He is quite far outside of the psychological mainstream. Many of the ideas in his books qualify as pseudoscience. He has only become popular because he says what far right individuals want to hear. It is all banal well-trodden ideas dressed up.
For people not aware of Peterson, I want you not to take the parent comment seriously. Peterson is a highly polarizing figure, and people tend to have very strong positive/negative opinions about him.
Thus the parent comment is an example of someone feeling very negatively about him, and not an accurate representation of him or his ideas.
Yes, JBP does have quite a persuasive song and dance that bedevils his detractors - he is a slippery one! Even so, his research is widely cited as GP stated:
It is an inconvenient fact that scientific and scholarly study does occur whose conclusions will not agree with our deeply-held ideologies. Just take it all in and try not to take any offense when you get rude surprises. If your preconceived notions are any good, they'll survive and you can save the cheap potshots.
I don't know if you and I can see eye-to-eye on the reasons for and the importance of having one's articles cited by the rest of the academic community. Citations of one's work indicates thought leadership in the academic community regardless of how much you personally disagree with those thoughts.
Before I waste my time digging up useful bibliographies and citations that JBP draws from, I'd like to know that you aren't a complete ideologue, haven't already made up your mind, and are willing to have a discussion.
Is suspect you cannot separate the agenda-driven, public showman JBP who draws his material from the legit scientist and natural philosopher, published JBP because you abhor the agenda.
> Just as we're wired up to consume fat and sugar whenever we come across it, we're basically wired up to start marauding our neighbors if they're way richer than we are.
This is an extraordinary claim. JBP is irrelevant. I'd be interested in any citations to any literature that supports this claim.
I suspect you have zero reputable sources which is why you've fixated on JBP and "agenda"s etc.
Historically, massive inequality has been the norm. There's likely never been a landed society that did not exhibit severe inequality. If humans were "wired up" to commit violence in the face of inequality history would be very different. Instead massively unequal societies like Pharaonic Egypt can be stable for thousands of years. Revolts have always been rare and they don't emerge until (1) things get really bad eg biblical revolutions driven by famine and (2) the formation of a counter-elite that organizes the poor eg most modern revolutions, American, French, Russian.
Regardless of whatever nonsense JBP spouts and regardless of his academic work (absolutely none of which, on cursory glance, involve economics or history or politics) I would hope that the historical record is plain to all and "facts" that contravene the historical record are rejected prima facie.
By the way there is a strong link between poverty and violence but I think most researchers accept that this is very much a modern phenomenon.
