Recently I engaged in a debate with a muckety muck in the
Church of Sam Harris regarding
Jordan Peterson. The man is highly upset at my 'slander' regarding Harris.
Some people fancy themselves as the quintessential sons-of-Christopher-Hitchens. They have their profile photos permanently set as a cartoon of a cigarette smoking Hitch, and they never change that photo to something else, ever.
From my perspective the batons of Hitch have passed to several people, and several of those people are on the current right-side of the political spectrum, much the chagrin of fervent Church of Harris believers.
Partial list of people who've been the recipients of a Hitchian baton:
Andrew Breitbart, Douglas Murray, Mark Steyn, Gad Saad, and even Dinesh D'Souza.
List of people who're traitors to the legacy of Hitch:
Sam Harris;
Church of Sam Harris priests who get upset at 'slander' against Harris; and all atheists who voted for
Her.
One person interviewed by Saad is Jordan Peterson. Peterson recently engaged in a
discussion with Harris, and Harris could not wrap his brain around what Peterson was saying. Understandable for more reasons than one.
Peterson speaks valuably
against social constructivism and Marxism (as does Saad). He also speaks valuably regarding the
nuclear bomb level impact of artificial birth control upon the human animal. And even before I heard of Peterson, I wrote the exact same type of thing.
https://jonathanshome.blogspot.com/2016/02/lies-present-in-conservative-religion.html
Regarding Peterson's
religiospeak, it's important (and mostly required) to interpret the totality of it within an enlightened naturalistic framework.
Dennett's 'dangerous' idea regarding
religion being natural cuts several ways. One way it cuts is that fully evolved human moral codes are couched within religious contexts. Another is that every single syllable emitted from the vocal orifice of Jordan Peterson needs to be interpreted within context.
A highly valuable project: more accurately (and without leftist SJW prejudice) describing the inherent, evolved, and high value to enlightened social conservatism, and naturalistically articulate evolutionary psychology.
Peterson approaches such a merging more than Gad Saad, in his own way Petersonian way.
Thus a great thanks to Peterson for opposing Marxism and social constructivism, on campus and off. And thanks to him for revolutionarily speaking the truth regarding one specific concern of social conservatives (widely available artificial birth control).
Valuable and fully natural scientific work.
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The Harrisian (Sam Harris and his aficionados) brain has problems grasping many things. For example:
1.) That free will fully exists within the human animal, in a natural, reasonably adequate, and compatiblist sense. Dennett is right. Harris is a myopic hack on this front.
2.) That consciousness is not an ineffable humming glow.
3.) That male circumcision is highly abhorrent.
4.) That there was high utilitarian value to voting for Trump.
5.) That voting for Hillary was a huge betrayal to the legacy of Hitch. The crooked racketeering Team Rape versus a pro-American and thus pro-Enlightenment good-hearted businessman who used His Own Money to block the raping racketeering Clintons.
Also Harris engaged in malpractice regarding his psychological diagnosis of Trump, one which was petty, shallow, moronic, analy retentive, boring, stupid, and obtuse - and fully on par with most Harrisian projects and pronouncements.
So thanks to Peterson, Gad Saad, and others.
Saad is a social liberal. Peterson seems to be a moderate.
When more scientists get some balls and brain cells, and finally see value to fully evolved social conservatism, then there'll be progress. But until then, the
pro-eugenics pro-death nihilistic hacks aren't scientists but rather they're just worse than worthless nihilists.
At least Saad is willing to entertain conservative ideas without becoming an utter nutter. And Peterson is closer to the truth of the evolved situation, in his own Petersonian way.
What evolutionary process is involved when
decidedly childfree denialist abusively permissive SJW leftists just want want want to import admittedly also abusive Muslims to breed on their behalf?
The SJW children of let-it-all-hang-out 60s hippies love forcibly-hijabbed women and abusive Islamic Puritanism and Islamic large families.
Whodatthunkit.
Yes Islam warps natural evolved processes in highly wrong headed ways.
A better course would be for children of the Enlightenment to wake up, reject baby killing and artificial birth control, and breed themselves rather than to import rapey barbarian savages to breed on their behalf.
In any case Harrisian logic is rather like a weak cog in a half baked pie, to mix a metaphor. Krausian logic isn't any better by the way.
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Excerpts from an exchange with a Church of Harris priest (COHP) on all the above:
"Peterson's ideas are only valuable inasmuch as one is willing to take his epistemologically foolhardy presuppositions for granted."
My response:
Hardly. No more than one must assume the god believer does everything in his life >because< his god is a 100% actual fact, as opposed to a perceived fact - one which exists within the required/knowledge support structure of the meme-gene system in which he exists.
Why do people do the things they do? A combination of biology, biological history, genes and memes, which all inseparably play off each other.
Biology, evolution, life, and ideas which are rooted in various aspects of being alive, and a processing machine which can (by happenstance and not) be used for other purposes also. But even those other purposes tie into the fundamentals of existence.
For example the mathematician and physicist usually want humanity to survive, and they can be driven to use their realms of knowledge for fully biological-imperative type purposes.
How does the world work, and thus by extension how do humans work.
Peterson is concerned about what happens when humans toss the baby of morality with the bath water of religion.
Since religion is a fully natural memetic-encasement of evolved morality, it's reasonable to add 'evolved' as a preface word to the terms 'religion' and 'morality.'
COHP: "Again, his epistemology is predicated on an exceptionally precarious conceptual foundation"
Response:
It's a fundamental fallacy and also myopic to assume that expressed-views are only valid if the person expressing them can articulately state a reasonable fully-scoped foundation for those views.
Peterson uses religiospeak which must be taken within a naturalistic context. There's no other context which is reasonable. And a lack of understanding on the part of the naturalistic evaluator can lead to fundamentally flawed conclusions.
Aside from the terms he uses, Peterson has concerns about the state of humanity, concerns which do directly relate to Dennett's dangerous idea regarding religion being natural, Peterson's concerns are highly relevant, telling, and apparently factual.
The baby of evolved human morality tossed with the bath water of evolved and fully natural mysticism.
There's big costs and impacts.
COHP: "His entire philosophy collapses beneath the weight of its own incoherence."
Response:
He seems pretty coherent to me. His concerns are highly valid and valuable to make note of.
The memetic bathtub he's in is interesting and nuanced, and must and can only be understood within an enlightened naturalistic context.
COHP: "an epistemology anchored to an ontological fact is conceptually unsustainable."
Response:
How does the world work.
How do humans work.
What is human nature.
Why do humans do what they do.
Why are we here.
How can we survive.
The noob atheist, the rebellious leftist and weed smoking libertarian, all assume that without (the concept of) a god everything is permitted. Such people, and their abusively permissive and denialist meme sets, simply do not understand how the world and humans work.
COHP: "It's based on essentially circular logic"
Response:
You're stuck in the weeds of philosophical word games and forced paths which fully fail to understand what's going on, with Peterson and with religious believers in general.
Idea sets which are inadequately contextualized need not be 100% self consistent nor 100% 'reasonable' to be 'valid.' 'Valid' meaning having naturalistic causes, and meme sets which can result in reasonable naturalistically-rephrased ideas and natural material useful facts.
As for circularity, humans are evolved animals, and many aspects of human nature circle back to this fact and the general facts of how the human animal works.
COHP: "any truth claim he makes atop that foundation instantly fails."
Response:
...only for those who lack a fully contextualized and enlightened materialistic understanding of what's going on.
COHP: "It's important that one's conception of truth can at least sustain itself."
Response:
Religions do sustain themselves via and for natural reasons.
COHP: "Peterson's truth eats its own tail in a million different ways."
Response:
Not that I've seen. And the truths within religions need to, and can only be, properly understood within natural contexts.
COHP: "If his definition of truth ultimately leads to the extinction of the human race..."
Response:
He wants us to survive, and rightly so.
COHP: "...does that mean that it was never true?"
Response:
Properly contextualized truth, yes.
COHP: "It makes absolutely no sense."
Response:
He makes sense to me.
Marxism: Peterson observed highly negative impacts. He doesn't like what he saw. He doesn't want a repeat.
One of Peterson's points is that rejecting traditional religion can lead to errors in thinking, and to incredibly high levels of abusiveness, denialisms, and moronity, as was and is the case with Marxism. The utter stupidity continues on campus today.
COHP: "The soviet union"
Response:
...was an anti-human-nature identitarian leftist utopian totalitarian evil corrosive human spirit destroying dead-end endeavor. Peterson knows this.
COHP: "It was the result of disillusionment in the church..."
Response:
...which led to something far worse. And the Soviet Union was a de facto religion, as is Marxism.
Visit most any atheist (or humanist or Unitarian Universalist) group in America.
State to them that you enjoy Duck Dynasty, and that you're a pro-life anti-gay-"marriage" atheist. See how long it takes for them to boot you: faster than a Mormon Bishop. A de facto religion with dogma, doctrines, heresy trials, and excommunication.
COHP: "Most Nazis were devout Christians."
Response:
Fascism is a left spectrum endeavor. National Socialism.
There is identitarianism in both Marxism and fascism. Group rights and group blames. Utopianism. De facto eugenics. Racism. Dogmas. Doctrines. Heresy trials.
Yes I see that Communism/Marxism and fascism all have corrosive tribalistic elements and religious ones too. Peterson rightly points out negative impacts.
COHP: "You've COMPLETELY misconstrued Dennett..."
Response:
Many hours listening to Dennett.
COHP: "Sam's positions."
Response:
Ditto.
Harris is a myopic hack.
https://jonathanshome.blogspot.com/search/label/sam%20harris
...on many fronts.
No Hitch-honoring Hitch-appreciator could or ever would vote for a Clinton.
The micro differentiations between spandrels and other effects are weedy sticky mud, regarding arguing about differences between what's one and what another. False choices based on myopathy. Why? Because here's the situation as previously noted:
Religion is a natural phenomenon which couches evolved traits.
There's synergies between memes and genes.
Not all religions are equal regarding positive and negative impacts.
Harrisian woo (Chamlers and Harris):
https://youtu.be/qi2ok47fFcY
https://jonathanshome.blogspot.com/2016/05/the-woo-of-sam-harris-consciousness.html
Harris didn't learn from:
Dennett.
Hitchens.
Gad Saad.
Jordan Peterson.
Me, whom he censored.
------------------------------------------------------------ end of quote of direct exchange
Am I a quintessential 'son of Hitch?' Hitch isn't more important than my family & I don't claim he was correct on all issues. During his tenure I was partially swayed to the pro-Iraq-war side, but now I'm much more skeptical regarding the value of it. Moron Bush and even-worse moron Obama screwed up the place big time.
Time for Trumpian pragmatism now. But Hitch did free many brains from dogma, especially from leftist dogma.
