Personal Opinion: On Prof Jordan Peterson's "ban"" on Twitter

04 Jul 2022 Categorised under:  Personal

Preamble

I read with interest about Prof Jordan Peterson’s recent “ban” on Twitter. Apparently, he tweeted “Remember when pride was a sin? And Ellen Page just has her breasts removed by a criminal physician.”

Respecting people’s names (not gender)

Putting the LGBTQ issues aside, hypothetically speaking, if a man called John decides to legally change his name to Peter, shouldn’t we just call him Peter? Of course. He has gone through due legal process and the man deserves to be respected for wanting to be called Peter. Hence, it is quite inexplicable for wanting to call Elliot Page by his original non-legal name, Ellen Page.

Respecting people’s right for elective aesthetic procedures

Still not delving into the LGBTQ issues yet, hypothetically speaking, if a woman undergoes elective breast implant to augment her looks to be more attractive, would the physician still be called criminal? Of course not. Plenty of physicians carry out such procedures. Bear in mind that the word criminal actually implies contravention of some criminal law that specifically prosecutes crimes such as battery or murder. Also, elective mastectomies have happened before for cis-women for the purposes of reducing breast cancer risk. Most prominent example being Kayleigh McEnany.

Should Prof Jordan Peterson be “banned”?

Non radical idea here. I don’t think Twitter should have done anything to Prof Jordan Peterson. It gives him attention. It amplifies his voice. It supplies firepower for followup YouTube video and a chest thumping exercise.

My main issue with Prof Jordan Peterson’s ideas

There are many logical things that he say which are hard to disagree with. Clean your own room. Realize your potential. Socialize your kids. Have better self awareness. Read and write well to give yourself an advantage over other people. Believe in God. I can go on and on because I have read his books and watched his lectures in detail. That doesn’t mean that I believe his ideas are without flaws. It is just that it weaves logic with potentially fatal wrong ideas seamlessly. Let me illustrate with a detailed example here. In his book “Maps of Meaning”, he expressed the idea of reducing complexity and anxiety by accepting certain fundamental concepts as true: e.g. the role of the hypothalamus, the neurological reflexes, the teachings within the gospel, etc. He asks that you ask less of these truths, to reduce your anxiety. It is definitely true that your life would significantly more blissful and less complex by asking less questions about these fundamental “truths”. However, one should ponder whether there is anything moral about accepting (without questioning) that the playbook for lobster survival is supposedly the way to live as humans, the neurological reflexes within us that are capable of hunting our fellow humans to relieve our hunger pangs, or even whether every word in the gospel is God’s word when there are so many versions of the Gospel? I think, as humans, we have evolved to control these urges from the hypothalamus and neurological reflexes for good reason! Why should we devolved back to an animal? Is that the only way to realize one’s potential? I really don’t think so.

A lesson in empathy

Even when I had an issue with Prof Jordan Peterson’s ideas, I don’t want to talk about his beef/salt diet or his psych problems or his Russian medical escapade. Instead, I want to empathize with why he is doing what he is doing. This is a man who is deeply religious and philosophical. Roughly speaking, his entire life’s cornerstone is built on “immovable truths” such as religion, narratives, masculinity vs femininity, dragon vs chaos, etc. The would order is “strange” to him because his theories have become so true that they are “facts”. I don’t think there is a need to chip away at his believes because they are really “immovable”. There is no point in engaging this man anymore. Instead, the engagement should turn its focus towards people who listened to him and are open to changing their “immovable” ideas.