[Does this help explain shootings:] What is the appeal of Jordan Peterson to young men?

[Sanguine]

If you’re a young man, particularly a young white American male born after around 9/11 (and there are millions of them), a large part of your coming-of-age experience has been shaped by identity politics and the “social-justice” movement, whether at school, in online discussion, consumption of media, and more. And in general, it’s not been shaped in a healthy way, where good intentions are assumed until otherwise proven, where objective data is key to evaluating assertions, where debate is welcome and open, and where allies — both real and potential — have been sincerely welcomed.

From Black Lives Matter to “white privilege” to income inequality to the gender pay gap to female under-representation in STEM to #MeToo, if you’re a white male, you were born into an “identity group” that has been either explicitly or implicitly blamed for virtually all observed injustices in American society today. Or at the very least, you’re informed that you carry an outsize obligation — and often made feel that yours is the exclusive burden — to fix these discrepancies, even though you are pretty sure you personally didn’t cause them.

You are repeatedly told that your group is “in control.” You’re spoon-fed misguided concepts like the idea that racism requires institutional power (it doesn’t), that masculinity itself is often toxic (yet you’re chided to “man up”), that perspectives like “why can’t we hate men?” are deemed legitimate enough to be penned in a national paper’s op-ed section (Why can’t we hate men?), and many more mixed and generally negative signals (current example: Sarah Jeong controversy.)

You’re also told, rightly, that you cannot and should not make generalizations about others, especially not about their inalterable attributes that they were born with, such as people’s sexuality, race, or gender.

Yet for more than a decade, you’ve increasingly been sent the message that it’s totally fine for others to make broad generalizations about the group(s) you’ve been born into, and therefore you. And they’re not positive generalizations, mind you. When was the last time you heard anything good said in a sentence or paragraph or news story or comedy routine or awards ceremony or commencement address or lecture or book… which includes the term “white male”? Or “white male of privilege?”

A central, false dogma festers at the heart of the identity politics movement. It is vital to hard-left ideology. It is so pivotal that any challenge to it is often met with fierce shutdowns at college, and argument-ending ad-hominem pejoratives like “racist,” “misogynist,” etc. You simply cannot challenge the dogma without risking serious negative ramifications for you at school — academically or socially (or often, later, in your young career.)

.....
Those of us who came of age in the 70’s and 80’s enjoyed a more universalist, Golden-Rule, inclusive and aspirational “judge people by the content of their character” Martin Luther King Civil Rights movement. I would say this approach was empirically much more productive, led to greater understanding, was leading away from divisiveness not toward it, and didn’t lead to outcomes like, for instance, a Trump presidency....

https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-appeal-of-Jordan-Peterson-to-young-men

I normally wouldn't post this here, but in light of the two shootings yesterday, it might be useful.  Very well written and helpful in understanding how a sick individual in a sick society might act out.

[Smokin Joe]

Not just that, but the sickness in society that might contribute to that sickness....

Recalling childhood...

Some of us had the misfortune to be accused (sometimes often) of misdeeds (usually petty infractions) of which we were innocent.

Some of us adopted a longsuffering and patient, if unrealistic virtue, hoping to withstand the test of time in our innocence and be finally exonerated, to be greeted yet again with statements to the effect of "You think you're so smart, but I will get you. You won't get away with it forever!", when in fact, we had done nothing to 'get away with'.
At this time, the vast majority of those accusers have gone to meet their maker, to our relief, and now know better. May Almighty God forgive them their insistence on being wrong.

But in the midst of such insistent accusations, others chose a different path, finally deciding that if they were going to be blamed for something, yet again, they might as well do it.

Keep that in mind while considering the generations of males in this country, (of any color, but lately the emphasis is on "white"), who have been summarily judged on a basis of appearance and sex, regardless of their behaviour, a phenomenon not unique to the Social Justice Warrior's latest campaign against the straight white make, but evident even in Country songs like
"Guys do it all the time", in the grievances that equate working 12 hours on an oil rig in -30 weather with sitting behind a desk for 8, in the accusations of misogyny against men who have never raised a hand in anger toward a woman.
Some will endure, continuing to do what is right, facing themselves in the mirror as they shave and able to look themselves in the eye knowing they live just lives.
Others, a small minority, in a phenomenon created by the accusers, will break, and will inevitably embrace the very actions they have been innocent of, and excel at them. While they have a choice, that is the sort of monster this environment filled with social garbage fosters. Unfortunately, those will be exhibited as justification for continuing the accusations.

This is the wrong road, for any people, for any community. Wrongs are not righted by heaping wrong on those who are innocent of wrongdoing, and the burdens of resentment are toxic fare--at some point violent rejection of those burdens is inevitable.
So, Enough.
Stop.
The only result possible is the destruction of civil society, and that won't be pretty for any involved, especially those who think they will benefit by all that finger pointing.

[Slide Rule]

Post something from Quora?

Find a decent source.

If you want to discuss Peterson's views, he has a website.

Why settle for an abbreviation or an amateur intrepretation
of what he said.

Go to the source.

https://www.jordanbpeterson.com

[Sanguine]

Post something from Quora?

Find a decent source.

If you want to discuss Peterson's views, he has a website.

Why settle for an abbreviation or an amateur intrepretation
of what he said.

Go to the source.

https://www.jordanbpeterson.com

You obviously didn't read the piece or you would not have been complaining about the source.

We've been commenting on Peterson, among others, for a long time on the "Intellectual Dark Web" topic.  I don't believe I've seen you there.