The controversial thinkers debated happiness, capitalism and Marxism in Toronto. It was billed as a meeting of titans – and that it was not. But it did reveal one telling commonality
As someone who watched the debate live, row S in the orchestra pit if you are curious, I have a few observations of my own. It's true that Jordan Peterson spent his first half hour criticizing the communist manifesto. What is not stated in this article is that the debate was put together at short notice and Peterson was not familiar with Zizek's work (something he said in his opening statement). He was told he would be debating a Marxist. As he later comments to Zizek on the stage "you are an odd Marxist to have a conversation with" he also asked Zizek why he labelled himself a Marxist when most of his ideas seemed to be original concepts and not a defence of Marxism. At which point Zizek revealed himself self as more of an Engelist (might have been something else) and cited a number of more obscure works that he based his thoughts on. He did not say that he wasn't a Marxist however.
In the closing remarks, Peterson hoped that people would go away from the debate believing in the power of communication between opposing ideas and Zizek hoped that people would reject the simple opposition between Postmodernism and the Alt-right. That being a left-leaning person did not mean you had to be politically correct.
The subject of happiness was only spoken of at the tail end only, both agreeing that happiness was more usefully considered a byproduct than an end in itself. The premise of the debate is at fault more than the participants. They billed it as Marxism, Capitalism and happiness. Zizek isn't a traditional Marxist, Peterson isn't an expert on capitalism or Marxism, he a psychologist. If anything they should have left the topic as Happiness and allowed both personalities to discuss it from there own viewpoints. They did finally come to a point of disagreement. How social change can best be brought about. Zizek advocates for large scale social action and Peterson promotes individual action but is not against large scale change. everything leading up to his should have been the pre-debate discussion and THIS should have been the topic.
As someone who watched the debate live, row S in the orchestra pit if you are curious, I have a few observations of my own. It's true that Jordan Peterson spent his first half hour criticizing the communist manifesto. What is not stated in this article is that the debate was put together at short notice and Peterson was not familiar with Zizek's work (something he said in his opening statement). He was told he would be debating a Marxist. As he later comments to Zizek on the stage "you are an odd Marxist to have a conversation with" he also asked Zizek why he labelled himself a Marxist when most of his ideas seemed to be original concepts and not a defence of Marxism. At which point Zizek revealed himself self as more of an Engelist (might have been something else) and cited a number of more obscure works that he based his thoughts on. He did not say that he wasn't a Marxist however.
In the closing remarks, Peterson hoped that people would go away from the debate believing in the power of communication between opposing ideas and Zizek hoped that people would reject the simple opposition between Postmodernism and the Alt-right. That being a left-leaning person did not mean you had to be politically correct.
The subject of happiness was only spoken of at the tail end only, both agreeing that happiness was more usefully considered a byproduct than an end in itself. The premise of the debate is at fault more than the participants. They billed it as Marxism, Capitalism and happiness. Zizek isn't a traditional Marxist, Peterson isn't an expert on capitalism or Marxism, he a psychologist. If anything they should have left the topic as Happiness and allowed both personalities to discuss it from there own viewpoints. They did finally come to a point of disagreement. How social change can best be brought about. Zizek advocates for large scale social action and Peterson promotes individual action but is not against large scale change. everything leading up to his should have been the pre-debate discussion and THIS should have been the topic.
#peakguardian
Find someone too dumb to understand anything to write an essay about how they are too smart to understand what happened.
Fucking salty little garbage peddlers. Standard course of TG sadly.
Edit History
Fucking salty little garbage peddlers. Standards course of TG sadly.
Wow what a salty writer.