Tipsy Thoughts - Jordan Peterson on Patriarchy and Rules of Sex

My second article about Mr. Peterson. He's... engaging, perhaps. Sometimes he says things that make perfect sense and seem like great advice, while other times he devolves into what seems to be a paid shill who can't avoid contradicting himself.

So what brought this one on? Well after a few drinks at trivia I ran across a couple Youtube videos featuring him.

The first, well I can actually agree with quite a bit of what he says. Starting off with a description of how society is based on consensus even though it might be "tyrannical" (his word) because the benefits outweigh the costs. (I'd love to see the Libertarians who quote him incessantly explain that away!)

Later he also goes on to a somewhat reasonable diatribe on how we need order in our lives. I say "somewhat" because, personally, I've never been very ordered. Maybe I'm that rare lucky person he mentions who is "creative" enough for people to tolerate the disorder but, frankly, I just don't think I could manage a perfectly ordered life. I wouldn't be writing a Tipsy Thoughts article at 1 AM on a Wednesday if I could!

It's what bridges those parts that bothers me:

"In the absence of a patriarchal structure..."

Wait... what? A patriarchal structure?

If you watch everything after that piece he talks about ordering your own life, setting schedules and things like that. What. The. Fuck. Does that have to do with patriarchy?

The answer is nothing!

There are perfectly ordered and functional matriarchies for instance!

There's literally no reason whatsoever we couldn't have an ordered society, if people really even need that, which isn't based on equality!

OK, so that aside... and I probably should have shut down Youtube there but I ran across another video...

Wait, let me back up a second:

In the first video he claims that we are all constantly watching body language (not an exact quote) to maintain sanity and make sure we know how to deal with others.

In the second video, he claims there is no way to know what the rules are around sex.

So wait, a major point was that we know how to behave around others by observing body language... but in the second video we have no way of knowing if a sexual advance is welcome?

Do any of his fans want to explain that one to me? Because, to me, it seems like if our entire way of "outsourcing sanity" is to watch peoples' reactions to our actions it should actually be possible to apply that to sexuality.

The real rule of sexuality being "does everyone involved want it and is capable of making that decision?"

That's really not difficult... to me anyway.

Beyond that he's here telling me, a guy who has worked with multiple women literally since I was eight, that he doesn't know if men and women can work together.

I mean, even in this video he starts off with "a fraction of people are criminals" and explains that they cause most of the problems. Yet seems to drop that logic when he claims men have to be super careful of making even one advance on a woman?

Again, anecdotes not being statistics and all there have been multiple times I tried to make a move on a woman and didn't get the hint right away. And we remained friends!!!!

This really goes back to my previous article about him... he's a fearmonger. He talks a lot about how he's not "alt right" but half the time I watch his videos he seems solidly "MGTOW" or "Red Pill," both of which I believe have a strong association into the alt-right.

Not saying he is or isn't, I really need to research his stuff more... but this fearmongering "men can't approach a woman" bullshit is beyond ridiculous.

I should have been asleep an hour ago so I'll stop ranting now and link to the videos.

Here's the first video, where we garner order and know how to behave by watching body language and peoples' reactions:

Here's the second video, where we learn there's no way to know what's acceptable behavior for sexuality:

Oh wait, and at one point he explicitly says the birth control pill changed the rules... then a minute later says that there's no way "divorce sexuality from children."

I mean... that's literally the exact purpose of the birth control pill. And if it didn't accomplish that it wouldn't have changed any of the rules around sex.

Tipsy Thoughts will be a loosely defined series of posts written while, or after, I've been drinking. These are things that sober me would research better, but drunk me felt the need to get on paper before I realized I could be doing something more useful. As such they are likely not as well written or cited so please bear that in mind and treat these as a launchpad for discussion rather than my hard and fast opinion.

Also, have another beer or wine andL