- Re: Zizek presses Peterson. " where are the Marxists"?? A thought or two,,,, Archived Message
Posted by John Monro
on April 25, 2019, 12:34 pm, in reply to "Re: Zizek presses Peterson. " where are the Marxists"?? A thought or two,,,,"
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Hmm, quite a lot of emotion in your posting, Turtleman. In regard to global warming, I don't think there was anything truthful about his answer. He basically denies global warming, though his denial is disguised in good deal of rambling verbiage. so if he thinks global warming is not a big issue, then of course he's going to be wary of people who offer large scale solutions, because to his reckoning, there's nothing big to solve. And the massively pernicious effects of critical theory and Peterson's post modern Marxism? Peterson really has a bee in his bonnet about this. I suspect many well-taught and intelligent students will have valued critical theory in their education, and will be better for it, or they'll be intelligent enough to discard it if it really isn't of much use. As far as I am aware, critical theory is a fashionable analytic tool, I believe Marxist in origin, but so what, one you might disagree with, but hardly such an important issue to base so much of one's intellectual claims on. In addition the vast majority of students would have difficulty telling you what critical theory is, as for most courses it won't be taught because it's totally irrelevant. So it sounds to me that Peterson is concerned because some part of academia is proselytising a Marxist viewpoint and this is so dangerous?? But academia is such a small proportion of society's wider influences, and compared with the propaganda of Fox news or most of the main stream media, and the pretty strong pro- commercial basis of many universities now, do Peterson's concerns really register?., And didn't Marx actually make some good points? I think Peterson is merely revealing his own right wing bias. Perhaps he doesn't like the competition. And even if Peterson;s criticism of critical theory has some basis, surely it's not the Marxist flavour to it, but its deconstructive scepticism. that could cause students to become sceptical of science and its reasoning. An excuse in other words for intellectual and scientific anarchy. If this is the case, and I don't know, then there are obvious dangers there. But this don't seem to be the concern that Peterson's worried about. But perhaps those posting to this board who have studied some of these things can be provide more expert input. Is postmodern critical theory promoting Marxist revolution and thoughtless obedience in a cohort of intellectually manipulated young people, or are the concerns as expressed by Peterson basically just so much hot air? |