Here’s Why You Should Stop Listening to Jordan Peterson

Part 2 of 2

Image credit: Gage Skidmore (Wikimedia Commons)

Welcome to the second of a two-part essay on Jordan Peterson. In the first part I discussed Peterson’s habit of engaging in the Naturalistic Fallacy, and how this taints both his epistemology and his ethics.

In this part I want to look at another distressing habit of Peterson’s: his tendency to use jargon and equivocation, such that it becomes very difficult to determine what he actually believes.

Flaw number 2: Self-serving Obscurantism

I pointed out in the last essay that Peterson’s “Darwinian perspective” on truth seems to have a lot in common with the postmodernist ideas he claims to detest. But he also resembles postmodern continental philosophers in his use (misuse?) of jargon. On this score, for a great analysis of Peterson’s magnum opus, “Maps of Meaning,” I recommend Nathan Robinson’s critique in Current Affairs.

“What’s important about this kind of writing is that it can easily appear to contain useful insight, because it says many things that either are true or ‘feel kind of true,’ and does so in a way that makes the reader feel stupid for not really understanding. (Many of the book’s reviews on Amazon contain sentiments like: I am not sure I understood it, but it’s absolutely brilliant.)…