Reddit reviews Fools, Frauds and Firebrands: Thinkers of the New Left

This article is a typical hit piece that uses several well known propaganda techniques to instill doubt into people. As someone who actually knew most of the things Peterson is talking about, from other sources, I can vouch for what Jordan Peterson says, the man is not a crank.

Here are some easily accessible materials that will cover many of his ideas:

Everything he says about the impact of biology on behavior:

>Robert Sapolsky's 2011 "Human Behavioral Biology" course from Stanford: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NNnIGh9g6fA&list=PL848F2368C90DDC3D

Everything he says about the denial of human nature by ideologues:

>Steven Pinker, "The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature": https://www.amazon.co.uk/Blank-Slate-Modern-Penguin-Science/dp/014027605X (Peterson actually mentions it at one point in his talks). (video of the author: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DFey_0cbgeo)

Everything he says about the corruption of the left wing utopians:

>Paul Johnson, "Intellectuals: From Marx and Tolstoy to Sartre and Chomsky" https://www.amazon.com/Intellectuals-Marx-Tolstoy-Sartre-Chomsky/dp/0061253170 (videos of the author: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HW-Oc6HoqTE, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_6NsFvjm0o)

>Roger Scruton, "Fools, Frauds and Firebrands: Thinkers of the New Left": https://www.amazon.com/Fools-Frauds-Firebrands-Thinkers-Left/dp/1408187337 (video of the author: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLfRoO8HwN0)

Everything he says about the virtues of Western Civilization:

>Niall Ferguson, "Civilization: The West and the Rest" https://www.amazon.com/Civilization-West-Rest-Niall-Ferguson/dp/0143122061 (video of the author: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xpnFeyMGUs8)

>He who knows only his own side of the case knows little of that. His reasons may be good, and no one may have been able to refute them. But if he is equally unable to refute the reasons on the opposite side, if he does not so much as know what they are, he has no ground for preferring either opinion... Nor is it enough that he should hear the opinions of adversaries from his own teachers, presented as they state them, and accompanied by what they offer as refutations. He must be able to hear them from persons who actually believe them...he must know them in their most plausible and persuasive form.

…

>The peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth: if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error.

-John Stuart Mill, On Liberty

Please pay attention to Žižek's work. Please read articles and books excoriating him. Rather than sniffing at him, I suggest you discover your own feelings on him. If you find him compelling, interrogate why you feel that way. If you find him unreasonable or dispicable, justify it.

> less a marxist and more of lacanian psychoanalysist

>Peterson probably should argue with an actual marxist.

But old school Marxism was dead and splintered into a thousand factions long ago. The 'post-modern neo Marxists' are Peterson's main targets.

Philosopher Roger Roger Scruton wrote a book on that whole philosophical tendency long before the modern culture war with Fools, Frauds and Firebrands: Thinkers of the New Left. Zizek is right there in the last chapter of the latest edition. I have not gotten around to reading it properly yet but a scan of that chapter would seem to fit well with Peterson's themes. The main critique seems to be something like that Zizek uses his Lacanian framework to opt out of the morality of real consequences (such as human suffering) to a morality of ideas based on intention. Scrution quotes Zizek saying that the difference between the Russian Gulag and the Nazi concentration camp is the difference between civilisation and barbarism. With the gulag on the virtuous side. Given Peterson's moral philosophy is based on suffering as evil in itself and his thought influenced by reflecting on the gulag, I am sure there was the potential for some proper metapysical fireworks, which seems to have been missed.

Here you go - Fools, Frauds and Firebrands: Thinkers of the New Left

> From one of the leading critics of leftist orientations comes a study of the thinkers who have most influenced the attitudes of the New Left. Beginning with a ruthless analysis of New Leftism and concluding with a critique of the key strands in its thinking, Roger Scruton conducts a reappraisal of such major left-wing thinkers as E. P. Thompson, Ronald Dworkin, R. D. Laing, Jurgen Habermas, Gyorgy Lukacs, Jean-Paul Sartre, Jacques Derrida, Slavoj Žižek, Ralph Milliband, and Eric Hobsbawm. In addition to assessments of these thinkers' philosophical and political contributions, the book contains a biographical and bibliographical section summarizing their careers and most important writings.

> In Fools, Frauds and Firebrands Scruton asks, What does the Left look like today, and how has it evolved? He charts the transfer of grievances, from the working class to women, gays, and immigrants, asks what we can put in the place of radical egalitarianism, and what explains the continued dominance of antinomian attitudes in the intellectual world. Can there be any foundation for resistance to the leftist agenda without religious faith?

> Writing with great clarity, Scruton delivers a devastating critique of modern left-wing thinking.

I enjoy critiques of intellectuals and learning relations between them. You should also check out The Seduction of Unreason: The Intellectual Romance with Fascism by him. Mark Lilla is very similar, The Reckless Mind: Intellectuals and Politics and The Shipwrecked Mind: On Political Reaction Of course philosophers and politics would be very lacking without Isaiah Berlin Also Fools, Frauds and Firebrands: The Thinkers of The New Left is very good. Lastly The Opium of Intellectuals of Raymon Aron is a must-read classic.

Fools, Frauds and Firebrands: Thinkers of the New Left by Roger Scruton

I find this to be an excellent paper that tries to debunk postmodern methodologies: http://philpapers.org/archive/SHATVO-2.pdf

The philosopher Roger Scruton has written a whole book devoted to critiquing various postmodern thinkers: https://www.amazon.com/Fools-Frauds-Firebrands-Thinkers-Left/dp/1408187337/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1468857400&sr=8-1

For postmodernism's relation to the field of history, you could try this volume by Richard J. Evans: https://www.amazon.com/Defence-History-Richard-J-Evans/dp/1862073953/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=

In its relation to science, you could try this book: https://www.amazon.com/Higher-Superstition-Academic-Quarrels-Science/dp/0801857074/ref=mt_paperback?_encoding=UTF8&me=