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I have similar background and negative experiences, but I don't get the alarm bells but rather makes me appreciate some things I was being reached when young and also sad that the my fundamentalists parents weren't more like him. I'm am atheist as it gets but the Bible studies by him are fascinating. I remember the Bible stories very well but never thought about them in that light.
It's not the Biblical references / usages that bothers me, and that's in and of itself is not what I mean. I engage with it theology myself and often respect theological thinkers in regards to their arguments. This is always the problem when I try to bring this up: trying to convey that it is a religiosity creeping in, but a fundamental desire that exists as the foundational impetus of what we call religiosity, but which can find expression through other avenues in ways that are not immediately recognized as such.
It would be fun to see a debate with someone very different than him but actually someone who has arguments and date to back it up not just blind ideology.
I can tell you that the tactics used by so called justice seekers are exactly the same we had in my dear soviet union. I don't know where it is heading but because America decides the course if the western civilization, I feel uncomfortable.
Peterson is doing great work. I hope he can handle the pressure.
Can you expand on this at all? Your comment fascinated me, and I’m now very curious about what the climate was like in the Soviet Union. Any book or movie recommendations?
One of the many propaganda topics during the civil war was that the Russian Empire was oppressing many minor ethnicities and cultures. They called the Russian culture velikoderzhavny (a kind of “imperial”) chauvinism. And the USSR was made to unite all ethnicities and make everyone equal. Everyone except Russians. Bolsheviks worked hard to build a new culture without that ”imperial culture”. So they killed or imprisoned many scientists or educated people born in the Empire, tried to build new culture, etc. The main personal trait of those activists was the absolute moral superiority over “imperial oppressors”, which was especially useful during tortures and mass executions — they were exterminating a class, not individuals, so there were nothing personal in murders (this is a citation of Martin Latsis [1]).
Of the post civil war USSR I can recall one thing that was common. One could only have a successful career provided that they was “clean”: non educated parents, no bourgeois relatives in the past, relatives helping build the communism (e.g. in charge of mass executions).
So, the “clear” understanding of what’s good and what’s evil together with the moral superiority make justice trivial.
Society was saturated with a paranoia of not appearing to think or act the wrong way. Any accusation of having ideas that could qualify of being outside the acceptable boundaries was very dangerous. The accusations were often pulled out of thin air to neutralise intellectuals, political opponents, or disliked people in general. Effectively. That type of mentality is partly what inspired wrongthink in Orwel's "1984".
If you would like to experience what the atmosphere was like living in the Soviet Union, a good book to read is Peterson's often recommended "The Gulag archipelago".
Something that would probably be good to read (or listen to) is The Gulag Archipelago. I haven't gotten through it yet. But a great story early on is one about a speech Stalin gave.
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Well, we can't discriminate against people who believe women need to be covered or earth is 6000 years old, so who ever in charge draws the line. The morals change all the time.
By invoking China you're implying that blocking US monopolies would be bad because everything China does is bad. Doesn't seem like a compelling argument to me.
Maybe not, but it becomes compelling when you consider what it means for a state to go as far as to block web sites in such a manner. It isn't merely a simple act of blocking. It brings with it an entire mindset as to how the state should behave, and how much freedom it allows for its population.
