Thoughts on Jordan Peterson and his Speech Tactics
This might seem a little out of left field, but its something that I have been thinking about for a while.
So as a disclaimer, I am not a JP hater. I think that the man gives good advice to men who wish to live in a traditional fashion, and even to women that wish to live in a traditional fashion. Also some of his general responsibility based advice is just good all round advice that not enough people are getting growing up.
People try to paint JP in this really complicated and multifaceted light, himself included. But at the end of the day, hes just an Old School kind of guy. The stuff he says is almost identical to the kinds of things that you would hear if you talked to someone JPs age or older in the American South. They would just state their opinions in a more straightforward fashion.
JP likes to overcomplicate everything that he says, but there is a reason behind this. You see, if you have to make someone work hard to understand what you are saying, then you have made them more invested in what you are saying. Its a proven phenomenon in psychology. The same principle can be seen in gambling, the more you bet, the harder it is to stop. JP probably developed his speech habits getting his license or doing one on one therapy. It forces the person who is listening to you value you more.
Now the second thing that he does is what I have more of an issue with.
To give some background, I grew up with parents that were both therapists. So Im not just pulling stuff out of my ass.
But the second thing that JP does, especially in interviews, is speak not just in a complicated fashion, but a vague one. You see speaking in a vague fashion can get the person that you are working with to fill in the blanks and come to some kind of self realization. It can encourage them to explore and come to an answer. But misused, this is a very manipulative speaking tactic. It gives you plausible deniability in everything that you say. Everything that you state could be interpreted in multiple fashions. The person who speaks like this will often give clues and hints that your subconscious will pick up on when they speak about what they truly think about a topic, but because they never explicitly give an opinion, you cant call them out on anything nasty they say.
I guess I can understand why he has to speak that way in this day and age. People overreact to him. And we need to let people speak more freely now. I personally dislike traditional gender roles, but i understand that some people really want to live that way. So if they have someone who is a traditional gender role guru (JP) then they should be allowed to seek out the guru without being accosted, and the guru should be allowed to seek out cliental without being accosted too! But that isnt really the world we live in.
But I dont know, it still bugs me. Just feels icky
