Jordanetics: A Journey Into the Mind of Humanity's Greatest Thinker

by Vox Day

He speaks in a careful and intelligent manner in his videos, and he dispenses simple, innocuous wisdom in an unobjectionable manner, asserting some basic truths, that, in an age of lies and mandatory self-deception, are received as if they were manna from Heaven by his listeners.

Peterson presents his own unique life experience as a definitive foundation for the common state of all mankind.

It’s a psychological technique that can be described as pre-emptive mirroring, as Peterson’s rambling incoherence permits the listener to hear what he is seeking to hear and feel that his preconceived views are substantiated by the authority of Peterson’s presumed wisdom. Peterson is purposefully saying nothing in order to leave a hole of meaning that the listener will dutifully provide and credit to him. This is why different Peterson fans will almost invariably disagree about what he has said.

I don’t think facts are necessarily true. So I don’t think these scientific facts, even if they’re correct from within the domain that they were generated, I don’t think that that necessarily makes them true. And I know that I am gerrymandering the definition of truth, but I’m doing that on purpose. Your truth is something only you can tell, based as it is on the unique circumstances of your life.

WTF!

One of the weaknesses of intelligent people is they have a greater ability to rationalize away their instinctive responses to things that don’t make sense.

Secondly, Peterson is sloppy with his scholarship and citations. He makes broad, sweeping generalizations based off a single citation that actually indicates a more specific purpose. It is easy to gloss over one or two of these citational crimes as mere error, but as they stack up over the course of both 12 Rules for Life and Maps of Meaning it gradually becomes clear that there is a purposeful pattern behind these errors.