Jordan Peterson Has No Clothes

Jordan Peterson

Jordan Peterson dishes out self-help ideas but his arguments have no objective basis. In order to adapt to new conditions, one needs to face reality to formulate ethical conclusions. He was supposed to be the antidote to leftist Postmodern collectivism which denies that reality exists. Instead he bases his conclusions on mythologies, misinterpretation of science, Freudian stories and Jungian archetypes that have no basis in evidence or fact. (A pox on both their houses!). When it comes to new ethical challenges, like whether affirming transgender treatment for children should be allowed, he is lost.

He is a self-help emperor without any clothes.

I was initially accepting when Peterson first came on the scene with his book Twelve Rules for Life. I could not criticize self-help pointers that encourage people to take responsibility for themselves and others, to tell the truth and not be resentful of other people. He also stated that his scientific positions could be changed if contradictory evidence was brought forward.

I supported his opposition to a new criminal Canadian law that required the use of “correct” pronouns because the law relied on a Human Rights bureaucracy for details and interpretation. It is one thing to use the correct pronouns to be cordial and polite but quite another to be subject a vague law that requires compelled speech. I got a little worried when he tried to liken the nervous system of lobsters to that of humans to justify hierarchies. (I have read the original scientific papers on lobsters and the authors make no such claims.) I got even more worried when he posed with flags displaying Pepe the Frog, which has been used as a right-wing Fascist hate cartoon meme. But I accepted his explanation that he did not understand the symbolism. Peterson appeared on right-wing forums but he also appeared at neutral forums, such as the Oxford Union in the U.K. and various talk shows.

All that changed after his bout with addiction to benzodiazepines. Rehab from these drugs is particularly difficult and he took the most radical treatment, only available in Russia, involving an eight-day drug-induced coma.

However, since coming out of rehab, he has tried to apply his philosophies to several controversial subjects, including affirmative treatment for transgender children and transgender adults. He has sought out yellow journalists (e.g. Helen Joyce, Abigail Shrier, Ben Shapiro) on YouTube to interact with on the air.

His positions are not based on science and reality. Some examples:

• He has followed the yellow journalists in their deliberate conflation of sex and gender to make false arguments. This feeds into their joint resentfulness of transgender people who they say are unethical leftists.

• 

  Elliot Page

  He criticized Eliot Page for publishing photos of his remodeled chest, tweeting that “Remember when pride was a sin. And Ellen Page just had her breasts removed by a “criminal physician.” He accused Eliot for encouraging youth to be transgender. The “pride” comment is obviously derived from Christian dogma as “the sin of all sins”. When pressed that the physician did not violate any laws, Peterson passed ethical judgement on the doctor, saying that it was wrong even though legal.

• He projected that if 15% of young people claim to be transgender, then within a few years there will be millions of post-op transsexuals in the U.S. He assumes that all trans people transition and that they all get transgender genital plastic surgery (TGPS) . He keeps saying that he should not care but then reverts to Christian dogma that this somehow violates the ethics of social good. The real statistics show that only 25% of transgender people transition and of those only 15% actually get TGPS. Doing the math, that is about half of one percent of the population.

• He has jumped on the anti-transgender bandwagon that 80% of trans kids will “desist” and grow up to be gay. This is based on numbers from the now defunct gender center in Toronto run by Ken Zucker. I have told you that analysis, done after this center was closed, indicated that most of the kids in this center were “prehomosexual”, not transgender. More recent evidence indicates that most all transgender kids continue to be transgender into adulthood if properly supported.

• When pressed on whether adult transgender peoples should have the right to transition, he is stumped. He cannot figure out the ethics because his philosophies have no basis in fact to build upon. He agrees with Helen Joyce that fighting transgender rights is a religious battle and that sex is sacred for religions because it fosters reproduction.

• He believes that being transgender is unnecessary. Some males have feminine traits and some females have masculine traits and they should live with them for the social good. As an expert on human personality research, he should know that there has never been a research study of transgender people that support this contention. He ignores the reality that many people reject such traits, causing anxiety and depression among transgender people. And he ignores the reality that societies progress that hold individual freedom, sovereignty, and agency to be rights. Those that don’t, often fail and/or cause mass human genocides.

• He has bought into the idea that the increase in demand for transgender treatment is due to social contagion, citing the literature on mass psychogenic illness (mass hysteria). Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria (ROGD) has been refuted by recent studies.

In his latest book (Beyond Order) , Jordan Peterson’s three philosophies can be discerned and named and they all deny reality. In her video blog, Philosophy Tube, Abigail Thorn details them. The first is Phenomenology which believes that the only reality is that contained in one’s brain; there is no external reality. The second is Structuralism which indicates that the only reality is that which society provides to the individual which influences his behavior. The third is Subjectivism which holds that mental activity is the only experience that proves existence. Denial of reality gives Peterson (and others) license to tell stories that are based on myth and human construction, not on reality. Stories are not facts or evidence.

People need objective philosophies to know how to live their lives based on reality. Jordan Peters is not providing them, and becomes confused when he must deal with a new fact of reality, just as his followers must do. The result is retreat to myth or bastardized science for answers.

Holding philosophies that deny reality creates damages to both individuals and society. They encourage resentfulness and ill will because decisions cannot be based on reality. For individuals, they encourage bitterness and depression which interferes with living a happy life. For society, they create ill will between people because they are unable to come to agreements based on reality. And they foster political polarization, forming groups of individuals holding common beliefs (not based on reality). Peterson appears to be painting himself into a right-wing corner of people with similar beliefs. Let’s hope that he gets out of it. The way is to understand reality based on science which he is trained to do.

Tags: featured, opinion, Transgender

Category: Transgender Science