On the 29th of March, 2018, Jordan Peterson visited Lafayette [la-fee-et] College to give
a lecture and Q&A session, and the students’ questions were absolutely brilliant, because
unlike most questions posed to Jordan, theirs caused him to truly elaborate on his beliefs
(and so grand job people).
Anyhow, one of those questions was “How do you define what is considered religious”,
and Jordan’s response was “Religious is what you act out”, which is to say that
since everyone “acts out” everyone is religious.
This, is “Everyone is Religious – Debunked.”
“Thank you for being here, I really appreciate it.
Um, so I was watching a few of your interviews in preparation for this, and I heard you speak
about religion quite a bit, and if you look up what religion means in Webster Dictionary
you get something like ‘A system of faith centred on a supernatural being or beings’
or something like that.
But I’ve heard you use religion to describe things like punk-rockers, for example, like
that’s a religious experience – so my first question would be, how do you define
what is considered religious?
And then sort of as a follow-up to that, um, if say, Sam Harris--” “Religious is what
you act out.”
“What’s that?”
“Religious is what you act out.”
“Anything you act out?”
“Everything you act out is predicated on your implicit axioms, and the system of implicit
axioms that you hold as primary is your religious belief system.
It doesn’t matter whether you’re an atheist or not.
That’s just surface… that’s just surface noise.”
So there’s the claim – Jordan asserts your implicit axioms (or assumptions) are
your religious beliefs, and so he’s implicitly asserting that since everyone has implicit
axioms, therefore everyone has religious beliefs.
“It doesn’t matter whether you’re an atheist or not.”
Or in other words, Jordan asserts that everyone is religious!
Now before I address this claim, here’s the justification that he gave (it’s several
minutes long, but it’s a necessary listen): “So it has nothing to do with divinity,
or?”
“No I didn’t say that.”
“Or it doesn’t necessarily have to do with those?”
“No, it probably necessarily has to do with it to, but it doesn’t necessarily have anything
to do with your voluntarily articulated statements about whether or not you believe in something
like a transcendent deity.
So, I mean, what you act out is much more what you are than what you say about yourself.
What the hell do you know about what you believe in anyways?
You’re complicated man.”
“That’s a fair question.”
“Well seriously, people are complicated.
You know, like, we’re not transparent to ourselves at all.
That’s why we have… that’s why we have to go to universities and study psychology
– it’s like, you know, we’re not exactly blank boxes, but we’re the most complicated
things there are, right?
And we can’t even program our VCR clocks, so, it’s like, how the hell can we propose
to understand ourselves, and, you know, I’m existentially oriented – which is to say
that what you hold to be true is best determined as a consequence of an analysis of your actions
rather than as a consequence of an analysis of what you purport to believe.”
“Now, in order to act… you can’t act without a hierarchy of value (which I tortured
a poor questioner about), you can’t act without a hierarchy of values because you
can’t act unless you think one thing is better than another.
Why would you act otherwise?
So that means you’re embedded in a hierarchy of values, whether you know it or not – or
maybe multiple fragmentary and competing hierarchies of value (which is all the worst for you,
by the way, because it just makes you very confused).
That hierarchy of values has an axiomatic… it’s based on axioms, and the probability
that you understand them is very low, because generally people don’t understand their
axioms, but that axiomatic system is essentially your religious system.
And there’s no way out of that, so far as I can tell.”
“And you can say, ‘Well, it’s not predicated on conscious belief in a transcendent deity’,
it’s like okay, have it your way, but know most people in this room act out a Judeo Christian
ethic.
And not only do they act it out, if they’re treated in a manner that’s not commensurate
with that ethic, they get very, very, very annoyed.”
“So for example if I--” Okay, so just as a side note, I’m going to skip Jordan’s
assertion that most Westerns act out a Judeo Christian ethic simply because it’s not
the assertion at hand, but know that I’ll address this pernicious claim within the next
month.
I entirely recognise how prevalent it’s become, and because of this it’s at the
very top of my list.
“It’s like okay then, that’s what you believe.
Well if I ask you if you believe any of that, well then that’s a whole different story.
You might give me some radical leftist nonsense, but that--” “I’d try not to.”
“Haha.
That doesn’t take away from the fundamentals of your action.”
So there’s a lot on the table now, and that’s actually my first point.
Jordan has a habit of “sandwiching” absurd, unfounded and nonsensical claims between valid,
insightful and humble claims, and his acolytes unfortunately equate the validity, insight
and humility of his “bread” with his “filling”.
So in this case, his filling (or primary assertion) is that “The system of implicit axioms that
you hold as primary is your religious belief system”, and his bread consists of many
slices – the first being that actions speak louder than words “What you act out is much
more what you are than what you say about yourself”; the second being that we act
according to hierarchies of value “You can’t act without a hierarchy of values because
you can’t act unless you think one thing is better than another”; and the third being
that most people don’t even know (let alone understand) their axioms “That hierarchy
of values has an axiomatic… it’s based on axioms, and the probability that you understand
them is very low.”
Now that’s a lot of bread, and yet the bread’s fine… it’s the filling that’s off – and
it’s off because it’s nonsensical.
If we say that “Religious is what you act out” then all of our actions are religious,
and therefore the act of praying five times a day or the mutilation of a child’s genitalia
to appease a deity is just as “religious” as going to the cinema, drinking a glass of
water, going for a walk, or taking a dump… which is to say that it’s a useless definition,
and thus nonsensical.
But to be clear, let me repeat what I’ve said in regards to Jordan redefining other
words – there’s nothing inherently wrong with him creating a new definition of “religion”,
but what is wrong is how he uses it.
The reason he can say that “Christianity is true” (“I think it's true and not true.
The stories are erroneous in detail and right in pattern.”
is because rather than using the colloquial definition of “truth” (that being “That
which is in accordance with reality”), he’s created a new definition of “truth” (that
being “That which promotes reproduction”); the reason he can say that the bible is “More
real than real” (“A great novel is more real than real.
And, eh, and eh, a collection of stories like the bible, that’s more real than meta-real.
It’s more real than fiction is”) is because rather than using the colloquial definition
of “real” (that being “Having objective existence”), he uses an obscure definition
of “real” (that being “Having conceptual existence”); and the reason he can say that
everyone is religious (“You can't be a non-believer in your action”) is because he’s created
a new definition of “religion” that’s somehow more vague than the already useless
“A pursuit or interest followed with great devotion.”
On the topic of religion, this is what Jordan does, and it’s precisely why I, and many
others, have accused him of language-games.
And the worst part about it is he’s not at all upfront about the obscure (and sometimes
entirely made up) definitions that he uses until someone essentially forces him to be
so.
Until that point, most of his Christian follows simply assume he's using their language (and
that he therefore he shares their beliefs), while most of his irreligious follows feel
confused and often convince themselves that he's just being poetic.
Now, I could conclude here, but instead, in the attempt to really make clear the problem
with Jordan's definition, I'm going to apply it syllogistically, and then compare it to
an equally fallacious argument.
So, consider the following.
Premise 1): Pope Francis is religious.
Premise 2): Stephen Woodford is religious.
Conclusion: both Francis and Stephen are religious.
And here’s the comparative argument.
Premise 1): Peter Dinklage is a vegetarian.
Premise 2): Jordan Peterson is a vegetarian.
Conclusion: both Peter and Jordan are vegetarian.
So both of these argument are flawed for exactly the same reason – they either commit an
Equivocation Fallacy by using one definition of their keyword during their first premise
and conclusion, and a completely made up (and useless) definition during their second premise
(and are thus invalid), or they use a nonsensical definition throughout, which while valid,
in the context of their conversation only serves to confuse and obfuscate the underlining
question.
Anyhow, as always, thank you kindly for the view, and an extra special thank you to my
wonderful patrons and those of you who’ve donated via PayPal.
Oh, and to make up for a lack of a patron of the month last month, this month has two
– so, Patrick Manion, you’ve won a copy of The Portable Atheist by Christopher Hitchens,
and Jonlin, you’ve won a copy of The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins – congratulations!
Until next time my fellow apes, until next time!