I agree that the people who are representing themselves as "questioning things" and "expressing unpopular views" are not intellectuals, and the danger is, of course, that their ideas will become more mainstream. But what I do appreciate about the article is how it frames the phenomenon - the people attracted to these folks do have a hungering for knowledge and "new" ideas. When philosophers, most of whom are ensconced in academia, don't step up and discuss ideas in the public realm, it creates a vacuum of ideas where these folks can thrive. I myself believe that it's an urgent matter that philosophers step into their social and political power in this historical moment. The more technocratic our society becomes, the more we need the humanists in there keeping us grounded.
We humans have the ability to come up with a lot of ideas, most of them bad and/or self-serving. We need to exercise our judgment and learn to discriminate between good and bad ideas on terms larger than our own narrow personal or political interests. If philosophers, humanists, other intellectuals don't help people think well, people will still think (we can't help ourselves!), just badly and with disastrous consequences.
This is what I got from the piece. :-)
well said, Cheers
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Jordan Peterson's ideas already are mainstream; it's called conservatism. The political orthodoxy that prevails in North American universities is, on the other hand, not mainstream. It's an extreme, fringe movement. Most Americans have no idea what it actually is, and when confronted with it, find it rather repugnant.
The question that intrigues me is, why do so many think pieces and op-eds find Jordan Peterson's ideas threatening, fascistic, and authoritarian, when they're really just a repackaging of moderate Christian conservatism and Jungian psychology?
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I don't know Jordan Peterson's ideas enough to opine but what I liked about this piece was the recognition of a need for an intelligent philosophical conversation in public spaces. As humans (assuming we're all human!), we all have philosophical questions throughout our lives and we need to know how to work through these.
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