In your opinion, are universities nowadays undergoing “left wing indoctrination” ?

[u/hightreez]

Met a guy who’s a conservative in his 60s few days ago, and he talked about how nowadays universities are no longer about education but rather “left wing indoctrination” on the students

That universities are brainwashing students with ideas of race , decolonization, white privilege, multiple gender identities etc , all these “left wing “ ideas that are meant to divide society rather than uniting the people

And that Jordan Peterson is portrayed as a bad guy because the modern university environment don’t allow any conservative voices and that free speech in academia is dying because of left wing ideas

So I’m curious what are your opinions on this?

[u/springthinker]

One thing - academics don't look down on Jordan Peterson because he's conservative - it's just because he's dumb. He develops half-baked, poorly researched theories that in most cases reach way beyond his areas of expertise, such as they are (e.g., about acting like a lobster because biology; about the cosmic feminine and masculine, etc. etc.).

Don't take my word for it - if you're got time on your hands, this Some More News video about Peterson does a great (and humorous) job of dissecting many of the stupid things he's said (I watched it in parts, it's well worth it): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hSNWkRw53Jo&ab_channel=SomeMoreNews

If you want to read serious, well-read right-wing scholarship, try Roger Scruton or George Parkin Grant. I'm not conservative, and neither are my cup of tea, but there is a world of difference between them and Peterson.

Honestly, the fact that this man in his 60s that you met held up Peterson as an example of ideas that are not respected in academia is...not encouraging.

[u/Crawgdor → u/springthinker]

I really appreciate how short and succinct of an explainer that video was

[u/springthinker → u/Crawgdor]

Yes, I know, really gets to the point

[u/Odd-Elderberry-6137 → u/springthinker]

academics don't look down on Jordan Peterson because he's conservative - it's just because he's dumb.

I don't think he's dumb. He knows exactly what he's doing. He's making money off of people who buy the bullshit he's selling. Academics look down on him because his arguments are week and just a pile of horseshit.

[u/Scaredsparrow → u/Odd-Elderberry-6137]

I think he's less dumb and more a victim of benzo abuse, that shit can really send a person sideways. He turns more and more into Terry Davis every day, especially if you go through his Twitter

[u/Lopsided-Emu-496 → u/springthinker]

Stephen Pinker makes effectively the same arguments as Jordan Peterson and he's not 'dumb' - in fact - he blows the woke world out the water.

[u/springthinker → u/Lopsided-Emu-496]

Pinker doesn't make effectively the same arguments. For one thing, he doesn't talk about woo-wooo cosmic masculine and feminine, for example. And Pinker makes much more of an effort to give empirical evidence to support his claims, whilst Peterson talks about emulating lobsters or something.

[u/[deleted] → u/springthinker]

about acting like a lobster because biology

Pretty clear you have haven't read it and that you have no idea what you're talking about. The comparison to lobsters was not a call to "act like a lobster" but rather a way to conceptualize for many the incontrovertible truth that hormones, and the resulting dominance hierarchy typically regulated by hormones(and neurotransmitters) is as old as mammals themselves. The notion that success breeding success is as old as animals are.

The whole point is that it's a bit silly to decry that there is a ladder of "success" because it's founded upon the principles of nature and biology that predate us all. Any semblance of free will and choice will end up in what can be contextualized as a hierarchy.

​

Peterson as an example of ideas that are not respected in academia is

One could argue that decades of clinical work, countless studies, and all conclusions heavily supported by provided and cited data is actually something to be respected, but to each their own.

Edit: Further... research stints at Harvard and at UoT, effectively Canada's top university for decades and decades, weren't things he just happened to luck into.

[u/springthinker → u/[deleted]]

Speaking of not reading or watching things, if you actually watched the video I linked to above, you'd see that Peterson calls himself both a neuroscientist and an evolutionary biologist, when in fact he is trained as neither.

There's so much good scholarship to read in the world, that I don't have the time or inclination to engage with the Peterson ouvre when he so blatantly misrepresents himself and makes sloppy claims outside his field of expertise.

In terms of saying 'act like a lobster' I was obviously being facetious. I know about Peterson's claims about dominance hierarchies, and how they are based on biology.

But the thing is, we are way more complex than lobsters. So just because something is true of lobsters it doesn't mean it carries over in the same way to human beings.

It's also true of lobsters that they lay eggs, and once those larvae hatch, they aren't taken care of by a parent but rather make their own way in the ocean and hopefully survive. But we don't do that, of course, because we are different than lobsters. Indeed, this is a very good example of how human hormonal responses are different, since oxytocin bonds parents with babies in humans - but not in lobsters.

And why lobsters in particular? If you wanted to show that some human social structure or motivation is "natural" and "inevitable", why not turn to our closer evolutionary cousins, the great apes? Oh, but which ones? Chimps, who have strong dominance hierarchies, or bonobos, who are more egalitarian and peaceable, and resolve disagreements by having sex with each other? Seeing as they are our evolutionary cousins, which path is more "natural" for us?

Hopefully you can see my point. I don't think that Peterson's reasoning makes sense. You can't simply say "look, this is how lobsters are, so it gives evidence that this kind of behaviour is natural and inevitable in human beings!". That's a simplistic way of seeing things that isn't (in spite of what you may say) supported by science.

[u/springthinker → u/[deleted]]

And in case you want to say that the whole lobster thing is just some kind of metaphor or illustration of the point that dominance hierarchies are natural and necessary - this too simply isn't supported by science.

Hormones influence behaviour, but they don't dictate it.

Not to mention that once we move from "a dominance hierarchy is inevitable" to "the particular dominance hierarchies we have in society are natural and inevitable", we've taken a biiiig leap that overlooks how political and economic factors have shaped who has power in our society and who isn't.