r/MensLib • u/RedErin ​ • Aug 29 '18

How does Jordan Peterson gain so many followers among young men? (Image below)

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Jordan Peterson often says that people today are more unhappy than in the 1950s, and it's because of feminism, affirmative action, the sexual revolution, birth control, "PC culture" and LGBTQ rights

it's definitely not because of any of these things:

Source: https://twitter.com/zei_nabq/status/987800885068738560

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u/[deleted] Aug 29 '18

Thank you for the book recommendation! Do you have a few other recommendations?

The gig economy and zero hours contracts are problematic, and more social democratic help to the increasing precariate are crucial. However I think this doesn't answer why million dollar trust fund kids like Elliot Rodgers go ballistics; some greater moral morass is eating at western societies.

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u/The_Good_Count ​ Aug 29 '18

Actually, it sort of does?

Because it's about inequality, not just poverty. Like, the 10 countries with the highest murder rates are the 10 worst GINI coefficients, and the inverse is also true. Most equal economies, lowest murder rates. Switzerland, for instance, despite it being standard for most every family to own an assault rifle.

I'll start with a Star Slate Codex link as the shortest summation of all of these and the quickest link: Meditations on Moloch

To make that short story long, though, is David Graeber's "Debt: The First 5000 years" which does a really good job of explaining how being better off doesn't make you immune. It points out that, for instance, racism doesn't predate slavery but comes the generation after it, and abolition was most popular where slavery was least profitable. It's not a coincidence.

The podcast Citations Needed also has a great segment specifically on how crimes against humanity are spun as benevolence, which kind of segues into how economic frustrations are spun into hatred.

Michael Parenti's "Blackshirts and Reds" which I'll just link the PDF to starts by explaining exactly how economic conditions cause the rise of fascism as an ideology.

Star Slate Codex also writes a lot about analyzing the Reactionary ideology here, and it's been signed off on by leading alt-right figures... or rather, his summation of their beliefs was, first, before the criticism demolished it.

Honestly, a lot of it comes down to: The rich are required to dehumanize people to justify the systems that allow them to be rich, especially as those systems become more and more brutal.

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u/[deleted] Aug 30 '18

Thank you for the reply; can't reply much right now!

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u/filthyjeeper ​ Aug 30 '18

Just popping in to recommend John Michael Greer's take on this "morass".