Jordan Peterson's Bad Faith

In a discussion with a post-Jordan Peterson type guy, youtuber and artist CJ the X makes this point about trans acceptance, political militarism and tradition:

CJ:This is what the situation seems to be sometimes that conservatives are very afraid of ... There's a transgender person, they're 16-years old, and they're rejected by society and everyone doesn't like this thing, and they're very afraid, and the only people that are on their side are like six 17-year olds, and then they have to go reinvent society Lord of the Flies-style and like recreate philosophy and try to live, right? And there's no solution to that that I see besides making people less afraid and increasing acceptance and normalisation of such things so that people can at least expereince these fucking things, right?

I think what CJ touches on here is a sort of broader problem with queerness -- you want to have some sort of belief in tradition, in humility towards those who've come before you, lived longer than you, who know more than you, but that trust and humility can be difficult when people who know more than you start saying things that make you go damn, you really know nothing about my life, about gender, about sexuality. This is sort of the inevitable feeling, for example, of whatching Jordan Peterson equate Pride to the cardinal sin of pride, call sexual desire the "most immature and hedonistic part of your identity," then go down his exodus-rabbit hole (gramps is quoting Exodus again) while ending on the classic "the iranians will think we're weak and gay if we keep celebrating gay rights."

It's hard to watch that as a queer person without -- well, first of all laughing -- but also thinking that this is a man that either a) has an immature understanding of sexuality himself and projects that onto all of sexuality, or b) is homophobic, or c) is a crypto-catholic, or d) maybe all of the above. Another classic is when he's asked if he supports gay marriage and say "that's a really tough one for me" because he likes the idea of gay people being less promiscous, i.e. married, but he it isn't clear to him that marriage equality would "satisfy the ever increasing assault on traditional modes of being."

Then the next immediate line of thought is how can I trust you on anything? Is everything you say these stupid ideas dressed up in nice words? Does it all boil down to "this is how we've always done it you little punk? Have you not read Exodus?" (I have read Exodus gramps, you're quoting Leviticus! Get ur books straight) How am I suppose to show humility towards someone who'd use that humility -- and have used that humility, that coyishness -- to instill the idea in me that maybe my sexuality is a secret woke assault on tradition and meaning?

This is how you get queer communists -- people told they're somehow the enemy of western society and decide, well, fuck the West then -- even though in reality it's liberal society and values that brings forth and is uniquely interwoven as a political system with LBGTQ-rights, not the opposite, something that is obvious from how non-western autocracies use LGBTQ-rights as proof of the weakness and degeneracy of western society, as well as from how anti-LGBTQ forces within the western world quickly grow tired of democracy and freedom the moment they realise a key part of freedom means that there's no govermental fail-safe to make sure people don't gay it up to the degree they want to.

So I like the West™, I like tradition, I like stories and meaning, the Old Testament is my fave book too, I'm also sick in the head, y'know, I got my own Genesis head canons. So it takes a genuine decision to filter out what is good, what is true, from what makes no sense, when trying to show humility to tradition and structure, and, well, to Jordan Peterson. You don't want to deconstruct everything, even when you're experience gives you a reflex to do so.

A group of people with a similar relationship to Peterson are atheists, a group of people Peterson constantly disappoints with his vague and to them non-sensical points about religion. Atheists are a bit similar to the queers, in that they too can tend to throw out the baby with the bath water. There's a lot of interesting things happening in religion and in religious texts if you don't have an overly materialistic or bitter reading of them, the way someone like Richard Dawkins can be accused of having. Like thricegreat writes, I think that Zeus doesn't exist, but do you seriously think that Greek mythology is meaningless because of it? The more jungian (ish) take is that all stories originate from somewhere within us and therefore have a purpose and meaning, even if they're not factually true, especially the stories that stay with us for a long time, thus proving their universality.

Someone that doesn't have this overly-materialistic understanding of religion is Alex O'Connor, an attractive young man with a theology degree (aah, my weakness .. y'know, when you're a bi woman with a thing for theology guys you're options are very limited. The last guy I was in love with was a roman catholic whomst I am not sure believed in evolution, so, that didn't work out. So leave me and my parasocial crush on Alex O'Connor alone), someone who understands that stories can be great and meaningful, while still being critical of what he views as Peterson's avoidance of the question of the facticity of Exodus and the rest of the biblical cannon.

So Jordan Peterson shows up to the episode on his podcast with O'Connor in a suit covered in orthodox saint icons (call it kitsch, bitches, I think it's awesome, the tie is too yellow though) and it basically immediately becomes O'Connor who interviews -- drills, maybe -- Peterson, and not the other way around. In the interview, Peterson is asked if God is real, and responds:

[God is] not bound by time, not bound by space. Well does that make God a material object? Because when people say Is God real? It's like, well, God's immaterial and outside of time and space, so if you're definition of real is material things in the domain of time and space, then we're not talking about the same thing._[1]

This might seem like he's dodging the question, but I actually think his answer makes perfect sense: asking if something outside of existence exist, is a paradoxical question, it breaks down on it's own. There's a quote I've seen attributed -- though I suspect maybe wrongfully attributed -- to orthodox saint Maximus the Confessor, that reads: "If I must say wether or not God exists, I am closer to his truth when saying that He does not exist, since God is something entirely different from that which I recognize as existence."

But the risk in this answer, is that it fractures reality into two pieces -- physical reality and trancendental reality -- and it risks placing the mind in a state where it can freely avoid confrontation by jumping back and forth between the two whenever it fits the mind. If the reality of God becomes too much of an abstract concept, it kind of floats away and starts seeming irrelevant, the existance of things outside of existance too much like something just not existing -- at this point you highlight the physical reality, the laws, the texts, the impacts, the Jesus; but when the concept of God becomes too physical, too real, too questionable and open to rational dissection, like a soviet poster, it's rationally allowed to float away again, not tied down by worldy logic. It can't be known. It is faith. God is not what he is, and he is what he is not.

What [bad faith] decides first, in fact, is the nature of truth. With bad faith a truth appears, a method of thinking, a type of being which is like that of objects; the ontological characteristic of the world of bad faith with which the subject suddenly surrounds himself is this: that here being is what it is not, and is not what it is. Consequently a peculiar type of evidence appears; non-persuasive evidence. Bad faith apprehends evidence but it is resigned in advance to not being fulfilled by this evidence, to not being persuaded and transformed into good faith. It makes itself humble and modest; it is not ignorant, it says, that faith is decision and that after each intuition, it must decide and will what it is. Thus bad faith in its primitive project and in its coming into the world decides on the exact nature of its requirements. It stands forth in the firm resolution not to demand too much, to count itself satisfied when it is barely persuaded, to force itself in decisions to adhere to uncertain truths. This original project of bad faith is a decision in bad faith on the nature of faith. Let us understand clearly that there is no question of a reflective, voluntary decision, but of a spontaneous determination of our being. One puts oneself in bad faith as one goes to sleep and one is in bad faith as one dreams. ^[2]

Again, I don't think Peterson has a bad answer to the question of God's existence, but I think it's the good answer that drives the bad faith of the rest of the episode. For example when O'Connor drills him on the resurrection, it becomes an absurd cat and mouse chase where O'Connor repeatedly asks do you believe Jesus physically rose from the dead? followed by Peterson going into jungian hyper-space, until O'Connor phrases the question absurdedly pedantically:

O'Connor: Let's me put it this way: If I went back in time with a panosonic video camera and put that camera in front of the tomb of Joseph of Aramathea, would the little LSD screen show a man walk out of that tomb?

Peterson:... I would suspect yes.

O'Connor: So that to me seems like a belief in the historical event of the Resurrection, or at least of Jesus leaving the tomb. Which means that when somebody says "do you believe that Jesus rose from the dead?" it doesn't seem clear to me why you're not able to just say: "It would seem to me yes."

Peterson: (Pause) Because I have no idea what that means. And neither did the people who saw it._[3]

Two things are worth noting: as far as I'm aware Peterson has never admitted publically to believing in the Resurrection before. Secondly, this discussion is interloaded with ads, going: the Hallow app offer meditations and prayers that are designed to help you deepen your spirituality and strengthen your relationship to God. You can download the app for free at hallow.com/jordan. Hallow is truly transformative and will help you connect to your faith on a deeper level. Don't loose your prayer habit this summer! and: Did you know a baby's heart begins to beat at just 3 weeks? At 5 weeks their heartbeat can be heard on ultra-sounds. This can sometimes be their only defense in the womb. Preborn rescues 200 babies everyday from abortion simply by providing mothers with an ultra-sound. For just 28$ you can be the difference between the life and death of a child. Go to preborn.com/jordan, which makes the entire experience even more absurd.

Ads make anyone cynical, and it's hard to listen to these ads tailor-made for a religious, conservative audience and think anything else than that no matter what Peterson believes, it's odd how his ads conform to a faith that he himself will not. He doesn't have to constrain himself to the dogma of religion, doesn't have to defend the christian faith, he just says enough things to make a religious audience feel content, smart, intellectual, like Peterson is on their side, like he might be "on his way" to christianity. He doesn't have to conform to the pope, who's a Baal worshipper anyway, but he can reiterate the typical catholic theology of the body-ism that all conservative media-types love, that stops just short of applying it's own logic to lgbt-bodies. The claims of sexual liberation and sexual minorities can be dismantled by the religious framwork, but the religious framework itself cannot be dismantled by rational or emotional interrogation, because it escapes both -- it is not what it is and it is what it is not. It's a sword when used for political means and a cloud of smoke when targeted itself.

This is Petersons bad faith: when it's indefendible, the Resurrection is indistinguishable from it's mythological qualities and he "has no idea what it means" to believe in it. When it has to be a clear yes or no, you can squeeze a yes out of him, but not much more than that. Peterson is satisfied in this, he's humble, he's modest. No one else is satisfied, though. Atheists are frustrated, unable to debate someone who weasels out and says they "don't know what it means" seconds after saying a man rose from the dead, and christians are sufficently insatiable to keep consuming his content, keep hoping for the day Peterson will confess a little bit more, validate them vaguely just one step further.

_[1]Navigating Belief, Skepticism, and the Afterlife | Alex O'Connor @CosmicSkeptic | EP 451 17:53 _[3] 25:17

^[2]Sarte, Being and Nothingness, p.68