Jordan Peterson | Post-Modernism vs. Modernism at the Toronto Action Forum 

Wohoo.. it's impossible to get enough of this man

We need voices like this in sweden

'Multiculturalism in Canada is any culture but Judeo-Christian' - wow, sad but so true.

Jordan Peterson is a true intellectual. He might not always be right, but he´s genuinely trying to be as truthful as possible. He´s not, as far as I can tell, purposefully ignoring nuance. Some other professors should take note.

A great thinker, a wonderful and courageous man....we need more of Dr. Peterson.

if we had 10,000 Jordan Peterson's in every country we may stand a chance.

I stand with you Dr Peterson, keep speaking the truth!!!!

both left and the right should pause and listen to this man.

Jordan Peterson is a bliss to the world. And his thoughts are such an enrichment to my life. Amazing thinker.

I shook his hand! Never washing it again!

That first round of applause made me so happy, because here we have Jordan Peterson diving deep into the potential horrors of the seductive neo-Marxist threads in postmodernism, and you just hope that more people could understand it and see how it is so dangerous. Thank Goodness.

Attacking the cancer directly.

Listen. This is a true wise man speaking. So listen.

'Postmodernism is nested within Marxism' Wow. Somebody finally said it 👏🙏

Damn, Jordan was on a roll in this talk.

Mr. Peterson, have nothing but respect for you, but please, please, please, please! With sugar on top. Tell me more about Modernism vs. Post-Modernism!

How'd I miss this talk!? In the top 5 best public forum group talks i've seen from Peterson. This guy never feels like hes repeating the same exact points as before, theres always an ad hoc conversational aspect. Love that he can construct his speech so well totally unscripted, just from a basic outline of stuff he plans to touch on. Extremely admirable, can't stop watching this guy even months after coming across him.

Whoever mixed the 'live' sound for this event needs to identify where the GAIN button is next time and bring it the hell down (so that the speaker's voice isn't constantly feeding back for the first ten minutes)...

Due to post modernism my life lost meaning and i was completely suicidal. This man change my life

Interesting talk! I'll finish it when I get home from college! Keep up the good fight!

“We’re all cowards”, except for one, and He got crucified!

Jordan Peterson is an admirable person, however I think too many people get lost in excessive admiration of him and miss the point. What he is saying is that you can be like him if you improve and prepare yourself. Strengthen the individual!

He just keeps speaking right into my life. Every time I try to forge forward with his lessons, I realize he has already tread the path before me.

This talk is freaking amazing.

so glad i was fortunate enough to attend this event.

This video represents a very good introduction to some of Jordan Peterson's central ideas. His ideas are very well contextualized and clearly articulated. Onwards and upwards, Prof. Peterson.

Jordan Peterson to me is a symbol of having principles ... others may hate you and call you names for trying to be yourself ... even when you present facts and evidence ... never cower to the madness of crowds

Amazing discussion. Thank you!

Awesome lecture. Thank you for posting this video!

Sound Reinforcement 101: Don't put speakers behind a microphone.

Brilliant! Thank you, Prof. Peterson.

If you're looking for (secondary) literature: Keith Windschuttle: The Killing of History Stephen Hicks: Explaining Postmodernism Christopher Butler: Postmodernism - A Short Introduction

I stand with you, ready to fight in the pursuit of truth.

Mindblown. This explains soooooooooooooo much! Cheers from Brazil.

This man is a real life hero! Fighting a great battle against evil

HOLY SHIT this video is amazing! Like even amazing for Jordan Peterson standards!

Critical thought in action. The academy finally gets a blast of oxygen.

He is a brilliant, intelligent and kind person. Thank God Jordan Peterson exist.

I feel like I've been auditing his classes with all the videos I've seen

Really educative and inspirational.

HELL YEAH!!

This was not really about modernism vs post-modernism. It was an argument examining the ethos of the post-modern.

This video needs more views

Brilliant and very deep - floreat Jordan B Peterson.

Nicely said, a voice of articulation.

living off the capital.. we've killed the golden goose but are living off the eggs..

i love how deep this man is. Elsewhere he said that the conservative/rightwing disposition was fundamentally about accepting boundaries as legitimate (to varying degrees). I completely and utterly agree. In this talk I can see where the whole INCLUSION CULT comes from. This refusal to categorize and to draw boundaries (to exclude) between this and that. This is incredibly fundamental! What is one little known source of post-modern thought ? I've seen it suggested that one way to think of Derrida's thought is as "deconstruction is securalization of cabbalistic thinking". It is the kabbalah that is fundamentally about everything being one and the denial of al boundaries. I'm not claiming that all this mystic stuff is true. I'm getting the impression that the mystic stuff has influenced more people and more works than we usually realize. Try this (in french, sorry) : "La déconstruction derridienne résulte de la sécularisation des théories de la Cabale sur le texte" www.idixa.net/Pixa/pagixa-0507050907.html

Thanks for the upload!!!

hes absolutely right

i love this man...

Words now or bullets later - I vote for words because without them conflict goes violent.

Thank you Dr. Peterson. Can you talk more about Gulag Archipelago sometime please ? I started reading it, it's sickening. I had to put it down.

I think that people fight battles that they won't necessarily win when they feel cornered. Some people just realize that they're being cornered sooner and/or spend less time in denial than others. When I publicly share my views with family and relative strangers alike who I know might try to punish me in some way, I'm viewing this as a war that needs to be fought. We (which includes me, and most people who follow Jordon Peterson) either risk the consequences today or suffer almost assured social oppression and economic collapse tomorrow.

It's being a journey. To see how educated mind tries to unpack and trace the causation links of what the hell is happening. Obviously one of the brightest minds this century has to offer. Now imagine how many are there who are just too afraid to take the risk and speak out. And how much we might be losing right now. Just because.

27:55 He was grasping the concept of 'tall poppy syndrome' well known in countries like New Zealand.

It all started as the counter-enlightenment, with the German philosopher Kant, whose name is pronounced like the female primary sexual organ.

Why is this guy so addicting to watch?

this video should have a click-baity title like RIOTING AND VIOLENCE IN THE NAME OF DEFENDING FREE SPEECH Then people will click on it and see nothing but calm rational discussion and nobody trying to kill each other or inciting violence against the opposing viewpoint.

It's strange that there are so many people who-knowing little about Marxism, postmodernism, and the history of philosophy in general-find this talk so enlightening. You believe these 40 minutes will give you a comprehensive account of these issues? Postmodernism has been called dead and irrelevant for 20 years.

Even when he seems a little off his game this man is amazing.

what was the book that peterson was talking about at the start? i couldnt quite catch its name

my objections to PC thinking has only brought me anger and pain and contempt from even my own family. . . i can't quite bring myself to back down though, i just merely have to find a way to point out how i feel that's not offensive, which i know is impossible, yet i feel there IS a middle ground , instead of scoffing at what they say, i'm going to try a different attack ;ie just ask sane questions instead. formulate the question so it casts doubt on what they say, and MAKE them explain it...i feel this is my only way out now.

26:23 Absolute truth.

Hahah hard to notice but there's very, very quiet blazin guitar music playing in the background haha!!

so basically we have to adapt to the system if we wish to enjoy the benefits of that system

"The rhetorical mode of vaporous yet plausible profundity, of 'dressing up empirical words with aura', is the polemical tool favoured by the reactionary in his battle to preserve the mystique of tradition from the logic of modern modernity". Peter N Dale. I think of this when I here Peterson trying to get the square hole of religion to fit in the round hole of scientific understanding of the universe.

It's gotten so bad with speakers being protested that to see Peterson give a talk that's well-received is surprising. Let that sink in for a second... audiences behaving themselves are now noteworthy.

Postmodernism really floundered until 1996, then it really took off. I understand he's trying to make a connection between those coffee shop intellectuals in Paris whom he considers Marxist (but he never considered whether they changed their positions which is important) to the rise of Postmodernism, but that isn't really the case. He needs to look at the influences of the early 90s, especially in the U.S.

despite my criticisms, i do want to stress that I nevertheless find Peterson very, very interesting. He's the best of the best among the "classical liberal" philosophy popularizers.

How far in until he discuses modernism in contrast with postmodernism?

man it's amazing to listen to this after having read a lot about post modernism. The argument "we need values for an ordered life, therefore objective values must exist", is simply not valid. "Nihilism is bad therefore I'll stuck my head in the sand whenever I hear the word" It doesn't matter what you need or think you need, objective values don't exist and can't exist. Now you can either acknowledge that your values are subjective and move on, or do what Peterson does, completely dismiss the idea, throw in some red scare, equate Marx with communism and stalinism and socialsim and all those terms that yOu ShOuLd kNoW aRe BaD. He even says himself at one point something along the lines of, what do you know about the world, you know nothing, of course you can't rule a system - which is a very postmodernist thing to say. It really feels like JP hasn't figured this one out just yet. Science won't overcome subjectivity, nothing can and nothing will.

The answer to that first question around 30:00. damn.

Jacques Derrida disliked this.

This lecture gives me respect for JonTron.

Is this man actually going to save the planet?

hitting the political disconnect and discourse of today square on the head

Wow! A descendant of Robert Baldwin at one of JP's speaking events. I saw another speaking engagement of his where he received an award, and there were several people in the audience that spoke about having emigrated to Canada from Communist countries, and spoke of the terror they feel in hearing many of the old Socialist doctrines becoming policy in Canada now. He's attracting the right people, that's for sure.

Great Talk. But the person that set up those speakers and operated the mixer killed it for me. I really had to concentrate to ignore all the feedback throughout the video

Well I for one felt a bit queasy about that last question.

Now THIS is a good lecture on postmodernism. His talk with Gad Saad and some other guy was really shitty (but not nearly so shitty as Saad's and the other guy's).

Dr Peterson... please stop saying ''You Know'' to an audience who does not know.

Why is he so goddamn smart

Did anyone notice that he agreed with Derrida more than he disagreed with him? Also, Derrida isn't a postmodernist but rather a poststructuralist, who held healthy conversations with Habermas, and he built into deconstruction the necessity to continue deconstructing deconstruction, which Peterson stumbles at in his attempt at critical evaluation. Peterson should be applauded in his efforts to keep people from nihilism, but he should read Derrida's critical assessment of Marx in his _Specters of Marx_. Once "value" is deconstructed, what values will you choose to hold for yourself? At least Peterson is asking the right questions, like hitting an underhand pitch from Derrida.

that guy should go into politics

14:40 Boom.. take that Utopians

He is being coopted into being a voice of the right. He ain’t free.

4:42

Jordan B Peterson puts Al Pacinos awe inspiring speeches to shame! and he doesnt have writers.

To C or not to C? © As an author of several sub-categories let me point to the comments by Judy Rebick, a famous CBC personality, who states, "lesbians were at the heart of the feminist movement, even though they did not pursue their issues...." Well she may be partly correct, this does explain the anti-male, anti-father, anti-family perspective, including how stats canada makes no mention of shared family incomes... The research led to the discovery that human truths and logic can lie, back in1989, and a book published, "The LIGHT; The Rainbow of Truths...." exposing how truths can lie.

For those who argue that Postmodernism has nothing to do with Marxism... I’m curious as to which discipline you studied postmodernism. In literature there is a little thing called “Theory.” Which is a convoluted idea, now taught to English literature scholars everywhere, that boils down to analyzing literature through the lens of a particular social framework. This gave birth to Marxist theory and feminist theory, which at their core their legitimacy relies on the ideas and philosophies of Foucault and Derrida. These are the two most important philosophers of the postmodern movement. Then, it goes even farther than just literary analysis. It dictates how we view social analysis, outside of literature and art. The postmodern writers, people like Kurt Vonnegut and even Chuck Palahniuk took the modernist philosophies of a distrust of society and government, after the horrors of WW1, and turned it inward. The modernists viewed focused on the individual experience, things like stream of consciousness writing or Hemingway’s vivid descriptions of food. See “Hills like White Elephants” to see a master class on an inward focus while actually speaking to a very difficult world outside, one where the actual point of the story is never mentioned, but beautifully hidden in the details. Postmodernism in literature and art took that idea and ran with it. They created dystopian futures where technology has betrayed us, where we can’t control our own waste. And then People like Derrida and Barthes say that the author doesn’t matter... the author is dead. The postmodernists started focusing on unreliable narrators and psychosis in literature. Kurt Vonnegut couldn’t talk about the reality of Dresden, so he created Billy Pilgrim, who slips back and forth in time and who’s experience is beyond reason. Chuck Palahniuk created fight club, where a distrust of the self was central to the plot. These ideas that truth is subjective lend themselves to the idea that history doesn’t exist. The intentions of the author are irrelevant, because deconstruction has shown us that only the reader/viewer’s interpretation of the text is real. Everything else is chatter that distracts you from understanding “your” truth. Andy Warhol, Jackson Pollock, and the like did the same for the world of art. Art is in the eye of the beholder, there is no objective view on what is or is not good art anymore. It is only in the subjective experience. If your experiences are the only thing that matters you can not override what anyone else claims as their experience. We are all islands unto our selves under postmodernism. If the author is dead, what use is it to present your “truths” for critique? What use is it to demonstrate your individual truth if you know that it only exists for you? Therefore, in this manner, you’re experience and voice as part of the whole is lessened. As Peterson points out, only your experience as a particular group matters, not your individual experience. You must look at the world through the lens of feminist theory or Marxist theory etc. because that’s all that matters to anyone else. Foucault has shown how societal forces have wielded power and oppressed groups, so now we are left with identity politics. Identity politics is the end result of Postmodernism, and at its core, is a cultural Marxist ideology.

maelstrom would been good choice if words around 1:01

"“Human rights, dissidence, antiracism, SOS-this, SOS-that: these are soft, easy, post coitum historicum ideologies, 'after-the-orgy' ideologies for an easy-going generation which has known neither hard ideologies nor radical philosophies. The ideology of a generation which is neo-sentimental in its politics too, which has rediscovered altruism, conviviality, international charity and the individual bleeding heart. Emotional outpourings, solidarity, cosmopolitan emotiveness, multi-media pathos: all soft values harshly condemned by the Nietzschean, Marxo-Freudian age... A new generation, that of the spoilt children of the crisis, whereas the preceding one was that of the accursed children of history.”--Jean Baudrillard, Cool Memories.

You have to read the book "The five faces of Modernism", with all my regards for your powerful intelligence.

29:22

Noam Chomsky is not a Marxist, some of the best criticism laid out against Marxism I've read came from Chomsky and Anarchism at large.

Someone needs to tell Jordan that a mic is not an ice cream cone it's a hotdog. And move that goddamn PA speaker maybe a few feet away York. Damn. I can master the speech portion for free if any institutions ask. Goddamn my ears! (Source: worked in theatre for years and have been teaching rock n roll to kids for years)

Canadian Jesus rocks!

no one will answer : What happened to Modernism ?

I would like to know what you think of the Bolivarian Revolution before Chavez was murdered and before there was economic sabotage and soft coups done upon countries in the last years? They lifted millions out of poverty. Serious question.. What is your opinion on socialism?