Been thinking about the Peterson bit, a bit.

It’s striking to me how far Peterson had to stretch to find an analogue in nature to his vision of individualist dog-eat-dog capitalism. Even if lobsters form the individualistic hierarchies he valorizes, they’re still wet bugs. He might as well said “consider the ant,” or “consider the krill” or “consider the dung beetle.” All of these creatures have evolved social structures that allows them to fit into their environment, but it’s only with this one particular category that Peterson finds anything resembling his ideals, and it’s something far detached from humanity. If he had considered the chimpanzee, the gorilla, the orangutan or the bonobo, far closer cousins, he’s not going to find anything like the “natural order” he envisions.

I guess, this is to say that this vision of capitalism is a fundamentally alien concept, and it’s fitting that Peterson had to draw on the stark and quite alien landscape of the ocean floor to find a metaphor for this system.

  • durbutter [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
    4·
    1 year ago

    I don’t know what he intended it to be, but it’s not at all an argument against Marxism. Marxism isn’t “hierarchies should literally never exist ever” it’s “the bourgeoisie exploits the proletarians” You still have things like managers and foremen in socialist states (although they can be rotating positions, or responsibilities can be spread out and democratized). It’s just like that book Anthem by Ayn Rand where people have weights on their ears to make them slower. It’s a fundamental misunderstanding. Anyone who felt like they needed to seriously grapple with his weird idealism and calling themselves a Marxist should seriously re-examine how much they know about Marxism and consider

    spoiler

    reading theory