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alt right

Why I Love (and Fear) Jordan Peterson & Russell Brand

August 22, 2018 by Matt Hill Leave a Comment

Jordan Peterson and Russell Brand

tldr version

Jordan Peterson
and Russell Brand
both see a
current crisis
and both see it as
primarily “spiritual”

however, for each,
there are issues
when it comes to how
*truth*
and “spirituality” relate

and how they relate
is vital

bit longer version

fanboying

i love me some
Peterson and Brand

always generally dug
Brand’s flicks
and standup,
and have been a
fan of his podcast/YouTube
for a year plus

(fun fact:
the pic above is
from once when
Peterson went
on said podcast;
and don’t they look
smashing together?
🙂 )

Peterson came to
my attention
more gradually,
but then like a
hurricane recently –
seriously:
give him a Google
and marvel at the
moment he’s been having

i have Recovery and
12 Rules for Life
on my bedside table
(along with some more
explicitly Christiany books
and a tablet, upon which
i theoretically read,
but mainly just
obsess over guitar gear
i don’t really need)

both are excellent texts
and both feel
supremely plugged in
to a zeitgeisty sense
that something’s amiss,
in general,
with ppl rn

(i agree)

both also,
and both men
in their public lives,
propose something
like a
spiritual cause
for this
“something amiss” –
what might be called a
“spiritual crisis of meaning”
stemming from
God
(or something like God;
more on this later)
no longer holding
significant sway
for so many

(i agree for sure)

caveating

please note here
that these gentlemen
are obv far more complex
than i’m making
them seem, as is
this whole topic
(and i’m not
even addressing
their politics);
i’m attempting to
essentialize here;
i considered deep diving,
but am refraining
for the sake of brevity
and also because i’m
kind of lazy

in any case, here are
some decent articles
related to this post;
go ahead and Google –
there’s plenty more:

“Jordan Peterson vs. Russell Brand”

“The religious hunger that drives Jordan Peterson’s fandom”

“Is Dr. Jordan Peterson A Gateway Drug to Christianity, Or Just A Highbrow Joel Osteen?”

here are two of my own,
also related:

“Get Re-Enchanted: Stranger Things 2, Pop Culture & God”

“What IT Means (and How *Any* Good Story “Means”)”

problematizing

but here’s the problem:
as much as i *love*
Peterson and Brand’s
respective approaches
to the significance
of the spiritual,
i *fear* that
neither approaches
*truth* sufficiently

what do i mean?

well, with Brand,
the issue appears to be
lack of specificity –
many manifestations
of spirituality
might address the
problems he sees
(note that his book
is based on the 12-steps,
which speaks of “God,
as we understand him”)

and while this is
well and good to a point,
of course,
in the end,
truth commonly understood
is *specific* and *exclusive*
by its nature,
and not addressing this,
it seems to me,
is a problem

for Peterson,
the issue is confusing
*truth*
with something like
“what works”

he tells us to live by a
certain ethic
and seek a certain meaning
grounded in
certain Jungian archetypes,
not because it is true
or because the
archetypes are –
at least not in
the usual
historical/correspondence
way generally meant –
but because it
just happens to reflect
how things have gone
re: humans
when it comes to
our psychology
from an
evolutionary perspective;
it is what is and
therefore what “works”
and therefore “true”

again, all well and good
to attach some
functionality to truth,
of course,
perhaps,
but conflating the two,
it seems to me,
is a problem

also, this is why
Peterson kind of
dodges/ducks/complicates
the question he’s
often asked:
“do you believe in God;”
he may or may not,
but he definitely
does not think of
that question primarily
as it relates to *truth*
commonly understood

finning

and so:
when it comes to
Peterson and Brand,
i love them,
but i also fear them

i find them both
engaging and articulate
and brilliant, etc.,
and *correct;*
but, concerningly,
on this point,
only to a point

i want people to
hear their message(s) –
i know good can come
of it –
but i fear ill may too

i see them as
important,
*prophetic* even
in this current moment –
both have
cut through the mix
in a way that’s so
unusual anymore,
given the noise –
but probably only
“part way down the path”
to the true destination
they both seem to
have glimpsed
(or, better,
which has glimpsed them):

not God
“as we understand him,”
not a “God” that
simply works,
but the *true* God

the true God
as He really is

 

Filed Under: Books, Current Events, Editorial, OtherFish Tagged With: 12 rules for life, 12 step, alt right, archetype, books, Canada, Christian, God, jordan peterson, jung, meaning, modern, politics, professor, Psychology, recovery, religion, russell brand, social justice warrior, spiritual, twelve step

Of Course All These Alt-Right Racists Are Wrong, but Why?

August 14, 2017 by Matt Hill 1 Comment

you’re likely upset about
what happened in Charlottesville

maybe you’ve talked about it,
maybe took  some kind of
social media stance,
maybe just sort of saddened inside

it’s probably super obvious to you
that all these alt-right racists are wrong,
that racism is wrong
(“evil” as Trump (finally) put it),
has always been wrong,
that we should do something about it

fair enough,
understandable enough
(of course i agree)

but have you asked yourself
why?
not why you feel as you do,
or why racism seems so clearly wrong,
but actually
why is racism wrong?
what makes it wrong?
put another way,
how do we know it’s wrong or
are we justified in saying it’s wrong?

i mean . . .

is it wrong cuz it seems wrong?
(but unfortunately it doesn’t seem wrong to everyone)

is it wrong cuz everyone agrees it’s wrong?
(but unfortunately they don’t)

is it wrong cuz it’s not “fair?”
(what’s “fair” mean?
who defines it?
who says everything is
or should be “fair?”)

is it wrong cuz you wouldn’t want someone
to be racist to you,
so you shouldn’t be racist to someone else?
(wait, what makes this line of thinking
the line of thinking?
is there some other similar line of thinking
that applies certainly?)

is it wrong cuz humans (or Americans)
all “deserve” “dignity” “equally?”
(again: problems abound)

maybe you think racism is
self-evidently wrong
and that saying so
requires no justification at all
(but is it possible the alt-right racists
feel they’re self-evidently right?

can science prove racism is wrong?
(or could a solely Darwinian/naturalistic understanding
of eugenics in fact be used to support racism?
has it been? is it currently being?)

(we could go on)

what i’m saying is this:
none of these lines of thinking can
truly justify the claim that
racism is wrong;
further,
none of these lines of thinking can
justify the claim that
anything is wrong (or right)
in general

further,
there is but one line of thinking, in fact,
that can truly ground these kinds of moral claims,
and it’s the one where
we know, cuz God;
where things are wrong (or right),
in general,
cuz God

and so, further,
as a consequence,
making moral claims sans God,
ultimately,
is making ungrounded,
unjustified claims

so,
to circle back,
of course all these alt-right racists are wrong,
but why?
why is racism wrong?
what makes it wrong?
what right do we have to feel and think it’s wrong?
what justifies us when we say it’s wrong?
. . .
cuz God says so

(now, exactly how we know he says so,
how and where he does so,
what reason we have for thinking so,
what to do in response,
how to deal with the fact that
we continue to make horrible errors
even given all of this, etc. etc. . . .
those are (excellent) questions
for another time)

[For some awesome unpacking of these ideas that I stumbled upon recently through the Unbelievable? podcast (which you should totally subscribe to), check out “The Most Important Thing This French Atheist Taught Me About Christianity.” 

This article doesn’t necessarily make what’s called “the moral argument for God” – as I have above – but it does specifically look at philosopher (and atheist) Luc Ferry to trace our western ideal of human equality back to Christianity itself. As Ferry puts it:

. . . the Greek world is an aristocratic world, one which rests entirely upon the conviction that there exists a natural hierarchy…of plants, of animals, but also of men: some men are born to command, others to obey, which is why Greek political life accommodates itself easily to the notion of slavery.

In direct contradiction, Christianity was to introduce the notion that humanity was fundamentally identical, that men were equal in dignity – an unprecedented idea at the time, and one to which our world owes its entire democratic inheritance.

This [idea of human equality] may seem self-evident, but it was literally unheard-of at the time, and it turned an entire world-order upside down.

Given recent events in our country, it seems like a good time to remember that – just as much racism is culturally inherited – much of our outrage against racism is culturally inherited too, insofar as our culture is still “Christian.” However, we can intentionally choose these values and be justified in doing so, as described above.]

Filed Under: Current Events, Editorial, OtherFish Tagged With: alt right, atheism, Black Lives Matter, charlottesville, Christian, Christianity, current events, God, luc ferry, moral argument, naturalism, protest, racist, response, riot, spiritual, Trump

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