The audio is subpar. I'm not sure why. I'm aware of it. I'm working on it. I cleaned it up as much as possible with Audacity. So I am going to remove discussion of the audio from the comments section. Many people have noted that we were both using computer speakers. I won't be doing that again, and I will recommend to those I interview that they use a headset as well.
isolating the microphone from the incoming audio signal will eliminate echo and feedback issues. it's not very comfortable, but each person using a set of headphones is the easiest way to do this.
please buy a better microphone. I'm from Chile and I have never spoken english with somebody, I learn english only for internet but I need a clean sound. Thanks. I'm always following you.
I too noticed that Stephen was very good at thinking about and organizing his responses to multiple questions without losing track. I was thinking "damn I wish I could do that.."
Thank you, Mr. Peterson. I loved watching and listening to the two of you. Bravo for demonstrating how two gifted minds can have a respectful / meaningful conversation. I thought it was wonderful. Yes... your guest's ability to mentally track/ categorize/ and organize your responses (while listening to you) was quite amazing. What a gift and contribution!
Mr. Hicks, how can you write a book that is so blantantly fallicious? No suprize that you had to self-publish this 'work'. Absolute garbage, man. Who on earth still gets Kant so wrong in the 21st century? You are a charlatan. I hope you've seen all the videos and reviews showing you for the trash that you are.
@@JS-dt1tn (3) About Kant in particular, my interpretation is neither original nor out of the mainstream, even though it's controversial. Ask yourself, though, why German-philosophy expert Professor Lewis White Beck, writing in the authoritative *Encyclopedia of Philosophy* said “Immanuel Kant was to put almost every fundamental concept of the Enlightenment in jeopardy.” And ask yourself why Nietzsche said “As soon as Kant would begin to exert a popular influence, we should find it reflected in the form of a gnawing and crumbling skepticism and relativism.” Like it or not, there are some subtle issues there that many popular interpretations miss.
@@StephenHicksPhilosopher (1) You write in the beginning of Chapter two, “institutionalizing confidence in the power of reason is the most outstanding achievement of the Enlightenment”. Not even close, whatever this means, besides the fact that Nietzsche brilliantly laid the groundwork for why precisely this institutionalization leads to the watering down of education, and in turn to the creation of ‘wet-mothers’ from educators. Most would say, including Kant, that the truly outstanding achievement was precisely the opposite; that it signified the overcoming of “man’s inability to make use of his understanding without direction from another”, that precisely this institutionalization of reason in the hands of a few (remind me, was the Church ever a cooperative?) was what held man from realizing the true power of reason, i.e., its decentralizing and pluralist powers (in ideality of course).
Thank you both for this conversation, and I hope a subsequent one goes as well - enjoyable in many ways. I'm not sure if my enthusiasm is misdirected, but I'm hoping to reach either or both of you with two points I've come across which I haven't heard Dr. Peterson address, and which I'm sure would've come up in this conversation if Dr. Hicks has entertained them. One is that while post-modernism asserts that no single view can rightly be upheld as the 'one true' or 'only legitimate' view, anyone acting out post-modernism must be doing so on the basis that postmodernism itself has the one true and only legitimate view, which is a contradiction. The second is that at some point we arrive at the notion that individuals and societies progress through views with each new worldview being larger and more encompassing than the previous but nevertheless requiring the previous as a platform for the new structure to be built upon, and so superstitious/mythical belief systems are required for a scientific worldview to emerge, and the scientific method and other enlightenment tools are required to arrive at the plurality (and confusion) of postmodernism. If it's necessary for individuals and societies to move through successive worldviews, isn't our task less to rally against the various worldviews, but rather to foster this movement along toward more and more encompassing and integrative views? You two seem to be doing this already in this conversation but I'm not sure it's a conscious heading. Thanks again and I hope this gets to you.
Jesus Christ, I was going to start adding subtitles for this video but it already has subtitles. YES. Amazing. This conversation is almost two hours. Hat off to whoever undertook the task. Hat off for speakers too, thanks for sharing this type of content.
Thank you both! This is awesome. I listened to about 80% of Dr. Hick's "Explaining Postmodernism: Skepticism and Socialism from Rousseau to Foucault" and now I'll need to buy it and read it with a highlighter... no to mention listening to this conversation about a dozen more times! Awesome! So insightful.
Hicks' book on postmodernism is an extremely good introduction into the roots of postmodernism. Well worth the read (only about 200 pages)! The book is very well written and easy to understand considering its subject matter. Thank you Jordan for introducing me to this book!
1:26:40 "You have a remarkable capacity for tracking the content of conversations ..." Right?! I, too, was amazed. He not only tracked every point Peterson would bring up but he concisely put them into "bullet points" in his mind. It was a fascinating method that I will be exploring for my own benefit.
OMG!!! ... Jordan Peterson and Stephen Hicks, having a chat. A wish comes true!! Thank you, Jordan, for this. Thanks to Stephen too, for taking part .. Love you both .. :-)
After Dr. Peterson recommended Hicks' text in his video Strengthening the Individual, I aced my research paper for Government called "Political Correctness: Postmodernism on College Campuses". I owe a great deal to these wonderful professors.
This is a really really good discussion on postmodernism and modernism. Really liked how they clarified the concepts as opposed to merely throwing out those words like an intellectual that assumes everyone is an intellectual would.
What would be really great is if Dr. Peterson was allowed to produce a talk show on radio or TV with complete academic and creative freedom with guests like Dr. Sanders. It would really be something to see. I think people would love this kind of candor and straight forward analysis. Plus side is no one was trying to push a singular narrative. There is too much of that on issues in media today.
This is a absolutely brilliant discussion. Hearing ideas discussed this coherently is like listening to music. I can't resist pointing something out: thank God for "old white men".
Yeah, haha, I was listening to music earlier while working… I had to shut it off after two or three songs. I then found myself pulling up some Jordan Peterson videos.
Requires patience, but incredible. I rarely sit through an entire one and a half hour discussion like this. A cardinal virtue is its clarity. Some parts rather technical but with a rerun or two you can untangle and follow it. Unlike the brain-paralyzing mumbo-jumbo of so many postmodern ideologues today. “Those who know that they are profound strive for clarity. Those who would like to seem profound to the crowd strive for obscurity.” ~ Friedrich Nietzsche
Prof. Hicks is a very clear thinker and his Philosophical training makes him excellent at discourse. Dr. Peterson on the other hand is equally gifted at discourse and well educated but maybe not as organised in his thoughts. Maybe a product of working across many disciplines that is almost impossible for 1 person to Master unless you’re a Polymath in practice.
@@mark4asp Who said it was? That being said a person’s personal Philosophy might well be the rejection of established narratives which then brings us back to Postmodernism potentially being a personal Philosophy.
@@stunns2003 Postmodernism is the "established narrative"! - like natural Law was to to 17th century first generation Enlightenment writers. In the sense that pomo suffuses everywhere and dominates academia.
Dr. Hicks has an extremely organized mind and is an excellent foil to the openness of Dr. Peterson. I greatly enjoyed the discussion and I hope the two of you film more of them!
Excellent! I have listened to almost all lectures and books by Stephen Hicks on TH-cam. I am a big fan of both of you. So it is a great pleasure watching you talk to each other.
Thank you so much for posting this video conversation. It was incredibly insightful and educational. Looking forward to your next conversation with Prof. Hicks.
Commentary: 14:33 - Interpretation them applies resulting in cost/benefits, or in consequences that validate or invalidate to a degree the accuracy of the interpretation. 16:12 - The application of a judgments, in relation to the intent, to the objective, is what determines the quality of the subjective processing. Whether the subjective mind can appreciate or even accept the costs as indications of its error is irrelevant, if there is no external will to protect it from them. The outcome affects it whether it acknowledges or understands why, or not. 24:40 - Getting "what you want" can only occur if you are in accordance to an existing, independently, world. Success is not independent from world, if what you want is realistic, or within world, and your strategy for attaining it has accurately assessed the circumstances, or what lies between you and the objective - the world you must navigate to reach your goal. Now, because the world is interactive, or Flux, navigating it requires constant adjustments - circumstances shifting as you proceed towards your goal, your objective, but in their shifting one can also recognize some pattern in the matter, or the frequency and tone, and crescendo of their shifts, so that you can predict and preempt them with an adjustment beforehand. Of course, chaos/randomness makes such predictions impossible to be absolutely accurate (no absolutes), but one can at least become more effective, more efficient in his course towards the desired goal, and then build the stamina, the power, to adapt to the unforeseeable. 27:38 - Exactly! Noumena, the mind, guides the organism, the phenomenon of body - it directs action, in an unconscious interactive world. Noumena, or abstractions, are interpretations, the reduction of reality down to a level the brain can process, so as to make the data useful to the organism. Noumena, represented by symbols/words, are tools, indeed, not toys, not playthings, not detached from reality like a child's toy gun - a useless imitations, artifices. 31:37 - What is a want? this is an interesting topic for me, and I've covered it in many threads. Can't find the one where I get into the difference between a 'need', a 'desire' and a 'want'. I use these different symbols/words to distinguish between natural needs and socially manufactured needs, I call 'wants'. 'Desire' I use to differentiate a need founded in excess, as a byproduct of lack, such as sexual desire, and a need based on lack, such as hunger. Wants are based on manipulating and exploiting needs and desires - like how wanting a car satisfies multiple needs and also promises to satisfy desires. The car itself, as a tool, as a social construct, is useless to us, but what it promises, is what we covet. How, then, do we differentiate socially manufactures wants, from naturally occurring needs/desires? We observe other species, that have no social framework to impose wants, or to exploit and manipulate needs/desires. Now, we can distinguish between natural needs, independently from all social manipulation, and desires....from socially manufactured needs/desires, manipulating these naturally based needs. What are needs, and desires and why do we feel them, has already been covered in another thread. In brief, I explain the sensation of need as a sensation of interacting, and the attrition this produces - lowering the aggregate energies participating in an organism - this is interpreted biologically as need. Basically, need is the sensation or the experience of existing of Flux. Pain, suffering, being the extreme, if these needs are not satisfied quickly enough. Desire, libido, falls in the category of excess, superfluity, as a byproduct of successful meeting needs. The accumulated excess can be directed towards growth, or stored in ready for a fight/fight reaction to a threat, or directed towards a form of externalized growth we call reproduction.
33:45 - No, science is supposed to offer a theory that is true for a longer period of space/time, without falling into the illusion that it is offering universal, eternal, truths. World, understood as in flux, as (inter)active is a world in constant change, which may be understood by recognizing patterns that govern its (inter)activity, but these patterns are not eternal, as chaos is increasing, and all is changing, deteriorating towards absolute randomness. Man cannot conceptualize this without abstracting it into absolutes...eternal natural laws. He is trapped within the methods his brain uses to conceptualize. The leap in cognition, which the majority fail to make, is to thing beyond, or transcending these biological methods of on/off, resulting in binary logic, mathematics of 1/0, taken literally, and dualities, and thinking artistically. Therein lies the risk. To make this leap may result in you leaping clear out of existence...as many nihilists (moderns, post-moderns) prefer to do, into pure cognitive noetic abstraction, as if the phenomenal world did not exist, imposing a limit on your artistry. A relieving, revolutionary leap out of existence, into noetic space/time, where all matter/energy changes into pure idea(l), and words are as liquid as paint - rebellion against reality, the fantasy of every young girl and boy. 34:10 - Indeed. Neo-Marxism, and post-Modernism, are one and the same. their goal is to reduce all human cognition to a social construct so as to them imply that it can be 'corrected', adjusted, manufactured, and so provided to all, by distributing it equally. Nihilism = Marxism, and Abrahamism. "Critique of western thinking" - Critical theory - Frankfurt School = secular Judaism (Zionism, Marxism). Collective subjectivity - inter-subjectivity. The reduction of all to a lowest-common-denominator, to create theoretical uniformity (chaos). "Group relativism" - collective consciousness, herd mind. 41:06 - Power as a relationship based on reality, or in reality. one cannot attain power if one has no grasp of reality, unless some intervening entity imposes a rule that alters natural processes and natural laws, to favour one group, for its own reasons. Marxism, like Abrahamism, favouring the feeble, the weak, the diseased, the unintelligent, the needy, because these are more easily exploited and manipulated - controlled. 44:30 - Peterson admits that western tradition, after it was infected by Abrahamism, and then Marxism, subordinates itself to the lowest, the weakest, the most feeble, which leads to the very social issues he then criticizes and attempts to diagnose it from within its premises. So, he interprets transsexuals, and the SJW's from within Abrahamic ethos, positioning himself to the right, of this extremely left pole within the same Nihilistic paradigm. 48:11 - Here Hicks comes close to a full blown analysis of power as functionality. How do we determine the fitness of an organism? By how it fulfills its function as a reproductive type. How do we determine the quality of an idea(l), a theory? By how close to the intended goal it comes - its functionality. Ho to get from point-A, the present, or the manifesting past as presence, to point-b, the goal, the idea(l), the objective. Every idea(l) must be judged by its approach to its own idea(l), and by the collateral effects, the byproducts of this approach, in relation to world. Power is, indeed, a means, not an end....just as pleasure is not an end, but a instinctual primal, sensation of an accomplished end, the gratification of a need, desire, or the attainment of a want. Animals can feel pain/pleasure because these tare the simplest ways to appreciate an approach to the goal, without any deep analytical thinking. an animals cannot theorize abstractly, it can only judge on the simple on/off mechanism of either/or - pleasure/pain. This is why hedonism is a regression, a degeneration. 49:20 - Hicks makes a error here by equating sub-categories of power to power itself. You may have social power and be powerless outside society, or the society within which your social status has an effect. Christianity attained cultural power, yet outside culture, it is useless, nonsense. You many exploit stupidity, with an ideology and gain power, but then this power is indirect, for ti must then prove itself within world. Nihilism is applied to take advantage of human cowardice and frailty, and stupidity, so as to then direct it to attain real power, within world - so nihilism is powerless, by itself as it proposes a detachment from world, and is only a means to an end for another mind that directs and manipulates its effects on lower, less sophisticated minds. 54:10 - Nature/Nurture only refer to the sum of all nurturing (nature), preceding the present (nurture) - a gene/meme relationship. Mind is dynamic, because mind evolved to deal with randomness, and change. Chaos is the factor that determines the emergence of Will, challenging, competing, resisting the consequences of past, and the ongoing forces imposing a limit upon it. Genetics determines the possibilities of the cultivation of each trait, particular to the organism - nurture, or meme, determines to what degree this cultivation will attain this potential, and the missing factor is the dynamic processing and analysis of the mind dealing with flux, or (inter)activity, focusing (will), upon a goal. The organism is the application of this genetic past, and memetic effect upon it. Self is memory, in the form of DNA, added to by knowledge attained experimentally (knowledge, training, culture), but this does not mean that all is predetermines, as chaos implies that the factor of randomness is always in effect. Chaos is what makes mind possible. This mysterious factor is always Incorporated into what we call spirit or soul. It alludes to why there are no absolutes - no absolute order or chaos - without having to clarify it, or become aware of it. 1:04:12 - Power serves nothing and nobody but the one who has it. it is a relationship to other, indicating an excess of energies. Towards what end one chooses to apply power is determined by the specific goals and ideals of the mind where this accumulation of excess has resulted due to its successful application of awareness (judgment). The application of power is then dependent on reality, which is independent of all ideals and goals. So, the accumulation, or attainment of power may be due to successful understanding of world, or it may be inherited, but the application of power may fail because it does not align with how the world works - vanity, narcissism, emotion, hubris corrupting judgment. Excess produces a paroxysm, even when it is libidinal - see how animals, including humans, behave when they are in the throws of erotic frustration or desire. An otherwise rational man may behave in the most irrational manner, when excess is driving him mad, with desire, with the need to expunge this excess. 14:55 - Typical of the degenerate kind - the Nihilist: post-modernist, modernist, Marxist, Abrahamic. The objective world is not a static, absolute. It is fluctuating, changing. This means that although no precise subjective interpretation is possible, an approach, to a degree of superior, rather than inferior interpretation is possible, and this does not mean that it is final, but that it requires ongoing validation. There are many narratives, as all is subjective...but not all narratives are equally valid, nor are any absolutely so. The cognitive leap from either/or absolutism, is difficult for the nihilist, because he's staked a claim on chaos, or the invalidation of all, on the basis that none are absolutely true - Left Wing, liberals, Marxists, anarchists etc. The list goes on and on, because there is no limit to what the mind, freed from a limiting reality, can imagine or create to comfort itself. On the other side of the nihilistic spectrum we have those who claim to know, or at least, have access to an absolute truth - Right Wing, Christians, Muslims, Jews, Fascists etc. Here Truth acts as a convenient box to jail all within its cells. Both are wrong, though on opposite sides of the same paradigm. The idea(l) of a world where there is an objective reality, but this objective reality is not static, but fluid, not absolute but mutable, is where Realism and Paganism extricate themselves from Nihilism. 1:18:00 - A hint as to how censorship works in our Modern world of free-expressions of opinions and why academics tend to side to the most popular side - in this case the post-modern, Marxist side. Same can be said about how scientific study is reviews and censured. In both cases a reliance on projected sales and funding is an axe hovering over their heads. Peer pressured censorship, using reputation slandering and threats to social status as its method.
I'm just before the hour mark and I have to say this is incredibly interesting and at least from my perspective one of the most productive conversations I have ever experienced. Thank you both. These are exciting times. I only hope that others can comprehend the importance of having this discussion, because it is in my estimation the game changer in the seemingly inevitable iteration on western and potentially global society in the ritual of progress. I feel we must work to unify the good from both the left and the right, and that the rate at which these and future duality can converge is relative to continuing quality progression of the human experience. I believe we need to establish a kind of meta divinity for the masses for lack of a better term. A new enlightenment that diminishes out dated dogma perhaps. The rediscovery of ancient wisdom for the new age. Stay woke my dudes.
Dr. Jordan, it think it may be worth looking at the influence of post-modernism within the art world, specifically the universities - A picture is worth a thousand words.
Dr. Hicks has done more than a little on Esthetics as well. He has also done a text on Logic with David Kelley. Also check out his essay on "Neitzsche and the Nazis'.
I encourage everyone to read 'Explaining Postmodernism'. It explains so much and is so well written. It's lucid and scholarly while still being a highly readable page-turner. Thanks to Peterson for the recommendation.
Fantastic Discussion! This is the conceptual heart of the conflict that is shaping/threatening our world! This is the core of what I've been trying to understand for a long, long time. And it all comes down to ideas. Because ideas matter. I'm quite beside myself right now!^^
I think the problem with a lot of philosophical discussions is that many people seem to unable to look past different abstrakt concepts when explaining simple things. Like the 'purpose of knowledge'. Knowledge doesn't need a purpose. It can serve a purpose, it can be used for a purpose and it can be gained for a purpose. But knowledge itself does not require purpose, it's just a result or a koncept. It makes more sense to think of what the cause of knowledge was. And even the cause doesn't need a specific purpose, reason or truth. It just has to be the cause. I think it's more correct for me to say that my main problem with philosophy in general, is the human habit of explaining things by using human social norms, standards or concepts. Even when the subject at hand exists independently from those areas or when they are a cause of those areas and not a product.
After a lifetime of being an avid reader and a novice writer, an activity which has been paramount in my development as a human being, I have suffered terribly from readers block for the last seven years. A period of deep, deep depression. I will be buying this book with great anticipation. Thank you Jordan! You're work is of considerable consequence in my life.
I have a degree in Philosophy in which two of my main focus points were Post Kantian Idealism, and Epistemology from Hume onwards. I thought I was relatively literate in this kind of subject matter. Damn, this is heavy stuff. I enjoy finding out how much I don't know, because that is the first step to knowledge.
Tony wrote: "I enjoy finding out how much I don't know, because that is the first step to knowledge". An intelligent way of looking at what one knows and what one doesn't. Cheers.
I see a lot of discontent in the comment section about the brand "postmodernist," I believe it to be accurate because they technically are postmodernists, however I believe that the particular brands of postmodernists that are subversive are the neo-marxists and the post-structuralists (deconstructionists are included in here, as well as the social constructionists, and general anti-truth relativists). The problem with postmodernists is that you can't map them, they're they're not like modernists that believed in structure and were split into vanguards and schools. And they widely used power politics to good ends, however some realized that they could use the same thoughts to not only gain power, but desired a hegemony over power, and thus the first wave feminists were shoved aside by the third wave, that not only were counter productive to the cause, but they were only interested in the acquisition of social power. This happened across most movements. (The alt right is a good example of this happening on the opposite side of the political spectrum) I gained this understanding after a long time going though the modernist and postmodernist art movements and their philosophies. There is a chart where Hicks separates the classical, modern and postmodernist periods into their different beliefs, and it's a great chart, I came to the same conclusions by just analyzing the movements. The power oriented and relativist spirit has been in postmodernism from the start, and it just grew while people ignored it. Mostly because after being rejected in the late 20th century they dedicated themselves to acquiring institutional power while laying low. So it's not all, but it's all(
Thanks for a great post. 3 years later, just hoping people will "avoid the political indoctrination", just isn't enough. We now need an antidote and urgently!
@@chrisgadsby5700 you're right, but before we can begin to talk we have to wait for a time that's a bit more stable. Probably after the elections, and may god bless us man. Things could get rough, but we're all people and I think there's a chance that in the next decade we begin to understand each other better.
And damn, it's been 3 years. Things escalated this fast. But now we're really seeing how out of tough with reality the radicals are, and how they have no plan, they're a ticking time bomb. And once they self destruct, then we'll be able to build bridges.
@@MadMensDen I'm in the UK and worry that when they self destruct how much collateral damage is caused. There are external enemies in the world ready to take advantage of our chaos
Just wanted to echo the other guy and say this was a great comment. We are now seeing the intersection of valueless societies melding with power-hungry social politicking, and the results are indeed ugly. The only reason these power-hungry types are gaining so much traction with impressionable youth is because they pretend pure activism is a source of meaning it and of itself, which is just a painful lie. And look at the misery and chaos it brings on innocent people, let alone the activists themselves.
This was an excellent discussion. I especially enjoyed the part of the interview where you went into the question of power as fundamental, and explored that territory. In my opinion, this is one of the most interesting videos you have uploaded with regards to postmodernism since you first brought up what you got out of reading Dr. Hicks' book. Figures, that it would be with the author.
This was bloody brilliant. A great outline of all the philosophical threads leading to where we are now. And a good combination, with Stephen Hicks' impressive ability (as JBP acknowledged at the end) to keep tabs on all the sub-strands of each topic. Also it was very useful to hear - with Stephen Hicks playing devil's advocate - a few post-modernist responses to JBP's points. I've always felt that JBP plays a bit fast & loose with his "post-modern neo-Marxist" label. As I see it, there are many reasons that post-modernism emerged, and some of them are *good* reasons - or at least, intellectually coherent - and not pernicious, and I would like to see JBP more challenged on that. Even here, I thought he was a bit quick to jump into the psychoanalytic critique, rather than address the intellectual/philosphical problems that the post-modern analysis brings up. We can't just wish away the fact that systems, power, and tradition *have* all been used in very harmful and destructive ways, and that we all have a real problem with asserting objective criteria for anything any more. Or at least we all find it difficult to justify that Thing A is better than Thing B in any robust way, and are immediately susceptible to someone simply saying "Well, that's just your opinion, man". So, rather than taking making a psychoanalytic or 'biographical' critique of the post-modernists - e.g. "all these SJWs are simply after power with no responsibility" - I'd rather see the philosophical questions addressed head on. Anyhow, v much looking forward to the next talk, and to Stephen Hicks' new book. Thanks to both professors!
Toby B - Yes, you're right, it's great to hear JP be challenged, since every other time he's given an invitation to be directly debated by post modernists seem to be ignored. So he's gone publicly unchallenged for a while in these theories. It struck me that post modernism is a necessary side of the debate, constantly challenging all our presuppositions, yet it's insufficient as a foundation to live from, since it's whole bag is to challenge foundations. Intellectually necessary, perhaps, but pragmatically disastrous.
Dr. Peterson, thank you and Dr. Hicks so very much for this stimulating and enlightening discussion. I would love to have the two of you on stage, live. He is a superb lecturer and the two of have an intellectual synergy that is a marvel to behold. Bless you both.
Hicks is a powerhouse. Explaining Postmodernism was the best philosophy text I read in 2015, and to this day the most informative thing I've ever read on Postmodernism, and that's even including other excellent texts like Fashionable Nonsense and Higher Superstition.
Hicks' book on post modernism is famously bad. If it was submit by an undergraduate, they would not only fail, but probably be called in to explain what the hell they just wrote. It is riddled with errors of the most basic sort.
You probably will never read this, but i still wanted to write it in case you came across it. You have such a clever and captivating way to explain your point of view while keeping it interesting. I often start watching one of your videos expecting to only watch some parts of it, but i end up watching it completly because i'm just sucked in and listening to every word so i understand everything and think about it. You're helping that curious intelletucal part of me to wake up and get to work.
Now this was really amazing how this two giants were synchronizing their thoughts and ideas instantly and laying out their well structured thoughts defiantly not a video to just mildly watch here and there need to rewatch couple of more times lol)))
I've been an admirer of both Dr. Hicks and Dr. Jordan for some time now. This was a great conversation to hear. I'd very much like to hear their thoughts and conversation on the culture wars in the next video.
DoorM4n you missed 11 days bro. You could certainly improve on that. Just/Trolling ;) And anyways, DJBP isn't your robot overlord; he doesn't live for telling you what to do. Do the future authoring and sort ~yourself~ out.
I read this about 6 months ago. Very clear, well written and inormative text that is helping me to understand this ideology, one that gives a name to my thought process' in college. It took some growing up for me to slide along the spectrum of idealism to realism.
You can listen to Stephen Hicks book for free on TH-cam, and I must say it's a great read but you need to have a grasp on the terminology used in Philosophy. Really terrific book and I expanded my vocabulary by leaps and bounds. Great read!
The grasp of philosophy is listening carefully. Even when you don't have the vocabulary exactly right you can look up the words I found you'll certainly get the drift of it, with or without vocabulary the words I understand are common sense :)
FIRST POST: TRANSCRIPT OF THE FIRST 5 MINUTES: (FYI: ends with JBP's question: "...so maybe we could zero in on exactly what [Post-Modernism] MEANS, and who these thinkers were, Derrida, Foucault, Lyotard, and what you learned about them.") JBP: Well, I'm speaking today with Dr Stephen Hicks who's a professor of Philosophy at in the Department of Philosophy at Rockford University in Illinois and Professor Hicks has written a book (he's written several books) but he's written one in particular that I wanted to talk to him about today called "Explaining Post-Modernism: Skepticism and Socialism from Rousseau to Foucault" which was published a fair while ago now, in 2004, but I think it's become even more pertinent and relevant today. And I have talked a lot to my viewers about your book and so let's talk about Post-Modernism and its relationship to Neo-Marxism. So maybe you could tell the viewers here a little more about yourself and how you got interested in this. SH: Well, I finished graduate school in philosophy in the early 90s, originally from Canada, born in Toronto. At that point Pittsburgh and Indiana had the two strongest philosophy of science and logic programs, and that's what I was interested in at the time, and so upon a professor recommendation I ended up at Indiana and it worked out very nicely for me. Most of my graduate work was actually in epistemology, philosophy of science, logic, some cognitive science issues as well. So a lot of the epistemological and philosophical/linguistic issues that come up in Post-Modernism - the groundwork was laid for that. When I finished grad school and started teaching full-time at Rockford University, I was teaching in an honors program and the way that program worked was, it was essentially a Great Books program, so it was like getting a second education, wonderfully. But the way it was done was that each course was taught to our honor students by two professors. So the professors would be from different departments, so I was paired with literature professors, history professors, and so on and this was now the middle of the 90s. I started to hear about thinkers I had not read; I'd kind of heard about them, but now I was reading them more closely and finding that in history and literature and sociology and anthropology, names like Derrida and Foucault and the others, if not omnipresent, were huge names. So I realized I had a gap in my education to fill. So I started reading deeply in them. My education in some ways was broad in the history of philosophy but narrow at the graduate school level and I had focused mostly on Anglo-American philosophy, so my understanding of the Continental traditions was quite limited. But by the time I got to the end of the 90s, I realized there was something significant going on coming out of Continental philosophy and that's what the book [pub. 2004] came out of. JBP: When you say significant, what do you mean by that? Do you mean intellectually? Do you mean socially? Politically? There's lots of different variants of significant. SH: At that point, intellectually. This was still in the 1990s so Post-Modernism was not yet - outside of, say, art - a cultural force, but it was strongly an intellectual force in that at that point, young PhDs coming out of sociology, literary criticism, some sub-disciplines in the law if you're getting PhDs in the law, historiography and so on, and certainly in departments in philosophy still dominated by Continental traditional philosophy - almost all of them are primarily being schooled in what we now call Post-Modern thinkers, so the leading gurus are people like Derrida, Lyotard from whom we get the label post-modern condition, Foucault and the others. JBP: So maybe you could walk us through what you learned, because people are unfamiliar... I mean, you were advanced in your education, including in philosophy, and still recognized your ignorance, say, with regard to Post-Modern thinking, so that's obviously a condition that is shared by a large number of people. Post-Modernism is one of those words like Existentialism that covers an awful lot of territory, and so maybe we could zero in on exactly what that MEANS, and who these thinkers were, Derrida, Foucault, Lyotard, and what you learned about them. 5:00 SH: Fair enough.
I'm currently reading that book! At times it can be a bit dense and difficult to fully comprehend if you are not very familiarized with philosophical terms (like yours truly haha T.T). However, it's a very enjoyable and enlightening book. I mean, something so evident like the fact that postmodernism's roots go all the way back to Kant's critique of pure reason, was revealed to me in this book. I'm enjoying it. Thanks for your awesome recommendations on books, Jordan. May truth stay on your side, fellas!
“When the facts, as even you would have construed them, are stacking up viciously in contradiction to your theory, it’s time to mount an all out assault on what constitutes a fact.” - Jordan Peterson I am looking into writing a book on Postmodernism and the meaning of words and would love to have permission to use this quote! I very much enjoyed this conversation. Keep them coming!
Dr. Hicks' reply to Jordan's initial postulation of a pragmatic basis for "truth" based upon the evolutionary success/failure of postulates in the real world struck me as worthy of further examination. Basically, Dr. Hicks raises the potential objections that post-modernism skepticism might make to Jordan's construction: how do we know that there's a "real world," that there's evolution, that there's a biological being called man? But isn't it precisely at the level of these most fundamental unities that post-modernism itself breaks down? Yes, I understand the denial of complex, grand unities such as "nature," "human nature," "truth" etc. But did Derrida not feel hunger, desire. pleasure, pain? How is it possible to deny that these are universals of the human experience?? Even if you say that these motivational states are all conditioned by language (which can't fully explain them away, as pre-linguistic infants clearly experience them), isn't that very conditioning by language itself a human universal--or at the very least, post-modernism's claim of a universal truth? (Skepticism can try to deny all truth claims, but skepticism can't avoid the fact that it is itself necessarily based on certain truth claims, even if they are claims of our inability to know with certainty--doubt that too, and skepticism becomes just one possible, contingent stance among many, no better and no worse than those that make universal truth claims.) To sum up, perhaps the grand narratives can be hollowed out and shown as self-contradictory by the post-modern method, but can the most basic facts of human life (say stimulus & autonomic response) really be so questioned, as Hicks suggests that post-modernism would? I mean, by all means, go ahead and doubt them, but they will still operate whether you affirm their existence or not!!!! To put it another way, from the human point of view, the sun rises and sets, regardless of whether our notion is of the Earth rotating or the sun orbiting us. Our knowledge postulates can be entirely wrong, and yet our basic experience still have unity. And that unity can define us.
The Western 17th century revival of Skepticism founded itself on empiricism. In contrast the modern woke-postmodernist, revival of Skepticism does the opposite - founds itself on social constructivism. Can we really still talk about grand narratives? To me, one concedes too much to pomo by accepting their labels and categories. Social constructivism, EDI, ESG, woke? Aren't they the real grand narratives today? - one can hardly make a living today without accepting their dogmas.
Bob van Luijt he hasn't uploaded one in podcast form in over a month :/ I'd rather listen while driving or at work than on TH-cam tbh. I understand how busy he is though.
Not sure how Jordan would feel about this, but there are plenty of websites that convert TH-cam videos into mp3 files. I do this all the time and listen to them while I'm driving.
I read Hicks years ago and was very impressed at his scholarship and insights. I use to give his book to friends as a present at times. One thing I found disturbing about his remarks in the book -- if memory serves me right -- is that he thought post modernism was condemned to the university and, therefore, was quite a useless, ineffectual pursuit or study. I thought the exact opposite. The university is the gateway to all the important areas or institutions of society: the arts, law, journalism, media, government, education, etc. The students entering those professions are infected or affected by the postmodernism/socialism indoctrination. I thinks Hicks was thinking that ineffectual studies or pursuits were to be found in the domain of the university rather than in the real world of business. But this was an excellent talk and it's great to see two Canadians talk at such a high level of competence and insight (not the Bob & Doug of the Great White North!).
Stephen Hicks book is filled with errors and very informed by his own strange beliefs about what constitutes modernity. He even goes so far as to claim that Kant was a counter-enlightenment thinker, something that anybody with even the slightest knowledge of Kant will immediately see as bullshit. His representation of post-modern thinkers' ideas are very often disingenuous, claiming that they are somehow a continuation of marxism while most modern-day Marxists are generally opposed to post-modernism (as marxism is fundamentally a modern philosophy).
Brilliant. Just brilliant. I'm writing a paper for in Master's coursework about the creeping influence of postmodernist/neo-Marxist/critical theory thought in scholarship, and I have videos like this to thank for buttressing my arguments. Thank you for producing it, Dr. Peterson!
I'm coming into this a bit late, two years in fact but well done professors, great break down, this is what a quality debate looks like, I like how Hicks was able to give the postmodern critique to Peterson's analysis of objective truths and human cognition. I think this helped to further the debate a lot. its 2019 now and I think this could conversation go further.
I enjoyed this so much - the rich descriptions of the philosophical ideas and the mutual dialogue about the strengths and limitations of the models. It occurred to me as I am listening, that although we have progressed through time in our philosophical thinking, we often retain some ideas from the past that work well. Just as we may still cite Socrates, we also have some ideas or ideals from the Enlightenment that still work well and most of western society endorses. Along that line, individualism is very important in many societies, I never hear people say I want to be made to conform (others may say why doesn't he/she conform), but rather I hear I want more freedom.
The audio is subpar. I'm not sure why. I'm aware of it. I'm working on it. I cleaned it up as much as possible with Audacity. So I am going to remove discussion of the audio from the comments section.
Many people have noted that we were both using computer speakers. I won't be doing that again, and I will recommend to those I interview that they use a headset as well.
It sounds like it was feedback on his end, Doc.
Sort your Audio out, bucko.
At least you nailed the intro
Music is much better than before + animations
I am sure that it is on his end, but it was still possible to understand what he was saying perfectly fine. The discussion was fantastic either way.
isolating the microphone from the incoming audio signal will eliminate echo and feedback issues. it's not very comfortable, but each person using a set of headphones is the easiest way to do this.
please buy a better microphone. I'm from Chile and I have never spoken english with somebody, I learn english only for internet but I need a clean sound. Thanks. I'm always following you.
Every day that Jordan releases a video is a good day.
Yes, it's a great excuse not to tidy your room!
mark kavanagh I'll have you know that I made my bed to perfection this morning.
I should be but I'm watching this!! maybe I'm naturally Post- Modern!! Have a good day! ; )
It's an enlightening day lol
You might be up to something there! I mean just yesterday the terror attacks in Spain took place.
I too noticed that Stephen was very good at thinking about and organizing his responses to multiple questions without losing track. I was thinking "damn I wish I could do that.."
Surprised to see no comments about how similar they look
ToLWaM
I was down here to make one. No need!
I was thinking that as well.
There...are...two lights!
ToLWaM are you saying all Canadians look the same? 😂
I was thinking the samething the whole damn time. Only difference was hair
Thank you, Mr. Peterson. I loved watching and listening to the two of you. Bravo for demonstrating how two gifted minds can have a respectful / meaningful conversation. I thought it was wonderful. Yes... your guest's ability to mentally track/ categorize/ and organize your responses (while listening to you) was quite amazing. What a gift and contribution!
I couldn’t ask for a more meaningful, precise and deep conversation than one between Jordan Peterson and Stephen Hicks
Much thanks to Paula Nedved for making the accurate word-for-word transcription of this discussion.
To be turned on under "Setting" and "Subtitles" and "English" (not English autogenerated) :-)
Mr. Hicks, how can you write a book that is so blantantly fallicious? No suprize that you had to self-publish this 'work'. Absolute garbage, man. Who on earth still gets Kant so wrong in the 21st century? You are a charlatan. I hope you've seen all the videos and reviews showing you for the trash that you are.
@@JS-dt1tn (2) The first edition of the book was peer reviewed, so be careful about spreading false rumors gleaned from ideological axe-grinders.
@@JS-dt1tn (3) About Kant in particular, my interpretation is neither original nor out of the mainstream, even though it's controversial. Ask yourself, though, why German-philosophy expert Professor Lewis White Beck, writing in the authoritative *Encyclopedia of Philosophy* said “Immanuel Kant was to put almost every fundamental concept of the Enlightenment in jeopardy.” And ask yourself why Nietzsche said “As soon as Kant would begin to exert a popular influence, we should find it reflected in the form of a gnawing and crumbling skepticism and relativism.” Like it or not, there are some subtle issues there that many popular interpretations miss.
@@StephenHicksPhilosopher (1) You write in the beginning of Chapter two, “institutionalizing confidence in the power of reason is the most outstanding achievement of the Enlightenment”. Not even close, whatever this means, besides the fact that Nietzsche brilliantly laid the groundwork for why precisely this institutionalization leads to the watering down of education, and in turn to the creation of ‘wet-mothers’ from educators. Most would say, including Kant, that the truly outstanding achievement was precisely the opposite; that it signified the overcoming of “man’s inability to make use of his understanding without direction from another”, that precisely this institutionalization of reason in the hands of a few (remind me, was the Church ever a cooperative?) was what held man from realizing the true power of reason, i.e., its decentralizing and pluralist powers (in ideality of course).
I loved Hicks’ book and read it on Dr Peterson’s recommendation. I’m a professor at University and this is relevant to my day-to-day
Stephen Hicks looks like Jordan's older brother.
Not older but brother!
More like twins under different lightings 🙃
Best comment 👌
I don't care about the subpar audio because this was a fascinating and informative discussion. More interviews like this please, Prof Peterson.
Thank you both for this conversation, and I hope a subsequent one goes as well - enjoyable in many ways. I'm not sure if my enthusiasm is misdirected, but I'm hoping to reach either or both of you with two points I've come across which I haven't heard Dr. Peterson address, and which I'm sure would've come up in this conversation if Dr. Hicks has entertained them. One is that while post-modernism asserts that no single view can rightly be upheld as the 'one true' or 'only legitimate' view, anyone acting out post-modernism must be doing so on the basis that postmodernism itself has the one true and only legitimate view, which is a contradiction. The second is that at some point we arrive at the notion that individuals and societies progress through views with each new worldview being larger and more encompassing than the previous but nevertheless requiring the previous as a platform for the new structure to be built upon, and so superstitious/mythical belief systems are required for a scientific worldview to emerge, and the scientific method and other enlightenment tools are required to arrive at the plurality (and confusion) of postmodernism. If it's necessary for individuals and societies to move through successive worldviews, isn't our task less to rally against the various worldviews, but rather to foster this movement along toward more and more encompassing and integrative views? You two seem to be doing this already in this conversation but I'm not sure it's a conscious heading. Thanks again and I hope this gets to you.
Jesus Christ, I was going to start adding subtitles for this video but it already has subtitles. YES. Amazing. This conversation is almost two hours. Hat off to whoever undertook the task. Hat off for speakers too, thanks for sharing this type of content.
Regardless of audio quality, this was a great conversation to drop in on. Thank you, Dr. Peterson and Dr. Hicks.
Thank you both! This is awesome. I listened to about 80% of Dr. Hick's "Explaining Postmodernism: Skepticism and Socialism from Rousseau to Foucault" and now I'll need to buy it and read it with a highlighter... no to mention listening to this conversation about a dozen more times!
Awesome! So insightful.
Hicks' book on postmodernism is an extremely good introduction into the roots of postmodernism. Well worth the read (only about 200 pages)! The book is very well written and easy to understand considering its subject matter. Thank you Jordan for introducing me to this book!
1:26:40 "You have a remarkable capacity for tracking the content of conversations ..."
Right?! I, too, was amazed. He not only tracked every point Peterson would bring up but he concisely put them into "bullet points" in his mind. It was a fascinating method that I will be exploring for my own benefit.
Gonna have to watch this one twice.
Yes, I feel quite ignorant as I’m listening to this. I have a lot to learn.
OMG!!! ... Jordan Peterson and Stephen Hicks, having a chat. A wish comes true!!
Thank you, Jordan, for this. Thanks to Stephen too, for taking part .. Love you both .. :-)
After Dr. Peterson recommended Hicks' text in his video Strengthening the Individual, I aced my research paper for Government called "Political Correctness: Postmodernism on College Campuses". I owe a great deal to these wonderful professors.
This is a really really good discussion on postmodernism and modernism. Really liked how they clarified the concepts as opposed to merely throwing out those words like an intellectual that assumes everyone is an intellectual would.
Dr. Jordan Peterson's doppelganger, or long lost brother at the very least, Dr. Stephen Hicks.
What would be really great is if Dr. Peterson was allowed to produce a talk show on radio or TV with complete academic and creative freedom with guests like Dr. Sanders. It would really be something to see. I think people would love this kind of candor and straight forward analysis. Plus side is no one was trying to push a singular narrative. There is too much of that on issues in media today.
This is a absolutely brilliant discussion. Hearing ideas discussed this coherently is like listening to music.
I can't resist pointing something out: thank God for "old white men".
Yeah, haha, I was listening to music earlier while working… I had to shut it off after two or three songs. I then found myself pulling up some Jordan Peterson videos.
Requires patience, but incredible. I rarely sit through an entire one and a half hour discussion like this. A cardinal virtue is its clarity. Some parts rather technical but with a rerun or two you can untangle and follow it. Unlike the brain-paralyzing mumbo-jumbo of so many postmodern ideologues today.
“Those who know that they are profound strive for clarity. Those who would like to seem profound to the crowd strive for obscurity.”
~ Friedrich Nietzsche
Prof. Hicks is a very clear thinker and his Philosophical training makes him excellent at discourse.
Dr. Peterson on the other hand is equally gifted at discourse and well educated but maybe not as organised in his thoughts. Maybe a product of working across many disciplines that is almost impossible for 1 person to Master unless you’re a Polymath in practice.
Postmodernism isn't really philosophy. It's more a rejection of philosophy.
@@mark4asp Who said it was?
That being said a person’s personal Philosophy might well be the rejection of established narratives which then brings us back to Postmodernism potentially being a personal Philosophy.
@@stunns2003 Postmodernism is the "established narrative"! - like natural Law was to to 17th century first generation Enlightenment writers. In the sense that pomo suffuses everywhere and dominates academia.
Dr. Hicks has an extremely organized mind and is an excellent foil to the openness of Dr. Peterson. I greatly enjoyed the discussion and I hope the two of you film more of them!
This conversation was awesome...thanks to both of you!
Excellent! I have listened to almost all lectures and books by Stephen Hicks on TH-cam. I am a big fan of both of you. So it is a great pleasure watching you talk to each other.
I FOUND MY NEW IDOL TODAY, this peterson guy is amazing. Greetings from germany
Thank you so much for posting this video conversation. It was incredibly insightful and educational. Looking forward to your next conversation with Prof. Hicks.
Stephen Hicks! I'd been hoping to see these two men talk for a long time. What a nice suprise.
Commentary:
14:33 - Interpretation them applies resulting in cost/benefits, or in consequences that validate or invalidate to a degree the accuracy of the interpretation.
16:12 - The application of a judgments, in relation to the intent, to the objective, is what determines the quality of the subjective processing.
Whether the subjective mind can appreciate or even accept the costs as indications of its error is irrelevant, if there is no external will to protect it from them.
The outcome affects it whether it acknowledges or understands why, or not.
24:40 - Getting "what you want" can only occur if you are in accordance to an existing, independently, world. Success is not independent from world, if what you want is realistic, or within world, and your strategy for attaining it has accurately assessed the circumstances, or what lies between you and the objective - the world you must navigate to reach your goal.
Now, because the world is interactive, or Flux, navigating it requires constant adjustments - circumstances shifting as you proceed towards your goal, your objective, but in their shifting one can also recognize some pattern in the matter, or the frequency and tone, and crescendo of their shifts, so that you can predict and preempt them with an adjustment beforehand. Of course, chaos/randomness makes such predictions impossible to be absolutely accurate (no absolutes), but one can at least become more effective, more efficient in his course towards the desired goal, and then build the stamina, the power, to adapt to the unforeseeable.
27:38 - Exactly! Noumena, the mind, guides the organism, the phenomenon of body - it directs action, in an unconscious interactive world.
Noumena, or abstractions, are interpretations, the reduction of reality down to a level the brain can process, so as to make the data useful to the organism.
Noumena, represented by symbols/words, are tools, indeed, not toys, not playthings, not detached from reality like a child's toy gun - a useless imitations, artifices.
31:37 - What is a want? this is an interesting topic for me, and I've covered it in many threads.
Can't find the one where I get into the difference between a 'need', a 'desire' and a 'want'.
I use these different symbols/words to distinguish between natural needs and socially manufactured needs, I call 'wants'.
'Desire' I use to differentiate a need founded in excess, as a byproduct of lack, such as sexual desire, and a need based on lack, such as hunger.
Wants are based on manipulating and exploiting needs and desires - like how wanting a car satisfies multiple needs and also promises to satisfy desires.
The car itself, as a tool, as a social construct, is useless to us, but what it promises, is what we covet.
How, then, do we differentiate socially manufactures wants, from naturally occurring needs/desires?
We observe other species, that have no social framework to impose wants, or to exploit and manipulate needs/desires.
Now, we can distinguish between natural needs, independently from all social manipulation, and desires....from socially manufactured needs/desires, manipulating these naturally based needs.
What are needs, and desires and why do we feel them, has already been covered in another thread.
In brief, I explain the sensation of need as a sensation of interacting, and the attrition this produces - lowering the aggregate energies participating in an organism - this is interpreted biologically as need. Basically, need is the sensation or the experience of existing of Flux. Pain, suffering, being the extreme, if these needs are not satisfied quickly enough.
Desire, libido, falls in the category of excess, superfluity, as a byproduct of successful meeting needs. The accumulated excess can be directed towards growth, or stored in ready for a fight/fight reaction to a threat, or directed towards a form of externalized growth we call reproduction.
33:45 - No, science is supposed to offer a theory that is true for a longer period of space/time, without falling into the illusion that it is offering universal, eternal, truths.
World, understood as in flux, as (inter)active is a world in constant change, which may be understood by recognizing patterns that govern its (inter)activity, but these patterns are not eternal, as chaos is increasing, and all is changing, deteriorating towards absolute randomness.
Man cannot conceptualize this without abstracting it into absolutes...eternal natural laws. He is trapped within the methods his brain uses to conceptualize. The leap in cognition, which the majority fail to make, is to thing beyond, or transcending these biological methods of on/off, resulting in binary logic, mathematics of 1/0, taken literally, and dualities, and thinking artistically. Therein lies the risk. To make this leap may result in you leaping clear out of existence...as many nihilists (moderns, post-moderns) prefer to do, into pure cognitive noetic abstraction, as if the phenomenal world did not exist, imposing a limit on your artistry. A relieving, revolutionary leap out of existence, into noetic space/time, where all matter/energy changes into pure idea(l), and words are as liquid as paint - rebellion against reality, the fantasy of every young girl and boy.
34:10 - Indeed. Neo-Marxism, and post-Modernism, are one and the same. their goal is to reduce all human cognition to a social construct so as to them imply that it can be 'corrected', adjusted, manufactured, and so provided to all, by distributing it equally.
Nihilism = Marxism, and Abrahamism.
"Critique of western thinking" - Critical theory - Frankfurt School = secular Judaism (Zionism, Marxism).
Collective subjectivity - inter-subjectivity. The reduction of all to a lowest-common-denominator, to create theoretical uniformity (chaos).
"Group relativism" - collective consciousness, herd mind.
41:06 - Power as a relationship based on reality, or in reality. one cannot attain power if one has no grasp of reality, unless some intervening entity imposes a rule that alters natural processes and natural laws, to favour one group, for its own reasons.
Marxism, like Abrahamism, favouring the feeble, the weak, the diseased, the unintelligent, the needy, because these are more easily exploited and manipulated - controlled.
44:30 - Peterson admits that western tradition, after it was infected by Abrahamism, and then Marxism, subordinates itself to the lowest, the weakest, the most feeble, which leads to the very social issues he then criticizes and attempts to diagnose it from within its premises.
So, he interprets transsexuals, and the SJW's from within Abrahamic ethos, positioning himself to the right, of this extremely left pole within the same Nihilistic paradigm.
48:11 - Here Hicks comes close to a full blown analysis of power as functionality.
How do we determine the fitness of an organism? By how it fulfills its function as a reproductive type.
How do we determine the quality of an idea(l), a theory? By how close to the intended goal it comes - its functionality.
Ho to get from point-A, the present, or the manifesting past as presence, to point-b, the goal, the idea(l), the objective.
Every idea(l) must be judged by its approach to its own idea(l), and by the collateral effects, the byproducts of this approach, in relation to world.
Power is, indeed, a means, not an end....just as pleasure is not an end, but a instinctual primal, sensation of an accomplished end, the gratification of a need, desire, or the attainment of a want.
Animals can feel pain/pleasure because these tare the simplest ways to appreciate an approach to the goal, without any deep analytical thinking. an animals cannot theorize abstractly, it can only judge on the simple on/off mechanism of either/or - pleasure/pain. This is why hedonism is a regression, a degeneration.
49:20 - Hicks makes a error here by equating sub-categories of power to power itself.
You may have social power and be powerless outside society, or the society within which your social status has an effect.
Christianity attained cultural power, yet outside culture, it is useless, nonsense.
You many exploit stupidity, with an ideology and gain power, but then this power is indirect, for ti must then prove itself within world.
Nihilism is applied to take advantage of human cowardice and frailty, and stupidity, so as to then direct it to attain real power, within world - so nihilism is powerless, by itself as it proposes a detachment from world, and is only a means to an end for another mind that directs and manipulates its effects on lower, less sophisticated minds.
54:10 - Nature/Nurture only refer to the sum of all nurturing (nature), preceding the present (nurture) - a gene/meme relationship.
Mind is dynamic, because mind evolved to deal with randomness, and change.
Chaos is the factor that determines the emergence of Will, challenging, competing, resisting the consequences of past, and the ongoing forces imposing a limit upon it.
Genetics determines the possibilities of the cultivation of each trait, particular to the organism - nurture, or meme, determines to what degree this cultivation will attain this potential, and the missing factor is the dynamic processing and analysis of the mind dealing with flux, or (inter)activity, focusing (will), upon a goal.
The organism is the application of this genetic past, and memetic effect upon it.
Self is memory, in the form of DNA, added to by knowledge attained experimentally (knowledge, training, culture), but this does not mean that all is predetermines, as chaos implies that the factor of randomness is always in effect.
Chaos is what makes mind possible.
This mysterious factor is always Incorporated into what we call spirit or soul. It alludes to why there are no absolutes - no absolute order or chaos - without having to clarify it, or become aware of it.
1:04:12 - Power serves nothing and nobody but the one who has it.
it is a relationship to other, indicating an excess of energies.
Towards what end one chooses to apply power is determined by the specific goals and ideals of the mind where this accumulation of excess has resulted due to its successful application of awareness (judgment). The application of power is then dependent on reality, which is independent of all ideals and goals.
So, the accumulation, or attainment of power may be due to successful understanding of world, or it may be inherited, but the application of power may fail because it does not align with how the world works - vanity, narcissism, emotion, hubris corrupting judgment.
Excess produces a paroxysm, even when it is libidinal - see how animals, including humans, behave when they are in the throws of erotic frustration or desire.
An otherwise rational man may behave in the most irrational manner, when excess is driving him mad, with desire, with the need to expunge this excess.
14:55 - Typical of the degenerate kind - the Nihilist: post-modernist, modernist, Marxist, Abrahamic.
The objective world is not a static, absolute. It is fluctuating, changing. This means that although no precise subjective interpretation is possible, an approach, to a degree of superior, rather than inferior interpretation is possible, and this does not mean that it is final, but that it requires ongoing validation.
There are many narratives, as all is subjective...but not all narratives are equally valid, nor are any absolutely so.
The cognitive leap from either/or absolutism, is difficult for the nihilist, because he's staked a claim on chaos, or the invalidation of all, on the basis that none are absolutely true - Left Wing, liberals, Marxists, anarchists etc.
The list goes on and on, because there is no limit to what the mind, freed from a limiting reality, can imagine or create to comfort itself.
On the other side of the nihilistic spectrum we have those who claim to know, or at least, have access to an absolute truth - Right Wing, Christians, Muslims, Jews, Fascists etc. Here Truth acts as a convenient box to jail all within its cells.
Both are wrong, though on opposite sides of the same paradigm.
The idea(l) of a world where there is an objective reality, but this objective reality is not static, but fluid, not absolute but mutable, is where Realism and Paganism extricate themselves from Nihilism.
1:18:00 - A hint as to how censorship works in our Modern world of free-expressions of opinions and why academics tend to side to the most popular side - in this case the post-modern, Marxist side.
Same can be said about how scientific study is reviews and censured.
In both cases a reliance on projected sales and funding is an axe hovering over their heads.
Peer pressured censorship, using reputation slandering and threats to social status as its method.
Please do the second interview, this was fantastic.
I'm just before the hour mark and I have to say this is incredibly interesting and at least from my perspective one of the most productive conversations I have ever experienced. Thank you both. These are exciting times.
I only hope that others can comprehend the importance of having this discussion, because it is in my estimation the game changer in the seemingly inevitable iteration on western and potentially global society in the ritual of progress. I feel we must work to unify the good from both the left and the right, and that the rate at which these and future duality can converge is relative to continuing quality progression of the human experience. I believe we need to establish a kind of meta divinity for the masses for lack of a better term. A new enlightenment that diminishes out dated dogma perhaps. The rediscovery of ancient wisdom for the new age.
Stay woke my dudes.
Dr. Jordan, it think it may be worth looking at the influence of post-modernism within the art world, specifically the universities - A picture is worth a thousand words.
Dr. Hicks has done more than a little on Esthetics as well. He has also done a text on Logic with David Kelley. Also check out his essay on "Neitzsche and the Nazis'.
I encourage everyone to read 'Explaining Postmodernism'. It explains so much and is so well written. It's lucid and scholarly while still being a highly readable page-turner. Thanks to Peterson for the recommendation.
I'm kind of happy with myself that I was able to understand most of this.
Fascinating discussion.
They really are "talking shop" here, but it feels explained in a way that a good chunk of people will get it.
This is so awesome. I had been waiting for.these two to get together for a while.
Fantastic Discussion! This is the conceptual heart of the conflict that is shaping/threatening our world! This is the core of what I've been trying to understand for a long, long time. And it all comes down to ideas. Because ideas matter.
I'm quite beside myself right now!^^
I think the problem with a lot of philosophical discussions is that many people seem to unable to look past different abstrakt concepts when explaining simple things. Like the 'purpose of knowledge'. Knowledge doesn't need a purpose. It can serve a purpose, it can be used for a purpose and it can be gained for a purpose. But knowledge itself does not require purpose, it's just a result or a koncept.
It makes more sense to think of what the cause of knowledge was. And even the cause doesn't need a specific purpose, reason or truth. It just has to be the cause.
I think it's more correct for me to say that my main problem with philosophy in general, is the human habit of explaining things by using human social norms, standards or concepts. Even when the subject at hand exists independently from those areas or when they are a cause of those areas and not a product.
What we need is post-postmodernism!
Jeffery Liggett Re-Pre Modernism
the sequel!
Jeffery Liggett a post-renaissance
Thomas Leitke a post-renaissance
What we need is dead post-modernism.
After a lifetime of being an avid reader and a novice writer, an activity which has been paramount in my development as a human being, I have suffered terribly from readers block for the last seven years. A period of deep, deep depression.
I will be buying this book with great anticipation.
Thank you Jordan! You're work is of considerable consequence in my life.
Man, what a ride. Can't wait for part 2!
The book is fantastic, glad you guys posted a conversation covering it
I made my postmodernist teacher read Hicks' book. Office hours were HILARIOUS!
How did he react?
waste of time if they're an ideology and low in openness
Chemo is hard man. I hope she pulls through :D
I have a degree in Philosophy in which two of my main focus points were Post Kantian Idealism, and Epistemology from Hume onwards. I thought I was relatively literate in this kind of subject matter. Damn, this is heavy stuff. I enjoy finding out how much I don't know, because that is the first step to knowledge.
Tony wrote: "I enjoy finding out how much I don't know, because that is the first step to knowledge". An intelligent way of looking at what one knows and what one doesn't. Cheers.
Very enjoyable conversation to listen 2.
I see a lot of discontent in the comment section about the brand "postmodernist," I believe it to be accurate because they technically are postmodernists, however I believe that the particular brands of postmodernists that are subversive are the neo-marxists and the post-structuralists (deconstructionists are included in here, as well as the social constructionists, and general anti-truth relativists). The problem with postmodernists is that you can't map them, they're they're not like modernists that believed in structure and were split into vanguards and schools. And they widely used power politics to good ends, however some realized that they could use the same thoughts to not only gain power, but desired a hegemony over power, and thus the first wave feminists were shoved aside by the third wave, that not only were counter productive to the cause, but they were only interested in the acquisition of social power. This happened across most movements. (The alt right is a good example of this happening on the opposite side of the political spectrum)
I gained this understanding after a long time going though the modernist and postmodernist art movements and their philosophies.
There is a chart where Hicks separates the classical, modern and postmodernist periods into their different beliefs, and it's a great chart, I came to the same conclusions by just analyzing the movements. The power oriented and relativist spirit has been in postmodernism from the start, and it just grew while people ignored it. Mostly because after being rejected in the late 20th century they dedicated themselves to acquiring institutional power while laying low.
So it's not all, but it's all(
Thanks for a great post. 3 years later, just hoping people will "avoid the political indoctrination", just isn't enough. We now need an antidote and urgently!
@@chrisgadsby5700 you're right, but before we can begin to talk we have to wait for a time that's a bit more stable. Probably after the elections, and may god bless us man. Things could get rough, but we're all people and I think there's a chance that in the next decade we begin to understand each other better.
And damn, it's been 3 years. Things escalated this fast.
But now we're really seeing how out of tough with reality the radicals are, and how they have no plan, they're a ticking time bomb. And once they self destruct, then we'll be able to build bridges.
@@MadMensDen I'm in the UK and worry that when they self destruct how much collateral damage is caused. There are external enemies in the world ready to take advantage of our chaos
Just wanted to echo the other guy and say this was a great comment.
We are now seeing the intersection of valueless societies melding with power-hungry social politicking, and the results are indeed ugly. The only reason these power-hungry types are gaining so much traction with impressionable youth is because they pretend pure activism is a source of meaning it and of itself, which is just a painful lie. And look at the misery and chaos it brings on innocent people, let alone the activists themselves.
This was an excellent discussion. I especially enjoyed the part of the interview where you went into the question of power as fundamental, and explored that territory. In my opinion, this is one of the most interesting videos you have uploaded with regards to postmodernism since you first brought up what you got out of reading Dr. Hicks' book. Figures, that it would be with the author.
My room is so clean my guests can't comprehend it ! It's no joke ! ... all jokes aside, i love it when 2 of my favourite thinkers collide !
Just commenting to hit TH-cam's engagement algorithm.
+ ^_^
Shalashaska 994 aye
Just replying to also hit that 'engagement' button.
iamgoddard retweet
So, what does one need to do to hit YOUR engagement algorithm?
This was amazing! Please talk to this guy more often. He is such a brain!!!
Best book i've ever read on postmodernism. Thank you Dr Hicks
Conversations like prove how valuable the Internet is in sharing ideas. This was a great talk.
New intro is awesome!
He's used it before, I guess he wants to savour it for special occasions such as this
The intro makes me feel like I am watching PBS shows from my childhood. That's a good thing to feel.
This was bloody brilliant. A great outline of all the philosophical threads leading to where we are now. And a good combination, with Stephen Hicks' impressive ability (as JBP acknowledged at the end) to keep tabs on all the sub-strands of each topic.
Also it was very useful to hear - with Stephen Hicks playing devil's advocate - a few post-modernist responses to JBP's points. I've always felt that JBP plays a bit fast & loose with his "post-modern neo-Marxist" label. As I see it, there are many reasons that post-modernism emerged, and some of them are *good* reasons - or at least, intellectually coherent - and not pernicious, and I would like to see JBP more challenged on that.
Even here, I thought he was a bit quick to jump into the psychoanalytic critique, rather than address the intellectual/philosphical problems that the post-modern analysis brings up.
We can't just wish away the fact that systems, power, and tradition *have* all been used in very harmful and destructive ways, and that we all have a real problem with asserting objective criteria for anything any more. Or at least we all find it difficult to justify that Thing A is better than Thing B in any robust way, and are immediately susceptible to someone simply saying "Well, that's just your opinion, man".
So, rather than taking making a psychoanalytic or 'biographical' critique of the post-modernists - e.g. "all these SJWs are simply after power with no responsibility" - I'd rather see the philosophical questions addressed head on.
Anyhow, v much looking forward to the next talk, and to Stephen Hicks' new book.
Thanks to both professors!
Toby B - Yes, you're right, it's great to hear JP be challenged, since every other time he's given an invitation to be directly debated by post modernists seem to be ignored. So he's gone publicly unchallenged for a while in these theories.
It struck me that post modernism is a necessary side of the debate, constantly challenging all our presuppositions, yet it's insufficient as a foundation to live from, since it's whole bag is to challenge foundations. Intellectually necessary, perhaps, but pragmatically disastrous.
Thank YOU, for your comment...4 years later...it’s good to know people are still appreciating both of these Great Canadian Minds,
Dr. Peterson, thank you and Dr. Hicks so very much for this stimulating and enlightening discussion. I would love to have the two of you on stage, live. He is a superb lecturer and the two of have an intellectual synergy that is a marvel to behold. Bless you both.
Hicks is a powerhouse. Explaining Postmodernism was the best philosophy text I read in 2015, and to this day the most informative thing I've ever read on Postmodernism, and that's even including other excellent texts like Fashionable Nonsense and Higher Superstition.
Hicks' book on post modernism is famously bad. If it was submit by an undergraduate, they would not only fail, but probably be called in to explain what the hell they just wrote.
It is riddled with errors of the most basic sort.
You probably will never read this, but i still wanted to write it in case you came across it. You have such a clever and captivating way to explain your point of view while keeping it interesting. I often start watching one of your videos expecting to only watch some parts of it, but i end up watching it completly because i'm just sucked in and listening to every word so i understand everything and think about it. You're helping that curious intelletucal part of me to wake up and get to work.
Now this was really amazing how this two giants were synchronizing their thoughts and ideas instantly and laying out their well structured thoughts defiantly not a video to just mildly watch here and there need to rewatch couple of more times lol)))
Love the new intro... And I'm going to love cleaning my room right now with this on in the background!
First! (Cause in the modern world it's all relative)
I'm first, my definition of first differs from yours.
I identify as first.
You identifying as first offends me, you should be ashamed.
nice website
+David Rockstar
I'll use whale numbers from now on.
I really had to work for this video! Still not grasped all of it. Loved it!
I'm a simple man; if I see a new JBP video, I watch.
I've been an admirer of both Dr. Hicks and Dr. Jordan for some time now. This was a great conversation to hear. I'd very much like to hear their thoughts and conversation on the culture wars in the next video.
I can't wait for their second talk.
Its gratifying to see Dr. Peterson discuss ideas with a peer.
Dr. Peterson, I've cleaned my room 20 times in the past month. What do I do now?!
Go into the underworld and save your father, bucko.
DoorM4n read good books, bucko
DoorM4n you missed 11 days bro. You could certainly improve on that. Just/Trolling ;)
And anyways, DJBP isn't your robot overlord; he doesn't live for telling you what to do. Do the future authoring and sort ~yourself~ out.
Join group to help you leave this cult?
DoorM4n yourself, then family then community
I read this about 6 months ago. Very clear, well written and inormative text that is helping me to understand this ideology, one that gives a name to my thought process' in college. It took some growing up for me to slide along the spectrum of idealism to realism.
Check the review of his book... th-cam.com/video/EHtvTGaPzF4/w-d-xo.html
You can listen to Stephen Hicks book for free on TH-cam, and I must say it's a great read but you need to have a grasp on the terminology used in Philosophy. Really terrific book and I expanded my vocabulary by leaps and bounds. Great read!
The grasp of philosophy is listening carefully.
Even when you don't have the vocabulary exactly right you can look up the words I found you'll certainly get the drift of it, with or without vocabulary the words I understand are common sense :)
FIRST POST: TRANSCRIPT OF THE FIRST 5 MINUTES: (FYI: ends with JBP's question: "...so maybe we could zero in on exactly what [Post-Modernism] MEANS, and who these thinkers were, Derrida, Foucault, Lyotard, and what you learned about them.")
JBP: Well, I'm speaking today with Dr Stephen Hicks who's a professor of Philosophy at in the Department of Philosophy at Rockford University in Illinois and Professor Hicks has written a book (he's written several books) but he's written one in particular that I wanted to talk to him about today called "Explaining Post-Modernism: Skepticism and Socialism from Rousseau to Foucault" which was published a fair while ago now, in 2004, but I think it's become even more pertinent and relevant today. And I have talked a lot to my viewers about your book and so let's talk about Post-Modernism and its relationship to Neo-Marxism. So maybe you could tell the viewers here a little more about yourself and how you got interested in this.
SH: Well, I finished graduate school in philosophy in the early 90s, originally from Canada, born in Toronto. At that point Pittsburgh and Indiana had the two strongest philosophy of science and logic programs, and that's what I was interested in at the time, and so upon a professor recommendation I ended up at Indiana and it worked out very nicely for me.
Most of my graduate work was actually in epistemology, philosophy of science, logic, some cognitive science issues as well. So a lot of the epistemological and philosophical/linguistic issues that come up in Post-Modernism - the groundwork was laid for that.
When I finished grad school and started teaching full-time at Rockford University, I was teaching in an honors program and the way that program worked was, it was essentially a Great Books program, so it was like getting a second education, wonderfully. But the way it was done was that each course was taught to our honor students by two professors. So the professors would be from different departments, so I was paired with literature professors, history professors, and so on and this was now the middle of the 90s.
I started to hear about thinkers I had not read; I'd kind of heard about them, but now I was reading them more closely and finding that in history and literature and sociology and anthropology, names like Derrida and Foucault and the others, if not omnipresent, were huge names. So I realized I had a gap in my education to fill. So I started reading deeply in them.
My education in some ways was broad in the history of philosophy but narrow at the graduate school level and I had focused mostly on Anglo-American philosophy, so my understanding of the Continental traditions was quite limited. But by the time I got to the end of the 90s, I realized there was something significant going on coming out of Continental philosophy and that's what the book [pub. 2004] came out of.
JBP: When you say significant, what do you mean by that? Do you mean intellectually? Do you mean socially? Politically? There's lots of different variants of significant.
SH: At that point, intellectually. This was still in the 1990s so Post-Modernism was not yet - outside of, say, art - a cultural force, but it was strongly an intellectual force in that at that point, young PhDs coming out of sociology, literary criticism, some sub-disciplines in the law if you're getting PhDs in the law, historiography and so on, and certainly in departments in philosophy still dominated by Continental traditional philosophy - almost all of them are primarily being schooled in what we now call Post-Modern thinkers, so the leading gurus are people like Derrida, Lyotard from whom we get the label post-modern condition, Foucault and the others.
JBP: So maybe you could walk us through what you learned, because people are unfamiliar... I mean, you were advanced in your education, including in philosophy, and still recognized your ignorance, say, with regard to Post-Modern thinking, so that's obviously a condition that is shared by a large number of people. Post-Modernism is one of those words like Existentialism that covers an awful lot of territory, and so maybe we could zero in on exactly what that MEANS, and who these thinkers were, Derrida, Foucault, Lyotard, and what you learned about them.
5:00 SH: Fair enough.
Post Modernism is the Son of a directionless Father.
I'm currently reading that book! At times it can be a bit dense and difficult to fully comprehend if you are not very familiarized with philosophical terms (like yours truly haha T.T). However, it's a very enjoyable and enlightening book. I mean, something so evident like the fact that postmodernism's roots go all the way back to Kant's critique of pure reason, was revealed to me in this book. I'm enjoying it.
Thanks for your awesome recommendations on books, Jordan. May truth stay on your side, fellas!
I read his book and it is amazing and substantial and an epiphany for me.
I love how clearly Dr. Stephen Hicks can get his ideas across. Great interview.
AT 33:00 I sense Jordan's position on truth might be flawed... and in a post-modernist type way no less.
I think I broke my mouse when I slammed the button to watch this video.
This was one of the most useful philosophical conversations I ever heard. Thanks a lot.
Dr. Hicks: The title for your new book could be: "The Enlightenment Strikes Back"
“When the facts, as even you would have construed them, are stacking up viciously in contradiction to your theory, it’s time to mount an all out assault on what constitutes a fact.” - Jordan Peterson
I am looking into writing a book on Postmodernism and the meaning of words and would love to have permission to use this quote! I very much enjoyed this conversation. Keep them coming!
124 postmodernists disliked this video.
I’m really looking forward to the next talk. I’ve listened to this about 3 times now. Keep up the great work. I’m going to buy this book now.
Yeah me too, this was an amazing conversation.
¿Soy yo o el thumbnail está en Español?
sí, es la portada del libro, edición argentina.
Gustavo Duran Ah ya
Achei que estava em português quando vi a primeira vez.
Yo lo compré hace unos días y es el mismo.
Edgard Rodríguez No abla el spanish
A wonderful and edifying conversation. I read Hick's book by the way, and it is very clear and systematic.
Dr. Hicks' reply to Jordan's initial postulation of a pragmatic basis for "truth" based upon the evolutionary success/failure of postulates in the real world struck me as worthy of further examination. Basically, Dr. Hicks raises the potential objections that post-modernism skepticism might make to Jordan's construction: how do we know that there's a "real world," that there's evolution, that there's a biological being called man? But isn't it precisely at the level of these most fundamental unities that post-modernism itself breaks down? Yes, I understand the denial of complex, grand unities such as "nature," "human nature," "truth" etc. But did Derrida not feel hunger, desire. pleasure, pain? How is it possible to deny that these are universals of the human experience?? Even if you say that these motivational states are all conditioned by language (which can't fully explain them away, as pre-linguistic infants clearly experience them), isn't that very conditioning by language itself a human universal--or at the very least, post-modernism's claim of a universal truth? (Skepticism can try to deny all truth claims, but skepticism can't avoid the fact that it is itself necessarily based on certain truth claims, even if they are claims of our inability to know with certainty--doubt that too, and skepticism becomes just one possible, contingent stance among many, no better and no worse than those that make universal truth claims.) To sum up, perhaps the grand narratives can be hollowed out and shown as self-contradictory by the post-modern method, but can the most basic facts of human life (say stimulus & autonomic response) really be so questioned, as Hicks suggests that post-modernism would? I mean, by all means, go ahead and doubt them, but they will still operate whether you affirm their existence or not!!!! To put it another way, from the human point of view, the sun rises and sets, regardless of whether our notion is of the Earth rotating or the sun orbiting us. Our knowledge postulates can be entirely wrong, and yet our basic experience still have unity. And that unity can define us.
The Western 17th century revival of Skepticism founded itself on empiricism. In contrast the modern woke-postmodernist, revival of Skepticism does the opposite - founds itself on social constructivism.
Can we really still talk about grand narratives? To me, one concedes too much to pomo by accepting their labels and categories. Social constructivism, EDI, ESG, woke? Aren't they the real grand narratives today? - one can hardly make a living today without accepting their dogmas.
Another homerun, Jordan! Thanks for all your efforts and concerns. We are maybe not as silent as you think. keep the lectures coming!
120,000 views after only five days...maybe there's hope after all
Is there certainly is my friend
Long time fan, love the new upload rate, your productivity on TH-cam is amazing.
Will you upload your new lectures as podcasts?
Crutonkid good idea!
Bob van Luijt he hasn't uploaded one in podcast form in over a month :/ I'd rather listen while driving or at work than on TH-cam tbh. I understand how busy he is though.
Crutonkid he also doesn't get any ad revenue if he uploads them as podcasts. Yes I understand he already has a big patreon support but still
Not sure how Jordan would feel about this, but there are plenty of websites that convert TH-cam videos into mp3 files. I do this all the time and listen to them while I'm driving.
Try this. convert2mp3.net/en/
I read Hicks years ago and was very impressed at his scholarship and insights. I use to give his book to friends as a present at times. One thing I found disturbing about his remarks in the book -- if memory serves me right -- is that he thought post modernism was condemned to the university and, therefore, was quite a useless, ineffectual pursuit or study. I thought the exact opposite. The university is the gateway to all the important areas or institutions of society: the arts, law, journalism, media, government, education, etc. The students entering those professions are infected or affected by the postmodernism/socialism indoctrination. I thinks Hicks was thinking that ineffectual studies or pursuits were to be found in the domain of the university rather than in the real world of business. But this was an excellent talk and it's great to see two Canadians talk at such a high level of competence and insight (not the Bob & Doug of the Great White North!).
Dr Hicks is doing some seriously deep thinking, you can tell this by his philosophers hand position.
I LOVE the new music intro to the videos. I hope this is included in all videos going forward.
THE INTRO HAS CHANGED!!
surreal
The more of these you do, the better the world gets. Thanks so much, and it was absolutely fantastic. It would be nice to have a transcript.
Stephen Hicks book is filled with errors and very informed by his own strange beliefs about what constitutes modernity. He even goes so far as to claim that Kant was a counter-enlightenment thinker, something that anybody with even the slightest knowledge of Kant will immediately see as bullshit. His representation of post-modern thinkers' ideas are very often disingenuous, claiming that they are somehow a continuation of marxism while most modern-day Marxists are generally opposed to post-modernism (as marxism is fundamentally a modern philosophy).
Brilliant. Just brilliant. I'm writing a paper for in Master's coursework about the creeping influence of postmodernist/neo-Marxist/critical theory thought in scholarship, and I have videos like this to thank for buttressing my arguments. Thank you for producing it, Dr. Peterson!
Sees JP video, clicks JP video.
I'm coming into this a bit late, two years in fact but well done professors, great break down, this is what a quality debate looks like, I like how Hicks was able to give the postmodern critique to Peterson's analysis of objective truths and human cognition. I think this helped to further the debate a lot. its 2019 now and I think this could conversation go further.
Professor Jordan 'the dragon slayer' Peterson.
I enjoyed this so much - the rich descriptions of the philosophical ideas and the mutual dialogue about the strengths and limitations of the models. It occurred to me as I am listening, that although we have progressed through time in our philosophical thinking, we often retain some ideas from the past that work well. Just as we may still cite Socrates, we also have some ideas or ideals from the Enlightenment that still work well and most of western society endorses. Along that line, individualism is very important in many societies, I never hear people say I want to be made to conform (others may say why doesn't he/she conform), but rather I hear I want more freedom.