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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

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

September 12, 2017 by Matt Hill Leave a Comment

this thing you’re reading
is going to have
zero jump scares in
three expedient little parts:

1. a micro-review of the
2017 movie IT

2. mini-musing on the
meaning of IT

3. more mini-musing on
how *any* good story
“means” in a similar way

so, here we go…

IT Reviewed

you know what IT was?

super good, i thought

it made great use of
the superb,
monstrously mineable
source novel
(by the by-now-legendary
Stephen King);
captured that novel’s
unique blend of
coming-of-age story
and horror story
(thankfully ditching
the adults for now,
nailing the terrifying
scary/funny of Pennywise);
masterfully employed
genre movie tropes;
was well cast,
well acted,
capitalized on
1980s nostalgia
(no small thanks to
Stranger Things);
heck, it was even
timed and marketed
nearly perfectly

was it perfect?
nah.
imo there were
some pacing quibbles,
some moments where
i was taken out
the moment,
etc., (i could go on),
but, bottom line,
IT is excellent,
and especially if
you’re already a
fan of the story,
seeing it’s a no-brainer

IT Dissected

but what does IT mean?

the beauty here is:
most people already know,
or have a sense of it,
anyway;
the movie even does
(what i’d call a
too-heavy-handed)
bit of service here, having
Pennywise literally speak
his symbolism aloud –
“FEAR” –
as he is dispatched
(for now)
by “the losers”

and what defeats
Pennywise/FEAR?
something like
courage through
togetherness,
something like
love –
the central image of
the signed cast
with “loser”
made into “lover”
becoming a sort-of
stand-in for the point of
whole damn thing

(reminding people
familiar with scripture,
maybe,
of lines like
“perfect love casts out
all fear;”
prompting questions,
perhaps,
like:
how are the losers
like the church?)

but tbh, to me,
these meanings are
pretty clear,
pretty obv;
they are, tbh,
too big to miss

i don’t disagree with them,
of course,
but i found myself watching,
remembering the book,
and wanting to take time
to unpack some of IT‘s
knottier themes –
how does sexuality tie in?
cuz it seems to;
how do the kids’ parents?
they seem to;
what about race and
identity and history and
how they’re related?
does King mean to say
that growing up and
fear are inextricable?
(the book, of course,
provides plenty
more fodder for
these kinds of questions)

however, i promised
mini-musing only
and zero jump scares,
and so these peripherals,
uberrelated tho they be,
aren’t for here/now

besides,
IT is a good story,
at least partly,
because
its themes
and meanings –
losers become lovers,
evil dies to good –
operate at this totemic,
mythically big
and primal
level of largeness

which gets us to…

IT Related

finally,
i want to say
something like:
all good stories
(like IT) –
inevitably,
when dug at
deeply enough –
will have a
thematic bigness
like i’ve just described;
and it’s this bigness,
at least partly,
that makes us
see them as good
and which allows them to
“mean”
for us in such a
consistent,
seemingly ever-present
and popular-to-the-
point-of-compulsive
way

if i were being
Jungian or Campbellian,
i might say:
all good stories
are variations of
the monomyth

if i were being Christian,
which i am,
i would say:
all good stories are
reverberating echoes –
forward and backward
through time –
of the true story
of the universe…
the one where
good defeats evil
through love…
the one about Jesus

C.S. Lewis,
in The Voyage of
the Dawn Treader,
said it like this:

On the next page she came to a spell ‘for the refreshment of the spirit.’ The pictures were fewer here but very beautiful. And what Lucy found herself reading was more like a story than a spell. It went on for three pages and before she had read to the bottom of the page she had forgotten that she was reading at all. She was living in the story as if it were real, and all the pictures were real too. When she had got to the third page and come to the end, she said, “That is the loveliest story I’ve ever read or ever shall read in my whole life. Oh, I wish I could have gone on reading it for ten years. At least I’ll read it over again.”

But here part of the magic of the Book came into play. You couldn’t turn back. The right-hand pages, the ones ahead, could be turned; the left-hand pages could not.

“Oh, what a shame!” said Lucy. “I did so want to read it again. Well, at least I must remember it. Let’s see . . . it was about . . . about . . . oh dear, it’s all fading away again.

And even this last page is going blank. This is a very queer book. How can I have forgotten? It was about a cup and a sword and a tree and a green hill, I know that much. But I can’t remember and what shall I do?”

And she never could remember; and ever since that day what Lucy means by a good story is a story which reminds her of the forgotten story in the Magician’s Book.

so,
do you have
a sense
that you know –
very, very deeply
in your heart,
though you can’t
fully explain it –
a magic story?
a story that
is the best thing ever?
so much so that
every other good story
reminds you of it?

a sense that

There’s a song that’s inside of my soul.
It’s the one that I’ve tried to write over and over again.
I’m awake in the infinite cold,
But You sing to me over and over again.

in the words of
“Only Hope”
by Switchfoot?

a sense that,
for example,
when Pennywise loses,
you somehow win,
because there’s
something afoot there
that’s more than
just that story?
that there’s
something afoot there
that’s story itself –
a story you’re
actually a part of?

maybe?

take a moment
to consider…

yes? no?

maybe not.

maybe i took
The Neverending Story
too seriously.

but, then again,
maybe that’s just
another good example
of exactly 
what i’m talking about

and maybe –
oh, so hopefully –
maybe now,
you might
at least
consider
seeing it so too

don’t be scared…
try it

Filed Under: Editorial, Film, Reviews Tagged With: campbell, Christ, Christian, clown, CS Lewis, Faith, Fear, God, horror, It, jung, Love, meaning, movie, narnia, pennywise, spiritual, Stephen King, story, switchfoot

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