It's trolling, but it's a cult of trolls. The alt-right, and perhaps the right-wing in general, is the most susceptible to joining a cult. That's how the NRA and Christianity keep the right wing on a leash despite both of those organizations kinda conflicting with each other. That's also how Alex Jones sells his supplements. First you find the easily brainwashed, then you fill them with nonsense and go for their wallets.
Sam Harris also has a cult, and now Jordan Peterson is the new thing to become a cult. While they are both leftists, they get criticized for being alt-right or soft alt-right. Most of their followers are level-headed individuals who were not sold on Hillary and certainly not Trump. But too often we see Harris or Peterson cultists claiming 'this is the manliest man to have ever been a man blah blah blah' nonsense. You might be thinking that could be a leftist, but when you dig deeper into that person's ideology, you find they are among the pro-Trump that wants to "lock her up."
That's really the only problem I have with Sam Harris and Jordan Peterson. They enjoy the fact they have a cult behind them, but they pretend like their cult contains intelligent people when many of them are complete morons looking for something to belong to. Christopher Hitchens (RIP) had a lot of followers, but the nonsense-spewing cultists behind him were practically nonexistent.
Of course, the right wing will always point to SJWs being the reason. To me, SJWs push people toward nihilism more than it pushes them to trollish-like cult behavior. SJWs like Anita Sarkeesian definitely has her fair share of trolls, but I believe they were already right-leaning before she got here.
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eYeDEF (5050)
7 years ago
Hitch died before the podcast age though. If he were around today I'm sure there'd be a Cult of Hitch.
I listen to all those guys when I have time but I don't consider myself a "cultist" of any of them. You're actually the first person I've ever heard call Jordan Peterson a "leftist" but I can't see how that's accurate. He would never self identify as a leftist and his followers are overwhelmingly on the right. He's also a right wing media darling. I personally don't mind him since he hails from left wing academia but he's clearly a moderate that leans right and is not an ideologue by any stretch. I've found his psych lectures interesting and educational and I frankly don't understand why the left perceives him as such a threat. I've seen him targeted by some pretty unfair left sourced hit pieces the last 3-4 months when I can easily think of far worse right wing demagogues than Jordan Peterson.
I disagree with you on Harris. I'm a fan, and he's spent so much time railing against Trump the past couple years that I believe he's driven away most of the trumpanzees that might have initially been drawn to his anti-SJW, Islamic realist stances. But anyone that would call Harris alt-right or soft-alt-right clearly doesn't listen to him and has no idea what the fuck they're even talking about. They're just part of that contemptible pseudo-intellectual SJW purity police mob on the left that unthinkingly believe the smears peddled for sport by Ezra Klein, Glenn Greenwald, or Sam Seder without bothering to see if it's actually accurate. I can't STAND that part of the holier than thou "left" these days and I'd actually call them the "cult" because of their reflexive identity politics and purity policing that gives the left a bad name.
I'd also warn against judging followers of Harris or Peterson by their youtube comments. That comment format draws the lowest common denominators of anyone's followings. It's usually just a garbage heap of trollish flame wars and stupidity.
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dlancer (2036)
7 years ago
Jordan Peterson is another like Dave Rubin who has identified as a classical liberal. They are left of center, but they try to pretend like that label does not apply to them because they believe such labels are inherently bad. Rubin is a cretin who only speaks with right-wingers so he can get his Koch paychecks, but Peterson has spent much of his life criticizing right-wing extremism. It's only now that Peterson focuses more on criticizing the extreme left because he believes they are the ones who currently have their hands on the infrastructure of power.
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eYeDEF (5050)
7 years ago
How can you even call Rubin 'left' when who knows what the fuck he even believes anymore? I can't STAND that genocidal apologist but he's definitely moved considerably to the right, at least on economic issues that I've heard him speak about, since leaving TYT. But then again he would have to seeing how he sold out to the Kochs. So I'd call him a sellout first, but I can't see how he even resembles anything 'left'. He's a married gay man but that alone doesn't make him 'left'.
Criticizing right wing extremism most of his life doesn't necessarily make Peterson 'left of center'. I concede he's hard to pin down because outside railing against SJW identity politics he doesn't really take vocal stances on political issues that define traditional left-right. But listening to him to any extent does give a clear picture of moderate that rails against extremism in all its forms, but I'd put him more on the conservative side simply because he does identify as a religious Christian.
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dlancer (2036)
7 years ago
Well keep in mind this whole conversation revolves around social politics. The Trump cultists are socially conservative and are basically too stupid to understand fiscal politics. A classical liberal is typically right-wing fiscally, and left-wing socially. Rubin was deeply a social left-winger until he started getting his Koch checks. More specifically, he made that move after he got his individual sovereignty by being able to marry the same gender, and now he spends his day shilling for the right whining about others trying to get their individual sovereignty. So when it comes to Rubin, we're definitely in agreement. I thought I made that clear in my post above, but perhaps not.
Peterson is a whole different animal. Instead of Koch checks, he wants his soft alt-right fanbase to remain because he's enjoying his current twitter trend, so he plays this game of throwing them a bone by giving the simple answer that he qualifies as a Christian, but when describing his Christianity he's forced to admit he's agnostic. I put Peterson on the left because he admits the extreme right is worse than the extreme left. I don't think any right-winger would ever admit that, but I'd be curious to find out.
Being a true centrist doesn't really exist because as Einstein said there's no such thing as a perfect balance. Centrists are really just people who are lying to themselves so they can avoid a label. You can be 100% independent of either party, but being absolutely centrist on ideology sounds mathematically bogus to me.
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eYeDEF (5050)
7 years ago
Good point on the centrism. But I'm sure Peterson doesn't identify as a Christian merely to throw his audience a bone because he's always self identified that way.
I first became aware of him from Rogan's podcast in late 2016 when he was still teaching in Toronto before he blew up as a right wing youtube cause célèbre raking in the big bucks. He self identified as a Christian back then when he recorded his biblical series lectures available on his channel. No doubt his Christianity is not traditional and more agnostic leaning if you deep dive into it. I actually think that's a good thing if it serves to moderate the religiousity of his right wing audiences. His Christianity appears to offer a way forward for Christians to validate their own beliefs in a secular world and that's likely a big part of his appeal. But I've never seen any evidence to support the idea that he's ever changed his message to specifically cater to his right wing audience despite the barbed insinuations from critics. He's definitely milking the success he's seen over the last year and a half, but his message hasn't changed.
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