Jordan Peterson’s weird authoritarian rant
28th Aug 2022 | Genetically Modified Skeptic
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6NvID5SiDUw
6:17 See how much toxicity there is in a term like "narcissist" ...
One of the perks with actually believing what the Catholic Church teaches is, knowing the accusation of "narcissism" is meaningless.
What would a Protestant say about St. Thérèse of Lisieux (meaning a conservative not overly supranaturalistic Protestant, like not too likely to sympathise with Catholicism or evince terms like narcissism)?
What would the pagan father of St. Barbara have said about her decision to have Jesus as spouse instead of taking the one he had chosen? I mean of course, if he had had the term "narcissist" available.
9:05 I have some (slight) hopes about Jordan Peterson mending.
But as to what he has been so far, one cannot count me as being on his side.
It's like saying the late Kaczynski was on Putin's side. Somewhat disingenious when suspicions are Putin was behind the air plane accident. Kaczynski was (and arguably still is, in Heaven or Purgatory) a true believer in Catholicism. Putin is as far as I can tell, very much not a true believer in Orthodoxy, any more than Patriarch Kirill is. I am a true believer in Catholicism. And arguably, Jordan Peterson is not a true believer in whatever Church he's now attending, even if he's not an Atheist any more. Hope he doesn't stay that way.
9:56 And large hordes of young men who join a Church without really caring what it says and whether they believe it is a recipe for that Church getting swamped in unbelievers.
If the conversion of the Roman Empire had happened as some Protestants like to imagine, the result could have been what they describe in theses like Hislop's The Two Babylons (written while Assyriology was a very just starting science, which the Presbyterian clergyman
11:06 As an Austrofascist, I agree with you.
Have you heard of Monsignor Ignaz Seipel? He was a chancellor of Austria before the Austrofascists, but same party as they : Christian Social.
The party relied fairly much on his books, one about the relations between people, nation and state, but one which is called "Wirtschaftsethische Lehre der Kirchenväter" - The Doctrine of Church Fathers on the Ethics in Economy. One Church Father he cites much is St. John Chrysostom. And one thing St. John Chrysostom said about rich not giving alms is "si non pasti occidisti" - if you didn't feed, you killed. As the quote is in Latin, it's actually St. Ambrose, but St. John Chrysostom said basically the same thing.
Hence, Austrofascism involves a moderate welfare state. Not providing for abortions or contraception obviously, but providing for quite a lot of other things. Not as lavish as Social Democratic régimes in Sweden or Spain or Portugal - but also without the backlash, when Sweden made old age pensions dependent for sufficiency on what you lay aside to certain pension funds, after all my youth up to then not being so. As I had studied much and worked little, it was somewhat of a blow in my face, back in 2003. And Spain and Portugal are basically under tutelage from creditors.
11:25 You are IN the group that says "being queer is OK" - you say YOUR group has no "special access to morality" ... do I spot a logical contradiction?
- Jared Levine
- No, that's not a logical contradiction at all. It's not even a regular contradiction. 'Special access' means something very different from 'I believe I am right'.
- Hans-Georg Lundahl
- @Jared Levine I think by "special access" he is targetting Churches and Church men who think their values should influence legislation and the point is, he thinks his group (not limited to sexually LGBT persons, but clearly LGBT liberal thinkers) should inluence legislation - where is this not a double standard?
- Jared Levine
- @Hans-Georg Lundahl Uh, no, 'special access' refers to the idea that morality comes from a place that only a small group of people have access to. In this particular instance, the place is 'god'. The church says that it has a monopoly on morality and that right and wrong can only come from god, and in fact that you cannot come to moral conclusions without god.
- Hans-Georg Lundahl
- @Jared Levine "In this particular instance, the place is 'god'."
Not a "small place" and not something that only a small group of people can access.
Given your name, this may not apply to your ancestry, but lots of us (including me) have huge chunks of ancestry in populations where entire nations were Christian.
Your reference on what the Church says seems - ill-informed.
The Catholic Church does not say it has a monopoly on morality, but a monopoly on getting everything in moral teaching correct. Like a Jew might miss out on not taking interest from fellow men (the Mosaic dispensation was meant for enemy nations like Canaaneans and Babylonians) or a Muslim missing out on how small quantities of alcohol are licit, or some Protestants missing out on both.
We also say that morality actually comes from God twice over : first by His creating us in His image and second by His revealing it. Non-Christians will definitely get some things right. Like a Muslim not taking interest, a Jew not calling someone drunk for drinking a can of beer most evenings, or even the Protestant I meant could get it right that giving alms is a necessity.
But the Catholic Church is not asking certain legislations because of that monopoly, but simply because they are right.
- Jared Levine
- @Hans-Georg Lundahl "The Catholic Church does not say it has a monopoly on morality, but a monopoly on getting everything in moral teaching correct."
Yeah that's the same thing.
That's the special access. The idea that moral truth comes from god, (or, more specifically, through a set of documents and interpretations of documents that have been ascribed to a particular character of god) and anyone not using that particular avenue is, at best, guessing.
I don't think that morality requires a god. If you think I am categorically wrong, then you think you have special access to morality.
- Hans-Georg Lundahl
- @Jared Levine "Yeah that's the same thing."
No, it's not. It certainly is a special access, but it is only relevant to legislation insofar as this means a certitude of being right.
If he can require laws for acceptance of LGBT people because he's certain that's right, then the Catholic Church can require laws condemning LGBT acts as well as contraception because that is right.
And in this question, indeed any question, the Catholic Church says the right solution can, by a purely natural process, be discovered by any man, not any Catholic, any man of good will.
"I don't think that morality requires a god."
I think you have kind of heard some people misstate the "presuppositional" proofs for God in ways we Catholics do not share.
Your being moral requires you to be created by God, which all men are, not your believing in God, which a minority do not believe in, except as for the morality towards God, and it also doesn't require you to believe in the right God.
"The idea that moral truth comes from god ... through a set of documents and interpretations of documents that have been ascribed ... and anyone not using that particular avenue is, at best, guessing."
Not what we believe.
God has created us moral, like God has created us mathematical.
God has also given us a key, in Bible and Tradition and Magisterium, which is like the key a math teacher provides. That some pupils get certain equations wrong without the key doesn't mean they are guessing, it means they are inattentive, to the law God wrote in their hearts, and that the key could have cured such moments of inattention.
- Jared Levine
- @Hans-Georg Lundahl Okay, we're talking about a couple of different things here.
Members of the Catholic Church are of course entitled to advocate for and pursue legislation that conforms to their personal values.
But in that sense they are equal in that pursuit to the Jew, the Muslim, the Hindu, the atheist, etc. What GMS and I are saying is that regardless of where you believe your morals come from, you still have to do the same work of convincing other people that your ideas have merit and are worth codifying. As opposed to believing that only one group has or should have the right to codify their ideas. I believe I'm right but accept that I could be wrong, and for that reason I would not want a system of governance where my beliefs cannot be challenged, especially legally.
"the Catholic Church says the right solution can, by a purely natural process, be discovered by any man,"
Well I'm a man of good will and I believe that LGBT people are normal and should be treated as such, so I'm curious how you reconcile that with anyone believing otherwise.
"Your being moral requires you to be created by God, which all men are, not your believing in God"
I wasn't talking about where moral beliefs come from, I was talking about where morality comes from. I believe that morality very much exists in the absence of a god, not merely in the absence of belief in one.
- Hans-Georg Lundahl
- @Jared Levine To some of the other points you raised: We are not likely to get the Inquisition back, and I would not advocate for it, as I think it's too late, we are too close to the time of Antichrist.
And now to this one:
"Well I'm a man of good will and I believe that LGBT people are normal and should be treated as such, so I'm curious how you reconcile that with anyone believing otherwise."
If LGBT people are normal, contestable, depends on how far they go in acts, certainly quite a lot of LGBT acts are not normal, as in not normal means of getting babies, and therefore likewise not normal means of getting sexual satisfaction.
And if you pretend it doesn't hurt anyone, look at what declining birth rates are doing to old age pensions.
If you consider LGBT are very marginal compared to "normal" contraception, true.
But it would be impossible to convince normal people they shouldn't use a condom if there was a big exception getting even further from a normal coitus for a group like LGBT. It would even be somewhat unfair.
@Jared Levine "I believe that morality very much exists in the absence of a god not merely in the absence of belief in one."
That could be true if Atheism were true. It's not. And claiming it's not true doesn't make the believer privileged in accessing the natural law, since your morality equally is from the God you don't believe in (except the erroneous parts, that are like doing some sums wrong, but worse).
- Jared Levine
- @Hans-Georg Lundahl "That could be true if Atheism were true. It's not."
Well that's the big question, which we obviously disagree on.
- Hans-Georg Lundahl
- @Jared Levine Explain objective morality on evolutionary grounds?
And before you say you weren't claiming universal validity for your morals, consider you were talking of being right or wrong. That implies universal validity is what's talked about.
You can't be right or wrong in a personal preference for oranges or apples.
- Jared Levine
- @Hans-Georg Lundahl Well, first of all, it's a false dichotomy to say that evolutionary grounds are the only grounds from which objective morality can arise.
Morality is a matter of improving individual and social welfare and avoiding causing suffering. Evolution describes why certain things cause welfare and why certain things cause suffering. I avoid causing suffering because I do not want people to cause me suffering. I try to improve the welfare of others because I want others to improve my welfare.
It's about as objective as morality can be, given that it's about the interactions between moral agents, which are necessarily subjects.
- Hans-Georg Lundahl
- @Jared Levine No, no, no.
Objective morality involves an objective assessment of whom one is obliged to interact with so as to limit their suffering or promoting their welfare, individual or social, and also how far one is obliged to do so.
Those are the only types of issue you would be differing on some points with us Catholics on.
And already on this ground, you can condemn contraception, unless a man is rich and can buy friends, it guarantees a lonely old age, and accepting it on a legal and countrywide basis is what has made old people degrade so much in the respect they get. As mentioned : LGBT acts are contraceptive acts.
- Jared Levine
- @Hans-Georg Lundahl Okay, so we agree on what morality *is*, that's good. Now, presumably, if I could make a compelling and positive case for contraception, you would, if you wanted to be consistent in what you're saying here, have no choice but to believe that contraceptives are a morally good thing, regardless of what any religious documents say, right?
Like, for the sake of argument, if there was no material and earthly harm to contraceptives, that would render them above condemnation, because of the reasons you have just stated, yes?
- Hans-Georg Lundahl
- @Jared Levine Being without a next generation is harm.
Chosing it for yourself, without a just compensation for that kind of choice (like monks are both frugal and tend to get a next generation of vocations) is therefore self harm.
Encouraging that self harm on the scale of a society is harming all of the society, both old who get neglected after decades of it and young, who are overburdned by demands of old, and the population which is in danger of needing input from other parts of the world, which input can tend to steal the show after a while of growth.
- Jared Levine
- @Hans-Georg Lundahl I understand that that's your belief. What I'm asking is, if I could demonstrate that there is no harm, or that the harm is acceptable and/or outweighed by a good, would that make it moral to you, regardless of what any other religious documents say?
- Hans-Georg Lundahl
- @Jared Levine I don't think you can, but if you want to try, do.
By the way, the extra qualification "or that the harm is acceptable and/or outweighed by a good" has fairly much hollowed the point.
@Jared Levine Note also, the extra qualification again appeals to an objective morality of the sort you are not explaining - that's where you find "acceptable harm" or "outweighed".
- Jared Levine
- @Hans-Georg Lundahl How does it 'hollow the point'? Dentistry often inflicts pain but we recognize that people are much better off with functioning teeth, right? Is that not an example of an 'acceptable harm'?
@Hans-Georg Lundahl Anyway, I think there are a ton of problems with the objection that you're raising with contraceptives here, to the point that if I were less charitably inclined, I'd accuse you of sophistry.
I think the most obvious place to start here is that morality pertains to how we interact with *others*. I don't think you can really make a case that an action's morality can be determined by how it affects you. Otherwise, something like going to community college when you could be going to university, or smoking a cigarette, becomes immoral, which is bizarre to me.
So the idea that it's immoral to take contraceptives because you might be denying yourself some future well-being falls totally flat for me.
I have a lot more to say but I don't want to just send huge walls of text back and forth so let's start with this.
- Hans-Georg Lundahl
- @Jared Levine "Otherwise, something like going to community college when you could be going to university,"
Chosing a lesser good is not chosing a positive evil. And that means that there can be individual compensations, like the talent you want to cherish more, or a person you want to stay in touch with - each being not less but more important than certain types of education.
"or smoking a cigarette, becomes immoral, which is bizarre to me."
Smoking twenty fags a day is immoral. That's a level pretty cancer risked.
When below that level, the act is moral, unless you have an obligation to others (as you mention) or to keep your throat in singing shape.
Why, because the harm, if any, is not a very big one.
"So the idea that it's immoral to take contraceptives because you might be denying yourself some future well-being falls totally flat for me."
It's absolutely not just "some" future well-being, it is THE normal well-being for an old person : being supported by his own.
Getting a lower pay is nothing compared to having a caring home rather than one's own family around when one dies.
- Jared Levine
- @Hans-Georg Lundahl "And that means that there can be individual compensations"
By that same token, you can prioritize the aspects that a child-free life gives you over having children.
That of course assumes that the choices are 'child-free until you die' or 'have children' which is not the case- people can and do use contraceptives to hold off on having children *until they are ready*. My girlfriend and I are planning on having kids eventually. We are not currently ready for them. We will use contraceptives until we are.
You're also assuming a status quo in which people can only be cared for in their old age by their direct offspring. What if that isn't the case? What if we lived in a society where the community cared for its elders, regardless of whose grandparents they are? Then it seems to me like your entire concern disappears.
Also, the idea that there is some risk of cancer at which smoking cigarettes becomes immoral seems pretty arbitrary to me. Certainly not something I would expect out of an objective morality.
More broadly, your argument here implies that everyone should have children, not merely that everyone should abstain from contraceptives. If you believe that the state should be able to ban access to contraceptives, do you believe that the state should mandate everyone to have children?
@Hans-Georg Lundahl Also, as an aside, you know LGBT people can have kids, right?
- Hans-Georg Lundahl
- @Jared Levine "Also, as an aside, you know LGBT people can have kids, right?"
Exactly my point: LGBT people can have children. LGBT acts can't make children.
"By that same token, you can prioritize the aspects that a child-free life gives you over having children."
There are monasteries. While monks don't make children, they get novices.
An 80 year old man can usually not survive and especially feel well without younger people around. A very rich man can commit LGBT acts or "more normal" contraception and still make sure to have young people around. It does not follow that all men can do so. Unfortunately, that exact thing is likely to be forgot by a rich man, and when some rich people do forget it, they get on and push other people to do the same to their own destruction, individually or collectively or both.
"That of course assumes that the choices are 'child-free until you die' or 'have children' which is not the case- people can and do use contraceptives to hold off on having children until they are ready."
Two problems : makes for fewer children, and getting the things you want in order first can take longer than you think or her fertility slot could be shorter than you think.
A third, precisely like LGBT getting normalised, normalising this also makes for normalising "child free" lives.
And a fourth, the ideology of having this or that or sundry ready before you make children is costing lives. Teen mothers may not be the most aborting, but they are probably the most symbolic. And the meme behind that is "she isn't ready to be a mother yet" ...
"You're also assuming a status quo in which people can only be cared for in their old age by their direct offspring. What if that isn't the case?"
I actually didn't assume that. I am saying the BEST way to be cared for is by direct offspring or inlaws, or by younger monks or nuns in a monastery. I know sufficient of how old people are cared for these days to have a pretty sharp idea on this one.
"What if we lived in a society where the community cared for its elders, regardless of whose grandparents they are? Then it seems to me like your entire concern disappears."
This may be insulting to you if you or your girlfriend work in old people's homes or visiting old at home. But those solutions actually are pretty bleak. The general population died less in Covid than people in old people's homes, except for Paris, in France. Because they are old and frail? Not just that. Because such homes crowd them. In Sysslebäck, a village in Sweden, I was neighbour with a lady of a certain age, and she complained the visitor who was changing her diapers was often late.
"Also, the idea that there is some risk of cancer at which smoking cigarettes becomes immoral seems pretty arbitrary to me."
I think 20 fags per day is a fairly secure bet on cancer. That's not more arbitrary than saying 2 litres of wine per day lands you with cirrhosis.
"Certainly not something I would expect out of an objective morality."
Because you expect it to be divorced from facts?
"More broadly, your argument here implies that everyone should have children, not merely that everyone should abstain from contraceptives."
Not really. Again a strawman. If some monks have spiritual heirs instead of physical ones, fine - is even an option when livelihoods are especially hard to come by (but not an excuse to accept policies making it harder). If one man with bad breath could get no wife - well maybe he's lucky with the neighbours' children visiting him each day (as they'd also do with widows whose children are far away), so his neighbours make up for what he lost. Such individual either choices or misfortunes are very different from socially accepted contraception.
@Jared Levine I missed your dentistry observation.
Dentists do not always restore functioning teeth, some actually offer to pull out all teeth and replace that with gums.
On that level the harm is certainly not acceptable.
But suppose we deal with a person of mostly good dental health, and the dentist bores a hole and fills it with ceramic, that is the opposite of contraception. Contraception is a pleasure that deprives you of later pleasures, good dentistry is a pain meant to protect you from later pains.
- Jared Levine
- @Hans-Georg Lundahl What is an 'LGBT act'? There's only one kind of sex act I can think of that couldn't also be done by a straight couple. And so what is they don't lead to kids? Neither does straight people kissing! Not every action needs to be in some direct service to a moral good.
Anyway, I think you're going to have to convince me why doing something that doesn't harm anyone else can be immoral. I don't think smoking any number of cigarettes can be immoral. I don't think anything can be immoral merely because it affects the person doing the act negatively. Morality for me is about how you interact with others.
- Hans-Georg Lundahl
- @Jared Levine "Neither does straight people kissing!"
It should if you go on in bed and do not use a condom. Not directly, but by what it inspires to.
"why doing something that doesn't harm anyone else can be immoral."
Ooops ... you are actually the person on whom you test what you are doing to others. The more bad you accept doing to yourself, the more bad you are likely to do to others.
Plus obviously, making yourself a burden to an undermanned next generation, that certainly is doing harm to them.
Spain and Portugal are under restrictive measures for state debt. Sweden individualised the old age pension, since the "guarantee pension" unlike the older "people's pension" is calculated to be insufficient. Germany is (at least I heard so in Berlin) so aged that young people are too harrassed to get into work and pay taxes to be able to successfully make couples and start having children. Japan is now doing robots to take care of old people. In each case, you have decades of contraception, and the result is an old generation that's too big for the young generation.
11:44 Actually, it doesn't - since the Bible says (Proverbs 12:10) The just regardeth the lives of his beasts: but the bowels of the wicked are cruel.
12:25 I do not just find it possible, but definitely overwhelmingly probable it is your case - just on some issues (LGBT was mentioned), an illinformed compassion.
Hence my tries to get into debate with you.
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