/lit/ - Literature

>>11691079
the lines between general/potential and correct/actual get very blurry with both peterson and his critics. he seems to focus on the former more than the latter, because that's his primary goal: to challenge the premises of postmodern relativism. i don't even disagree with peterson's objective: if everything is interpretation, which interpretation should you choose? rather than descend into a relativistic wilderness (or, worse, a ressentiment-fueled pathology), you should select that interpretation which is most in alignment with your highest principles, those that bring order into the world. this is his jungian approach to nietzsche, and it's an interesting one.

>The former coherent sense of meaning, which is really apprehending and organizing information provisionally without any claim about external purposiveness, stands in direct opposition to the manner in which you use the term meaning, insofar as the revelation of new information can always discount an old perspective.

what i'm saying, and it is something that i think peterson would agree with, is that there is no neat and easy way to separate these. in the existential sense, all meaning is personal - so personal, in fact, that for peterson you must take it to the level of the mythic unconscious to understand. i'm fine with all of that.

i don't think it's uncharitable to say that peterson is trying to out-relativize his critics. he's trying to establish a framework for interpretation, re-centering postmodernism within an alchemical, quasi-theological framework. JBP is nothing if not a true believer in carl jung. as i've indicated, it's a noble goal. it may even be the kryptonite to his detractors. and it would be unfair for me to demand mythology and critique of ideology at the same time.

but it's why he can't get anywhere with somebody like sam harris, for example. demanding that *everything* have an interpretation will be as impossible a task as infinite criticism. the truth lies somewhere in the middle. saying to harris that, basically, he believes in gods he doesn't even know about is a tactic, but it's not useful.

it's also because peterson can back up some of his claims with science, or from clinical practice, that he gets the attention that he does. in a sense, all ideology is common sense, but there's no need ultimately for people to react the way they do to someone telling them what really is non-ideological common sense: clean your room. sort yourself out. and to attack him for this is completely stupid. 'meaning' is reducible to neither fact nor interpretation, and any attempt to do so will lead to spirals. things are way more complicated but we like to make the 3D into the 2D.

there's truth in what peterson is saying, it's just the way that he says it puts people off. but that's not his fault. everybody's triggered af these days.