"Here is Professor Peterson explaining his reasons for this"
It's a bunch of disjointed logical fallacies. I think he's trying to make the standard post-modernist argument: "Research will inevitably reflect the power structures in which the researchers live. Their results will inevitably be exploited by people to assert power unjustly over one another. So let's throw up our hands and not study it. Let's focus on the answers we're comfortable with that don't lead to exploitation rather than seeking the illusory goal of the truth."

I categorically disagree. Racism is an important problem worthy of inquiry. Humankind is actually doing pretty well, 500 years agricultural people developed navigation and came into contact with hunter-gatherers. How we came this far and why we haven't come farther deserve study.

A lot of leftists went extra batty when they read that part.

CG, I'm not hearing where he said that to acknowledge racism is racist. He clearly, to my ears, says that to ascribe racism to a race itself is by the given definition racist, not that acknowledging it is.

Curiously, a portion of the left recently tried, unwittingly, to rebrand capitalism. They called it "the sharing economy". The example that made up this "sharing economy" were: Uber, Lyft, AirBnB, and similar. They then objected to putting them under the same restrictions "the big players" had. What is telling, and the point I made to (some of) them, is that what a) there is no "sharing" when you exchange money, and b) they were actually promoting capitalism.

Most had a metaphorical aneurysm. Some, however, learned what capitalism isn't.

"Progressivism (not sure if it was used before, correctly) to describe an ideology guaranteed to provide stagnation, not progress."

It was indeed used thusly - by the people doing it! The National Socialists in Germany, the Fascists in Italy, and the Communists in Russia all self-referred as "progressive". Indeed, I was at a Jordan Peterson lecture last night and spoke with another attendee who had come from a leftist/progressive family (one of many). He said the moment of "chilling terror" that shattered his bubble was when he was reading what they had written and observed they referred to themselves and their actions as "progressive".

Personally, I find this to be line with my hunch that these people have literally wired their brain to not conceive of their own actions as even potentially dangerous and that the only path out for them is to become cognizant of it. But confirmation bias can be a real pain.

Communisim, and its close companions of socialism, facism, etc., will always have an appeal to those who are incapable of rational or critical thinking. And, do not want to make decisions for themselves, i.e. take responsibility for themselves in life's many twists and turns.
Its much simpler to just follow the crowd and allow the emotions of the crowd to control what one does.
We see this in the Antifa movement and others which seem to pop up from time to time. All founded on the same philosophy, let the state do everything and accept no responsibility for the outcomes, personally.
A cop out for mindless lemming behavior.
As an old guy, it makes me wonder where it will end up. Almost makes me glad I'm old and probably not much time left on the planet. Almost.

It sounds like we all pretty much slept thru teen years and we’re not prepared for life. I look back on that time as a waste of time. I learned engineering and science stuff, but missed out on learning to be street smart and realizing why objectivist principles work so well.

If I had a kid now, I would have the discussions I never got from my parents, and I think it would have to occur at least all through high school or even before. I don’t see that happening today much, so I think this country is headed full steam to socialism

We need to do our own "rebranding", starting with Capitalism.

https://strategiesforliberty.wordpres...

Commercial advertisers sell products and services using words that generate a positive consumer response. This is also a sensible strategy to use when discussing our freedom-oriented values with people we seek to persuade. If more than one word or phrase captures the essence of an idea, we should choose the word or phrase most likely to be accepted by our audience.

For example, defenders of economic liberty often use the terms “capitalism” and “free market” interchangeably. Strictly speaking, the two concepts are nearly identical in meaning. But to the general public, the word “capitalism” evokes a multitude of negative associations that do not arise when the term “free market” is used.

For many people, “capitalism” conjures up images of politically connected financial institutions receiving government favors; multinational corporations “outsourcing” American jobs to cheaper and less regulated labor markets abroad; giant retailers crushing helpless smaller competitors; exploitation of conscientious workers by uncaring employers; and awarding of multi-billion-dollar bonuses to rich Wall Street executives.

Although most of these undesirable events result from massive government interference in the economy, the public at large perceives them to be failures of capitalism. This is due to the pervasive influence of the media and the public education system, both of which are overwhelmingly friendly to “activist” government and hostile to business.

However, propagandists for big government find it harder to demonize the phrase “free market.” Both words in this phrase resonate positively with the public, and “free market” is familiar to many people as shorthand for a system of voluntary exchange. While “capitalism” can readily be personified and caricatured (“evil capitalist”, “plutocrat”, “exploiter”, “monopolist”), the term “free market” does not lend itself to such verbal distortion – we never hear leftists castigating “evil free marketers”.

When we promote our ethical and political principles, we are engaging the emotions of our audience as well as their reasoning faculties. We can more easily appeal to their emotions if we strive to use words and phrases that evoke the most positive images and associations in their minds. Promoting the “free market,” rather than defending “capitalism,” is more likely to achieve this goal.

I second the motion. Go, Trump!

Plus laws and promises.

Not to mention the exotic Dominique . I discovered her and fountainhead in 2016 . When Roark told the
School that he will design buildings in his "Modern style" and that they can go to hell. I was hooked and jumping off the cliff into the cool water with him.
As far as politics I never had a good candidate to vote for. It was always ...are you f...ing kidding me these are the best we can drum up.
UNtill the candidacy of Donald J. Trump .
He is not perfect but he is tremendous. He has talked straight and with ruthless intense non stop opposition and lies from the never Trumpers he has accomplished great steps toward recovery for this constitutional Republic. Thank you President Donald J. Trump build the wall and "deport the animals" end the corruption and drain the swamp.
Is that a lot to ask?

Philosophical discussions? Are you kidding? You voted for Democrats because they were for the working guy. End of discussion. I knew that certain things just sounded right and was unaware of any philosophy that they were based on. It was if I slept through my teen years. Except for girls.

Great story. I don’t remember any philosophical or political discussions at all when I was a kid. Looking back on it, my parents just got it done and I suppose I picked that up. When I read AS in college, it just felt right. The philosophical understanding then came later

I was raised in a home where you were raised a Democrat. So was everyone else.Only the rich were Republicans. My folks were libs, my neighbors and everyone else were also.. I was in our main library in Detroit (A magnificent place back then and childhood hideout) when I picked up a copy of The Fountainhead. Damn! The woman with the exotic name could write great. .I was hooked forever, especially after seeing the movie..That was (would you believe it?) 70 years ago. I managed to find 2 soft cover versions and tore out Roarks speech and taped to my bedroom wall so I could see it every day when I got up, so I wouldn't feel like an alien. Then my Mom saw it, and after I promised that my bedroom would r remain immaculate, she let me keep it up until we moved.Since I couldn't imagine Howard Roark with a messy bedroom, I kept my word.

Lotsa broken crockery, I understand.

Does this sound like a plea to the Gods for hope and change?
"When human hearts break and human hearts despair, then from the twilight of the past the great conquerors of distress and care, of disgrace and misery, of spiritual slavery and physical compulsion, look down on them and hold out their eternal hands to the despairing mortals."
-Nope, not a quote by king Obama

It's somewhat ironic how many of the things we, as Americans, consider immoral, dishonest, or downright evil, had their origin in our own country. George Creel, head of President Wilson's Committee on Public Information, perfected the art of disinformation so well that his was the model adopted by both the Soviet Union and the Nazis.

Going back to the Civil War, the Prussian observers attached to General Sherman learned how to subjugate a civilian population when Sherman had ten civilians killed for every Union soldier killed by rebel partisans. These things come back to bite us.

Thanks. I like to point people to Eric Hoffer's book, "The True Believer, a study of Mass Movements." A self-educated dock worker, his analysis of fascism and communism was the first to make the point that they were actually cousins in totalitarianism, rather than "left" and "right." His statement that every mass movement begins when the leader utters the phrase "hope and change" gave me a chill when I remembered it while listening to Obama say those words.

Your first paragraph is one of the best plain talk analysis of commies vs normal folk I have read.
The rest of your post is good also. I just really like the first part best

The majority of people there just can’t understand it. After all, they didn’t vote to be poor. (Or did they?)

I think the appeal of collectivism is emotional and if one. Lives emotionally, no argument can succeed in changing them. Even in Venezuela where socialism has people eating from trash cans, the people still grasp into it. Doesn’t bode well for humanity actually

TRUE. Socialism is based on emotions, objectivism is based on reason. If a person learns when young to base his life in emotion, he isn’t going to be interested in reason I am not sure when this learning takes place, but i would guess when we are very young, and once the die is cast, it’s very difficult to modify

I would have loved to be a fly on the wall in hillary’s Camp on the night she lost the election- to see karma finally rear its sword in her. She is an evil bit$& and finally I bet it came out that night for anyone to see who was there

The two biggest and most successful grifters are the Clintons. They have managed to accumulate many millions of unearned dollars through ways so blatantly obvious that it's pretty laughable.