UnHerd

 This blog entry is my analysis of a 48 minute video by journalist Douglas Murray with Jordan Peterson; it was conducted i  2018. The title of the interview is where Right and Left to go wrong in politics.

Peterson opined that since World War II the Right has been boxed in rather successfully and fascist claims of racial and ethnic superiority are now discredited. (From me--that view seems right.)

Jordan notes that people naturally form, work and live in hierarchies, and that it is not only inevitable, but it is desirable for the smartest and most conscientious rise to the top of every hierarchy, and that is good for them and for society. The less talented and less successful people will just have to suck it up and endure it. (I suggest that if all maverize, the hierarchies become less relevant, and even 2nd rate minds and talents are so creative and smart and successful, that it does not matter who is above or below each person on the hierarchy.)

Jordan teaches that hierarchies go wrong when they become corrupt and incompetent, and those then running them are not the best and the brightest, but are the most cunning, thuggish or brutal, and then the Left is right in challenging the corrupted hierarchy. The Right should be challenged if it runs, supports or tolerates a corrupt hierarchy. Fair enough.

Jordan dismisses collectivists on the Right or on the Left for their identity politics and tribalism, and a return to tribal warring and unrest, offering instead that the individual is sovereign in the West and should be.

Murray worries that the nonexistent but nascent Alt-Right could gain steam if their interest in IQ as related to ethnic group superiority. 

Jordan describes the Left as suggesting we all segregate ourselves into our identity groups as victims and oppressors, and the oppressors should then feel guilty, repent and step aside, but Jordan worries that they will turn fascist and pure ethnic or racial groups and play identity politics to win.

Jordan's worry and my fear are that the Left radicalizing all into rival identity groups will lead to the rise of the actual existing Alt-Right and the rise of fascism. One extreme breeds the other, and in America with its tolerant, non-racism emphasis on individualism, we were  moving away from these more primitive modes of existing.

Murray asked again about Alt-Right bringing up IQ, and Jordan said the research shows that IQ is reliable and does predict different IQ levels and outcomes for different races. Ashkenazi Jews and Asians score highest on IQ tests. Jordan assert that IQ predicts long term life outcomes.

Jordan and Murray agree that instrincic human worth is universal, and having a higher IQ may make smarter people more successful in the world but there worldly success and material superiority is not the same as moral worth.

Jordan notes that the Left rejects IQ research, leading to an even bigger mess, denouncing IQ and the whole system as rigged.

Jordan blames Harvard for rejecting IQ-like SAT tests in favor of subjective personality standards, which is corrupt reverse discrimination to warrant not allowing too many Asian get admitted to make room for blacks and other minority students. Jordan did assert that objective personality tests gauging things like conscientiousness may be used to counteract too many Asians promoted just based on IQ scores.

Jordan skewers Harvard as keeping back the talented students, by their politicizing and corrupting the admissions process. The fallout is bright students turning cynical, and society loses because the best are not allowed to go to the top of the hierarchy so give the benefit of their brilliant work back to society that gains from their genius.

Murray brings up that if a conservative becomes a bit more conservative, he is immediately smeared as having converted right into an Alt-Rightist, a pure fascist. This is a lie.

 Jordan agreed: the Leftists can make may transformations, becoming more radical without having been labeled as Communist.

Why Fascist so discredited but not Communists? Fascists just recognized as apriori selfish, cruel, exclusionary, exclusive and tribal.

 Communists talk nobler: universal just, equality of outcome, utopia for all, inclusionary, well-intentioned, for the brotherhood of all men, all humans. Seems kinder, but both fanaticism and collectivists turn into pathological ideologies, and suffering and murder of tens of millions of people on both side does result.

Peterson believes we now can detect that Leftism has turned evil and rotten with obsessive concentration of certain buzzwords highly indicative that this identity politics and political correctness has deteriorated into the rotten and rotting ideology of Communism. Jordan identified these buzzwords as: diversity, inclusivity, equity, white privilege, systemic racism and exaggerated claims of an oppressive patriarchy.

Leftists striving to bring totalitarianism and socialism to America are guilty of what they accuse honest and honorable Americans of, that land of individual rights, liberty, prosperity, freedom of worship and freedom of choice.

Jordan concludes by admitting that any hierarchy dispossesses some and and be brutal, even if a competent  hierarchy. He says it differently from Winston Churchill, but it amount to the same difference, Winston quipped that democracy was the worst form of government except for all others.