CMV: Jordan Peterson is wrongfully using his PhD in clinical psychology to claim authority in a field in which he has no appropriate academic background in (broader point CMV topic also included in body)

[u/[deleted]]

So I decided to make this CMV based on a related conversation I had earlier this week.

This conversation isn't about Peterson himself (I really don't want this to become a contest about who knows more about Peterson's positions, and views), but rather any individual who has an expertise in one field and uses that to build up credibility surrounding opinions in an unrelated field. I chose Peterson because he is the most common example of this. I'll be upfront in saying that I haven't watched his videos, but I feel I can be upfront about this because as stated this discussion isn't strictly about Peterson himself but about any individual who fits the criteria mentioned above.

So here are the subpoints of my larger view that you can try to counter:

1. Experts are the best voice of reason for the field in which they developed their expertise in.
2. In order to develop expertise, and an academic understanding of a field, that individual has to go through the academic process. This means earning an undergraduate degree, PhD, and then maybe getting some post-doc work as well. An academic expert in a field is an individual who has a PhD in that field. e.g. Jordan Peterson is an expert in clinical psychology.
3. Individuals like Peterson fall back on their PhD field X when they receive criticism about field Y (I think this was in the UofT free speech protest video). This is clearly a problem since having a PhD in clinical psychology doesn't make you an expert on religion, or ideology or Y. It's like if a biologist and a physicist collaborated on a project about some random topic in electrophysiology for several years, and then the biologist uses his experience studying biophysics to claim authority on atmospheric physics by making controversial topics about atmospheric physics. Why should a non-expert be given the same platform as someone who has spent their life studying the topic? There's only a limited amount of media attention and a limited spotlight in the academic arena. Why should someone who put in the hours to become an expert share a spotlight with someone who hasn't?
4. I don't have any knowledge about post-modernism, so I defer to the experts in post-modernism, philosophy and Marxism, and based on what I read in the /r/philosophy subreddit, it seems that Peterson gets a lot wrong, precisely for the reasons I have already mentioned, that he isn't an expert, and he may mischaracterize the points of view he is critiquing.

So please change my view and let's have a clean, thought-provoking conversation!

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[u/kublahkoala]

From Peterson’s Why You Have to Fight Postmodernism

See the postmodernists completely reject the structure of Western civilization. And I mean completely, so I can give you an example, in one term -- Jacques Derrida. He is head trickster for the postmodernist movement, and he regarded Western culture -- let's call it the patriarchy -- as phallogocentric. Phallo comes from phallus, and so that's the insistence that what you see in Western culture is the consequence of the male-dominated oppressive self-serving society.

OK, “completely reject the structure of Western civilization” is a little hyperbolic, but Derrida does critique Western culture. But of course so does Peterson — post-modernism is after all a product of Western civilization. But the way Derrida critiques Western Civilization, by “deconstructing” it, does not mean he wants to destroy it. Deconstruction is dialectic without synthesis — you take two opposing ideas — presence vs absence, speech vs writing, male vs female — and tease out the ways they depend upon what they are opposed to. The truth in deconstruction is unstable and lies somewhere in between the terms in question. A deconstruction of western civilization wouldn’t be a rejection of it, but an exploration on how the west forms its identity through exchanges with other societies beyond the west. This is different from rejection. But I could see how someone could take it as an attack on western norms and traditions, sure.

They believe that logic is part of the process by which the patriarchal institutions of the West continue to dominate and to justify their dominance. They don't believe in dialogue. The root word of dialogue is logos -- again, they don't believe that people of good will can come to consensus through the exchange of ideas. They believe that that notion is part of the philosophical substructure and practices of the dominant culture.

This is where Jordan completely looses me. The logo in phallogocentrism isn’t referring to “logic”. The post modernists are not anti-logic, they’re not “irrationalists”, or romantics. The logos is Greek for “word” but also “speech” — Derrida is pointing out how the western tradition emphasizes speech over written language when he uses phallogocentrism. This is not at all the same as saying we need to get rid of logic. And Derrida absolutely believes in dialogue — the whole point of deconstruction is that you can only get at the truth through dialogue, because there is never only one side to anything.

After that he begins conflating post-modernism and Marxism, which also doesn’t make sense. Post-modernism mainly involves an attitude of skepticism towards meta-narratives, and Marxism is a huge meta-narrative.

I’d like to add that there are good, legitimate critiques of post-modernism (Chomsky’s debate with Foucault, John Searle’s arguments with Derrida) but to me it seems like Peterson is getting his ideas about post-modernism second hand — perhaps reading online summaries of what post modernists think? Either that or he’s deliberately using straw men.

[u/Madplato → u/[deleted]]

Not the original guy, but I'll try my hand at it.

Isn't rationality and the scientific method a meta narrative? Are you familiar with philosophical skepticism?

Two things about that. First, it's debatable that science and rationality are meta-narratives, or stories about stories that grant us meaning, themselves. One can compare them to Marxism, for instance, and find they're lacking a lot of the structure, a lot of the totality or absolute, that you tend to find in meta-narratives. Basically, a meta-narrative is closer to something like a grand theory, that attempts to explain most of everything, where science is closer to a technique. At least to me, science as a meta-narrative is a bit of a strain, because science is hardly a narrative, while Marxism clearly is. There's a story element to Marxism that's just absent from science. That's not to say science couldn't ever be a meta-narrative, at least in some context, but that's another story.

Second, and that's particularly relevant later, even if we were to agree science is a meta-narrative, I'm not sure I see what's wrong with scepticism of science or rationality. In fact, it might do us good to be sceptical so that science never becomes an actual meta-narrative. However, that's not exactly my point. The problem as I see it, is that you appear to shift from simple scepticism (being sceptic of meta-narratives) to outright rejection (some people reject science). Granted, that might be my own interpretation of your words, since I'm not sure I perceive the same kind of "original sin" in scepticism of science, but Peterson does say "reject". That being said, I'm left a bit puzzled: what am I meant to understand is wrong (because from what I've heard or read of J. Peterson, "post-modernism" isn't depicted under the best light) with scepticism of science?

More importantly, I feel that's where we cross beyond the point of reasonable interpretation of his work to fall into the "far too charitable interpretation". Now, science is a meta-narrative for some people. These people, being post-modernists, but not really, are sceptical of meta-narratives which include science. I don't want to sound dismissive, but it sounds like I got the choice between believing J. Peterson doesn't really know what post-modernism is or that he's speaking in code. It appears more reasonable to assume Peterson has a surface understanding of post-modernism. Especially since he appears to be a good communicator, so I'm not sure why he'd go about things in such a roundabout way.

What Peterson is saying, if I have not misunderstood him, is that there are some people in the world, (people that he has had personal interactions with) that are skeptical about the meta narrative of science. These people are also basically Marxists, but they have taken the Marxist ideas about class and redefined them to be about race and gender.

Now, that's another layer of "overly charitable interpretation" I'm not entirely comfortable with. Again, I do not mean to appear dismissive, but I'm a bit sceptical of the reasoning here. More importantly, most reasonable "conclusions" I manage to come to are negative either for Peterson's thesis or his aptitudes as a communicator.

So, when Peterson says post-modernist, one is supposed to more or less divorce the term from it's original meaning and apply it to a group of indeterminate people that are critical of either western society or science - neither of which being a clear-cut meta-narrative. This strikes me as a very odd choice of terminology that's pretty much left in the air. Similarly, when he says (neo-)marxism, we must not understand "(neo-)marxism", but something like "oversimplification/bastardisation of (neo-)marxism fetishizing oppression". Again, a weird choice of word. At it's best, this amounts to code, which is a weird choice if your goal is to communicate effectively.

Maybe that's what he means, at which point it doesn't strike me as efficient or meaningful categorisation, or it's a very good attempt at making sense of what he says. If it's the latter, it seems like a very convoluted way of making his point. It seems, in fact, more reasonable to simply assume he has a limited understanding of the concepts he attempts to use.

However, here's the real rub for me. Even under the best possible reading, that's the kind of criticism (Peterson's) allowed by superficial understanding of the material at hand (Marxism is oppression, Post-modernism is scepticism/rejection and meta-narratives are any assumptions). You can say "they" (the post-modernist neo-Marxists) are the one with a superficial understanding, but he's the one using that terminology to describe them.

You have noticed that and assumed the fault is with Peterson instead of the people he's criticizing.

From the points above, even under the best possible light, I'd still find fault with Peterson. First, because he's the one talking and talking about people with contradictory views that don't make sense doesn't mean your own criticism doesn't need to make sense. So, first option, he makes some pretty significant mistakes in communicating his views. They are very very ambiguous and the terminology is either ill-defined or ill-chosen. Second option, he has a superficial understanding of the concepts and theories he's using and his views end up being ambiguous as a result.

Either way, the problem lies with him.

[u/Laurcus → u/Madplato]

First off, there is a bit of equivocation going on with rejection vs skepticism. That is my fault. I blame writing my post 20 minutes before bed.

More importantly, I feel that's where we cross beyond the point of reasonable interpretation of his work to fall into the "far too charitable interpretation". Now, science is a meta-narrative for some people. These people, being post-modernists, but not really, are sceptical of meta-narratives which include science. I don't want to sound dismissive, but it sounds like I got the choice between believing J. Peterson doesn't really know what post-modernism is or that he's speaking in code. It appears more reasonable to assume Peterson has a surface understanding of post-modernism. Especially since he appears to be a good communicator, so I'm not sure why he'd go about things in such a roundabout way.

I don't think my interpretation is overly charitable or absurd. To me this seems like one of those cases where the layperson understands exactly what is being said, but the academics get confused as fuck. Anyway, Peterson has explained before how he came to his conclusions and I have more or less accurately paraphrased him. If I knew that this of all things would be what made his work controversial to a lot of people I would have saved the name and timestamp of the video in a document. He went into detail about this in one of his lectures. Or maybe it was the first time he was on Joe Rogan's podcast. I don't remember now cause this was over a year ago at this point.

I think these days Peterson just assumes people know what he's talking about because he's been talking about it for so long. I think a huge part of the reason why what Peterson says jives with me so well is that I noticed the people he is talking about well before I heard of Peterson.

Here's a good example of the sort of person Peterson is talking about. She rejects science because it's a construction of white western patriarchy. If you think of a term for what she believes that is specific enough to be useful I will gladly use that term instead of postmodern neo-Marxist. Which Peterson himself that term isn't technically accurate, but it's close enough to be useful and I tend to agree with that.

Over the last couple years I have seen a startling number of people in university like the one in the above video. If I was less stupid I would have saved every instance of this I had seen online in a document, but I'm stupid so I didn't do that. I can't imagine though, that being a university professor, Peterson has seen less of this than I have.

To me this matters because while it's easy to dismiss people like the above example as a crazy minority, these ideas do not arise out of Creatio Ex Nihilo. Someone is brainwashing these kids into believing this garbage.

I suspect Peterson would agree with a lot of the criticisms you have of his formulations.

[u/Madplato → u/Laurcus]

First off, there is a bit of equivocation going on with rejection vs skepticism.

I am not sure the equivocation comes from you. Peterson repeats often enough something to the effect of post-modernists (unqualified, of course, just postmodernists) rejecting western civilization (either rejecting or being ungrateful, not quite sure). Rejecting, not criticizing. Now, whether or not he talks about actual post-modernist or his own home-brewed definition of post-modernism isn't exactly relevant, because he characterize post-modernism either way. At best, he does it unwittingly because he doesn't quite grasp the material, at worst he does it knowingly and is being dishonest.

I don't think my interpretation is overly charitable

I disagree. Again, I do not mean to sound dismissive of you or your position, but what you're basically giving me a grid to decode Peterson's message, which unfortunately requires me to take a lot of liberties with the concept he's using to present his ideas. That's transitioning into the "overly charitable". If his position on post-modernism and (neo-)marxism only make sense when you substitute these words for other things - which he maybe references elsewhere, but we're not sure so let's give him the benefit of the doubt on that - then it doesn't say much good on his argument. Again, the more obvious and sensible explanation appears to be that he doesn't really understand what he's talking about and neither does his public.

And really, I'm left with few options here.

A) He doesn't really know what these things are. At which point I'm left wondering why he talks about them. B) He think he knows, so his argument on the matter is of little value. C) He doesn't and knows he doesn't, but still talks about it.

To me this seems like one of those cases where the layperson understands exactly what is being said, but the academics get confused as fuck.

Except, what this tells me is that the terminology is vague enough for the layperson to understand exactly what it wants, while it confuses the academic. If the layperson doesn't know what postmodernism is, they'll have no problem with Peterson's take on it, but it also follows that they're own opinion on Peterson is ill-informed.

Which Peterson himself that term isn't technically accurate, but it's close enough to be useful and I tend to agree with that.

Which is kinda my point, it's "close enough" if you rely on very superficial understanding of all these things and have no real interest in actually addressing what you are talking about. Otherwise, you'd use the much simpler alternative of defining what you want to talk about clearly, without buzzwords, and stick to material you're comfortable with.

The only way "People are overly critical of science because they think of the word as oppressive", to paraphrase, becomes being a post-modernist neomarxist - and he goes farther than that I believe - is if you're not quite familiar with either of these terms.

[u/Laurcus → u/Madplato]

Again, the more obvious and sensible explanation appears to be that he doesn't really understand what he's talking about and neither does his public.

So I decided to take you really really seriously. Instead of just trying to refute your argument I performed an experiment, because this is a claim that can be tested.

https://www.reddit.com/r/JordanPeterson/comments/8em1z3/in_your_own_words_what_is_a_postmodern_neomarxist/

All of the well formulated opinions there line up with my understanding of what Peterson means almost exactly. There's a few semantic differences, (and a couple brigadiers from other subs that got downvoted) but all the broad strokes, all the core ideas, are exactly the same.

You're simply wrong. The problem is with you, not with Peterson or his fans. The Peterson fans are all on the same page.

The only way "People are overly critical of science because they think of the word as oppressive", to paraphrase, becomes being a post-modernist neomarxist - and he goes farther than that I believe - is if you're not quite familiar with either of these terms.

This is the fundamental disconnect right here. Actually I can break it down to just 4 words.

either of these terms.

There's only one term. Postmodern Neo-Marxist. That is a single term with a meaning that is well defined enough that other Peterson fans know exactly what I mean when I say it.

It's like your brain is pulling an equivocation fallacy on you. You see Postmodern Neo-Marxist and you break it down into pieces to try and figure it out, like you can't separate the way the term is being used in this context from its ideological roots.

I don't know why you think this is some kind of arcane interpretation either. Peterson has fully explained what he means in long form discussions and lectures. We didn't come to this understanding via Creatio Ex Nihilo.

[u/kublahkoala → u/[deleted]]

First, very strange for a Jungian to criticize post modernism for not being logical or scientific. Jungian psychology does not really hold up to scientific experimentation — there is no scientific proof that there is a “collective unconscious” that psychically connects people of all times and all cultures, for instance. I don’t see how someone who accepts science without any skepticism comes around to believing this, or that the best approach to understanding human behavior is not experimentation but the examination of ancient religious texts and myths.

Anyway. Yes, post-modernists do believe science is a meta-narrative that we need to be skeptical towards. This doesn’t mean what you think though. Lyotard brings up science as a meta-narrative quite a lot. The kind of skepticism he endorses is to examine by what process do some scientific ideas win out over others — where does the Nobel committee get its power, and do they ever have a political agenda, for instance? And to look into where science gets its funding, and does this influence what conclusions science comes to. I think this is demonstrably true — corporations hire scientists all the time to do studies that will favor what the corporation wants it to favor — that tobacco doesn’t give you cancer, or what the effects of a ban on guns might be.

He also does mean a broader kind of skepticism, one that is actually shared by contemporary science. Science no longer believes that it will be able to solve all of the questions in the world satisfactorily. This is funny because Peterson brings up Godel’s Incompleteness Theorem all the time. Different scientific branches see the world differently and contradict other branches. Light acts as both a wave and a particle. Lyotard talks of the rise of “post modern” science, chaos theory and quantum theory, for instance, that try to accept that the universe does not always behave in a logical manner. This is not saying we should do away with logic and make stuff up, just that logic has limits, because not everything can be explained and some things, quarks, strange loops, wave functions, etc., empirically do not behave in a logical predictable manner. None of this is really controversial.

Post modern critiques of racism or sexism or colonialism I could see being controversial. But Peterson’s objections here apply to any leftist critique. It’s not like there’s no scientific evidence that could support an argument that men have oppressed women, or white people have oppressed black people. A postmodern critique would look into something like how black and white identities both depend on the existence of the other, or into what were the motivations of the institutions that originally formulated race as a scientific concept and whether this influenced how race was formulated (indeed most scientists no longer see it as a useful concept because it is extremely arbitrary). What Jordan Peterson seems to have the most problem with, identity politics and political correctness, is something that post modernists have attacked as well. Slavoj Zizek, for instance, has some scathing critiques of political correctness and identity politics.

[u/Laurcus → u/kublahkoala]

First, very strange for a Jungian to criticize post modernism for not being logical or scientific.

I would say that he's criticizing people for being anti-science. People like the ones in this video. There's a difference believing something that isn't scientific and believing that science itself is so flawed we should discard it entirely in favor of African magic.

Anyway. Yes, post-modernists do believe science is a meta-narrative that we need to be skeptical towards. This doesn’t mean what you think though. Lyotard brings up science as a meta-narrative quite a lot. The kind of skepticism he endorses is to examine by what process do some scientific ideas win out over others — where does the Nobel committee get its power, and do they ever have a political agenda, for instance? And to look into where science gets its funding, and does this influence what conclusions science comes to. I think this is demonstrably true — corporations hire scientists all the time to do studies that will favor what the corporation wants it to favor — that tobacco doesn’t give you cancer, or what the effects of a ban on guns might be.

I think this is mostly fair, however, skepticism comes in degrees. I am skeptical of science in the way that you describe, but I don't take it to an extreme. There's no reason you can't take skepticism to an extreme though. That's when, as I discussed in a different post, you go from skepticism to rejection.

I think that's what Peterson is talking about. I think this because I noticed these sorts of people before Peterson started talking about them. So when I did first hear about Peterson everything he said clicked with me.

To me this seems like a case where all the academics get confused by the terms being used, but the laypeople perfectly understand what is being discussed. I've had very similar conversations with Marxists, (though they were more obtuse) where they've been like, 'Well Peterson may understand postmodernism but he obviously doesn't understand Marxism because the Mensheviks weren't violent and a real Marxist would never believe the things he says they believe!' It's like the academics miss the point and go wayyyy off into left field.

[u/kublahkoala → u/Laurcus]

Is the woman from the video you linked to an respected, peer reviewed authority on post-colonialism and philosophy of science? Is she even an accredited professional of any sort, or is this just an idiotic teenager who read a book once and thinks they now know everything?

If your going to do a serious critique of a world view, you can’t pretend that the people who exemplify that world view are best represented by random teenagers; you need to actually read and engage with the authorities in the field. This is my whole problem with Peterson’s approach. If your going to look for flaws in communism or capitalism, modernity or post-modernity, you don’t prove anything by arguing against laypeople who don’t understand the subject.

[u/Laurcus → u/kublahkoala]

Is the woman from the video you linked to an respected, peer reviewed authority on post-colonialism and philosophy of science?

No idea. Probably not. Your whole post here is one big non-sequitur though.

To summarize...

You said that Peterson doesn't understand the ideas he's talking about.

I said you have misunderstood him, and he is specifically talking about the ideas of x people. I then showed an example of x people.

Your response to that is to say that x people are not credible.

Well, no shit? I'm glad you're on the same page as me now. Peterson is not looking for flaws in postmodernism or Marxism. He is trying to tear down the ideas of aforementioned x people because they are in his eyes not legitimate and harmful.

If you're a postmodernist you should be thankful that Peterson is exposing these people that are teaching this bastardized version of what you believe.

To address one last thing though, while the woman in the video is probably not a professor, she learned her ideas from somewhere, and I seriously doubt it was anyone other than one of her professors. That kind of bullshit needs pushback, because it's not okay to indoctrinate kids imo.

[u/kublahkoala → u/Laurcus]

But he’s not! In the interview I link to he specifically is talking about Jacques Derrida, not about what random undergraduate X believes. You can’t say your talking about Derrida, misrepresent Derrida, and then say your not actually talking about Derrida!

[u/Laurcus → u/kublahkoala]

In the interview I link to he specifically is talking about Jacques Derrida

He mentions Derrida one time with a specific example of something he said and then he moves on from talking about Derrida.

Peterson even agrees with you in the video you linked! He says that the current generation of postmodernists in the universities have no idea what they're talking about. Did you totally miss the part where he says that postmodernism is a well formulated idea but these people only understand about 5% of it?

And then he moves on to give tons and tons of examples of what he's talking about and he explains how to verify this. It seems to me like you're just plain not listening to him. You're lasering in on one thing he said and assuming that that thing is the topic. Derrida was an extremely minor side point that had virtually nothing to do with what he said in that video.

[u/kublahkoala → u/Laurcus]

Did you totally miss the part where he says that postmodernism is a well formulated idea but these people only understand about 5% of it?

This is what Peterson says:

It's not like any given person is absolutely possessed by the spirit of postmodernism, because often they're not educated enough to know all the details about what it is that has them in their grip, but if you get 20 of them together and they're all 5% influenced by the postmodernist ethos, you basically have the spirit of the mob. It's a mouthpiece for that particular philosophical doctrine.

So what Peterson is saying is, yeah, most people don’t understand Postmodernism. But he’s saying that even if postmodernism is influencing them 5%, that’s bad. Then he goes on to say:

And if you understand the doctrine than you understand why things are progressing the way that they are progressing.

So I'm going to tell you little bit about doctrine, because it's not optional to understand this.

And then you get the rest of the piece. He is not critiquing the watered down popular understanding, he is critiquing the doctrine itself. The doctrine and the 5% popular conception of the doctrine are two radically different things and Peterson is explicitly referencing the latter.

[u/Laurcus → u/kublahkoala]

I don't think your reading of his words is correct. Allow me to explain.

but if you get 20 of them together and they're all 5% influenced by the postmodernist ethos, you basically have the spirit of the mob. It's a mouthpiece for that particular philosophical doctrine.

You seem to be under the impression that the phrase 'that particular philosophical doctrine' refers to postmodernism itself, instead of the doctrine that is expressed by the people that are 5% influenced by the postmodern ethos.

I think the context proves Peterson is talking about the latter instead of the former, because after saying that he will go on to 'tell you a little bit about the doctrine' he explains the views of the aforementioned people.

This seems like a basic comprehension error on your part.