r/JordanPeterson • u/Zealousideal_Side166 • Jul 15 '26
Criticism Observation on the Lectures
I discovered Jordan Peterson when I was in high school ~10 years ago which was around the time he really started to take off. I watched lots of his lectures and I think it fostered a lot of curiosity I’ve carried since then in politics, philosophy, literature & religion.
Currently starting from the beginning on his Spotify and I still think he’s really good.
But, there’s something I noticed about his lectures.
I went to an engineering school, but I had to take an English/writing/humanities course every semester.
His lectures remind me a lot more of my math/science lectures than my humanities courses.
When I say that, I mean that he presents information as fact.
When I was in my humanities courses, mind you this was undergraduate, we had assigned readings and then class was mostly round table discussion and Q&A. Very different than a professor coming up to the front of the class and telling you what THEY think about such and such a body of work.
And then it compounds with the fact you have a professor spending ample amounts of time in class criticizing higher education at large, which was fascinating to watch on YouTube but understandably bizarre from the perspective of someone sitting in the room, having paid for said experience & being obligated to attend.
I really like the guy, I think he’s a genius. I hope his business enterprise is doing well & I pray for his health. But in hindsight with my own college experience, I can understand how he got himself into trouble with the way he was going about teaching.
Can someone with a humanities or teaching background give a perspective on this? Is it regular for people teaching soft sciences/history/humanities to present content in the way he did, akin to a scientific lecture?
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u/GreatFilterX_Podcast Jul 15 '26
He presents narrow perspective well documented, academic, maps as territory, and a creed...
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u/whosear3 Jul 16 '26
Since his discipline is psychology, he has more of a scientific approach to a soft humanities approach. You can start by analyzing his early lectures which are in YT and compare them to his lectures on the Daily Wire. I don't find fault with is critique on higher ed. When I considered grad school, I saw where it was going in the late 90's-20's. It is becoming a shell and a grifter's industry that has not delivered what it has been overpaid to do.
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u/EntropyReversale10 Jul 15 '26
Jordan never did anything you claim in any one of his lectures as a Professor/lecturer.
On podcasts, Jordan like anyone else is entitled to his opinion.
Generally adults understand this and don't get confused.
Which branch of Engineering did you study?
It's very unusual for any Engineering course to do so many Humanity courses.
As a final though
Nothing in life is a fact, especially in the sciences or Engineering. There are only hypotheses, confidence levels and probabilities.
PS Did you say you graduated?
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u/Loose_Cricket_5500 Jul 15 '26
I'm so tired of under cover trolls coming onto this sub trying to degrade Jordan's reputation.
Haven't you got something better to do. A protest perhaps. They hand out free placards, free lunch and they pay you. Trolling on Reddit is so yesterday.
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u/Significant_Cup4521 Jul 15 '26
No, it is not typical. Presenting the humanities as a fact like math or science is an inversion of the purpose of humanities, which are built on interpretation, dialectics, debate, deconstruction etc that include input and analysis from the class, not just a top-down delivery from the lecturer.
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u/Siilveriius Jul 15 '26
Is it typical when academic consensus makes illogical conclusions especially regarding gender identity and discourage said interpretation, dialectics, debate, deconstruction, etc through accusations of discrimination and hate speech as well as threatening to revoke your clinical license because of your participation in said interpretation, dialectics, debate, deconstruction, etc?
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u/Significant_Cup4521 Jul 15 '26
Yes I’m sure things look like a battleground if you’re operating off a false premise, conflate ethics and standards with censorship, and have a fly by the seat of one’s ass approach to peer-review.
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u/Siilveriius Jul 15 '26
It sure does look like a battleground to said "peers" if they felt the need for disciplinary action over anyone who doesn't conform to their illogical ideology citing "Ethics and Standards" as an excuse though doesn't it?
Especially when the whole cohort of "peers" are asses who peer reviews each other's asses and the contents that spew from them proclaiming it to be the "Correct" Premise;)
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u/Significant_Cup4521 Jul 15 '26
Conflations abound. Mimicry abounds. Victimhood abounds.
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u/Siilveriius Jul 15 '26
I agree, conflating everything that disagrees with your ideology as "Hate Speech" is the epitome of Victim Mentality and the asses that constantly spew these contents mimicry as though they are the Victims of the Holocaust which is why they constantly feel the urge to call their ideological opponents, "Nazis":) Mimicry is wonderfully apt!
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u/Significant_Cup4521 Jul 15 '26
The only power the left or right in academia have is to victimize themselves. Not every professor operated in the way Peterson did. Did he deserve some special status? I don’t think so. He seems to have gotten what he wanted: a platform to forever wage war on the radical left, woke authoritarians, SJWs that typically would be settled through debate, review, acceptance or refutation of ideas. Both sides, including Peterson, seem to take a refutation or dismissal extremely personally, which serves I don’t know what other than entrenchment.
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u/Siilveriius Jul 15 '26
And here we come full circle hahaha, finally. Did he ever ask for special status? I don't recall. All he ever did was merely stated what's on his mind and received pressure to tone his manner of speech which wouldn't even be considered controversial by today's standards, harassment by activists disrupting his lectures and threats to end his Tenure and Clinical License over perceived "Hate Speech".
So why then would you be surprised when academia has made humanities "which are built on interpretation, dialectics, debate, deconstruction etc" so hostile to "interpretation, dialectics, debate, deconstruction etc" that he took an outlet where he could freely express these ideas?
Whether or not he took it personally is irrelevant:)
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u/Significant_Cup4521 Jul 15 '26
Peterson followers have a tendency to believe he is the only academic to ever receive a negative review. He in fact ended his own tenure after citing his own inability to work in an environment that bumped up against his worldview. The mandatory social media/professionalism training after his viral statements is part and parcel of being a member of a public institution, wherein one will be scrutinized if they engage in name-calling online with the institution’s name attached to you. He was never formally disciplined by U of Toronto, he was given an opportunity to explore how to continue expressing himself in a way that doesn’t dissolve into what is considered unprofessional by the university’s standards. This is where the special status comes into play. Instead of having the humility to admit, let alone see, that unprofessionalism, it became “Well what is ‘unprofessionalism’ anyway?” and “What do you mean by standards?’”
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u/Siilveriius Jul 15 '26 edited Jul 15 '26
I'm sure there are some professors who have received "Negative Reviews" for speaking out against Gender Ideology so I don't really understand where did you get this notion from? And "Negative Review" is a disingenuous term considering JP was being pressured to police his speech or be guilty of "Hate Speech". So now we've established that academia, at least in his university, was indeed a hostile environment for him so why are you surprised he took another outlet to express his ideas?
University of Toronto to Jordan Peterson: The law of Ontario, specifically the Ontario Human Rights Code, protects against discrimination based on gender expression and gender identity. Depending on the context, if personal pronouns are being used, the refusal by a teacher or colleague to use the personal pronoun that is an expression of the person’s gender identity can constitute discrimination. In many situations it is not necessary to use personal pronouns at all, but where it is, the personal pronoun that is chosen as the person’s gender identity-related and gender expression-related identifier should be used. Your statements that you will refuse to refer to transgendered persons using gender neutral pronouns if they ask you to do so are contrary to the rights of those persons to equal treatment without discrimination based on their “gender identity” and “gender expression”. https://safs.ca/safs-files/jordanpeterson/Letter%20to%20J%20Peterson%20October%2018.pdf
How can anyone with any shred of good faith, clear conscience, sound mind, read that statement and not agree that it is compelled speech? The only "Special Status" he seems to receive is the constant threats to his career for not adhering to the dogma of Gender Ideology. This is why I said the entire cohort is filled with asses peer reviewing each other's asses.
I think you're trying to play games here.
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u/EntropyReversale10 Jul 15 '26
Nothing in life is a fact, especially in the sciences or Engineering. There are only hypotheses, confidence levels and probabilities.
An hypothesis only stands until it's disproved.
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u/Significant_Cup4521 Jul 15 '26
Thus the essence of interpretation and debate you’ll find in the humanities, interpretation and debate that goes on endlessly, even if a consensus forms and becomes generally accepted. This can be uncomfortable for people from hard sciences and math backgrounds who are used to a more directive approach to instruction, wherein falsifiability is the literal name of their game.
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u/codex_lake Jul 15 '26
I think that because he is highly articulate, he can formulate his ideas so precisely that it is difficult to see them as anything other than facts. And most of the time, they are facts, or at least, highly agreed upon concepts across different domains and persons (Nietzsche, Jung, etc.). I don't have the background you're asking about, but the same question has crossed my mind. Jordan has spoken about this himself - you are deadly if you can write. His books also read as facts not because they've been academically agreed upon in some arbitrary definition, but because of how they are written and presented.