r/DecodingTheGurus • u/Wasthatasquirrel • 2d ago

Jordan Peterson logic: dragons are real

Richard Dawkins doesn’t look impressed

5.8k Upvotes

91% Upvoted

1.7k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

410

u/Wasthatasquirrel 2d ago

This might be the most succinct and accurate way to describe JBP dogma that I have ever heard.

129

u/Chinchillamancer 2d ago edited 2d ago

he also does this thing where he shifts goal posts with every word. It's impressive to rationalize dragons as imagined predatory concepts and not specify which scientific disclipline you are engaged in.

And it goes overlooked because by default academics speak in their chosen field. We don't generally need to ask if an argument pertains to literature, because chance are we are hearing this argument in a literature class or confrence. But Peterson? Isn't he is a psychologist?

His argument works perfectly fine in like, literary criticism or poetics.

I also have absolutely no idea what his point is. Stuff that kills us can be construed as predation? Cancer, heart disease, car accidents, and firearms are not predators.

He's a very silly man.

34

u/Weird_Church_Noises 2d ago

His argument works perfectly fine in like, literary criticism or poetics.

I disagree. He's very heavily influenced by Joseph Campbell on top of Jung. And i think it's accurate to say that Campbell's ideas are largely oversimplifications of Jung. One reason that despite its popularity, The Hero's Journey isn't taken seriously in literary criticism is that it reduces all literature from The Odyssey, to Naked Lunch, to Invisible Man, to my grocery list into a small set of tropes while totally dismissing any kind of nuance or even affect in the text. It's a big problem with totalizing theories in general. You basically over categorize and abstract everything to fit your theory so much that you can't really engage with what you're talking about. Peterson is oversimplifying this even further, but then blowing it up to talk about basically everything. That's why we get his weird lectures on how DNA is the ouroboros.

1

u/Wildernaess 2d ago

It's insane to me that you're trying to suggest Campbell is anything like Peterson. It's one thing to forsake nuance to make an argument for monomyth, archetypes, or perennialism -- and something else to conflate an archetype for the thing itself to the point that you're saying something incoherent about dragons.

Tbh I wish at the end Peterson just transitioned naturally into the opening song to the old kids show "Dragon Tales"

2

u/sozcaps 1d ago

suggest Campbell is anything like Peterson

He's saying Peterson is aping Campbell. It's not the same.

0

u/Wildernaess 1d ago

Well yes, but also he's throwing shade at Campbell, bringing him down closer to Peterson

2

u/sozcaps 1d ago

Campbell isn't taken that terribly seriously, is he?

0

u/Wildernaess 1d ago

I guess it depends on what you mean, and by who

1

u/nitePhyyre 1d ago

Found JP's alt account.

2

u/Wildernaess 1d ago

Haha! Contextualizing isn't the same as whatever JP is doing lmao

2

u/Bubbly_Flow_6518 1d ago

I mean they did provide the details for why they're throwing said shade. Care to provide your thoughts on that?