Time for some Post-Modern Neo-Marxism
Jordan B. Peterson has recently been cropping up in the news; let's review some of his frankly silly arguments
This article is responding to a 2018 interview that was widely circulated by conservatives and taken up by reasonable centrists and liberals. In this piece, Hanson Egerland dissects exactly what Peterson is saying and what he should be saying instead. (Hint: it’s about capitalism)
Argument: Those who cannot carry their own weight in society are “weak” and that is “not good for society”
Built on the premise that individuals are responsible for their own situations, Peterson’s argument conveniently forgets the historical and structural barriers that may cause some people to “not be able to carry their own weight” - i.e., American structural racism, historical colonialism, and imperialism, to name a few. Peterson elides mentioning any actual factors that could contribute to someone’s bad circumstances, instead opting for blaming individuals.
Unstated Premise: members of society should be engaged in “noble” pursuits
Peterson neglects to mention the fact that most Americans are simply wage workers (around 90% of the working population), and therefore would not be considered engaged in “noble pursuits,” unless lining capitalists’ pockets could be considered “noble.” Even to argue on capitalists’ terms, there is no way that 100% of that 90% of workers are happy in their jobs, find moral or spiritual edification in their work, or are even free to choose what job they would prefer.
Argument: “We believe that there is something pernicious about Male Competence and Activity. It is part of the notion that the best way to characterize Western society is as a tyrannical patriarchy.” “It is not essentially patriarchal unless you believe that women have not contributed immensely to what we have now”
first of all, most scholars would not use the word “tyrannical,” which, to his credit, Peterson quickly abandons (because it would be hard to defend that moniker). His second argument stems from a blatant misrepresentation of what contemporary feminist theorists would argue. During the second-wave feminist movement, there was an effort to characterize societies as inherently (essentially) patriarchal; this was not only western-centric and colonial, it reproduces the same essentialism at the heart of overt misogynistic structures and sexist attitudes, albeit against the group in power rather than a marginalized group. While I would certainly argue that this viewpoint is flawed and nonsensical (I believe that essentialism is always bad), Peterson knows the difference between contemporary feminist scholarship and the misguided second-wave and is deliberately conflating the two. It is unthinkable to suggest that our society is not patriarchal. There exist myriad examples of this bias: the gender wage gap, lack of representation at the political level, laws that empower police officers to have sex with detained individuals, rape culture in general, and the very ways the laws are written in order to favor criminal males. Someone pointing to a statistic about how women receive fewer death sentences than males for the same or similar crimes is making a moot argument to me; I say abolish the death penalty entirely. If you don’t think this society (and most Western societies!!) are inherently patriarchal, ask yourself where you got your last name. No not that one, the first one you had. Or the one before that. Is there anything more patriarchal than changing your identity to fit that of your husband’s, or having your identity shaped by your father’s?
Argument: “Even if you’re purely self-centered, you’d want to set up an economy where everyone could be maximally exploited by everyone else”
Peterson is here making an argument that we should all seek to be fully crushed by capitalism. He doesn’t want to mention that not everyone is being “maximally exploited”; the bourgeoisie simply owns; their labor is not exploited. Peterson would not, also, argue that this economy could be structured differently so that no one needs to be exploited. This is the most powerful and fearsome aspect of capitalism: it makes you think that there is no other reality, except to continue to be exploited by bosses that do much less work and make much higher salaries.
Argument: “The more egalitarian a society the bigger the difference in personality between men and women”
The word salad of “research” presented by Peterson here refers to the study “The Relation Between Gender Egalitarian Values and Gender Differences in Academic Achievement” by Eriksson, et al. This study shows that countries with no emphasis on attitudes that promote gender equality show a difference in the specialties of boys and girls (with girls scoring better in terms of reading and boys generally excelling at math). What Peterson neglects to mention is that in countries where gender-egalitarian ideas are prevalent, girls score better than boys in both categories, an objectively worse outcome. In the studies conducted that examined egalitarian outcome, “[f]rom the total evidence, it is unclear whether there is any robust association between the relative math achievement of boys vs. girls and gender equality in opportunities” (Eriksson et al, 2020). Only when specific attitudes are adopted by various states are the disparities between girls and boys present, which shows that policy is more effective in eliminating gaps than rhetoric ever will be. It should also be noted that these studies use standardized tests, but various studies (https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED440107) (https://ila.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1598/JAAL.49.2.7) have shown that in practice, not only do standardized tests correlate to inequality, they actually promote inequality.
Argument: “I have a daughter [and a] wife” therefore I can't be sexist
lol good one
Argument: men like things, women like people
For Peterson to ascribe the socialized (he may claim it is not, but it is. There is little if no evidence to suggest this type of dichotomy) and historical ways in which men and women have been deployed in the workforce throughout time simply to the psychological differences between the sexes is quite preposterous. The foundation of Peterson’s psychoanalysis is Jungian; therefore he will always find that the anima and animus are completely distinct entities and always at odds: his philosophy subscribes so rigidly to the gender binary that it is almost the foundation of the binary itself. This essentialism, once again, makes for a very weak argument when confronted with the historical ways that women have been excluded from fields of labor to the contemporary ways in which women are discriminated against when entering STEM fields of education.
Argument: If you maximize the opportunities for both sexes, you will maximize free choice
Ah yes, the choice of which multinational corporation will be allowed to exploit my labor. Can’t wait.
Premise: Humans are in chaos; they are searching for meaning and unable to find it
While it is very tempting for me to simply quote Marx for this entire answer, I can answer it simply. The chaos that we feel in our lives and the lack of meaning it stems from is the result of alienation under capitalism, where workers are only afforded measly time off, where their primary function is working for someone else, where their labor dehumanizes them as pawns of corporations or bureaucracies. Marx argues that before capitalism, workers viewed their labor as “not only a means of life but life’s prime want”; that is, they found spiritual edification in their labor and actually enjoyed doing it, as they were the primary recipients of the fruits of their labors, i.e., a peasant farmer or a local artisan such as a tailor or cobbler.
Argument: we are transforming our [societal] landscape so rapidly that it is hard for people to gain their footing
That destabilizing force is capitalism. The bourgeoisie, just after overthrowing the feudal state, expanded the labor force and labor participation drastically. The fact that people like Peterson are blaming the modern world for the destabilization is actually funny because the modern world is (dominated by the USA), a capitalist-driven construction. Per the Manifesto:
The bourgeoisie, wherever it has got the upper hand, has put an end to all feudal, patriarchal, idyllic relations. It has pitilessly torn asunder the motley feudal ties that bound man to his “natural superiors”, and has left remaining no other nexus between man and man than naked self-interest, than callous “cash payment”. (Marx and Engels, 15).
Argument: “it’s nice if we could make things better than they are”
Yes. Abolish capitalism.
Argument: identity politics is bad
Yes. Abolish neoliberal capitalism.
Argument: when I grew up my family was “self-sufficient”
Yet Peterson’s father “returned from work” before he taught him to read. Curious how one can be self-sufficient when so much of one’s relations are dependent on market forces. Unless they grew their own cotton, wove their own clothes, and processed and fried their own McNuggets, it’s highly unlikely that Peterson’s family was self-sufficient while living under capitalism. What he may be suggesting here is that his father could subsist and provide a nice living for his family under the post-war economic boom felt by western countries up until about the ’80s, when inflation stagnated globally and the advent of financialized capitalism was upon us.
Argument: Young people have a vital role to play in the world
The evidence for the disposability of workers in capitalism is certainly abundant. How about the Amazon workers? How about the meat plant processors? How about the front-line workers who were hung out to dry in the early stages of the pandemic? Very false premise here.
argument: Peterson says he is only irrational when he is hungry
This is clearly false because most of his arguments here are not rational at all :)
p.s. eating only meat as a diet is fucking weird and fucking gross even if it is for a disease
p.s.s. you probably shouldn’t look to a benzo addict for psychological advice!
The means enabling the Jordan Petersons of the world to exist at all is the fact of the Left's own weakness. The Left can't take critique anymore, even though Peterson himself evidences his own brand of today's cynicism-borne-of-the-Left's-defeat. Society's discontents today all yearn for the fulfillment of the Enlightenment's promises, which was exactly the whole point and trajectory of the Left's existence in the first place. Now every time a somewhat disreputable or shady figure mentions that fact, recalls to mind some shred of that painful memory, the left recoils and yells its old slogans until it's the one left crying. Peterson clearly seems worthy of responding to only because he is touching the raw wound. And that wound is the Left's own self-imposed marginalization. We can and should do better. The world is waiting on us to do better. But until we listen, absorb, and demonstrate a praxis that overcomes the limits that such interviews as these identify, we will never be able to show just how silly the Jordan Petersons of the world really are. Until we overcome our own silliness, we will continue to be the butt of the joke, and the Trumps will continue to take power. Honestly, it would be funny if it weren't so tragic.