I hate being wrong

… because you can’t find the truth from false “facts” or conflicting principles.

I like debate and argument. Not because I always think I’m right, but because I like being right… and debate and argument out loud with others who disagree is how I uncover flaws in my logic, missing facts, holes in my knowledge, conflicting opinions, and so-forth. I argue not so much to convince them, and to ensure my own position is solid. I’ve long ago learned that I’m in a distinct minority in this respect – most people are very conflict-avoidant, and react to disagreement very poorly. As a coworker of mine very aptly pointed out, we are taught that it’s not polite to discuss controversial topics, rather than taught how to politely discuss controversial topics. Our public schools actively push that position, in fact, shutting down discussion and promoting snowflake production.

Sometimes I take a public stance on something that I later change my mind on. That’s part of the lifelong growth an honest mind requires. When I’m wrong, I admit it.  When I first saw some Jordan B Peterson clips last year he looked and sounded like someone I could get behind. He seemed like he could make clear things I’d tried to learn at some point and failed – Jung, Kant, psychology, etc. – and tie them together in a way that appear on the surface coherent. There are a number of short clips where he addresses a topic in a way that seems to get to something deep, bringing together a wide range of subjects and tying them together marvelously. I’m eclectic in my learning, too, and frequently jump around in my thinking, so I could sort of relate to he seeming stream-of-consciousness philosophizing. I looked at his 12 Rules book and some of the basic core ideas seemed so reasonable. Yes, if your own life is a total mess you likely don’t have any place telling others how they should run their life. Yes, you should sit up straight and show some self-respect.

I bought the book. I got about four chapters into it and stopped. Not because the one sentence summary of each of those chapters was wrong, but because he was using a entended chapter of random jumping around to say the same thing. It didn’t seem right in some way. It appeared to be bringing in lots of high-powered facts from many different disciplines, but the were things I didn’t know enough about to judge the correctness of, but there was something that just seemed off. Then Vox Day came out with “Jordanetics.”

Well, that spelled out, in excruciating detail, just exactly what was so “off” about it all. I can understand why many people who like the Jordan soundbites on Youtube would be offended by such a thorough take-down of the man, but at the same time, I’m thankful that someone like Vox is available and able to do so, so I don’t waste any more time reading between the lines on what he says, looking for what I think he means, but not really seeing what he was straight-up saying.

Life lesson: really important things should be said clearly, where what is meant is what is what is said, and what is said is what was meant. (yes, there are exceptions, like the Bible, that has references within metaphors within translations within references, and meaning is very, VERY dense, and requires serious study.)

I like “clear,” and I like “deep,” but I like “true” even more.

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