Mixed feelings about Peterson

I do have mixed feelings about Peterson. Some of his ideas are good, others are a kind of loathsome (and a few are based on pretty sketchy science) I did read that one book of his.

So, my main problem with the first part of this video is it is too confident in treating our selves as a unified thing; like it bifurcates the world into “the real you” and “these external ideas”, and doesn’t acknowledge that, like Jung pointed out, our selves are more of a committee. Like with that quote “people don’t have ideas, ideas have people” and the accompanying marionette – that’s an important part of meme theory, that concepts kind of have their own agenda and only ideas that are spreadable get spread, but they are then internalized. they are a part of us. They might not be in accordance with the aims of our “higher self” but to try to pretend they are external is a lie we might tell ourselves.

The second part… well like a lot of self-help advice and promise of incremental progress as the reward for persistence, I think it discounts the effort needed to prevent backsliding. Arguably that’s a nuance that’s kind of included in the rest of the plan he lays out, but i definitely think it’s worth dwelling on – or maybe I’m too aware of it? Like I have this unreasonable expectation for “real growth means the changes you make that take high levels of vigilance and effort gradually become more natural and require less energy”… and maybe that’s why I don’t think real growth and change happens all that much... Kirk

Kirk was responding to this article.