Jordan Peterson doesn't understand postmodernism

39 thoughts on “Jordan Peterson doesn't understand postmodernism”

1. An object fact for post modernists. It’s NEVER ever acceptable to rape or murder babies. (Or anybody else of course). No amount of subjective sophistry will make is objectively untrue.

2. I think Peterson uses postmodernism interchangeably with modern Critical Theory. The book Cynical Theories traces the evolution of that trash fire of an ideology back to both postmodernism and Marxism.

3. Could it be that Jordan Peterson is immersed in an academic environment in which he can converse with adherents of postmodernism and/or certain postmodernism philosophers, and that he is describing the common denominators he has found in what they claim is their postmodernist thinking?

4. 15:52 "Even in a perfect society, power would still exist, but would simply be distributed symmetrically." Symmetrically means evenly? Across groups? Across individuals?

5. Why is postmodernism useful?

6. Can anyone tell me something of value which came from postmodern philosophy?

7. To be fair, neither do I

8. Thank you.

9. I do enjoy that peterson just makes stuff up and assumes people will believe him.

10. Perhaps the difficulty is that the work JBP has done has led him to conclude that the individual is sovereign (as unpacked here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBoqkGtbEQQ&ab_channel=Thinkers). Therefore, I think there exists a slight definition problem in that what JBP describes as the individual is beyond the scope ascribed by Derrida.

    JBP has also made many references to the absurdity of the combination of Marxism and postmodernism, but makes an empirical point that in the middle of the Venn Diagram of the two one finds the dangerous leftists that dominate certain university institutions (his field).

    Conclusion: JBP should probably say that postmodernists don't believe in the sovereign individual (rather than the individual per se) and could highlight that not every postmodernist is a Marxist and vice-versa.

11. Wrong, wrong and wrong. You missed the point – Peterson asserts postmodernists CURRENTLY cherry pick certain theories from what we now call postmodern (it was actually post structural). He does not trash all the works of Foucault and others. An example is he sights Nietzsche's theory that reality is only a function of who is in power, which postmodernists believe. While at the same time Peterson sights how Nietzsche's slave/master morality explains and undermines postmodern thought. You are arguing and invisible enemy here

12. 11:13 damn peterson 😂. No one is saying quantum mechanics is "correct". I think what is being expressed is that just because science attains their goal or has instrumental value. Doesn't speak to Truth with a capital T. It becomes an issue when science steps outside of it's demarcation and starts making dogmatic statements about what should or should not happen or what should or should not exist for everyone else and what is knowledge or is not knowledge. Especially when it comes to matters of religion, art, politics, and other non-evident matters.

13. Insufferable argumentation

14. Fantastic breakdown.

15. 10:24 ==> But don't those functions exist because they work in providing people what they want?

16. I'm realy wondered which part of smartphone relies on quantum mechanics? He meant radio, or computers as such?

17. oops i stumbled into alt left cult youtube.

18. There is a difference between what people say and what actually is, I dont think that anybody actually believes (acts out) in post modernism fully, if they did there would be nothing to do since nothing is better than anything else. You need motivation and drive, an ideal in life in order to not commit suicide, the motivation for post modernist is the hatred for the oppressors, but this time what differs human is their identity (race,sex etc) rather than economics. So yes marxism and post modernism are very alike. Post modernism are interseted in econmics aswell in that the identity who is at the top economically is the oppressors and the poorest are oppressed. We can see that in US today where many black issues are fabricated and exaggerated because of the mass influence of post modernism which is marxism in disguise, suddenly you can exclaim feelings for black people and call white people priveleged, exactly what happened in Russia but then the succesful were privileged

19. 5:00 Its still the case that what was driving hte communist was the hatred for the succesful and so yes, the battle between the rich and the poor was absolutely the main question, the rest is simply filler to excuse the resentment

20. Post modernism = most USSR marxism

21. Maybe it's because he's not really speaking about post-modernism but about the (mis-?)Interpretation some activists in North American universities made of it.

22. Derrida, Foucault and Peterson are all good thinkers when it comes to literary criticism. good thinkers often misunderstand each other!!!

23. I really don't understand how JP is so popular. I have no doubt he's a smart guy but he lectures on things far outside his scope. Poorly I might add. He is a weak public speaker with very little charisma.

24. i love learning about theory while also simultaneously hating on jordan peterson

25. 0:14 I refuse to believe that these are real names

26. "I-it wasn't real post-modernism"

27. Correct me if I'm wrong, I think maybe he is comparing the analogy of oppressor vs oppressed with my narrative (the grand narrative) is better than your narrative (small Oppressed narratives).

28. The contradiction between neomarxism and postmodernism is exactly the Peterson´s point, as he explains during the Zizek debate – these world views should not be intertwined because they contradict each other, yet they still often coexist ignorant of the contradiction. You are correct that there should not be any Post modern neomarxist, yet they still exist… or at least that is how I understand his position. Great video!

29. Peterson is very well informed in the area of psychology and his ideas are often very good. When he gets into philosophy and politics he speaks with same knowledgeable manner. .I know very little about postmodernism but just by listening to him talk about them, you can tell that his actual ideas are just noodle soup.

30. "…Receiving eight point FIFE million votes."
    screeches in pilot

31. Maybe Peterson should read some history and look more closely at the people he's talking about, communism was still around in a big way in Europe around the time Derrida and Foucault wrote, people weren't hiding it in France and Italy they had big communist parties.
    "First of all, I didn't say that there was no center, that we could get along without the center. I believe that the center is a function, not a being, a reality, but a function. And this function is absolutely indispensable. The subject is absolutely indispensable." – Derrida

32. Dude, thanks for this. I really like a lot of the things Peterson has to say and his intentions for creating the content he does, but I’ve had my disagreements with him and have been looking for a well educated critique of his ideas that doesn’t focus on his personality for a long time. Respec

33. Few critic points:
    1. Only because some/big parts of the population voted for a communist party, doesnt automatically mean it wasn't taboo for academics or any high class civilian. Germanies most hated party has still 25% votes in some parts, but it's absolutely despised.
    2. He didn't claim the essence of marxism is just identifying the existence of a problem between rich and poor, the essence (he claims) is the marxist claim that history is to be viewed through a lens of poor vs rich in nearly every aspect of life and is and was one of the biggest problems. He compares that this was the main grand narrative is very similar to the grand narrative oppressor vs oppressed which he interpreted into foucault etc.
    3. You are building up an straw man at 5:45
    4. 7:45 you are building up your main argument based on a false assumption/straw man.

34. I don't think the description of Peterson having a "misunderstanding" of Post-Modernism is inaccurate. That implies some naivety or ignorance through lack of exposure on his part. I think he mis-characterizes these ideas intentionally because he has contempt for the intelligence of his audience and he knows he has found a niche he can profit from. If anything, his audience has a misunderstanding of Post-Modernism which he preys on and exploits to his advantage.

35. I've watched this, and You havent really said anything. You have Just crtiqued how Peterson has lumped things in together, and then used specific quotes to illustrate how on this occasion you feel that Derrida et al were not actually saying X but saying y when this looks like a matter of interpretation. A much better idea would be a list of maxims or ideas in plain English for us to actually consider the subject ourselves. Its fine to say that Peterson doesnt understand Post-modernism however you havent really done anything to further our understanding, you have just chosen to debunk what you think postmodernism is-not, rather than hold up what it actually is and allow us to scrutinize.
    The only conclusion to draw up is if a manifesto of Ideas is purposfully cloudy and obscure then it amounts to Jargon for Jargons sake, allowing only people who are allready well informed on the matter (by inference people who are well read are allready orientated towards the subject and likeley agree and further their understanding based on interest) to take part in the debate.
    Moral relativity and Subjective reality would be a good place to start as topics for introduction.
    What really doesnt help is some of the mouthpeices from the community who are in favour of Post-modernism seem to have an incorrect interpretation also.

36. I love when collectivist claim they aren't Marxists. As a former Marxists, what Jordan describes is exactly the though process. It's just a way to not admit we were wrong. Sorry you didn't get the newsletter. We thought it was obvious

37. “Are the liberals who identify a conflict between the 99% and the 1% Marxists as well?”

    Just wanted to say, here in the states, they say that on TV all the time. Socialism was so thoroughly crushed and erased from history here (it also never quite took off as much except in a few states, but we did have a contingent of socialists in State government before the first red scare), nobody knows what the hell it is, and Marxism means “big government” in both the right’s and center-left’s minds

38. You lost me in the first minute as soon as you started to argue that you can't criticize postmodernism because everyone has a different opinion. The postmodernists argue it's an ideology without an ideology, anything goes, and if you try to criticize us we'll just change the narrative to whatever we like. However, postmodernism has a clear intellectual lineage from Marx's "debunked" theories on class consciousness and is now infecting universities, business, and government with ludicrous theories of identity politics.

39. It seems like the Moderns and Postmoderns are very similar, still, though. The only good philosophers are outside those categories.

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