prudent men of every age (including Peterson) assert, in changing oneself to fit the mold of the nearest convenient piece of that reality, but rather in turning inwards and digging until one finds it.
"...it sounds insightful - even profound - but on closer analysis turns out to be either false or so nebulous that it could be interchanged with hundreds of other statements about the same general topic." :P
Really? I pretty much nailed the problem with your characterisation of Peterson as a sage in that single paragraph. Nietzsche, Kierkegaard and other wise men define the "I" as the only thing which has to be understood. For Peterson it is already understood - the sacrosanct unit of the "free society" in theory; a vessel for desperate mythologies in practice.
For Kierkegaard the primacy of the individual meant standing alone before God's judgment, which is the individual's honesty before and about himself. For Peterson it means that SJWs and Cultural Marxism are the major evil forces in a civilisation by and large refusing even to be honest about the conditions that have sustained in its century-long sugar high. And since his claim to fame was a non-sequitur - he successfully convinced millions of people that imposition of speech related to minority groups on employees is an unprecedented move towards fascism - he certainly "lives by what he teaches".
Yeah, underneath all that leftist slant, I think that's more or less accurate.
What is this leftist slant?
Groups are completely arbitrary constructions of mass imagination, and to make laws that aim to prevent the offense of one of these groups by chipping away at our fundamental rights is bullshit.
Groups are just a distinction. A distinction may be rational or fantastic to varying degrees. Laws are based on distinctions, and in some cases laws which seek to prevent the abuse of distinctions are rational. Bill C-16 added transtesticles to the list of people whom it is illegal to discriminate against. Most extant legislation against discrimination around the world implies the restriction of language, so that is nothing new.
Support for or opposition to various degrees of free speech is a political issue and has nothing to do with wisdom. Only freedom of thought is necessary for wisdom. On second thought, one could philosophically address the sense and extent to which free speech exists or can exist, but that is a different discussion.
If every attempt at a Marxist system has failed, then how can Marxism lead to totalitarianism by logical necessity?
Because it's a political philosophy with a flat organizational structure. But humans don't organize themselves in flat structures. We organize ourselves in dominance hierarchies, historically speaking.
A flat organisational structure is a contradiction-in-terms. Marx wasn't stupid enough to conceive of such a thing. Marxism is a classical economic theory rather than any kind of ideology, its central tenet being that labour creates wealth or surplus energy+economic "value". Business ownership of financial, manufacturing and distribution infrastructure allows them to capture labour’s value-added surplus for themselves. Solution: a system whereby workers own the means of production and keep the surplus. Marx's critique of industrial capitalism is overall excellent and relevant for both the 20th & 21st century. He falsely believed (qua Hegel) that "rational" solutions are possible within a "rational" historicism, and posed said belief as "science".
The essential fallacy of Marxism is identical to that of capitalism, i.e., "production" is real. It is an abstract concept - there is only transformation and consumption. All industry is a form of consumption, and its products are trivia, i.e. waste and entropy. More energy and resources spent producing trivia-->more entropy generated faster.
There are only two economic systems which can maintain industrial societies, a> globalised state-corporate capitalism b> globalised state capitalism. Both systems (in the real world, various permutations of them), in slightly different ways, channel surplus energy & resources gained from the extraction/transformation of the same to processes which consume them. Processes which are deemed likely to lead to more consumption are favoured over those which are not, because they justify increasing both scale and intensity of current extraction via a combination of decreased surplus, more efficient consumption (here innovation is relevant) and reduced consumption elsewhere. This in order to mitigate against the problem of diminishing returns, which appears once the current most cheaply extractable resources are consumed. Such a phenomenon is commonly known as the creation of debt, and has worked so far because the costs of extraction could always be shifted away in the manner described above. It is a mathematical certainty that, ceteris paribus, it will stop working at some point of time, which is likely to be within the coming few/several decades.
And you didn't answer my question.
I think you're not going back far enough in history. Fossil fuels weren't even valuable when the United States was formed, for example. They made fossil fuels valuable through technological innovation.
Technology doesn't create value, if value is defined as energy. It expends extant energy to achieve a desired result. There wasn't and isn't any energy source other than fossil fuels which technological innovation could have expended to create industrial civilisation. The region of the United States was, and to a lesser extent still is, a uniquely abundant store of fossil fuels and other resources. Some European nations were lucky enough to find it and consequently deliver it from the occupiers. The US was formed by and for a liberal elite who wished to retain the wealth generated by that region for themselves. It became more democratised with time because motivated consumers were needed for consumption to match and justify the expansion of resource discovery & extraction (see Jackson & Manifest Destiny).
His philosophy is that rather than identifying with some oppressed group and blaming some oppressors while you wait for them to solve your problems, it's more effective to take responsibility for your own problems. That's how Western civilization became successful. Because the fact is, even if you're in a shitty situation, you can always improve it little by little if you make the effort. Sitting around bitching about other people just isn't as effective. Even if you get them to solve the problem you're bitching about, the chances of them solving it to your satisfaction are exactly zero. So the cycle of bitching starts all over again and never ends.
That is a bad philosophy, if it can even be termed a philosophy. It seems the very common ethical principle for personal responsibility (actions, livelihood etc.) has been retrofitted into a bog-standard conservative perspective of western culture and capitalism. The most obvious problem with that is neither individuals nor historical phenomena can be understood or judged solely on the basis of whether people are responsible in their personal lives, and I mean that in both the philosophical and empirical sense.
Presumably we are more interested in the philosophical aspect. There is no inherent conflict or affinity between wisdom and most of the things which may be included under the definition/category of personal responsibility. Some of those things - say diligence or moderation - are *means* to wisdom but only within a certain context as in "a dose of disgust with life" or a yearning for the essence despite all suffering and stumbling around. Others, like being employed, being healthy, not being broke, not taking drugs etc. are fully *compatible* with wisdom but may not always accompany it and don't mediate it on their own.
Also the broader context of *starting* to take personal responsibility is *necessarily* very narrow and mundane. If one wishes to get a job as the first step in realising an ideal of metaphorical housework, the most rational and successful approach would be getting the first job available without thinking about much else, including the point of the job itself beyond things like income or settling into a routine. Wisdom simply doesn't enter the picture, and if it does the logic of the context may dictate it should be forced out. Understanding and rectifying one's failings/situation in everyday life is more *prudent* than not doing so, but not *wiser* per se.
Then there is an obvious (hence not explaining unless asked to) internal inconsistency in the premise that any standard or notion of truth must follow and be created by the act of assuming responsibility - at least in spirit - for a very catholic definition of one's life/problems. Noteworthy too are the predictable ironies which ensue whenever kerygma of said premise is attempted.
But now I'm having deja vu of the QRS Schism Debate and attempts to make sense of Q's 1000 year old "progressive movement" which is apparently making everyone enlightened in baby steps. I'm probably about to get called pessimistic and cynical as well. But wait, a fragment of what is bound to be an Alexian sutra has just caught my eye:
"There are only (IMO) opinion-sets which might be described as *SLIGHTLEY anterior* to the radical positions of the Present, but there is no philosophically foundationed *correct view*." The unnerving bluntness of this insight rends my stupor! What strident squamous sorority of trans-muses could have coaxed such alt-gibberings my opinion-set to fancy foundationed? Repentant and subjewed, henceforth I am and must ... *only* construct!