Biblical approach
A new book by psychologist-turned-YouTuber Jordan Peterson has been published. we wrestle with god It's a work about how ancient myths and legends, if perhaps not literal truths, contain valuable, even universal lessons about life and humanity.
The feedback was also positive. Anthropologists will tell you that there is much to be gained from studying mythology. You can learn about how past societies thought about the relationship between ordinary people and elites, and about humanity's place in the natural world.
But when I reached the last page of the preface, the penny that had been so high somehow fell. This is not a worldwide study. Only Biblical stories are featured, almost entirely from Genesis and Exodus, because the Bible is the “presupposed story of Western civilization” and “the foundation of the West, plain and simple.” The story is featured.
Feedback's grasp of intellectual history is admittedly a little vague, but Western society and modern science, while shaped by Christianity, were also influenced by the ideas of ancient Greeks, Romans, Norsemen, and Arabic scholars. There is no doubt that it is. Fundamentals of scientific revolution, etc.
However, we do not pretend to be experts in Biblical exegesis. I'd like to leave the theological criticism to former Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, who says Peterson “relies heavily on somewhat outdated Christian commentary” and “relentlessly disdains nuance and disagreement.” ” states.
Instead, we unpack small sections where Peterson tries to connect his ideas to human biology (something we know a little about).
eve problem
Chapter 2 tells the story of Adam and Eve being chased out of the Garden of Eden after Eve, tempted by the serpent, eats the forbidden fruit and convinces Adam to do the same.
Peterson says this reflects a fundamental flaw in the minds of men and women. “The temptation that forever faces women,” he writes, “is the idea that maternal benevolence can proudly extend to the whole world, even to the most venomous snakes…even if the position is wrong. He uses her compassion to assert unearned moral virtues and abilities, even when he is wrong.
Men, on the other hand, have “corresponding and equally deadly sins.” It's the belief that “anything you bring before me I can take in, control, name, subdue, and put into proper order” – no matter how “too much” or “That's ridiculous.”
While men must exercise “emergency powers” and decide who deserves help, it is women's role to show compassion and draw men's attention to those who are suffering.
Since the book aims to reveal absolute truths about human nature, feedback relished the lack of reflection on the part about the dangers of “going too far.”
Now, one might expect psychologist Peterson to provide psychological evidence for these differences between men and women. That would be a mistake. But he tries to tie it to the biology of childbirth. Labor is painful and dangerous because human babies' brains have evolved to be larger and they must pass through a narrower birth canal, which otherwise would be “difficult for women to run,” she said. explain.
This caused neurons in the brain to fire due to feedback overload. Peterson restates a hypothesis called the “obstetric dilemma.” Founded in 1960.
Today, it is one of the most controversial concepts in anthropology, and all of its underlying assumptions have been proven false or questionable. The 2018 study was bluntly titled: “There is no such thing as an 'obstetric dilemma'”. 2021 counterattack (Deep breath) “It is unwarranted to completely reject the obstetric dilemma hypothesis, because some of its basic assumptions are not well discounted,'' he said.
Feedback alone is not wise to resolve this sticky dispute. But at least unlike Peterson, we get it. She went on to say that pregnant and breastfeeding women are “increasedly dependent” and cannot compete with men for position, and at this point we have used our emergency powers to stop reading. said.
word of the year
Feedback enjoys the annual ritual in which the dictionary announces the word of the year. That tells us something about changing practices. We are proud of the existence of Macquarie Dictionary, Australia's national language dictionary, and the fact that the word of the year in 2024 is 'Encitization”.
This great term was coined by author Cory Doctorow to describe how companies gradually degrade their service as they squeeze more and more profit out of their customers. He was referring to companies like Google, where search results are full of ads and unreliable AI-generated summaries, and Facebook, where newsfeeds are full of memes and ads and messages from friends and family are barely visible. It means a company.
Ever since I read Doctorow's paper, the word feedback has been around. first essayAnd I'm glad that this work will be accepted by a wider audience.
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