Stephen Fry and Jordan Peterson in conversation

December 19, 2021 1:01 PM

What it says on the tin (slyt) In which Stephen Fry unfolds his enormous intellect and knowledge and kindness.
posted by mumimor (13 comments total)

WARNING: JORDAN PETERSON'S CHANNEL

DO NOT CLICK OUTSIDE A PRIVATE/INCOGNITO TAB IF YOU DON'T WANT YOUTUBE TO ATTEMPT TO FAST TRACK YOU DOWN ITS RIGHT-WING RADICALIZATION ALGORITHM HOLE.
posted by tclark at 1:24 PM on December 19, 2021 [43 favorites]

Wow, only 1:38:33 long? That's barely enough time for JP to finish his first point!
posted by fortitude25 at 1:31 PM on December 19, 2021 [2 favorites]

I should have included the warning, but still, go see. Stephen Fry is a global treasure, and even on Peterson's own channel, he manages to be a force for the good, in so many ways. Actually, I'm underselling this. If Peterson had any self-awareness, he would delete this video. Luckily he doesn't.
posted by mumimor at 1:38 PM on December 19, 2021 [1 favorite]

Oh I don't know. He's certainly very erudite and personable, but Fry definitely has his own blind spots and biases. I think he would be among the first to point out that he speaks from a place of enormous privilege.

I'm glad that some people enjoy feeling cleverer by listening to these men, but I wish minority voices got half as much amplification as Peterson and his buddies enjoy.
posted by fight or flight at 1:46 PM on December 19, 2021 [15 favorites]

I love Jordan starting out making it sound like "The Radical Left" is a united behemoth and not the fractious, self-defeating, splitting half-assed association of ideologies that it is. And then expecting the "center-left" to be more likely to "straighten us out" (don't worry, Joe Manchin and the Dem leadership show they're quite able to hold us at bay).
posted by symbioid at 1:54 PM on December 19, 2021 [2 favorites]

WARNING: JORDAN PETERSON'S CHANNEL

DO NOT CLICK OUTSIDE A PRIVATE/INCOGNITO TAB IF YOU DON'T WANT YOUTUBE TO ATTEMPT TO FAST TRACK YOU DOWN ITS RIGHT-WING RADICALIZATION ALGORITHM HOLE.
posted by tclark at 1:24 PM on December 19 [12 favorites +] [!]

Create a burner Google account, pause your watch history in the YouTube settings, and you'll never have to deal with the algorithm again.
posted by tantrumthecat at 2:01 PM on December 19, 2021

Your brain is full of spiders, you've got garlic in your soul, Mr. Peterson.
posted by whatevernot at 2:01 PM on December 19, 2021 [4 favorites]

The "radical left" thing that propelled Peterson into the public eye was his misleading and bullshit objection to the Canadian law to simply add trans people to the list of classes against whom hate speech is possible.

Literally the only reason people know about him is because he's a big fat transphobe. People tend to forget this, and act as if his ideas have merit unto themselves. They don't.

Now including Fry; centrist intellectuals love to say a lot of abstracted hoity-toity shit instead of talking about actual policies. The funniest thing is how they will try to claim how they are so rational (or empirical) and not really ideologues, they are the opposite of an extremist; but two days later centrists will be saying that even if their ideas have failed, well, they were right to stand up for them on principal and that these are hyper important to the fabric of society and we are doomed without them and they are worth dying for. Centrists are always always trying to escape rational and empirical reckonings.

I'm sure Stephen Fry would be a lovely person to have at a dinner party, but I wish that affluent liberals, or those who aspire to that, would understand that one's conversational skills have nothing to do with whether one's ideas are any good or not.

Stephen Fry is a good conversational approximation of a lovely intellectual you'd like to know personally, but IMO if you listen to him critically he's a wisp of smoke, an empty shirt.
posted by fleacircus at 2:07 PM on December 19, 2021 [16 favorites]

Fry definitely has his own blind spots and biases.
He adresses this in the talk.

Sometimes you need allies. If I were to sit down and talk with Jordan Peterson, he and his fans would dismiss me as a radical feminist from a socialist country. The funny thing about this conversation is that (obviously) Stephen Fry is better at everything Peterson wants to be on high heals and backwards. And refutes every single concept Peterson propagates in a very kind and friendly manner. I should have noted this in the OP, sorry.
posted by mumimor at 2:08 PM on December 19, 2021 [8 favorites]

can we link to a mirror of this so he doesn't get clicks?
posted by lalochezia at 2:27 PM on December 19, 2021

I'm sure Stephen Fry would be a lovely person to have at a dinner party

He's a big fat transphobe too, so uh, no, no he wouldn't.
posted by Dysk at 3:14 PM on December 19, 2021 [7 favorites]

In a new episode of the Jordan P Peterson podcast [this same one], host Peterson asked Fry about getting “tangled up” in the controversy and about his feelings towards Rowling.
Fry responded: “Yes, she’s a friend and will remain a friend. But I’m also sorry that people are upset.”

This seems neither kind nor friendly. He may be an ally, but of who?
posted by CrystalDave at 3:20 PM on December 19, 2021 [4 favorites]

This is a weird post - I can see posting it on reddit or something, but is this really a place that needs some sort of soft-pedaled pushback against Jordan Peterson? Don't we already know he's bad, and not need Stephen Fry to gently walk us through why?
posted by sagc at 3:30 PM on December 19, 2021 [2 favorites]