Reader Chris, knowing of my disdain for podcasts (and perhaps for Jordan Peterson as well), asked me to listen to at least 15 minutes of this long (1½-hour) discussion between Richard Dawkins and Peterson. All it did was confirm my disdain for Peterson, who seems remarkably self-absorbed and domineering (he doesn’t even let the moderator, Alex O’Connor, get a word in edgewise). And it made me admire Richard even more for his patience in dealing with cranks.
I started listening at 17:23, and that’s where I started the video below. Or you can click on this time marker: (17:23) with the discussion of whether the biblical texts were divinely inspired or did they evolve over time in a secular way?
What bothers me about Peterson is not only his logorrhea, but his unwillingness to answer questions straight, producing a word salad that barely makes sense.
During the 15 minutes I listened (from 17:23 to about 33:00), Dawkins and Peterson discuss whether the Bible was divinely inspired, whether it contains any “truth” at all, and whether the concept of “sacrifice,” which Peterson says is the dominant motif of the Bible (it supposedly progresses from a primitive notion of sacrifice in the Old Testament to Jesus’s marvelous sacrifice made to redeem humanity) come from divine inspiration.
A good example of Peterson’s word salad in this clip is his assertion that truth is unified, and the world of value and world of fact must “coincide in some manner we don’t yet understand.” He gives us a Hobson’s choice: “You either believe that the world of truth is unified or it’s not; either there’s contradiction between value and fact” or there is not. Peterson adds that he belives that “different sets of values can be brought into unity.” This to me seems deeply misguided. Values are not the same thing as facts, nor can all different sets of values, which at bottom reflect preferences, can be harmonized.
Peterson repeatedly claims to be asking questions of Richard, but he never really finishes his questions because Peterson is so obsessed with talking nonstop. He is in love with his own thoughts and his own voice.
However, Richard manages to get in one question for Peterson: “Did Jesus die for our sins?” That is a yes-or-no question, but Peterson waffles, saying that there are “Elements of the [Biblical] text he doesn’t understand:, but the more Peterson studies the bible, the more he understands. Peterson analogizes the Bible to quantum mechanics, saying that the more you study this mysterious subject, the more you understand. Richard responds by shutting Peterson down, saying that Biblical texts do not work in the same way as does quantum mechanics, in that quantum mechanics works—it generates predictions that lead to further truths about the world. The Bible, avers Richard, don’t have any credentials because it makes no predictions.
In an attempt to corral Dawkins into Christianity, Peterson says that Dawkins’s claim that he was a “cultural Christian” proves that Dawkins “found something derived from Christianity that he had an affinity with”. “What did Christianity get right,” asks Peterson, “that enabled [Dawkins] to make a statement like that?” Dawkins responds nothing: his view that he is a “cultural Christian” simply means that he was brought up in Christian culture and knows the Biblical texts. Dawkins adds that doesn’t value Christianity at all.
They then arrive at one moment of agreement: some religions lead to better behavior of their adherents than do others. Both men seem to agree that Islam leads to a worse society than does Christianity. But then Peterson implies that morality is identical with religion, and that you adhere to better religions to get societies with better morality. I would point out that Steve Pinker, in his big books, explains how religion is really an impediment to the improvement of society, and that you don’t in fact need religion to derive morality. We all know this is true from the morality discussed by secular philosophers like Plato, Hume, Kant, Spinoza, Rawls, and Singer. Peterson seems to be a Confused Christian.
Finally, before I gave up in disgust, I watched Richard ask Peterson whether he believed that Jesus was born of a virgin (32:10). Once again Peterson waffles, saying that he isn’t really qualified to comment on elements like this in Bible, but he sees enormous mystical and metaphorical value in the story: “Any culture that doesn’t hold the image of the woman and infant sacred dies.” My response is “WTF”? What does he mean by “sacred”? And which societies have died for lack of this sacralization?
What we see here is Peterson arguing that Biblical/spiritual “truth” is no different from scientific truth; in other words, all “ways of knowing” come up with truths of equal status.
One other thing I learned from this video, besides the relief I need no longer pay attention to Peterson, is Richard’s enormous patience in dealing with semi-loons like his opponent. I wondered why Richard even engaged Peterson, but reader Chris responded this way: “I like Sam Harris’s explanation of old: he and Richard know they can’t change the views of their opponent, but they can influence some of the audience watching it.”
It seems to me, though, that Richard is being a huge masochist by engaging in this effort. Fans of Peterson love his word salad and will not stop worshiping him, and those who are neutral should, if they have any neurons, realize from Peterson’s words alone he is in some way unhinged.
Here: click the video to start where I started, and then listen to about minute 34. And have some antacid at hand!
I used to like Peterson when he was a crusader for freedom of speech in Canada, and he also wrote some good psychology papers back in the day, but he really fell off. Now he is indistinguishable from a postmodern guru.
I didn’t know he’d become involved with religion.
One of my “side projects” is to see where Peterson is coming from, perhaps as PCC(E) and readers here try as well.
I think to put it crudely – Peterson is blending the figurative with the literal. He is coming from e.g. a Nietzschean concept of human nature. Listeners might at least see the lines on the road if they read Nietzsche, et. al.
Peterson ruins his case by leaving his literature sources to the imagination. He went on in one example about dragons – but he means a figurative grappling with human nature – but lets it sort of fester as a literal dragon – perhaps he means the emotional is in effect literal.
It’s great that Dawkins makes the efforts. But I have never seen the pair develop thought into anything but an immiscible pool – as if it is really pointless for Dawkins to be there.
IOW as if two independent epistemologies are trying to combine.
I have a rule of thumb that anyone who doesn’t present their ideas in straightforward prose is not worth paying attention to. This includes Peterson, Judith Butler, Derrida, Hegel, Wittgenstein, and many others.
I’m sure this rule saves me a great deal of time and I’m fairly sure that I don’t lose anything because of it. (Are readers aware on any exceptions?)
I almost fully agree, but e.g. Butler is practically a – if not the – current high priestess of sublation – capturing a large audience.
I find myself regularly examining her writing and speaking to evince patterns to what she is doing – or indeed these other thinkers you cite.
Because there has to be a pattern, and that pattern is, I suppose, worth knowing, and that means paying closer attention than e.g. clear, excellent writing.
At some point I find it useful to mock and laugh at. Religion does not stand up to mockery very well, and I think that is a good test.
I’m no big fan (though I liked him in his early, garage-band years, when he was just psych and “clean up your room” – he’s become increasingly weird in recent years) …. but I’d spend a year on a desert island with him before I even spent five minutes with that terrible female impersonator Butler. Butler is the WORST.
Peterson WAS good for lost young men, an true fighter against woke early on and better than the alternative which is… Andrew Tate, etc.
So. Mixed.
But please, no Butler.
D.A.
NYC
“Peterson WAS good for lost young men, an true fighter against woke early on and better than the alternative”
The first exposure I had to Petersen was this taped interview of about 6 years ago in which he was questioned by an absurdly hostile (and, of course, ‘woke’) woman who was determined to ‘prove’ he was a misogynist. The interview went viral because he was so masterful in countering every one of her claims with reason and evidence and – most impressively – without ever becoming angry or disrespectful despite being treated that way.
I had a positive impression of Peters as a result of this video. All the same, I didn’t follow up by paying any more attention to him. And sadly, it seems that the promise he showed of becoming a voice of reason and decency in the culture failed to materialize.
Fair enough.
For some intoxicating New Age lucubrations – check out some Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (though I think you would know this author).
Peterson almost always sounds like what I’d imagine Joseph Campbell on an acid trip in Wonderland to sound like…but less coherent.
That he is now channeling Deepak makes him even more annoying.
I must admit I do like Joe. Acid trip?
I’ve been calling him the Deepak Chopra for the Libertarian set for over a decade.
Peterson keeps repeating the same “answers” he gave to Sam Harris almost 8 years ago: There’s truth in the Bible because you can’t refute Nietzsche, Jung and Dostoyevski!
Please someone ask him why he thinks his personal interpretation of fiction tales should take precedence over empirical facts.
Yes – Jung is another one.
Jung wrote looney stuff – but that’s where Peterson coming from.. with the dragon example, I have been told.
Only watched a little, but Peterson seemed to be doing what many believers do. They look at an ancient story which deals with timeless themes which occur throughout all human societies (love, hate, jealousy, rebellion, honesty, cheating, etc), label it “sacred,” remember all the ways this story has been interpreted, employed, retold etc over time, throw in a few modern interpretations by applying it metaphorically to their own concerns — and wow! Isn’t it AMAZING that this little story is so rich, so deep, so true!
You take out what you put in. If some culture decided that Aesop’s Fables or The Little Engine That Could were sacred texts inspired by God, acting them out over centuries and drawing analogies to anything vaguely analogous, they’d likely be looked at with the same sense of reverence and awe. How simply God revealed what’s in our hearts, but how profound. Can we ever understand?
I think we can; I think we can.
I LOL’ed at your last sentence.
Me too.
“Failure is always an option.”
I watched this interview some weeks back. The primary issue is epistemic: JBP is a Jungian, who channels Jung and Joseph Campbell, who both promulgated the idea of archetypes as Deep Truths. As a Jungian, JBP is fascinated by Dawkins spreading the idea of memes, as to JBP, memes are fundamentally related to archetypes; everything online (Memeland) is a spiritual bath of them. JBP was thrilled to see Dawkins acknowledge his cultural roots in Christianity but thinks Dawkins hasn’t had the insight (yet!) that he is actually a Believer. JBP, being Jungian to his core, believes that we all believe, even if we don’t know it. This is why the archetypes have primacy over truth and why the conversation was destined to fail: they do not agree on how to know.
+1
+1
Yep. Peterson’s woo is pure Jung.
The Economist just published an amusing review of Peterson’s latest book:
https://www.economist.com/culture/2024/11/19/the-cult-of-jordan-peterson
It’s a shame about Peterson. When he first appeared he made a lot of sense and was quite inspirational to many, especially disenfranchised young man. One of the earliest to push back against compelled speech and called out some of the more egregious excesses of the left.
He’s now, as our host so succinctly puts it, a crank. Bought into himself too much and has gone off the deep end with some of his world views. Sad.
+1
I agree completely. He did make a lot of sense at first. What he “preached” was pretty basic stuff. I bought his book 12 Rules for Life and I would encourage everyone to read it, particularly disenfranchised young (and especially white) men. His pushback against compelled speech was absolutely necessary and it was really enjoyable to see him frame his arguments in ways the ridiculous left couldn’t even understand, much less respond to.
But now, sadly, Peterson has become, as you say, a crank.
His 12th Rule (“Pet a cat when you encounter one on the street.”) is one that we can all get behind.
Jordan Peterson once said something to the effect of “truth began with the Bible.” OK, let’s examine this. If we couldn’t recognize truth before the Bible, how did people know whether prophets were telling them the truth? How did the authors of the Bible know what truths to include in their individual works? And what about all the parts of the Bible that contradict each other? What exactly is truthful, and what’s not?
If Christianity seems more compatible with civil society, that’s not because of anything inherent in its beliefs. It’s because in societies where Christianity has been dominant, religion was compelled to subordinate itself to secular governance. Secularism forced Christians to behave civilly; no more burnings at the state for being heretics. Our U.S. Constitution ushered in the rule of law. This could have been influenced by religious beliefs, but it doesn’t codify religious rules. In societies were the law is written according to an interpretation of religious principles, barbarism is often a factor. So Peterson is wrong to claim that morality, as seen in societies heavily influenced by Christianity, is based upon religion.
Well said.
The Bible, that book that turns people away from truth is actually the source of truth. Oh the irony.
+1
The U.S. Constitution was not the first usher. It owed a lot to English Constitutionalism, e.g. Magna Carta.
Dead right. Also the old democratising Greeks.
Yes, the Magna Carta moved Western civilization closer to secular rule by stating that the king was subject to the rule of law. This established the idea that the law was supreme.
However, there was still a state religion even with the Magna Carta, and religious persecution would become very prevalent a few hundred years after its adoption. Look what happened under Henry VIII and the brutality that followed in his wake. Religion played a role in the Civil Wars in the kingdom under Charles I. Later on, Roman Catholics of Ireland would be horribly oppressed by British authorities for practicing their religion.
What the U.S. Constitution did was to remove religion from the equation when it came to governance — separate church from state. In fact, many Christians fiercely opposed this proposed supreme law and called it the “godless constitution.” They knew it would give equal rights to people of any faith or no faith at all. This is the way is should be.
Jordan Peterson’s intellectual and emotional property is located about a mile before one reaches Jim Jones’ last address.
👍🏽
Peterson is a moron. Never got him.
He waded into Russian history one time, in over his head.
Odd guy.
He never seems to smile.
Hi Jerry, why the disdain for podcasts?
I actually have more respect for someone like William Lane Craig than Jordan Peterson. At least someone like William Lane Craig honestly believes the things he says he believes(it’s nonsense, what Craig believes, but at least he’s honest about it). Peterson is not honest. He’s a charlatan. I don’t think he’s the worst person in the world, and he does say some things that I agree with. But, for the most part, he’s a conman who likes to hear the sound of his own voice. He isn’t worth paying attention to. Props to Richard for being able to stomach sitting through that man’s sophistry. – Andrew