Jordan Peterson and Ideology

 When Jordan Peterson is talking about ideology with that uvula swallowing ‘o’ pronunciation,  what is he talking about?  In my view it is simply this -  a philosophy with a distinct human origin often traceable to a single individual or a group emerges, is taken up by philosophes, intelligentzia, right thinking people, bien pensants and so forth.  It is the flavour of the era.  Very quickly it tends to become dogmatic with fixed principles and modes of discourse.  Then is the time of the heresy sniffers and scryers of correctness.  As a human ideational construct it ought to be constantly mutating but it doesn’t. Sublation runs into the sand.  

But isn’t religious belief like that? Is it not also an ideology?  The central difference is that religion is not of human origin and so its tenets are fixed by definition.  Its doctrines do not alter with the intellectual weather.  Mythology is another archetypal domain with an inner mirroring of the human psych which is constant and changeless.   Conservatism is an ideology that allows for slow organic change and resists rapid transitions.  Adaptation comes out of the slow wisdom of what works.  One size does not fit all societies.

Peterson is not an ideologue.  He runs with the archetypal pack.  His maps of meaning are not a personal cartography.

Jordan Peterson not talking about the war

 

I encountered two criticisms of Jordan Peterson yesterday.  One of them was from Lewis Waller :then and now on Peterson

and the other was from the indomitable John Waters on his substack account -John Waters Unchained.

johnwaters@substack.com

The former was no surprise given that he jerks and genuflects with a post modernist knee though he affected to find much of value in Peterson’s Rules books.  What he objects to chiefly is the supreme emphasis on personal responsibility.   He parsed it as ‘response-ability’.  If the deck is stacked against you culturally, societally, what can you do, your options are limited.   Indeed, but how much of the truth is it?  The  Hero, a theme of Peterson’s, can turn on a dime.  He makes a space in the thicket of obstructions and decides with a healthy irascibility that this game of soldiers is a dead loss or salvable.   The insight into the interior checks comes from a rigorous ‘agenbite of inwit’  and the sense of divine love that carries you through that lonesome valley which pace Woody Guthrie you do not have to cross by yourself.

What John Waters would probably aver is that there is a lack of congruence with the structure of the human person in the philosophy of post modernism, critical theory and the dismal mephitic swamp of identarianism, viewpoint theory and cancel culture.  There is no joy in any of their liturgy rather misery and ananda deficit.  What the sage said : satyam vada, dharmam chara - speak the truth, follow dharma.  Suddenly that constricted space becomes boundless because as we are told - Being and the True are convertible.

Like the droll Meath man said - You’d wonder’ .  Why has Jordan nothing to say about the Covid  panic barring an irritable bark - ‘take the dam vaccine’.  He puts that foot out and then draws it back claiming that I understand why one wouldn’t want to take it.  Look this won’t do Jordan, too much of your stock in trade has been about resistance to mass movements.  The Shorter O.D. has a beautiful definition of panic:

“A sudden  and excessive feeling of alarm or fear, usually affecting a body of persons, and leading to extravagant or injudicious efforts to secure safety.”

Not talking about the war is talking about the war.  John Waters expresses his disappointment and  his article is well worth reading.  May I offer a defense of Peterson which brings into focus another archetype not spoken of by psychology.  As well as the Hero there is the Saint.  Psychology leaves off its shoes on that holy ground.  Peterson is not a saint who is prepared to martyrise himself.  He knows very well that if he says a word outside the rubric of correctness on youtube, he will be demonitised  and very likely kicked out.  I would not be surprised if he is planning to move to another channel.  The path of the Hero requires cunning.  In my view he came back to the battle too soon before his wounds were healed. And there were wounds which were not patent before he was stricken by multiple hurts any of which might have defeated another.  He was a wounded healer and like the Fisher King needs to drink from the Holy Grail to become whole and hale.

Help Yourself to Mental Health

Beth Blum has a good essay in Aeon about the literary influence of the self-help manual:literary self-help

She draws our attention to the many ways that Ernesto Hemingway internalised his uncle Alfred’s How to make Good &c (It’s a long title that leaves nothing out). He adopted the cult of manliness and being a wise old bird who called himself Papa in his thirties.

Arnold Bennett is another writer that she mentions who wrote three such books none of which I’ve read. That's the mess I am. His literary work I recommend especially An Old Wives Tale and the Clayhanger trilogy. Now neglected of course yet his depiction of the female psychology and predicament in early 20th.C. is sensitive and unusual.

David Foster Wallace whom I haven’t read to any extent was a great reader of the form. His ego was a vast property in need of maintenance. Maria Bustillos had a comprehensive squint at some of the annotated volumes among his papers in Texas U.
Wallace self-help

God Bless and keep you Mother Machree you can hum while you read.

The greatest of them all and I’m reading it now is 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos by Jordan B. Peterson the multi-million copy bestseller down beside the Penguin lest you wander off a lone ‘un in the wrong direction. Mind you there’s irony in the title with its echos of the 7 Rules books of some years ago. The advice is stern and bracing and perfectly fine and uncontroversial moving from Stand up straight with your shoulders back interspersed with Jungian Archetypal encounters to vignettes from his extensive clinical practice. How has he come to be so hated by feminist scolds, ‘so what you’re saying’ types whom he encounters in tv. Interviews? My understanding of this is imperfect but I feel that his patience is severely exasperating to them as he repeats ‘no that’s not what I said’.

But you’ve probably read it already. I haven’t seen it being offered second hand yet so there must be millions of annotated copies out there.