Jordan Peterson - this guy is amazing!

Jon

Administrator
Staff member
#1
I am a big fan of this guy. He has recently shot to fame for a number of reasons, many involving the protection of free speech. He is a professor and clinical psychologist, who is very very smart. The following interview is compelling. The evidence for that is in the 12M views.

 

Uncle Gizmo

Founding Member
#2
Thank you for posting that video Jon, and pointing it out to me, I hadn't seen it. I was so drawn into the video, the nuances, the arguments, the excellent quality of both characters. I watched parts of it twice, normally I watch YouTube videos at double speed, this one I watched most at single speed, and some parts at three quarters speed so that I could really understand what was being said.

What amused, and impressed me at the same time, was that here he was under attack about his views on equality of the sexes, but the fact that the woman was attacking him, the strength of her personality, her confidence, her intelligence, her power, just proved his point!

I don't mean his point that the genders are different, but his point that a woman needs to be more like a man to achieve the same goals as men. She is exactly the type of woman he is describing who would be successful in a man's world. Thereby, by trying to undermine him, trying to destroy his argument, trying to wrong foot him, he more she did it, the more effective she was at it, the cleverer she was at it, the more she proved him right!

I didn't see anyone win or lose, I saw equals sparring, effectively, cleverly, interestingly.
 

Uncle Gizmo

Founding Member
#3
An observation
He's a university lecturer, in other words he lectures adolescent students.

Put him in front of an experienced aggressive interviewer.

He handles the situation as if he was handling a student! In other words his everyday job, handling students, their questions, there attempts to get one over on the lecturer, have given him an impenetrable armour that protects him in the arena with a hostile interviewer.

What do you think, have I got that right?
 

Bee

Founding Member
#4
I think it's an absolute car crash of an interview. Cathy Newman behaves apallingly.

The genders ARE different. But, men often perceive that women want equality (ie to be the same as men). We don't. We want equality of opportunity.
 

Bee

Founding Member
#5
I think his intellect and knowledge of his subject are his armour - but yes, dealing with smart-arsed students will have given him plenty of scope to polish his responses.
 

Uncle Gizmo

Founding Member
#7
We don't. We want equality of opportunity.
Just to let you know I have constructed about 3 responses and have deleted each one, as they are all male oriented because obviously I am male, and just did not ring true. All I would say is, By definition, you cannot have equality in a patriarchal structure.
 

Uncle Gizmo

Founding Member
#9
I'm watching all of Jordan's videos in his lecture playlist here:- 2016 Personality and Its Transformations (University of Toronto)

In this video:- 2016 Personality Lecture 05: Piaget, Segueing into Jung I get to this part, and he's discussing games, and the fact that game should be beneficial to all players.

Now the problem for Women in Business is they need to learn to play the man's game. Or rather I should say, one strategy would be to learn to play the man's game. However I can understand how unattractive that might be. I myself don't really like playing "that" game, but then it occurred to me there are other games.

In an earlier video professor Jordan discussed the hierarchy in lobster communities. The Lobsters Jordan described are fascinating, lobster communities are similar to human hierarchies. The male, the alpha male, the females chasing the alpha male! From this I developed an idea how women might be incorporated into the male hierarchy in business. Now before I say anything else, I realised how stupid the idea was, but it did cross my mind. What I thought and I know it's completely wrong, but what first occur to me was that every man in a senior position in a company should take on a woman as a counterpart. Like a husband and wife relationship.

This line is how I finished, before I added the piece below.
But why I mentioned it, the game is a patriarchal, male hierarchy, how could the game be changed so that it benefited both businesses and men and women?

Re-reading this now just before I posted it, it suddenly occurred to me that the problem with this idea above, is that the woman would most likely be subordinate to the man. I realised that for this to work this should be reversed, have the man subordinate to the woman. Then I realised that in business, there are already existing mechanisms for this. You would have a board of women and the senior men/women would be subordinate to the board. It's common for businesses to have non-executive board members.
 

Jon

Administrator
Staff member
#10
Now the problem for Women in Business is they need to learn to play the man's game.
I would like to rephrase that statement into this: Now the problem for Women in Business is that they need to learn to play a type of game that is effective in business. If that means having male traits, then it is less about being male than having traits that are effective for that scenario. There is plenty of psychological research showing that women are, on the whole, better at multitasking, empathising and being social. There will be scenarios where these traits are more effective, and therefore men are less suited, on average.

is that the woman would most likely be subordinate to the man.
Margaret Thatcher wasn't very subordinate. In fact, she used to refer to her cabinet as "the vegetables", unless that was just from the comedy, "Spitting Image." :D
 

Bee

Founding Member
#12
I can't believe you are having THIS debate without me!

For the record, I am an alpha-female. I am successful in business. I currently manage a team of 30 people and I am leading on 6 projects worth approx £180m. I work in commercial property which suffers from the following:

1. A disdain for people who are not professionally qualified (as in Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors)
2. A disdain for anyone who doesn't wear the old school tie/badge
3. A disdain for women.

I am neither qualified or privately educated. I am also a woman. But I know my stuff. And, I don't have to behave like a man to get things done.

When I was approached recently for the post I will be taking up in February, they interviewed 4 candidates in total. The other 3 ticked the checklist above (RICS, privately educated, and male). They appointed me. And my budget will treble, my level of responsibility will increase, and I will be heading up a team of more than 50 people.

I don't behave like a ball-breaker. I don't behave like a demanding bitch. I simply have to be the best I can be at my job - and do it with a smile and good humour.

Any woman (or man) who thinks that the way to succeed is to behave more like a man, is onto a loser straight away. If you ever watch The Apprentice, there are some parallels. The people who don't succeed are the ones who either

a) can't see the commercial/business element of the task, or
bee) think that the way to get ahead is to be ruthless and stick the knife in

Fact is, we are all human beings, with our own complexities and motivators. I succeed because I treat my team like colleagues - and they know that if a decision is required, or they need support, I'm the person to go to. Day to day, I figure that these people have been appointed for their skills and knowledge, so I should let them have the freedom and flexibility to use it.
 
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