I think this is right. I always thought of him (when I thought of him at all) as a mostly apolitical self-help guy, then I noticed that he’d become a kind of villain for the left so I looked into it and he really does seem to have gone off the rails at some point.
There’s some kind of radicalizing feedback cycle at work with guys like Peterson --to name only one prominent example-- and I’m not sure that it’s simply that they were always assholes to begin with. You see a similar dynamic with Elon Musk; it’s almost like they take personal offense at any criticism and instead of thinking about it, they just double down.
Some of it is just inherent to being rewarded for certain things. You don’t have to consciously choose to go that way, but whenever you stray that direction you get social and financial feedback.
I think this is right. I always thought of him (when I thought of him at all) as a mostly apolitical self-help guy, then I noticed that he’d become a kind of villain for the left so I looked into it and he really does seem to have gone off the rails at some point.
There’s some kind of radicalizing feedback cycle at work with guys like Peterson --to name only one prominent example-- and I’m not sure that it’s simply that they were always assholes to begin with. You see a similar dynamic with Elon Musk; it’s almost like they take personal offense at any criticism and instead of thinking about it, they just double down.
Some of it is just inherent to being rewarded for certain things. You don’t have to consciously choose to go that way, but whenever you stray that direction you get social and financial feedback.