What Jordan Peterson (and His Fans and Foes) Can Learn from Integral Theory

Jeff SalzmanFree, Integral Live, Perspectives, Politics, The Daily Evolver, Values, Video, World Affairs, Worldviews 7 Comments

In this episode 9 chapters

  1. The Peterson Phenomenon

    Jeff traces Jordan Peterson's rapid rise, which began with his refusal to use mandated gender-neutral pronouns.

  2. Three Stages at War

    Jeff explains the integral view of the traditional, modern and postmodern stages, each with its own dignities, disasters and fanatics.

  3. An Antidote to Chaos

    Peterson's heart lies at the traditional stage, which civilizes the chaos of the warrior stage.

  4. Hobbes Meets Winnie the Pooh

    Jeff looks at critiques from the left, at the book's mix of a traditional sense of evil with modern self-responsibility, and at Peterson's near-integral sense that each person's actions ripple…

  5. The Wrong Turn Thesis

    Part Two recaps the stages and restates the problem: Peterson sees postmodernity as a totalitarian mistake, not an evolutionary step.

  6. Every Stage Has Its Thought Police

    Jeff argues that every stage has its own ideology and speech codes, from blasphemy laws to the Google memo firing, and calls postmodern political correctness comparatively mild.

  7. The Truth Social Justice Warriors See

    Jeff credits postmodern progressives with seeing unconscious racism and sexism and with driving Me Too and affirmative consent.

  8. Lobsters and the Sour Spot

    Jeff sets Peterson's lobster-based dominance hierarchies against postmodern flattening and integral's natural developmental hierarchies, then calls Peterson's fear of collapse alarmist.

  9. A Ceiling on Evolution

    Jeff criticizes Peterson's traditional belief that the threat of violence keeps discourse civil, while acknowledging that a loss of religion leaves a vacuum.