Jordan Peterson on how to have real conversations. Aella on dating. Patrick Collison on genius. Plus: Niall Ferguson, Leandra Medine, Alana Newhouse and more.
On Jordan Peterson's piece....I'm impressed by his willingness to self- reflect and bare it publicly. I have wondered for a long time how the art of the interview has been lost. Interviews have become interrogations. Clear to me that the Interviewer has an agenda. It is very telling for me when the interviewer asks a question receives a heartfelt answer to the question and instead of responding (like a human being) just simply moves on to the next question. I call it "cold" reporting. Interviews in my opinion should have no agenda. That is what makes a skilled interviewer. And yet, the human aspect should be obvious, otherwise, it reads as a one up one down situation. This is the way we tend to interview politicians. This interrogation would make any mentally healthy candidate feel challenged at best. Our best leaders do not want to lead for fear of dehumanizing interrogation on the part of the press. It is here at Common Sense and at the Daily Wire that I have finally seen journalists seeking truth, not support for their own arrogant agendas. Maybe... we'll see some new leaders if these new journalists maintain their wonderful standards.... thank you to Bari for your amazing journalism!
Jordan Peterson is enlightening at a truly scary level making disagreement with him more than a little risky. However, his own thoughts provide insight here. Trying to understand civil adversaries is, as he promotes, a better approach than even mild confrontation. But I learned from him that the “meek” inheriting the earth is a misnomer. Those with the knowledge, skill, and fortitude to keep their swords sheathed until absolutely necessary will inherit. Sheathed does not mean unarmed.
Unfortunately, the barbarians are through the gate, slashing our friends and family, and destroying our home. Quasi academic settings may afford a civil landscape to discuss heady matters, but at barrooms, ball games, and family fish fries the barbarians wreak havoc with anyone foolish enough to openly disagree with them. The barbarians are almost always wrong but they’re never in doubt or quiet about it.
Still, I’m going to take his advice try to listen longer before mentally hanging up when the sophistry begins.
Jordan Peterson's point is excellent. I've found the same. I ask people questions to explain why they support this or that position. I confess often this results in what I regard as forcing them to lay bare a fairly ugly foundation (or logical conclusion) that they either were unaware of or tried to explain away with a clichéd retort of zero substance. On very rare occassion I've even gotten people to move off of the certainty of their view. I learned this after it had been done to me a few times (I'm often not terribly quick). 😉
If we can actually talk and discuss issues fully without it being aggressive, both people can gain access to new information and really see the reality of most issues. I want to know all the information so that my opinion is based on as many facts as possible, not what my initial emotional response is.
Well, it certainly appears that most posters here are perfectly willing to trade their democracy and the 250 year old principles that made this nation what it is for an unfunded tax cut that an orangutan could have passed and approval of an oil pipeline. Cheney 2024!
"I can’t imagine telling my partner they’re not allowed to be intimate with others" is code for "I can't imagine a relationship based on fidelity" and the solution is therapy. Hope this helps.
I've read thru all of the last 2 days. I found myself wishing that someone would say "I changed my mind that politics is stupid and unhelpful, and I've decided not to do this stupidity anymore."
But, then, how would they continue to make money by dividing us as Americans and humans?
I can’t say that what happened in 2021 changed my mind about anything. On the contrary, events of this soon-to-be-ended year have confirmed many of my long-held beliefs. This is not to minimize the truth of what Jordan Peterson had to say. I did a great deal of listening, actually, e.g. to President Biden. Suffice to say, that was not a soul-altering experience.
Pretty much as I expected, America is muddling through the pandemic and its economic and social fallout despite the general incompetence of our governing institutions and expert class. And we have received some salutary, long-overdo reminders. One is that the politicians and experts very often have no idea what they’re talking about. Another is that self-interest rather than public spirit often guides their actions, e.g. the atrocious teachers unions. Another—perhaps the most important—is that irrationality lurks close beneath the surface of politics. This is why the inevitable consequences of demonizing and defunding law enforcement never even occurred to progressive ideologues. Many more such examples, Left and Right, can be cited.
The lesson, I suppose, is that if you maintain low expectations, you’ll rarely have occasion to change your mind.
I changed my mind about what it means for me to live with grief. My father has been living with/dying from Lewy Body Dementia for about 10 years and my wife and I moved home to help out in this past year (also, to quarantine with family so as not to be just the 2 of us + our cats). I think this is more a change of heart more than of mind, I'm realizing as I write. Anyway, we were in my childhood home with my parents for one full calendar year. In that time, I felt more or less sad about being able to continue living and progressing my life while I watched Dad's come to a close. By the end of the year, we realized we really needed to get on with the life we want to live, which includes staying close to my folks but having our own place and seriously planning to have children. Earlier in the year, we said things like, it would be too much to have kids while Dad is so sick. But now, I feel like, all the more reason – we have to forge ahead with our lives alongside our grief – we have to learn to bring it with us but go anyway.
Ask not for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee. Live while you can, and relish every day. Grieve for your father, but grieve for yourself, too because someday, like he, you will lose it all. The mortal illness of a longtime friend has really brought it home for me: love your family for all you are worth, and do it every day of your life.
I hate to seem overly grateful, but at 81, I guess I have a long history of changing my mind on lots of issues and not changing it on others, and what I think I've changed my mind about most conspicuously in the past year has been my conviction that the toxic polarization of cultural and political convictions we've endured as a nation for too many years would not end in my lifetime. It might not be exclusively thanks to this liberating forum on which I'm currently moved to respond. But yes, I am extremely grateful for it.
Recent political developments would appear to reflect an awakening to the dangers of kool-aid addiction and the addicts at both ends of the spectrum ceaselessly lowering themselves to each other's levels. The arrogance and elitism of our career politicians and pseudo-journalists has not escaped the notice of we the people after all; they just had to do what hubris usually compels the corrupted power players to do: take their power too much for granted, and underestimate (and insult) the intelligence of the electorate.
Even taking into account the systemic dumbing-down of our national educational system, the perceptiveness and insights of so many of its intended targets is heartening. Perhaps we're evolving past the kool-aid fog and into the fresh air and sunlight of--dare I say it?--common sense!
Listening. Asking honest, open questions. Trying to understand others. All great ideas.
Strongly disagree with Ferguson’s piece, he is still struggling with TDS.
We homeschooled and loved it, brought the family closer
I was thin when I was miserable and now am fat but content. I am more accepting of the gradual decrepitude of my body. I miss my 20-30 year old body, but love my 60 year old spirit
Incentives. I definitely changed my mind about the role of incentives in public life and, in the process, have become more of a liberal conservative than a libertarian. As the corporate media have shown ever more evidentially in 2021, people/organizations don’t always respond logically to incentives, as I once believed. In fact, many political, cultural, and business people seem happily poised to to go down with their virtual-signaling ships.
Incentives are still the King Kong motivators they've always been. If they no longer seem that way to you in circumstances you've observed, I suggest that they are being deliberately concealed.
Interesting. Do you mean to suggest that the underlying incentive for what I’ve observed is tribalism rather than personal needs like, say, keeping your job in the face of industry-tumbling ratings? What I really mean to say is that people do not always respond rationally to obvious incentives, as I once thought.
One wonders why Niall Ferguson expected MAGA to fade away. It was—or ought to have been—obvious that replacing Trump with an intellectual and moral zero like Joe Biden would never restore American political life to a healthy condition. In his own way, Biden is just as heinous as Trump. Our current president has no more respect for truth, facts, constitutional norms or the rule of law than Trump does. He is, if anything, less competent than his predecessor. Nothing that has happened since the day he replaced Trump has tended to restore people's faith in the country's governing institutions. And all Biden's personal defects are echoed by the party of which he's the nominal leader: a cabal of would-be commissars who regard the United States Constitution as an impediment to the maximization of their power.
Biden's enduring achievement is likely to be that he managed to make Trump seem not so bad after all.
I encountered a woman in the bank lobby who was taken with my Western hat and asked me in a whisper, do you like Trump? I said, of course, what's not to like?. We live in a place that makes NYC looks like a Goldwater bastion. She told me she used to work for him in NYC, that he was the nicest persons she ever knew and the media portrayal was complete bull shit.
Thomas Jefferson was right: those who read newspapers know less than those who don't.
On Jordan Peterson's piece....I'm impressed by his willingness to self- reflect and bare it publicly. I have wondered for a long time how the art of the interview has been lost. Interviews have become interrogations. Clear to me that the Interviewer has an agenda. It is very telling for me when the interviewer asks a question receives a heartfelt answer to the question and instead of responding (like a human being) just simply moves on to the next question. I call it "cold" reporting. Interviews in my opinion should have no agenda. That is what makes a skilled interviewer. And yet, the human aspect should be obvious, otherwise, it reads as a one up one down situation. This is the way we tend to interview politicians. This interrogation would make any mentally healthy candidate feel challenged at best. Our best leaders do not want to lead for fear of dehumanizing interrogation on the part of the press. It is here at Common Sense and at the Daily Wire that I have finally seen journalists seeking truth, not support for their own arrogant agendas. Maybe... we'll see some new leaders if these new journalists maintain their wonderful standards.... thank you to Bari for your amazing journalism!
Jordan Peterson is enlightening at a truly scary level making disagreement with him more than a little risky. However, his own thoughts provide insight here. Trying to understand civil adversaries is, as he promotes, a better approach than even mild confrontation. But I learned from him that the “meek” inheriting the earth is a misnomer. Those with the knowledge, skill, and fortitude to keep their swords sheathed until absolutely necessary will inherit. Sheathed does not mean unarmed.
Unfortunately, the barbarians are through the gate, slashing our friends and family, and destroying our home. Quasi academic settings may afford a civil landscape to discuss heady matters, but at barrooms, ball games, and family fish fries the barbarians wreak havoc with anyone foolish enough to openly disagree with them. The barbarians are almost always wrong but they’re never in doubt or quiet about it.
Still, I’m going to take his advice try to listen longer before mentally hanging up when the sophistry begins.
Jordan Peterson's point is excellent. I've found the same. I ask people questions to explain why they support this or that position. I confess often this results in what I regard as forcing them to lay bare a fairly ugly foundation (or logical conclusion) that they either were unaware of or tried to explain away with a clichéd retort of zero substance. On very rare occassion I've even gotten people to move off of the certainty of their view. I learned this after it had been done to me a few times (I'm often not terribly quick). 😉
If we can actually talk and discuss issues fully without it being aggressive, both people can gain access to new information and really see the reality of most issues. I want to know all the information so that my opinion is based on as many facts as possible, not what my initial emotional response is.
Well, it certainly appears that most posters here are perfectly willing to trade their democracy and the 250 year old principles that made this nation what it is for an unfunded tax cut that an orangutan could have passed and approval of an oil pipeline. Cheney 2024!
Nellie is my favorite "wife guy." Keep up the good work you two!
"I can’t imagine telling my partner they’re not allowed to be intimate with others" is code for "I can't imagine a relationship based on fidelity" and the solution is therapy. Hope this helps.
Yep. It was a cringy essay.
What a great way to end the year! Thanks, Bari and team.
I should add here that Honestly is the best-produced podcast I listen to.
What I learned in 2021 is that America is led by cowards.
Silence in the face of lies can have no other name.
Deliberate surrender can have no other name.
Succumbing to coercion can have no other name.
I believe that will change.
I must.
So I choose to.
I've read thru all of the last 2 days. I found myself wishing that someone would say "I changed my mind that politics is stupid and unhelpful, and I've decided not to do this stupidity anymore."
But, then, how would they continue to make money by dividing us as Americans and humans?
I can’t say that what happened in 2021 changed my mind about anything. On the contrary, events of this soon-to-be-ended year have confirmed many of my long-held beliefs. This is not to minimize the truth of what Jordan Peterson had to say. I did a great deal of listening, actually, e.g. to President Biden. Suffice to say, that was not a soul-altering experience.
Pretty much as I expected, America is muddling through the pandemic and its economic and social fallout despite the general incompetence of our governing institutions and expert class. And we have received some salutary, long-overdo reminders. One is that the politicians and experts very often have no idea what they’re talking about. Another is that self-interest rather than public spirit often guides their actions, e.g. the atrocious teachers unions. Another—perhaps the most important—is that irrationality lurks close beneath the surface of politics. This is why the inevitable consequences of demonizing and defunding law enforcement never even occurred to progressive ideologues. Many more such examples, Left and Right, can be cited.
The lesson, I suppose, is that if you maintain low expectations, you’ll rarely have occasion to change your mind.
I changed my mind about what it means for me to live with grief. My father has been living with/dying from Lewy Body Dementia for about 10 years and my wife and I moved home to help out in this past year (also, to quarantine with family so as not to be just the 2 of us + our cats). I think this is more a change of heart more than of mind, I'm realizing as I write. Anyway, we were in my childhood home with my parents for one full calendar year. In that time, I felt more or less sad about being able to continue living and progressing my life while I watched Dad's come to a close. By the end of the year, we realized we really needed to get on with the life we want to live, which includes staying close to my folks but having our own place and seriously planning to have children. Earlier in the year, we said things like, it would be too much to have kids while Dad is so sick. But now, I feel like, all the more reason – we have to forge ahead with our lives alongside our grief – we have to learn to bring it with us but go anyway.
Ask not for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee. Live while you can, and relish every day. Grieve for your father, but grieve for yourself, too because someday, like he, you will lose it all. The mortal illness of a longtime friend has really brought it home for me: love your family for all you are worth, and do it every day of your life.
I hate to seem overly grateful, but at 81, I guess I have a long history of changing my mind on lots of issues and not changing it on others, and what I think I've changed my mind about most conspicuously in the past year has been my conviction that the toxic polarization of cultural and political convictions we've endured as a nation for too many years would not end in my lifetime. It might not be exclusively thanks to this liberating forum on which I'm currently moved to respond. But yes, I am extremely grateful for it.
Recent political developments would appear to reflect an awakening to the dangers of kool-aid addiction and the addicts at both ends of the spectrum ceaselessly lowering themselves to each other's levels. The arrogance and elitism of our career politicians and pseudo-journalists has not escaped the notice of we the people after all; they just had to do what hubris usually compels the corrupted power players to do: take their power too much for granted, and underestimate (and insult) the intelligence of the electorate.
Even taking into account the systemic dumbing-down of our national educational system, the perceptiveness and insights of so many of its intended targets is heartening. Perhaps we're evolving past the kool-aid fog and into the fresh air and sunlight of--dare I say it?--common sense!
Listening. Asking honest, open questions. Trying to understand others. All great ideas.
Strongly disagree with Ferguson’s piece, he is still struggling with TDS.
We homeschooled and loved it, brought the family closer
I was thin when I was miserable and now am fat but content. I am more accepting of the gradual decrepitude of my body. I miss my 20-30 year old body, but love my 60 year old spirit
Incentives. I definitely changed my mind about the role of incentives in public life and, in the process, have become more of a liberal conservative than a libertarian. As the corporate media have shown ever more evidentially in 2021, people/organizations don’t always respond logically to incentives, as I once believed. In fact, many political, cultural, and business people seem happily poised to to go down with their virtual-signaling ships.
Incentives are still the King Kong motivators they've always been. If they no longer seem that way to you in circumstances you've observed, I suggest that they are being deliberately concealed.
Interesting. Do you mean to suggest that the underlying incentive for what I’ve observed is tribalism rather than personal needs like, say, keeping your job in the face of industry-tumbling ratings? What I really mean to say is that people do not always respond rationally to obvious incentives, as I once thought.
Bari-what does a paid subscriber get that a free subscriber does not? Is it comments only?
One wonders why Niall Ferguson expected MAGA to fade away. It was—or ought to have been—obvious that replacing Trump with an intellectual and moral zero like Joe Biden would never restore American political life to a healthy condition. In his own way, Biden is just as heinous as Trump. Our current president has no more respect for truth, facts, constitutional norms or the rule of law than Trump does. He is, if anything, less competent than his predecessor. Nothing that has happened since the day he replaced Trump has tended to restore people's faith in the country's governing institutions. And all Biden's personal defects are echoed by the party of which he's the nominal leader: a cabal of would-be commissars who regard the United States Constitution as an impediment to the maximization of their power.
Biden's enduring achievement is likely to be that he managed to make Trump seem not so bad after all.
I encountered a woman in the bank lobby who was taken with my Western hat and asked me in a whisper, do you like Trump? I said, of course, what's not to like?. We live in a place that makes NYC looks like a Goldwater bastion. She told me she used to work for him in NYC, that he was the nicest persons she ever knew and the media portrayal was complete bull shit.
Thomas Jefferson was right: those who read newspapers know less than those who don't.
Well said 👏👏👏.