An example is that I generally despise Jordan Peterson and most of what he says, but I often quote one thing that Jordan Peterson said (in the linked video) because I think it’s a good summary of why toxic positivity doesn’t work.
People (who hate JP) freak out when I quote him and say “Why tf are you quoting Jordan Peterson? Are you a insert thing that Jordan Peterson is?” And I’m like “No, I generally disagree with him on most points, aside from this one thing.” But they don’t believe or accept it and assume that I must be a #1 Jordan Peterson fan or something.
I think it can be considered a partial agreement, majority disagreement. Or a partial agreement with a person you generally disagree with. But I’d be open to other terms of how to describe this in a way people can understand.
Also, to avoid the controversy of referencing Jordan Peterson, if anyone has a better summary of the same concept explained by a different person in a way as well as he does, that would be appreciated too.
It’s because we live in an age where people use the tactic of “well I just like this one thing he said” as a gateway to awful shit.
Yeah I understand, and that does probably happen a lot. But we also seem to live in an age where we assume the worst of people… so even though it’s possible to partly agree with someone while genuinely condemning other aspects of that person, people are somehow certain that others are using that as a gateway to awful shit, as you say. (Not talking about you, of course.)
It’s not about assuming the worst, it’s more about being skeptical toward anonymous people on the Internet you don’t know, which I think is healthy.
The problem with JP is that even if you agree with one of his positions, he has almost certainly arrived to that opinion through his other terrible assumptions. By sharing his take, you’re not just sharing the opinion you happen to agree with, you’re sharing the underlying worldview he uses to justify it.
If you really do care about people assuming your support for him, you should use your own supporting arguments for the opinion you’re sharing instead of shoehorning his in.
Because that lobster has no original thoughts. Whatever insight you think he has is not unique to him and the fact that you choose to watch his content and quote him without knowing any alternative is going to make people ask questions.
Can’t really blame him for not knowing an alternative without providing an alternative.
Here’s the thing, I never watch his content. And I can’t even remember why I happened to watch that clip, I saw it somewhere randomly. But it stood out to me because I’ve never heard another person really acknowledge the problem with telling people they’re fine and dismissing any problems they might be experiencing, which denies their own experience and can make them feel invalidated. It seems to be very common to do that in society and to subvert that idea seems relatively uncommon. I’m sure other people have explained why it’s problematic but I just haven’t seen any others. So my go-to for explaining that concept is more or less what Jordan Peterson said.
You’ve never heard anyone say to be empathetic with others and not be dismissive of their problems? Really? I guess for most people that’s not something that needs to be said…
What’s with all the downvotes with no explanation?
I think what people are intuiting is really in two parts. Like another person said, if an observation is true, you can probably find someone who said it better.
The other thing is that crafted personae (think Peterson, Ayn Rand, Shapiro, Rush Limbaugh) will take a position and argue for it on the basis of their other opinions. Each observation is meant to be a facet of an integrated philosophy.
So if they take position A, they will support it by opinions X, Y, and Z. If you accept A, as presented by them, but reject X, Y, and Z, then it’s up to you - if you’re using them as a point of reference, to point out the flaws in their supporting arguments and substitute your own. If you do not, it’s reasonable for a listener to think you also subscribe to their supporting premises.
Let’s say we’re having dinner and you comment that Ayn Rand was right when she said welfare is evil. Rand meant that welfare is evil because it takes the hard-earned wealth from the good and virtuous rich and gives it to the lazy, greedy poor. If you go no further than naming her and stating your agreement, we will probably think you picked her because you agree with her reasoning. You may actually mean that you prefer a universal basic income over welfare, or a completely egalitarian society where everyone from surgeons and ceos to grocery clerks make the same wage. Or you might be advocating for societies like those documented by David Graeber, who describes the indigenous people of the Northeast US where there was no notion of cash or barter but instead something closer to “from each according to their ability to each according to their need.” But because you started by quoting Rand and not Marx, people aren’t going to just jump to that conclusion.
It’s like why math teachers ask you to show your work. If you made a bunch of self-cancelling errors and blundered onto the right answer, you didn’t actually learn the material, so the fact that you wrote down the numerically correct answer doesn’t mean that you understand how to solve that kind of problem, and it will get 0 credit. The same for a philosophy or history professor who wants you to justify your answer and not just write down a one sentence opinion.
That’s because you’re on the internet, and nuance doesn’t exist. It requires thinking, which is hard.
Note: I don’t know JP and don’t have an opinion on him (yet). I’m responding only to the question in the title.
I mean, the internet was fine until the advent of global “engagement-driven social networks” that practically became filter bubbles optimizing for ads delivery, then echo chambers for political gain, down to self-sustained propaganda machines for geopolitical sabotage. Early internet felt like village-scale communities centered around a single purpose/interests where people came in the first place to contribute something or help each other. Trolls did exist but there was no tolerance for them because the absence of centralization meant they didn’t have to be accepted there in the first place.
nuance doesn’t exist
I think it’s a little more nuanced than that…
If a shitbag says the sky is blue, you don’t need to say “Hey, the shitbag was right about the sky being blue”. You can just say “The sky is blue”.
These types of shitbags take advantage of psychological techniques to gain followers. Getting people to agree with them is a sort of a “foot-in-the-door” technique.
The moment you say “I don’t agree with everything Jordan Peterson says, but…”, he’s got his foot in your door in turning you into a supporter.
“But I’m smarter than that,” you say. “I’m just an independent thinker who can separate the argument from the individual”. Jordan Peterson has a PhD in psychology, and has made his living off of manipulating people. He’s better equipped than you. And as you may know, thinking “it won’t/can’t happen to me” makes you more likely to become a victim.
Other phrases these guys love to hear people say are things like…
“I don’t agree with him, but I like to listen to arguments from people that I disagree with.”
“I know he’s making shit up, but he’s just funny. I listen just to laugh at him.”
“He’s absolutely wrong, but he makes people so angry. I listen to see what people are raging about.”
These are all foot-in-the-door scenarios. And that’s how they make their eventual “sale”.
Unrelated to your example (tl;dr): most people find it exhausting to use their brain for actual thinking. They use it for excercising simple prejudice.
I’ve complained to Spotify about his podcast being featured and the guy on the other end of the chat said that I was not the first person to raise it as a problem and more people should complai so JP could get kicked off.
So…. Go chat to Spotify and complain about that shithead. Flag his content as hate-filled bigotry.
toxic negativity is solution?
… I’m not sure what the opposite of toxic positivity is, but probably not that. Basically acknowledging problems and working from there in a positive direction, rather than simply denying problems and pretending everything’s fine when it isn’t. A google search tells me “tragic optimism” can be described as the opposing concept, whether that fits or not.
That guy is beyond toxic to me. I’ve never seen a less self-aware and more mentally ill psychologist.
I would see this guy before I ever entertained being in the same postal code as Peterson
He’s taking advantage of young, desperate, vulnerable men and its beyond infuriating as it is discouraging and dangerous.
Well I completely agree with you there 😂
Good Lafari
The write up Ethnic Tension and Meaningless Arguments explains the underlying dynamics pretty well: by saying “I like this one thing Peterson said”, you assign him karma points and now everything else about him will be viewed more positively. That’s just how people work, and people will assume you know that and are exploiting it.
For example: by linking that post, I effectively supported the effective altruism movement – even though I’m really not a big fan of it – whether I like it or not, because the author is heavily associated with them. That’s how it works, sadly.
When you make this argument, do you argue the point yourself or do you quote and attribute Peterson? If so, with what purpose? If the argument holds by itself, there is no need to attribute everything in a casual conversation - unless that provides context, or authority. Context, in the sense of the greater opinion or works of the person; or authority, in the sense of “this topic is complex, this expert provides this view”.
If you say “I find that way of thinking self-limiting”, people might be willing to engage in conversation and why the disagree - or not; if you say “Jordan Peterson finds that way of thinking self-limiting”, the conversation is with an external party, who happens to have said a bunch of other shit, and who happens to be introduced to people exactly like that, in shallow self-help bite-size edgy but not too-out-there videos.
As an aside, if you send people this link and you get a strong negative reaction, it might be because it is just not very good. It takes a naive and silly understanding of “you are okay the way you are” and proceeds to strawman it for a while, getting all sappy towards the end. When discussing sincerely held ideas, misconstruing the other party’s position is a pretty fast way to get a hostile response.
Never take Jordan Peterson out of context.
Especially when he says something that sounds vaguely reasonable.
People, particularly people with controversial or “edgy” opinions, and especially people with JP-style controversial edginess, tend to hide their opinions behind that exact thing. His fanbase tends to be pretty religious about it and so people who start prattling on about his stuff come off as a red flag. It’s a bit like “I’m not racist or anything, but-”: you sorta know what’s coming.
It’s knee-jerk stereotyping, but not exclusively for a poor reason: it’s a consequence of a bunch of his fans being cagey. You can obviously quote him or know some quotes without agreeing, but maybe it helps to make it clear. Or just don’t refer much to him at all, I guess: anyone who doesn’t already know about him can’t really profit from learning about his BS.
Because then you get Trump as president if you believe he is a fascist wannabe dictator. People who “agree with his policy” despite this piss me off cause even though American politics is a shitshow, there was probably someone with more decorum to do the job.
Same goes for the list someone said above: Shapiro, Candace Owens, Andrew tate.
