A late summer dive into the self

July 31, 2015 8:33 AM

Personality, and a whole lot more. August always stirs up memories of going back to school for me. This year, I've been scratching the academic itch with some fine online classwork by the University of Toronto's Jordan B. Peterson. If you like Jung, Freud, Personality you might find his youtube channel a profitable place to hang out.

I stumbled into this doing some research on Jung for a short story I'm working on, and damned if I didn't find myself listening to lecture after lecture.

A few favorites:

Yeah, the Nazi's will bring you right up into existentialism right quick.
If you want to create hell, lie.
Egyptian Myths

By the time I'd hoovered up a half-a-dozen, I honestly felt that my structural understanding of Jung and Freud (to say nothing of Kierkegaard) had improved substantially, which is a hell of a thing to accidentally happen via some youtube clips that run in the background while vacuuming.

Hope you like it. Refunds on all existential angst and mythical quests for self via memail.

posted by mrdaneri (8 comments total)

I took this course at U of T! Weird guy. Fun course. Could probably start a cult if he wanted to.
posted by saturday_morning at 8:50 AM on July 31, 2015 [6 favorites]

Yeah, after a few hours of his lectures, I feel strangely compelled to like, read his newsletter, perhaps start wearing Jordan B. Peterson-themed t-shirts, etc. LMK if you hear anything about the cult lighting up.
posted by mrdaneri at 8:55 AM on July 31, 2015 [1 favorite]

Just watched the Existentialism one... wow, what a ride! Great post, thanks!
posted by Acey at 12:00 PM on July 31, 2015 [1 favorite]

My favorite (completely apocryphal & not documented anywhere terribly credible, but whatever) quote is Wittgenstein supposedly having said: "The way we have spent the afternoon is so vile that we ought not to live. The only things worth doing are reading great works, contemplating great works, and producing great works."

That latter sentence is pretty much how I feel (more so than usual) after watching the day 1 video for that course, which has got to be the most riveting intro lecture ever delivered.

Thanks.
posted by geneva uswazi at 10:43 PM on July 31, 2015 [1 favorite]

Just watched the Existentialism one... wow, what a ride!

It's disappointing to hear a canard like "Hitler was elected" repeated (he wasn't), and it impeaches my confidence in this guy's statements about things that I know less about than 20th century history.
posted by thelonius at 3:11 AM on August 1, 2015 [3 favorites]

That is a good catch, thelonius, and there are a few other bumps in the road, esp. around Marxism that reveal a certain political slant, imho. Kind of a take it a or leave it thing, obviously the work of a human being, etc.

A huge weakness in my personal education is history (my background is biology) so there may be more. He did get his degree from Harvard, so it isn't like the guy is promoting Bach Flower Therapy or anything like that.
posted by mrdaneri at 11:46 AM on August 1, 2015 [1 favorite]

I made a site with a bunch of transcriptions from JBP's lectures: check it out here

I'm accepting contributions if anyone's been keeping notes!
posted by vs at 5:35 PM on August 13, 2015 [1 favorite]

He did get his degree from Harvard, so it isn't like the guy is promoting Bach Flower Therapy or anything like that.

Well, he teaches at U of T, so, um, maybe.
posted by Sys Rq at 5:50 PM on August 13, 2015 [1 favorite]