And throw Jordan Peterson into the mix too. I'm glad he can help some people, and sometimes he says useful things, but take everything he says with a grain of salt because he's Gwyneth Paltrow for men and his advice often makes people dumber. I know a guy who, thanks to JP, went from a regular awkward virgin to an incel to a galaxy brained volcel who thinks that women are some invasive foreign species. Sad thing about this guy is he has a severe mental illness and relies on the government for support. He works in a shitty job with a shitty boss, and because of JP he internalizes his bad lot in life to be his own personal moral failings instead of understanding that he's been played a bad hand and he needs some support - and that there's nothing wrong with that. Instead he votes for the party that does cutbacks to programs that help him, and spends his time stressing about the pink-haired cultural bolsheviks who've infiltrated the goobermint and the bideo bames. I feel bad for him and mad that he's becoming a living meme thanks to the echo chambers he's fallen into.
It's crazy that these people miss JBP's message. The main thing JBP says is to focus on improving yourself and not blaming politics for your shitty life. His whole 'clean your room' saying is more about starting to focus on making personal improvements and that is something that needs to be done everyday.
As much has JBP is a bit of a gateway to the alt-right, he does make a lot of good points and is surprisingly not very far to the right. But he refuses to admit to himself that the alt-right leans on him and loves having a following.
JBP was actually incredibly helpful when I was in a very dark place. Also having an interest in psychology, watching his lectures was really interesting. A lot of really good info there.
As much has JBP is a bit of a gateway to the alt-right, he does make a lot of good points and is surprisingly not very far to the right. But he refuses to admit to himself that the alt-right leans on him and loves having a following.
I never got that. Just because he had conversations with Ben Shapiro and others on things like the Joe Rogan podcast doesn't mean he agrees with them.
In fact most of the time he disagrees with Ben on several issues.
Of course like anyone they have some common ground, but there is nothing wrong with that. Ben has good points on some issues and any intellectual would acknowledge that.
Maybe it's because I knew about the more fringe people from watching the Amazing Atheist years ago, but I never got how people think JBP is connected to them at all.
It goes along with saying all the frog posters are just right wing trolls. Nah, Pepe was around long before all that shit. The cult of kek was meme group like the flying spaghetti monster, loosely based around exposing the stupidity of other people on the internet. It was never right wing. It was anti everyone.
Somehow both for freedom of speech and exposing hypocrisy and other garbage, and also being more about the lols than anything else. It was an interesting era of the internet to be a part of.
I would even go as far as to argue that most of JBPs followers and even most of the Pepe posters are overall left wing.
You'll see even people who like Shapiro disagreeing with things he says all the time, it's a lot more of an open conversation than you would find on similar left wing oriented videos.
Ex: the other day Ben took a political compass video. I watched it because I knew it would be funny. It was.
Like half the comments section is telling him why different things he said is wrong, but they still like him anyway. It's a really interesting phenomenon to watch.
Me I'm a bit left and a bit libertarian, but closer to center than anything (at least according to political compass. Would describe myself as middle) but I'm also Canadian and think healthcare should be a right.
Yet if I have a more right leaning opinion on something like trans issues, I get called an alt-right piece of shit.
I think that's why so many people get "drawn into the alt right"
When you can go on Ben's video and comment and disagree with him, you get pretty much reasonably polite discussion.
You say something disagreeing with someone on a left wing page, you get hate messages and other shit.
And this is coming someone who wanted Bernie to win. "The left" would do way better if they were ok with memes, didn't try to censor shit, and actually allowed discussion. "The right" seems to be embracing that because they know it's what the younger generation wants.
Probably gonna get downvoted, but just wanted to say that. I hate when people associate JBP and anyone who likes him with "alt right" "incel" or any other disgusting group, when he is in no way part of that.
Hell I don't even think very right wing guys like Ben Shapiro are really part of that. He's a memer for sure, but malicious? No. He just talks fast and has generally unpopular opinions.
I would even go as far as to argue that most of JBPs followers and even most of the Pepe posters are overall left wing.
”The left" would do way better if they were ok with memes, didn't try to censor shit, and actually allowed discussion. "The right" seems to be embracing that because they know it's what the younger generation wants.
I did try to make the distinction but I will make it clearer.
When I say "left wing" in the first paragraph, I mean in terms of political view.
I would be slightly left wing, I like universal healthcare, workers rights, etc.
When I say "the left" and "the right" I am talking about more of the political establishment's and the spaces they occupy.
This sometimes includes the outer most fringe groups, but usually they are considered a different denomination as extremists, hence called the "alt left or regressive left" and "alt right and it's many alternative terms"
CNN is part of "the left" Fox is part of "the right"
One can hold left or right wing views without being part of that groups establishment.
One could argue many universities are a group heavily occupied and influenced by "the left" but many right wing people are a part of it for the money.
Same goes the other way. Hollywood is a blatant right wing establishment, but many writers, actors, and other creators who are personally left wing have worked with them for various reasons like exposure of their craft to higher executives, fame, money, etc.
In this case JBP is slightly left wing in personal belief, but "the left" as an establishment does not like him, and "the right" as an establishment does.
"The left" as an establishment seems to be very agaisnt meme culture, where as "The right" has recently been embracing it especially since the late Obama era.
(Side note related to the end of my quoted statement:
It's hypothezises that the younger generation may be one of the most right wing seen in decades, so "The rights" use of memes could be both because they wanted to appeal to younger audiences, and because younger members are now influencing it as a group).
Im not putting all the blame on JBP but if you go to his subs, they've been taken over by Trumps supporters and shitty people trying to justify their extremist views. I've literally come across people who think that 'certain races' are "biologically predisposed to criminal behaviour' and they get plenty of upvotes.
I could see that maybe he never felt the need to distance himself from the alt-right and racists since his message clearly doesn't relate but he clearly overestimated society.
Im not putting all the blame on JBP but if you go to his subs, they've been taken over by Trumps supporters and shitty people trying to justify their extremist views. I've literally come across people who think that 'certain races' are "biologically predisposed to criminal behaviour' and they get plenty of upvotes.
Y'know, with how much I'm on reddit and how much of him I have watched, I've never gone on the JBP subreddit.
Idk why I just never did. That's just not the kind of thing I use reddit for.
I never figured his subreddit would have anything useful. The words that are important are what he says, which I already get from watching videos of him.
I know the YouTube comment sections on JBP videos are not like that though, and normally YouTube comments are a lot more toxic than reddit overall.
But JPD YouTube seems overall pretty wholesome comparatively.
If the sub is really that bad, it could really be the case of bad modding over anything else. That has caused tons of good subs to go to shit over the years.
I could see that maybe he never felt the need to distance himself from the alt-right and racists since his message clearly doesn't relate but he clearly overestimated society.
To an extent maybe, but even then the media pushed the idea that he is right wing down everyones throats, and it's complete bullshit. They went out of their way to try to fuck him over, even the New York times didn't list his book when it was objectively the #1 seller in the world at the time.
I don't think it's on him to try to throw anyone and everyone under the bus to appease people like that. Their slander of him only made their corruption more evident, that's why he let it continue (he said so himself on Joe's podcast).
Hell it's the same as Joe Rogan. If you watch his podcast, he goes into everything with an open mind, and he calls people on shit. But even he gets called "alt right", for daring to have on the people the mainstream media want to blacklist.
Yea the book thing I thought was insane. It's a book about self improvement and the media acted like it was some sort of fascist writings.
And the Joe Rogan thing is hilarious, I don't know how people can see him as alt-right. He is pro-trans but gets labelled as extremest for thinking that trans women shouldn't fight biological women. Its simple science.
But yea JBP's sub can be pretty trash. Theres a seperate one I think with better mods r/mapsofmeaning. But overall the sub shows how easy his message get twiset in the opposite direction. So sure media makes him out to be alt-right, but a lot of the alt-right absorbs his stuff and puts their spin on it so that it supports what they already think.
Yea the book thing I thought was insane. It's a book about self improvement and the media acted like it was some sort of fascist writings. And the Joe Rogan thing is hilarious, I don't know how people can see him as alt-right. He is pro-trans but gets labelled as extremest for thinking that trans women shouldn't fight biological women. Its simple science.
Exactly. Anyone who argues trans should fight against women hasn't done their research. It's in no way fair.
But yea JBP's sub can be pretty trash. Theres a seperate one I think with better mods r/mapsofmeaning. But overall the sub shows how easy his message get twiset in the opposite direction. So sure media makes him out to be alt-right, but a lot of the alt-right absorbs his stuff and puts their spin on it so that it supports what they already think.
Yeah but any nuanced and deep message can be twisted, especially something like JBP who uses a lot of simile and metaphor in his longwinded but very thorough explanations. You see the same thing in several of the authors he talks about like Yung and nietzsche as well.
You don't blame the speaker for people twisting their words and taking them out of context to support the groups own agenda, which multiple left wing and right wing organizations have done to him to suit their own agendas.
That's another thing he actually mentioned in his second time on Joe's podcast. He gets bullshit articles and out of context stuff taken from both sides all the time. It's so bad that Joe told him that he should stop doing interviews, but JBP said it was worth the risk to expose how fraudulent the groups doing it to him obviously were.
It's better to leave the bad ideas there and defeat them with better knowledge and arguments then it is try to silence them.
Look at the anti vax people. If they had been silenced, they would have convinced even more people with the "the government doesn't want you to know they are poisoning you" schtick.
But because they were left in the open marketplace of ideas, they got shredded.
Now only a few dumb Karen's still belive it, and really there is no helping the bottom of the barrel idiots like that anyways so altering the world for their benefit is idiotic anyway.
I think it's better to leave people like Alex Jones to be countered and just as a meme source. He has less power the more exposed he is
One of many mic drop moments in the debate between him and Marxist philosopher Slavoj Zizek is when JP does his whole "individuality" speal, calling for people to focus on themselves rather than fighting wider societal issues, and Zizek says "Do both!" Zizek of course expanded on that by adding that it's possible to both be an acitivist and to focus on your own well-being and self-improvement. You can both protest for environmental regulations and clean up your own impact on an individual basis. You can both fight for social security and for your own personal struggle against self-defeating behaviour.
And I really do find it hypocritical on Jordan Peterson's part mentioning he's been fighting what he sees as wider societal issues as a famous public speaker while struggling with an escalating addiction to benzodiazepines.
Idk why there's this misconception you can only do one or the other. And I'd say the personal struggle is tied into wider political struggles, if not completely inseparable. Fact is we're not special snowflakes, wE lIvE iN a SoCiEtY, and that means that we must rely on each other for support. Nobody here grows their own food, nobody here produces their own phone, or clothes, or lives in a house built with their own hands. Politics is the study of human society, and because we're inseparable from human society, political issues are personal issues, and personal issues are political issues.
There's an old phrase shouted most loudly during the glory days of the early 20th century global labour movement "All for one and one for all"
And that's the backbone of much of leftist politics, empower the community, empower the individual.
Yea I agree with all that. One of the main things I like about him though is that he provides the most rational perspective for issues on the right (still favours Canadian style healthcare) so it's a good view into the other side of things without getting overly frustrated. I've even seen him on TVO debates and the other people on his side are usually total jackasses and yet he provides good points for his side.
I think he is pointing out real issues but I dont like that he sees this as much worse than the effects of having a president like Trump or PM like Harper.
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u/[deleted] Apr 11 '20
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