Hacker News Reader

I guess one of the problems with Peterson (and also with people like Zizek) is that he manages to say some completely indefensible things (i.e. he seems to tie so many of the world's problems to "liberal professors in the universities"), while also managing to say some very poignant and insightful things that do genuinely improve one's thinking. I think the second part is the reason why he has built up such a large following.

View on HN

Exactly. One doesn't have to agree with every single thing he says to find something of value in his ideas. Similarly, it's idiotic to discard his entire set of ideas because you have found some disagreements.

No, I think that's exactly the opposite of the right take-away re: how to think critically about the output of "scholar-celebrity" types. With both him and Zizek, it's idiotic to take their less well-based ideas at face value (ESPECIALLY if you find yourself knee-jerk agreeing with those ideas) just because they manage to say smart and well-informed things from time to time. Zizek knows lots about Lacan and also says lots of stupid random shit for the book sales. Peterson knows a lot about Nietzsche and also says lots of stupid random shit for the book sales. Same game, different customer.

(The signal-noise ratio on scholar-celebrities is so out of whack that simply ignoring them isn't a terrible heuristic, unless you're more interested in communication theory and marketing strategies than the subjects they're purportedly discussing.)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com