(Part 2) Top products from r/enoughpetersonspam

Jonathan Swift has the most lasting influence. Not just for the Gulliver's Travels novel but his satires and political activism in general. A dramatist named John Gay had the most theatrical notoriety of the time. Gay had wild success with a satire of Handel's Rinaldo titled The Beggar's Opera. It was a satire that equated highway robbers with the nobility and was hugely popular both in England and in pre-revolutionary America. George Washington called it his favorite play; it was performed over 50 times in America and over 80 times during Gay's lifetime in England. There is a BBC performance of it on youtube and the text is on Gutenberg.

From a literary standpoint William Blake and Alexander Pope were probably the most relevant of the age in terms of original poetical talent. Blake was certainly the more politically revolutionary of the two in his personal beliefs, but the criticism in his poetry is subtle. There's a book length criticism of him from the 1950s that is still the canonical examination of the times from his perspective, titled Blake: Prophet Against Empire.

In addition to being a novelist, Henry Fielding founded London's first police force and was a magistrate. Most of his letters were assumed lost but batches were found in the early 1900s and 1970s, A memoir based on the early letters is on Gutenberg

If there is one figure that a large number of these surviving literary figures of the day were against, it was the first prime minister, Robert Walpole. Walpole was seen as corrupt in the press of the time, mostly because of his interest in the South Sea Company (a joint venture with Spain involving slaves and colonial goods from the Americas). Walpole invested in the company early in his life and cashed out before the value of shares in the company crashed, which happened while he was in office. It was England's first big financial scandal involving laypeople as investors, afaik. Pope and Gay in particular lost money in the same investments. Gay was bankrupted by the loss, and satirized Walpole constantly thereafter.

A LOT of what we know about these people is from Swift's letters to and from them, which were largely preserved, and Samuel Johnson's Lives of the English Poets (available on Gutenberg). Swift was in constant correspondence with the others mentioned above over a period of decades, and we still have a lot of those letters today. Johnson is the first example of what we would call a literary critic today.

There's a relatively new collection, The Practice of Satire in England, 1658–1770 from 2013 that I have not read but seems to be well reviewed. Available here if you have university subscription access.

I don't think this era is as popular as others for many reasons. Most obviously in America, because it's overshadowed by our own revolution. In Europe it's overshadowed by the French revolution. Comparatively, England was relatively peaceful at the time. But peace and a monarch friendly to the arts and literature makes for an abundance of critics, too. It's fascinating to me that England went through the same issues as America and France without a large scale revolution, particularly considering how lax Charles II was in terms of censorship compared to his predecessors and how much social/political criticism was floating around in the presses.

Derrida:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FtLMNcpgYEs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LvAwoUvXNzU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7s8SSilNSXw

I'd urge you to actively avoid any other videos attempting to explain him.

Books: This is extremely simple, clear, and accurate, which is very high praise when it comes to Derrida. Also look up "Deconstruction in a Nutshell", and his interview with Julia Kristeva in "Positions". This is really good and in-depth but difficult. For something by Derrida himself, everyone starts with "Structure Sign & Play". "Différance", "The Ends of Man" and "Signature Event Context" are also good, albeit difficult, as is all of his work.

For Foucault I find Stanford, Wikipedia, pretty much any lectures on youtube about him, PartiallyExaminedLife, to be fine before you jump straight into Discipline and Punish. It's difficult though. Or you could get The Foucault Reader by Paul Rabinow which collects a lot of his writings from various works as well as interviews, the latter obviously being a lot more accessible.

There are some great books and articles on this subject. I think that you should avoid the 1950s onwards, because that would be like confirmation for Peterson fans.

For the gay identity that the books that I recommend are:

https://www.amazon.com/Gay-New-York-Culture-1890-1940/dp/0465026214/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1522048690&sr=8-1&keywords=gay+new+york
https://www.amazon.com/Gay-Berlin-Birthplace-Modern-Identity/product-reviews/0307473139/ref=cm_cr_dp_d_hist_1?ie=UTF8&filterByStar=one_star&reviewerType=all_reviews#reviews-filter-bar
https://www.amazon.com/Homintern-Culture-Liberated-Modern-World/dp/0300218036/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1522048869&sr=8-1&keywords=Homintern


A free source that is full of primary sources.
http://rictornorton.co.uk

Concerning Nietzsche versus Peterson: Nietzsche is an anti-realist about value [see Brian Leiter, Nietzsche on Morality, 2nd Ed, section on metaethics, anti-realism about value, pages 119-121], whereas Peterson is a value realist who believes that “transcendent values genuinely exist; that they are in fact the most tangible realities of being.” This is a direct quote from Peterson's Patreon. In contrast, Leiter writes that "Nietzsche’s central argument for anti-realism about value is explanatory: moral facts don’t figure in the “best explanation” of experience, and so are not real constituents of the objective world. Moral values, in short, can be “explained away” [p 120, ibid].

No. Jung was conservative. That's pretty well documented. What else would call someone who says women have roles dictated by a combination of god and biology?

Even for his time, regardless of the very real Nazi sympathies, he was conservative. https://www.amazon.com/Carl-Gustav-Jung-Conservative-Intellectual/dp/0230102964

https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/first/m/mclynn-jung.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

>As for conservatism, he declared that for the Swiss a new idea was like an unknown dangerous animal which had to be either avoided or else approached with extreme caution -- which was why, in his view, the Swiss had such poor intuitive capacity. Their aristocratic posture revealed itself in indifference to the opinions of others. As for introversion, this was a function both of xenophobia and neutrality in the affairs of the world on one hand and the peculiar Swiss political culture on the other, where warlike instincts were channelled inwards into domestic political life.

>The peculiarity of Switzerland as geographical entity and political culture can scarcely be overemphasized in its influence on Jung. Geographically, the Swiss are predominantly a mountain people, and it is a commonplace of political science that such `highlanders' are deeply religious and politically conservative, with a strong sense of independence and self-reliance. Jung frequently referred to the Alps as the central collective image of Switzerland and suggested that a landscape where Nature was mightier than Man produced the characteristic Swiss mixture of obstinacy, doggedness, stolidity and innate pride.

So, uh, here's some fun supplementary reading for everybody.

>Internalized misogyny is very much a thing, unfortunately. It's very possible for a woman to conclude that if patriarchy is the only game in town, she's going to play to win.

Right-Wing Women, by Andrea Dworkin

>This is part of why we need to remember--and to reiterate to anyone else who doesn't get it--that what feminism stands against isn't men, it's patriarchy. Men are not universally evil, and women are not universally good. But a system that creates and reinforces inequalities between them definitely deserves destroying.

"Patriarchy, the System: An It, Not a He, a Them, or an Us" by Allan G. Johnson

The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life (A Free Press Paperbacks Book) https://www.amazon.com/dp/0684824299/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_c2DtDbW5C5ZWA

It might be more salubrious to cite the personal correspondence of Orwell, and that of his closest associates.

>As to politics, I was only intermittently interested in the subject until about 1935, though I think I can say I was always more or less ‘left.’ In Wigan Pier I first tried to thrash out my ideas. I felt, as I still do, that there are huge deficiencies in the whole conception of Socialism, and I was still wondering whether there was any other way out. After having a fairly good look at British industrialism at its worst, ie. in the mining areas, I came to the conclusion that it is a duty to work for Socialism even if one is not emotionally drawn to it, because the continuance of present conditions is simply not tolerable, and no solution except some kind of collectivism is viable, because that is what the mass of the people want... I have been vaguely associated with Trotskyists and Anarchists, and more closely with the left wing of the Labour Party (the Bevan-Foot end of it). I was literary editor of Tribune, then Bevan’s paper, for about a year and a half (1943–5), and have written for it over a longer period than that. But I have never belonged to a political party, and I believe that even politically I am more valuable if I record what I believe to be true and refuse to toe a party line.
-Orwell in a letter to Richard Usborne, 26 August 1947

...


>The only thing I can be quite certain of is, that up to his last day George was a man of utter integrity; deeply kind,
and ready to sacrifice his last worldly possessions – he never had much – in the cause of democratic socialism. Part of his malaise was that he was not only a socialist but profoundly liberal. He hated regimentation wherever he found it, even in the socialist ranks.
-Letter from Jennie Lee to a Miss Margaret M. Goalby of Presteigne, 23 June 1950

Not the user you asked but here is a concise pamphlet and a comprehensive book that thoroughly refute what is commonly called 'sociobiology' or 'biological essentialism':

• Is Biology a Woman's Destiny?
  
  
• Mismeasure of Man

I guess I don't get the hype for a dualist who waged cultural warfare on the secular field of psychology while advancing his own unfalsifiable bunk.

https://www.amazon.com/More-Work-Mother-Household-Technology/dp/0465047327

Patriarchy and Accumulation on a World Scale: Women in the International Division of Labour (Critique Influence Change)

Women, Race, & Class

Wages Against
Housework

https://www.amazon.com/Wages-Destruction-Making-Breaking-Economy/dp/0143113208

https://www.snopes.com/news/2017/09/05/were-nazis-socialists/

https://www.reddit.com/r/JordanPeterson/comments/9jx6mb/i_thought_we_were_comrades/e6wclyf

The most famous book on screenwriting is called Story by Robert McKee. He teaches workshops in Hollywood to aspiring screenwriters, and his whole thing is based in Campbell's analysis of The Hero's Journey.

Manufacturing Consent by Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky.

It's basically arguing that the profit motive of capitalism has caused the "free press" to act as state propagandists. It sounds crazy, but they go into a lot of detail proving their point.

It's not specifically about capitalism vs socialism, but I think anyone who reads it would come out a little bit more skeptical of the narratives about capitalism we've grown up with.

Paglia's magnum opus is Sexual Personae: Art and Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson, a book hated by feminists as Paglia loves Freud and attempts to explain why men create art to sublimate their libido, and why the ancient Greeks fucked boys.

Just curious, but how did you give them the test? Keep a close eye on those new age types. They are prone to syncretism. Jim Jones banked on that mysticism. Not saying your mom is that bad. My mom is into that stuff too. She likes Deepak Chopra. There's this really funny book I read by John Updike about cults called 'S'. https://www.amazon.com/S-Novel-John-Updike/dp/0449912124 When you talk about francophones and Quebec, I can't help but think of Megan Draper on Mad Men.

I managed to convince my parents to stop listening to Peterson by first exposing Peterson's blatant shilling and grifting behavior.

• Show your friend how Peterson shills for the MLM pyramid scheme PHP Agency. No person who truly cares about personal responsibility or morality would sell out to such a disgusting scam company.
  
  
• Show her Peterson's promotion of a dodgy, barely accredited diploma mill called the Acton MBA School, which is personally run by a far-right offshore oil billionaire named Jeff Sandefer. His mission in life is to undermine and defund public education, and his modus operandi is extremely shady. Again, no one who values morality or personal responsibility would shill for such a school.
  
  
• Then there's the promotion of his daughter's insane all-beef fad diet, selling $2000 rugs, charging $74.07 for a shitty Kindle e-book, pricing tickets to his stupid lectures at over $150, etc.
  
  Conclusion: The only god Peterson worships is the Almighty Dollar. He is a con artist, a snake oil salesman.