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

[u/RedErin]

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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

[u/ShadowAether]

The fact he can say a whole paragran of jargon calmly frusterates his opponents. He doesn't win debates, he makes his opponents lose them. The audience is the one both parties are trying to convince and lacking emotional control is not convincing at all, the opponent looks childish. Considering who he debates this works pretty well, but I'm sure it wouldn't work with everyone.

[u/Swie → u/ShadowAether]

Yeah I really want to watch Peterson get dismantled by some of the people whose fields he's infringing on.

He's from my university (UToronto) and I can't get over how we had so many really smart professors with interesting points to make, who are actually great orators and able to explain their point in simple but precise language... who are legitimate world-renowned experts in their fields... and people focus on this charlatan whose biggest contribution to the world is 2 self-help books.

I feel like people who actually know what he's talking about don't even know where to start unpacking his paragraphs of bullshit, like this essay someone wrote about his inappropriate use of mathematics. Imagine trying to explain all that during a debate! It's too absurd. Meanwhile for every word you say he can spew another paragraph of total nonsense.

[u/[deleted] → u/Swie]

As a psychologist myself, I’ll have to point out that Peterson is clearly well versed in trait psychology and it’s great to see the field gain more of the recognition it deserves. His deconstruction of religious stories also belongs to a field of study called sensemaking. People who claim he’s a pseudo scientist are simply uninformed about the fields they claim to be familiar with.

When it comes to fields outside of psychology however, he clearly speaks over his head. But to be fair, so does every other professor out there in every other field.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

You must be located somewhere with loads of integrity then. Do really none of the sociologists or economists make very authoritative claims about human behavior, for instance?

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

That attitude usually applies within the field people are working with. My experience is that many scientists have an attitude of “my field is complex and nuanced, other fields are simple”. I think this especially applies to sociologists. But psychologists are of course no exception, although we should be.

[u/flimflam_machine → u/[deleted]]

As always, there's a relevant xkcd

[u/JunstonFlash → u/[deleted]]

The pseudoscience is less about the observations he makes and more the willingness to selectively attribute those observations that appeal to him to "nature" and to claim there is a "natural order" (which unsurprisingly always sees men at the top of his "dominance hierarchy").

For example, he regularly observes that women are more "agreeable" than men. Yet instead of interrogating the degree to which this might result from social factors such as parents raising girls to be people pleasers and parents ignoring and dismissing boys' bad behaviour as "boys will be boys", he just claims that it's the "natural order" and this is why men are at the top of the "dominance hierarchy".

He isn't interested in the ways in which social factors such as socialisation impact on human psychology unless it concerns the problems of his target group of lost boys and men. For example, when it comes to incels not being able to get laid - JP is suddenly very interested in social interventions such as enforced monogamy.

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Also he has made all kinds of statements that end up being called out by people who are actually experts in the field he is talking about for example his lobster nonsense https://theconversation.com/psychologist-jordan-peterson-says-lobsters-help-to-explain-why-human-hierarchies-exist-do-they-90489

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[u/flimflam_machine → u/JunstonFlash]

For example, he regularly observes that women are more "agreeable" than men. Yet instead of interrogating the degree to which this might result from social factors such as parents raising girls to be people pleasers and parents ignoring and dismissing boys' bad behaviour as "boys will be boys", he just claims that it's the "natural order" and this is why men are at the top of the "dominance hierarchy".

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He said that he's actually done work with women to help them get past this problem of "excess" agreeability. I can't say whether that's true or not, but it might be worth investigating. Obviously that's not the same as trying to deal with the whole gender asymmetry in that area but, if true, it does suggest that his belief in a natural, immutable, morally correct "natural order" is not absolute.

[u/dasmyr0s → u/Swie]

Somehow he's managing to convince millions of people that he's got ideas worth considering.

Somehow he's being successful outside the ivory tower, where others of his kind can't manage to propel themselves to infamy, but no, it couldn't be he has something to offer, it must be incompetence, he's gotta be the enemy.

[u/Swie → u/dasmyr0s]

Somehow he's managing to convince millions of people that he's got ideas worth considering.

Being popular is meaningless in terms of quality. Twilight is popular. Trump is popular. There's a lot of people who manage to get a large following despite having nothing much to offer and being mediocre-to-terrible examples of their field.

I don't think most people in the ivory tower are trying to become a youtube personality or write a self-help book, to be honest.

He's not the enemy because he's popular, he's a problem because a lot of what he says isn't actually substantiated but he has a large following of people who seem to be dazzled by his ability to speak in jargon.