An example is that I generally despise Jordan Peterson and most of what he says, but I often quote one thing that Jordan Peterson said (in the linked video) because I think it’s a good summary of why toxic positivity doesn’t work.
People (who hate JP) freak out when I quote him and say “Why tf are you quoting Jordan Peterson? Are you a insert thing that Jordan Peterson is?” And I’m like “No, I generally disagree with him on most points, aside from this one thing.” But they don’t believe or accept it and assume that I must be a #1 Jordan Peterson fan or something.
I think it can be considered a partial agreement, majority disagreement. Or a partial agreement with a person you generally disagree with. But I’d be open to other terms of how to describe this in a way people can understand.
Also, to avoid the controversy of referencing Jordan Peterson, if anyone has a better summary of the same concept explained by a different person in a way as well as he does, that would be appreciated too.
I’ve complained to Spotify about his podcast being featured and the guy on the other end of the chat said that I was not the first person to raise it as a problem and more people should complai so JP could get kicked off.
So…. Go chat to Spotify and complain about that shithead. Flag his content as hate-filled bigotry.
The write up Ethnic Tension and Meaningless Arguments explains the underlying dynamics pretty well: by saying “I just like this one thing Peterson said”, you assign him karma points and now everything else about him will be viewed more positively. That’s just how people work, and people will assume you know that and are exploiting it.
For example: by linking that post, I just effectively supported the effective altruism movement – even though I’m really not a big fan of it – whether I like it or not, because the author is heavily associated with them. That’s just how it works.
Because then you get Trump as president if you believe he is a fascist wannabe dictator. People who “agree with his policy” despite this piss me off cause even though American politics is a shitshow, there was probably someone with more decorum to do the job.
Same goes for the list someone said above: Shapiro, Candace Owens, Andrew tate.When you make this argument, do you argue the point yourself or do you quote and attribute Peterson? If so, with what purpose? If the argument holds by itself, there is no need to attribute everything in a casual conversation - unless that provides context, or authority. Context, in the sense of the greater opinion or works of the person; or authority, in the sense of “this topic is complex, this expert provides this view”.
If you say “I find that way of thinking self-limiting”, people might be willing to engage in conversation and why the disagree - or not; if you say “Jordan Peterson finds that way of thinking self-limiting”, the conversation is with an external party, who happens to have said a bunch of other shit, and who happens to be introduced to people exactly like that, in shallow self-help bite-size edgy but not too-out-there videos.
As an aside, if you send people this link and you get a strong negative reaction, it might be because it is just not very good. It takes a naive and silly understanding of “you are okay the way you are” and proceeds to strawman it for a while, getting all sappy towards the end. When discussing sincerely held ideas, misconstruing the other party’s position is a pretty fast way to get a hostile response.
If a shitbag says the sky is blue, you don’t need to say “Hey, the shitbag was right about the sky being blue”. You can just say “The sky is blue”.
These types of shitbags take advantage of psychological techniques to gain followers. Getting people to agree with them is a sort of a “foot-in-the-door” technique.
The moment you say “I don’t agree with everything Jordan Peterson says, but…”, he’s got his foot in your door in turning you into a supporter.
“But I’m smarter than that,” you say. “I’m just an independent thinker who can separate the argument from the individual”. Jordan Peterson has a PhD in psychology, and has made his living off of manipulating people. He’s better equipped than you. And as you may know, thinking “it won’t/can’t happen to me” makes you more likely to become a victim.
Other phrases these guys love to hear people say are things like…
“I don’t agree with him, but I like to listen to arguments from people that I disagree with.”
“I know he’s making shit up, but he’s just funny. I listen just to laugh at him.”
“He’s absolutely wrong, but he makes people so angry. I listen to see what people are raging about.”
These are all foot-in-the-door scenarios. And that’s how they make their eventual “sale”.
toxic negativity is solution?
… I’m not sure what the opposite of toxic positivity is, but probably not that. Basically acknowledging problems and working from there in a positive direction, rather than simply denying problems and pretending everything’s fine when it isn’t. A google search tells me “tragic optimism” can be described as the opposing concept, whether that fits or not.
That guy is beyond toxic to me. I’ve never seen a less self-aware and more mentally ill psychologist.
I would see this guy before I ever entertained being in the same postal code as Peterson
He’s taking advantage of young, desperate, vulnerable men and its beyond infuriating as it is discouraging and dangerous.
Well I completely agree with you there 😂
Because that lobster has no original thoughts. Whatever insight you think he has is not unique to him and the fact that you choose to watch his content and quote him without knowing any alternative is going to make people ask questions.
Here’s the thing, I never watch his content. And I can’t even remember why I happened to watch that clip, I saw it somewhere randomly. But it stood out to me because I’ve never heard another person really acknowledge the problem with telling people they’re fine and dismissing any problems they might be experiencing, which denies their own experience and can make them feel invalidated. It seems to be very common to do that in society and to subvert that idea seems relatively uncommon. I’m sure other people have explained why it’s problematic but I just haven’t seen any others. So my go-to for explaining that concept is more or less what Jordan Peterson said.
What’s with all the downvotes with no explanation?
It’s because we live in an age where people use the tactic of “well I just like this one thing he said” as a gateway to awful shit.
Yeah I understand, and that does probably happen a lot. But we also seem to live in an age where we assume the worst of people… so even though it’s possible to partly agree with someone while genuinely condemning other aspects of that person, people are somehow certain that others are using that as a gateway to awful shit, as you say. (Not talking about you, of course.)