Jordon Peterson Really Does Not Impress Current Affairs's Nathan J. Robinson

Current Affairs editor Nathan J. Robinson has written a lengthy (and I do mean lengthy) intellectual takedown of pop "psychologist" and lobster worshiper Jordon Peterson. Robinson's main critiques center on what he sees as Peterson's reliance on intentionally confusing and even contradictory assertions that are so vague, self-reflexive, rambling, and full of caveats that it renders them difficult to refute because they convey no coherent, identifiable meaning or substance.

In short, according to Robinson, at best Peterson uses a whole mess of fancy words and jargon to repackage platitudes everyone already takes for granted and at worst he presents garbled ideas that are obviously problematic--either philosophically or ethically or both--once they are actually critically examined for what they are. Robinson offers several explanations for why Peterson gets away with this chicanery, but I'll leave that to him.

To be fair, Robinson does not confine his criticisms to Peterson and his particular brand of conservatism. As the title of the essay states, Peterson is the intellectual "we deserve." In Robinson's opinion, we deserve him because academia, intellectuals, and particularly the Left have failed to offer a viable alternative.

Peterson is popular partly because he criticizes social justice activists in a way many people find satisfying, and some of >those criticisms have merit. He is popular partly because he offers adrift young men a sense of heroic purpose, and offers >angry young men rationalizations for their hatreds. And he is popular partly because academia and the left have failed >spectacularly at helping make the world intelligible to ordinary people, and giving them a clear and compelling political vision.

You can read the full article here, and it is worth the time, but don't feel too bad if you skim through the grueling partial transcript of a Peterson lecture on the art of force-feeding children (unfortunately, I'm only sort of joking).

If you don't have the time to get trough the entire article--again, it is lengthy--at least take in the comments on the types of diagrams/figures Peterson employs and the short list of "Petersonisms" for a couple of quick laughs. They appear about a quarter of the way through the article.