I still can't really understand how Andrew Tate has become so popular – what he advocates is such incredibly extreme misogyny. Lots of young boys and men I know do genuinely seem to view him as a...
I still can't really understand how Andrew Tate has become so popular – what he advocates is such incredibly extreme misogyny. Lots of young boys and men I know do genuinely seem to view him as a role model, but I can't tell if they just like some of the things (his having money) and view it as a good way to attract attention (as many 10!![1] year old boys seem to think) or they also fully believe in his misogynistic worldview.
It's kind of disappointing to me how when dominant groups advocate violence (e.g. Andrew Tate) or otherwise repungent views people in the media indulge them by claiming that it's a logical response to the supposed hardships that they face. Yet when it comes to e.g. women supposedly being more picky in romantic relationships than men the media seems to suggest that this is a failing on their part, rather than them responding to the hardships that they face.
[1]: Exclamation marks because that is such a young age!
The world is scary and constantly changing. We look to society to teach us how we should interact with it. The Western world used to say that the man was a king, if of nothing else, his household....
Lots of young boys and men I know do genuinely seem to view him as a role model, but I can't tell if they just like some of the things (his having money) or they also fully believe in his misogynistic worldview.
The world is scary and constantly changing. We look to society to teach us how we should interact with it. The Western world used to say that the man was a king, if of nothing else, his household. The woman was always the moral fiber but the man was king. That changed with the proliferation of the 'bumbling man' shows. Yeah, the man was king but with a wink and a nod to the audience. Suddenly, even the honorary title of King was questioned. Chris Rock's Big piece of chicken no longer a given. What is a man™ to do if not given his respect?
Why, obviously, the culprit is Big Woman™ and it needs to be put into place! How else do I deal with the general decline in my quality of life due to inflation and wage stagnation? If there's a moral failing in my culture, and women are tasked with the moral education of the household, then clearly women have failed everywhere and need to be put into place.
Please note, my sample size in this example is small and satirized but a greater than zero number of people I've spoken with at length about this topic have come to this conclusion. Do all Tate's fans believe this? I doubt it as this conclusion is more closely linked to Christianity than plain misogyny but it's a viewpoint.
I don't doubt this is the correct read for some of his fans, but I think for the large percentage of his fans that are young (say, under 18), this requires a lot of cultural context that they...
I don't doubt this is the correct read for some of his fans, but I think for the large percentage of his fans that are young (say, under 18), this requires a lot of cultural context that they simply do not have. I think his popularity boils down to the fact that he has things that are deemed desirable by society (money, cars, women, etc), so to the uninformed or impressionable mind it stands to reason his other qualities are desirable too. It's no different than people copying the "cool kid" in class to try and fit in. These are not all kids with well formed ideas on morality and ethics and I genuinely believe a lot of them fall into this before they're even aware that the things he's promoting are wrong. It's amplified by the fact that authority figures, like parents or siblings or teachers, probably tell these kids that he's a pile of trash, if they're aware of him at all (many are probably totally unaware of the content being consumed by these young kids), so liking him also takes on an anti-authority flair.
It's really a perfect storm for the developing adolescent mind.
And here in lies the rub. The equating of women with objects to be acquired. This is not a criticism of your phrasing. I think you nailed it on the head that this is exactly what is going on. But...
things that are deemed desirable by society (money, cars, women, etc),
And here in lies the rub. The equating of women with objects to be acquired. This is not a criticism of your phrasing. I think you nailed it on the head that this is exactly what is going on. But that framing is the underlying problem.
Social media websites are really bad for children. We should not be allowing them to access it. But it seems like that is a pipe that has burst long ago and forbidding them from using them is...
Social media websites are really bad for children. We should not be allowing them to access it. But it seems like that is a pipe that has burst long ago and forbidding them from using them is probably a social death sentence these days.
I kinda agree. Social media designed for adults, accessed unsupervised, is almost certainly bad for children. My only firsthand experience with this is my brother in law, who is significantly...
I kinda agree. Social media designed for adults, accessed unsupervised, is almost certainly bad for children. My only firsthand experience with this is my brother in law, who is significantly younger than my wife and I. Multiple times my wife has had to step in and tell her parents that her brother shouldn’t be accessing some of the content he did (Andrew Tate was one such example) because it was highly inappropriate. But it’s tough when other kids in his class are sharing such videos in their group chats — you can’t step in for everyone. Part of the issue is definitely that current parents don’t always have the digital media literacy required to be aware of these things. If your most up to date form of social media is Facebook, and that you basically only use to keep op to date with family and old classmates, I almost can’t blame them.
Social media can be good for kids. It can connect them with others like them who they may not have access to in real life, same as adults. If you feel like you can’t fit in as a kid it can be empowering to connect to others who feel the same. I imagine a lot of people here had similar experiences online growing up, except we did so via forums and IRC channels, and the fragmented nature of these things I think did a lot to really stem the spread of super problematic content. But those things just don’t really exist anymore in that form. So what are kids to do?
I would agree with you that socializing on the internet can be very good for children. There was a point in my teens where I probably would have killed myself if I didn't have access to support I...
I would agree with you that socializing on the internet can be very good for children. There was a point in my teens where I probably would have killed myself if I didn't have access to support I was able to find online. But I would categorize that kind of thing seperately from what I would call "social media", by which I mean massive corporate-owned apps and websites with 100K+ users.
I think that this is one of those things where age - or maturity, to be more accurate - is an important factor. There were always a lot of pitfalls with online social groups back in the day, but I think the reason why I didn't end up falling into a bad crowd, so to speak, is that I didn't really find them interesting until I was relatively mature, and I had enough understanding to do basic vetting of the communities out there. That's especially true today as good quality communities seem to be more rare, or at least harder to find.
Anecdotally, most of my son's friends (10) don't have social media. There are a couple in our extended friend group that have tik tok but it seems like most of the families that we know aren't...
Anecdotally, most of my son's friends (10) don't have social media. There are a couple in our extended friend group that have tik tok but it seems like most of the families that we know aren't giving their kids free access to phones and/or social media. So maybe parents are starting to realize how harmful these things can be. Or maybe we're just in an unusual bubble.
I think this is spot on. The Behind the Bastards episodes on him talk about how if nothing else, he presents a view of what it means to be a modern man within a space lacking coherent positive and...
I think this is spot on. The Behind the Bastards episodes on him talk about how if nothing else, he presents a view of what it means to be a modern man within a space lacking coherent positive and actionable definitions. His definition is ethically awful and will lead to unnecessarily worse lives for many boys, men and those of all genders that they interact with, but it's coherent, clear and actionable.
This is why, as a woman, if I encounter a Tate or Peterson fan praising their work in a book discussion online, I suggest alternatives that are at least neutral content when it comes to women....
This is why, as a woman, if I encounter a Tate or Peterson fan praising their work in a book discussion online, I suggest alternatives that are at least neutral content when it comes to women.
Admiral McRaven Make Your Bed, offers comparable life advice without being hateful. Man's Search for Meaning, Breakfast with Seneca (an intro to stoicism), the Millionaire Next Door, Cal Newport Deep Work, and other books in that self help space that I think are not harmful are books I will suggest without criticizing OPs current choices.
edit: Since the other person says Do all Tate's fans believe this? I doubt it as this conclusion is more closely linked to Christianity than plain misogyny but it's a viewpoint., I'd like to add...
edit: Since the other person says Do all Tate's fans believe this? I doubt it as this conclusion is more closely linked to Christianity than plain misogyny but it's a viewpoint., I'd like to add that this is not the US and it's likely that all of the kids we talked about and their families are atheists.
Lots of young boys and men I know do genuinely seem to view him as a role model, but I can't tell if they just like some of the things (his having money) and view it as a good way to attract attention (as many 10!![1] year old boys seem to think) or they also fully believe in his misogynistic worldview.
Sometime last year I talked to a very smart and measured middle school teacher about this and we came to the conclusion that it seems to be two things:
He's selling the idea that you can get rich and famous quickly and without working your ass off in a very unglamorous job. This is one of the reason why young people admire celebrities, it seems like they're getting money just by being themselves and being famous, and Tate is basically a "celebrity" who puts even more emphasis on getting rich, showing off and overall acting irresponsibly with the money.
He's basically the antichrist of current progressive ideology. There's a lot of distrust and pushback towards progressives, identity politics, "wokeness", whatever you choose to call it, through some groups in society in general, and young boys seem to be one of those groups. This may even come from their families, but it also just spreads over social media even among the very young, and resonates with a lot of people. In general young boys aren't exactly known for being activists fighting for more empathy and understanding - that just sounds pretty lame to them, even if they don't behave like assholes. Plus there are numerous real issues with western progressivism that can be used to give any criticism legitimacy. A "successful" and "charismatic" person who says "no, fuck you, we're not doing that" is automatically going to be popular with a lot of young boys.
Surprisingly, she was of the opinion that the second reason is more important than the first.
If only they at least worshipped Jordan Peterson instead, as funny as that sounds.
As a Canadian who is more familiar with Peterson than I would like, and has followed his shenanigans over the years, please God, no. Tate is absolutely awful but so is Jordan Peterson. He's an...
If only they at least worshipped Jordan Peterson instead
As a Canadian who is more familiar with Peterson than I would like, and has followed his shenanigans over the years, please God, no. Tate is absolutely awful but so is Jordan Peterson. He's an equally misogynistic, "anti-woke" piece of shit, also an antivaxxer to boot, and consistently lied his ass off about Bill C-16 in order to push his anti-LGBT+ rights agenda. But unlike Tate he also has a veneer of legitimacy due to his former position at UofT, which he milks for all it's worth to lend credibility to his horrible, dangerous, and idiotic beliefs, especially about the dangers of what he calls "postmodern neomarxism" (neither of which he actually understands the meaning of), by which he really means progressivism and feminism.
I haven't heard about him for years apart from the fact that he supposedly became a lot more crazy after the benzo breakdown, but before that it seemed like a lot of what he was writing about was...
I haven't heard about him for years apart from the fact that he supposedly became a lot more crazy after the benzo breakdown, but before that it seemed like a lot of what he was writing about was basically take responsibility for yourself, create order in your life etc. I'm aware that what he was talking about in interviews and other bits shared on social media was often different ("anti-woke"). If he became just another lunatic, that's a shame, because it seems obvious that there's a demand for conservative male role models and most are much worse than what he used to be.
But I also think, despite being more liberal than conservative myself, that a lot of criticism of progressivism and feminism is legitimate and called for, so that on it's own is not a negative. What I disliked was more that he seemed to care about winning the debate, but not about actually understanding the opposite party.
As cfabbro pointed out, his rise to prominence was based on a misrepresentation of C-16. In 2018 he was putting out things like this on PragerU. He's shown the same willingness to make specious...
As cfabbro pointed out, his rise to prominence was based on a misrepresentation of C-16. In 2018 he was putting out things like this on PragerU. He's shown the same willingness to make specious comments about global warming. His Zizek debate is another point of a complete ignorance on his main cultural bogeyman.
When he ended up getting sick on a diet of only "beef, salt, and water" he flew to Russia because no doctors wanted to perform his preferred riskier treatment of being put into a coma. Then he claimed not to know benzos were addictive... as a psychologist.
That is either insane levels of incompetence or reflexive lying. All of which points to him not being someone who can offer healthy criticism. There are lots of valid critiques and refinements to be levied at progressives or feminists, but he isn't the one to do it.
You can certainly find good advice he gives, and I'm sure there's no end to the number of people who'd say he made a positive impact on them or even saved their life. This is the pattern of all gurus, though. Generic good advice and counting your wins but not your losses. All made unique and marketable (and sometimes dangerous) with some weird shit thrown in.
"Exercise more", "have goals", or "have a sense of autonomy/responsibility" is not any more rare or novel than "eat vegetables" (or, I guess, "don't eat only beef"). Many people in his audience would attribute success to him, but without looking at those who had adverse reactions (e.g., sabotaged relationships demanding traditional roles for their partner) or who would succeed regardless it's no more reliable as evidence than people that claim some pseudoscience du jour cured them.
When you get into specific things like using willpower/order to fix your life may just be bad advice, and advice he himself is shown not to follow. If he gets people to (first) seek out Jungian therapy instead of a "gold standard" modality like CBT then he's at least not encouraging an evidence-based approach to therapy.
I assure you, much like his criticism of C-16, his criticism of progressivism and feminism was not being made in good faith, hence his obfuscating it using the totally nonsensical "postmodern...
I assure you, much like his criticism of C-16, his criticism of progressivism and feminism was not being made in good faith, hence his obfuscating it using the totally nonsensical "postmodern neomarxism" terminology.
If you actually want to dive into it some more, see ContraPoints' Jordan Peterson video, which you can probably skip to 15m 32s into if don't need all the background, and just want to get right into the meat of it.
Do you think Peterson still has an air of legitimacy? I only had one friend that fell for him, but he came around years ago. My impression now is that only the most extraordinary idiots still...
Do you think Peterson still has an air of legitimacy?
I only had one friend that fell for him, but he came around years ago. My impression now is that only the most extraordinary idiots still follow him.
No, and TBH I never did since my first introduction to him was witnessing his blatant lies and fearmongering about C-16 all those years ago. And IMO he's gone so far over the deep end the last few...
No, and TBH I never did since my first introduction to him was witnessing his blatant lies and fearmongering about C-16 all those years ago. And IMO he's gone so far over the deep end the last few years that I honestly don't understand how anyone still sees him as having any shred of legitimacy left. But the unfortunate fact is that plenty of people do still see him as being credible. See: /r/JordanPeterson for examples
Yeah, he just always seemed like such a terrible communicator. I get your point above about the veneer of legitimacy, but I just found myself horrified that he couldn't stay on point long enough...
Yeah, he just always seemed like such a terrible communicator. I get your point above about the veneer of legitimacy, but I just found myself horrified that he couldn't stay on point long enough to make it coherently. Maybe he had a good enough editor for the books to make sense, but he came across terribly in the few interviews and lectures I saw back when he was a thing.
I just don't think he has an air of legitimacy at this point. Though admittedly I also don't really know if he's any better than Tate these days.
Yeah, I personally wasn't impressed by his communications skills either... other than his ability to appear to win debates by remaining calm in the face of frustrated opponents, relying on...
Yeah, I personally wasn't impressed by his communications skills either... other than his ability to appear to win debates by remaining calm in the face of frustrated opponents, relying on Brandolini's law, using straw men, deflection, and important sounding (but nonsensical) terms like "postmodern neomarxism" (AKA argument by gibberish).
Every time I've heard him talk, be it on a podcast, interview, lecture, or formal debate stage, I kept thinking of the "Everyone in this room is now dumber" bit from Billy Madison. It's crazy how uncannily accurate that scene is when applied to Peterson's meaningless jargon filled ramblings. :P
I guess to some he appeared to win debates. He certainly was good at staying calm and frustrating whomever he was speaking with. But he was also incessantly frustrating to listen to! He was very...
I guess to some he appeared to win debates. He certainly was good at staying calm and frustrating whomever he was speaking with.
But he was also incessantly frustrating to listen to! He was very good at sounding smart, but only to people who were very inexperienced at following arguments. Otherwise he was obviously and always a blithering idiot.
Hah, preaching to the choir there, my friend. I only put myself through the torture of listening to him because I knew how influential and popular he was on reddit, where I would often encounter...
he was also incessantly frustrating to listen to
Hah, preaching to the choir there, my friend. I only put myself through the torture of listening to him because I knew how influential and popular he was on reddit, where I would often encounter other users beguiled by him and repeating some of his more dangerous talking points about things like "race/gender indoctrination cults" at colleges. He certainly has a gift for coming up with catchy, scary sounding terms to make people afraid, angry, and looking to him for answers... I'll also give him that. :/
Oh, I never thought I was doing anything other than ranting to a sympathetic ear. But yes, that's why I paid attention to him as well. And I went in with an open mind — there are many legitimate...
Oh, I never thought I was doing anything other than ranting to a sympathetic ear.
But yes, that's why I paid attention to him as well. And I went in with an open mind — there are many legitimate criticisms to be made of academic orthodoxy — and he was just so blatantly bad it was hard to believe anyone took him seriously. It feels so naive here in 2024, but it was genuinely shocking at the time.
I wouldn't say it's the definitive answer, but I feel like Sh0eonHeads video about the (what she calls) male loneliness epidemic, sort of accurately assesses and sums up why men flock to people...
I wouldn't say it's the definitive answer, but I feel like Sh0eonHeads video about the (what she calls) male loneliness epidemic, sort of accurately assesses and sums up why men flock to people like Andrew Tate and his ilk. And it's actually almost... Reasonable.
Try to keep in mind that while you and I may not think that way, a lot (a lot) of people do feel and think that way. In fact, there's a thread in ~life.men about why men aren't writing about sex and the top comment is exactly what's being described by a person not pulled into the "manosphere".
Sh0e does tend to speak in left-right paradigms, but it's ultimately somewhat irrelevant to the topic at hand. Politics aside, there's people creating purpose for lost men and that tends to garner a lot of support nowadays.
This has to be stressed. The reason I am certain he is guilty of the things the Romanian government have accused him of, is because he said he did the things the Romanian government accused him...
Everything this young woman told Marguerite was backed up, in general terms, by things Tate has said himself.
This has to be stressed. The reason I am certain he is guilty of the things the Romanian government have accused him of, is because he said he did the things the Romanian government accused him of, at least until he was caught.
I do wonder whether this documentary will have even more concrete records of what he said historically.
I still can't really understand how Andrew Tate has become so popular – what he advocates is such incredibly extreme misogyny. Lots of young boys and men I know do genuinely seem to view him as a role model, but I can't tell if they just like some of the things (his having money) and view it as a good way to attract attention (as many 10!![1] year old boys seem to think) or they also fully believe in his misogynistic worldview.
It's kind of disappointing to me how when dominant groups advocate violence (e.g. Andrew Tate) or otherwise repungent views people in the media indulge them by claiming that it's a logical response to the supposed hardships that they face. Yet when it comes to e.g. women supposedly being more picky in romantic relationships than men the media seems to suggest that this is a failing on their part, rather than them responding to the hardships that they face.
[1]: Exclamation marks because that is such a young age!
The world is scary and constantly changing. We look to society to teach us how we should interact with it. The Western world used to say that the man was a king, if of nothing else, his household. The woman was always the moral fiber but the man was king. That changed with the proliferation of the 'bumbling man' shows. Yeah, the man was king but with a wink and a nod to the audience. Suddenly, even the honorary title of King was questioned. Chris Rock's Big piece of chicken no longer a given. What is a man™ to do if not given his respect?
Why, obviously, the culprit is Big Woman™ and it needs to be put into place! How else do I deal with the general decline in my quality of life due to inflation and wage stagnation? If there's a moral failing in my culture, and women are tasked with the moral education of the household, then clearly women have failed everywhere and need to be put into place.
Please note, my sample size in this example is small and satirized but a greater than zero number of people I've spoken with at length about this topic have come to this conclusion. Do all Tate's fans believe this? I doubt it as this conclusion is more closely linked to Christianity than plain misogyny but it's a viewpoint.
I don't doubt this is the correct read for some of his fans, but I think for the large percentage of his fans that are young (say, under 18), this requires a lot of cultural context that they simply do not have. I think his popularity boils down to the fact that he has things that are deemed desirable by society (money, cars, women, etc), so to the uninformed or impressionable mind it stands to reason his other qualities are desirable too. It's no different than people copying the "cool kid" in class to try and fit in. These are not all kids with well formed ideas on morality and ethics and I genuinely believe a lot of them fall into this before they're even aware that the things he's promoting are wrong. It's amplified by the fact that authority figures, like parents or siblings or teachers, probably tell these kids that he's a pile of trash, if they're aware of him at all (many are probably totally unaware of the content being consumed by these young kids), so liking him also takes on an anti-authority flair.
It's really a perfect storm for the developing adolescent mind.
And here in lies the rub. The equating of women with objects to be acquired. This is not a criticism of your phrasing. I think you nailed it on the head that this is exactly what is going on. But that framing is the underlying problem.
Social media websites are really bad for children. We should not be allowing them to access it. But it seems like that is a pipe that has burst long ago and forbidding them from using them is probably a social death sentence these days.
I kinda agree. Social media designed for adults, accessed unsupervised, is almost certainly bad for children. My only firsthand experience with this is my brother in law, who is significantly younger than my wife and I. Multiple times my wife has had to step in and tell her parents that her brother shouldn’t be accessing some of the content he did (Andrew Tate was one such example) because it was highly inappropriate. But it’s tough when other kids in his class are sharing such videos in their group chats — you can’t step in for everyone. Part of the issue is definitely that current parents don’t always have the digital media literacy required to be aware of these things. If your most up to date form of social media is Facebook, and that you basically only use to keep op to date with family and old classmates, I almost can’t blame them.
Social media can be good for kids. It can connect them with others like them who they may not have access to in real life, same as adults. If you feel like you can’t fit in as a kid it can be empowering to connect to others who feel the same. I imagine a lot of people here had similar experiences online growing up, except we did so via forums and IRC channels, and the fragmented nature of these things I think did a lot to really stem the spread of super problematic content. But those things just don’t really exist anymore in that form. So what are kids to do?
I would agree with you that socializing on the internet can be very good for children. There was a point in my teens where I probably would have killed myself if I didn't have access to support I was able to find online. But I would categorize that kind of thing seperately from what I would call "social media", by which I mean massive corporate-owned apps and websites with 100K+ users.
I think that this is one of those things where age - or maturity, to be more accurate - is an important factor. There were always a lot of pitfalls with online social groups back in the day, but I think the reason why I didn't end up falling into a bad crowd, so to speak, is that I didn't really find them interesting until I was relatively mature, and I had enough understanding to do basic vetting of the communities out there. That's especially true today as good quality communities seem to be more rare, or at least harder to find.
Anecdotally, most of my son's friends (10) don't have social media. There are a couple in our extended friend group that have tik tok but it seems like most of the families that we know aren't giving their kids free access to phones and/or social media. So maybe parents are starting to realize how harmful these things can be. Or maybe we're just in an unusual bubble.
I think this is spot on. The Behind the Bastards episodes on him talk about how if nothing else, he presents a view of what it means to be a modern man within a space lacking coherent positive and actionable definitions. His definition is ethically awful and will lead to unnecessarily worse lives for many boys, men and those of all genders that they interact with, but it's coherent, clear and actionable.
This is why, as a woman, if I encounter a Tate or Peterson fan praising their work in a book discussion online, I suggest alternatives that are at least neutral content when it comes to women.
Admiral McRaven Make Your Bed, offers comparable life advice without being hateful. Man's Search for Meaning, Breakfast with Seneca (an intro to stoicism), the Millionaire Next Door, Cal Newport Deep Work, and other books in that self help space that I think are not harmful are books I will suggest without criticizing OPs current choices.
I don't know if it works, but I gotta say this seems like a really good idea.
edit: Since the other person says Do all Tate's fans believe this? I doubt it as this conclusion is more closely linked to Christianity than plain misogyny but it's a viewpoint., I'd like to add that this is not the US and it's likely that all of the kids we talked about and their families are atheists.
Sometime last year I talked to a very smart and measured middle school teacher about this and we came to the conclusion that it seems to be two things:
Surprisingly, she was of the opinion that the second reason is more important than the first.
If only they at least worshipped Jordan Peterson instead, as funny as that sounds.
As a Canadian who is more familiar with Peterson than I would like, and has followed his shenanigans over the years, please God, no. Tate is absolutely awful but so is Jordan Peterson. He's an equally misogynistic, "anti-woke" piece of shit, also an antivaxxer to boot, and consistently lied his ass off about Bill C-16 in order to push his anti-LGBT+ rights agenda. But unlike Tate he also has a veneer of legitimacy due to his former position at UofT, which he milks for all it's worth to lend credibility to his horrible, dangerous, and idiotic beliefs, especially about the dangers of what he calls "postmodern neomarxism" (neither of which he actually understands the meaning of), by which he really means progressivism and feminism.
I haven't heard about him for years apart from the fact that he supposedly became a lot more crazy after the benzo breakdown, but before that it seemed like a lot of what he was writing about was basically take responsibility for yourself, create order in your life etc. I'm aware that what he was talking about in interviews and other bits shared on social media was often different ("anti-woke"). If he became just another lunatic, that's a shame, because it seems obvious that there's a demand for conservative male role models and most are much worse than what he used to be.
But I also think, despite being more liberal than conservative myself, that a lot of criticism of progressivism and feminism is legitimate and called for, so that on it's own is not a negative. What I disliked was more that he seemed to care about winning the debate, but not about actually understanding the opposite party.
As cfabbro pointed out, his rise to prominence was based on a misrepresentation of C-16. In 2018 he was putting out things like this on PragerU. He's shown the same willingness to make specious comments about global warming. His Zizek debate is another point of a complete ignorance on his main cultural bogeyman.
When he ended up getting sick on a diet of only "beef, salt, and water" he flew to Russia because no doctors wanted to perform his preferred riskier treatment of being put into a coma. Then he claimed not to know benzos were addictive... as a psychologist.
That is either insane levels of incompetence or reflexive lying. All of which points to him not being someone who can offer healthy criticism. There are lots of valid critiques and refinements to be levied at progressives or feminists, but he isn't the one to do it.
You can certainly find good advice he gives, and I'm sure there's no end to the number of people who'd say he made a positive impact on them or even saved their life. This is the pattern of all gurus, though. Generic good advice and counting your wins but not your losses. All made unique and marketable (and sometimes dangerous) with some weird shit thrown in.
"Exercise more", "have goals", or "have a sense of autonomy/responsibility" is not any more rare or novel than "eat vegetables" (or, I guess, "don't eat only beef"). Many people in his audience would attribute success to him, but without looking at those who had adverse reactions (e.g., sabotaged relationships demanding traditional roles for their partner) or who would succeed regardless it's no more reliable as evidence than people that claim some pseudoscience du jour cured them.
When you get into specific things like using willpower/order to fix your life may just be bad advice, and advice he himself is shown not to follow. If he gets people to (first) seek out Jungian therapy instead of a "gold standard" modality like CBT then he's at least not encouraging an evidence-based approach to therapy.
I assure you, much like his criticism of C-16, his criticism of progressivism and feminism was not being made in good faith, hence his obfuscating it using the totally nonsensical "postmodern neomarxism" terminology.
If you actually want to dive into it some more, see ContraPoints' Jordan Peterson video, which you can probably skip to 15m 32s into if don't need all the background, and just want to get right into the meat of it.
Do you think Peterson still has an air of legitimacy?
I only had one friend that fell for him, but he came around years ago. My impression now is that only the most extraordinary idiots still follow him.
No, and TBH I never did since my first introduction to him was witnessing his blatant lies and fearmongering about C-16 all those years ago. And IMO he's gone so far over the deep end the last few years that I honestly don't understand how anyone still sees him as having any shred of legitimacy left. But the unfortunate fact is that plenty of people do still see him as being credible. See: /r/JordanPeterson for examples
Yeah, he just always seemed like such a terrible communicator. I get your point above about the veneer of legitimacy, but I just found myself horrified that he couldn't stay on point long enough to make it coherently. Maybe he had a good enough editor for the books to make sense, but he came across terribly in the few interviews and lectures I saw back when he was a thing.
I just don't think he has an air of legitimacy at this point. Though admittedly I also don't really know if he's any better than Tate these days.
Yeah, I personally wasn't impressed by his communications skills either... other than his ability to appear to win debates by remaining calm in the face of frustrated opponents, relying on Brandolini's law, using straw men, deflection, and important sounding (but nonsensical) terms like "postmodern neomarxism" (AKA argument by gibberish).
Every time I've heard him talk, be it on a podcast, interview, lecture, or formal debate stage, I kept thinking of the "Everyone in this room is now dumber" bit from Billy Madison. It's crazy how uncannily accurate that scene is when applied to Peterson's meaningless jargon filled ramblings. :P
I guess to some he appeared to win debates. He certainly was good at staying calm and frustrating whomever he was speaking with.
But he was also incessantly frustrating to listen to! He was very good at sounding smart, but only to people who were very inexperienced at following arguments. Otherwise he was obviously and always a blithering idiot.
Hah, preaching to the choir there, my friend. I only put myself through the torture of listening to him because I knew how influential and popular he was on reddit, where I would often encounter other users beguiled by him and repeating some of his more dangerous talking points about things like "race/gender indoctrination cults" at colleges. He certainly has a gift for coming up with catchy, scary sounding terms to make people afraid, angry, and looking to him for answers... I'll also give him that. :/
Oh, I never thought I was doing anything other than ranting to a sympathetic ear.
But yes, that's why I paid attention to him as well. And I went in with an open mind — there are many legitimate criticisms to be made of academic orthodoxy — and he was just so blatantly bad it was hard to believe anyone took him seriously. It feels so naive here in 2024, but it was genuinely shocking at the time.
I wouldn't say it's the definitive answer, but I feel like Sh0eonHeads video about the (what she calls) male loneliness epidemic, sort of accurately assesses and sums up why men flock to people like Andrew Tate and his ilk. And it's actually almost... Reasonable.
Here's the link.
Try to keep in mind that while you and I may not think that way, a lot (a lot) of people do feel and think that way. In fact, there's a thread in ~life.men about why men aren't writing about sex and the top comment is exactly what's being described by a person not pulled into the "manosphere".
Sh0e does tend to speak in left-right paradigms, but it's ultimately somewhat irrelevant to the topic at hand. Politics aside, there's people creating purpose for lost men and that tends to garner a lot of support nowadays.
This has to be stressed. The reason I am certain he is guilty of the things the Romanian government have accused him of, is because he said he did the things the Romanian government accused him of, at least until he was caught.
I do wonder whether this documentary will have even more concrete records of what he said historically.