"... and that her doubt about the events was nothing but additional evidence of her thorough and long-term victimization. I could insist that her sexual partners had a legal obligation to ensure that she was not too impaired by alcohol to give consent. I could tell her that she had indisputably been subject to violent and illicit acts, unless she had consented to each sexual move explicitly and verbally. I could tell her that she was an innocent victim.' I could have told her all that. And it would have been true. And she would have accepted it as true, and remembered it for the rest of her life. She would have been a new person, with a new history, and a new destiny. But I also thought, 'I could tell Miss S that she is a walking disaster. I could tell her that she wanders into a bar like a courtesan in a coma, that she is a danger to herself and others, that she needs to wake up, and that if she goes to singles bars and drinks too much and is taken home and has rough violent sex (or even tender caring sex), then what the hell does she expect?' In other words, I could have told her, in more philosophical terms, that she was Nietzsche’s 'pale criminal'— the person who at one moment dares to break the sacred law and at the next shrinks from paying the price. And that would have been true, too, and she would have accepted it as such, and remembered it. If I had been the adherent of a left-wing, social-justice ideology, I would have told her the first story. If I had been the adherent of a conservative ideology, I would have told her the second. And her responses after having been told either the first or the second story would have proved to my satisfaction and hers that the story I had told her was true— completely, irrefutably true. And that would have been advice. I decided instead to listen. I have learned not to steal my clients’ problems from them...."
From
"12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos" by Jordan Peterson. That passage is from Rule 9, "Assume that the person you are listening to might know something you don't."
ADDED: From a Harper's essay about
Nietzsche's "pale criminal":
At first blush [the passage (quoted at the link)]... seem[s] to be a glorification of the mind of a violent criminal, of the person who “rises above” social morals... But on closer inspection... this passage is an attempt to parse the mentality of a common criminal.... He commits a murder in the course of some minor crime not because he designs to murder, but because it seems expedient for the moment. Then the reality of what he has done seeps in, and he is horrified. In this sense, I think, Nietzsche uses the word “pale,” as if the blood is running from his head, as the shock of his crime sets in. He has not killed because of an animal impulse that regales in the kill—the primal Blutlust.... The sublimating force of society still has an incomplete grasp on him....
So the “pale criminal” is a study of evil latent in humankind—not the most dramatic or threatening kind of evil, but rather the sort of evil which infests the small-minded or petty thug, the creature who acts without deeper moral bearings. The “pale criminal” may well commit a deceit, a fraud, a confidence trick, without even thinking of his conduct as a crime, and may experience remorse in the wake of his actions. He is a diseased and crippled specimen.....
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26 comments:
"Assume that the person you are listening to might know something you don't." It didn't take me too many years of the practice of law to find that out.
I also found out that I knew something that the person I'm listening to didn't, which was why he/she/it retained me.
I could have told her, in more philosophical terms, that she was Nietzsche’s 'pale criminal'— the person who at one moment dares to break the sacred law and at the next shrinks from paying the price... If I had been the adherent of a left-wing, social-justice ideology, I would have told her the first story. If I had been the adherent of a conservative ideology, I would have told her the [Nietzsche].
It's a strange day when Nietzsche is trotted out as indicative of a "conservative ideology". But --- hey!--- it happens. Martin Buber, of all people, considered Nietzsche to be a big influence on his thought, so this may not be quite as strange as it seems at first glance.
Chapter 8 is probably one of the more important chapters I have ever read outside of the Bible.
That thing Margaret Thatcher said (paraphrasing): 'The problem with social-justice ideology is that you eventually run out of other people's responsibility.'
I don't know what to make of Peterson, sometimes I agree with his opinions and sometimes he is ever so jarring.
Taking conservative approach is correct decision but Peterson does not have to be blunt like calling her courtesan in coma. How is Miss S supposed to improve herself if her counselor won't tell her what her problems are because she has unique insight into alcohol and one nights stands and doesn't want to steal her problems from her.
I'm thinking Ann caught the rebroadcast of the Greg Gutfeld show, as I did. Peterson was a guest. I'd never heard of Peterson, but I was impressed with him.
The first story assumes a lack of agency a la Pro-Choice and conception then choice. The second story recognizes human dignity and that the individual need not disarm and flail helplessly in the dark. The first story progresses to a totalitarian state. While the second advances to a conservation of principles and principals.
Walk for Human Lives and Dignity
"And her responses after having been told either the first or the second story would have proved to my satisfaction and hers that the story I had told her was true— completely, irrefutably true."
Whoa, that's heavy, dude.
“I'm thinking Ann caught the rebroadcast of the Greg Gutfeld show, as I did. Peterson was a guest. ”
No. I read the piece in the New York Review of Books, which caused me to have a theory that I wanted to test.
I have never watched the Greg Gutfield show. Sometimes Meade has it on and I hear a little but am not interested.
I watch very little of tv news and commentary. It’s just too slow, repetitive, crude, and loud. Plus it’s harder to blog without text.
So Peterson chooses not to tell the woman that she is a victim of the wickedness of others, and also chooses not to tell her that she a victim of her own poor decisions, and instead chooses to take the most passive course and listen? I hope the chapter ends better than this.
This reminds of the movie, "Looking for Mister Goodbar."
For those too young to have seen it, it's a very good flick. Nice surprise ending.
Peterson is pretty good!
instead chooses to take the most passive course and listen
He's working on the premise that we already know what is best for us, possess agency to reconcile the circumstances and imperatives, and only need an opportunity to realize it. It's actually a classical liberal idea that recognizes the individual as the ultimate judge, jury, and executioner a la "we are our own woman". Anecdotally, I would say this is true more often than it is not; but, sometimes we need an aid to keep us on the straight and narrow, our straight and narrow.
Guggenbuhl-Craig on child sexual abuse therapy:
`The one-sided, unipolar or split-off mythology of the innocent child
and victim has the capacity to hinder our therapeutic work with sexually
abused children - or adults. The manner and method many therapists use
to deal with the guilt feeling of ``abuse'' victims amply demonstrates
my point. Children who experience sexual abuse often feel guilty. They
have the impression that they, somehow, were at fault. Older children,
in particular, have ambivalent feelings about the abuse. They are
uncertain whether the experience did not provide them with a certain
pleasure. They often wonder if they failed to defend themselves or
possible encouraged the perpetrator. Many psychologists reject these
guilt feelings out of hand as completely unjustified. They maintain that
in no way can there be a question of guilt. They encourage children to
forget the guilt, to put it out of their minds.
``This therapeutic position can be harmful for the psychological development
of a child. Therapists simply think of and accept the child as a victim.
They energetically reject and deny any attempt on the child's part to assume
any responsibility for what happened or at least to recognize his or her own
ambivalence. Therapists thereby impose a victim psychology upon the child,
a psychology which says that for everything that happens there is always
someone to blame. They nip in the bud the child's growing awareness that
he is at least partially responsible for much that happens to him - or at
least for the back and forth tension between rejection and acceptance. This
therapeutic position does not take the child seriously as a human being.''
"Myth and Reality of Sexual Abuse of Children," _From the Wrong Side_ Adolf Guggenbuhl-Craig, Spring Publications, 1955, p.61
1995 not 1955
There are a lot of poorly trained people in the mental health field. Dr. Jordan Peterson is not one of them. His views are informed by psychological research, which is becoming less meaningful over time.
Empathy is a means to an end. It is not the end itself, as poorly trained therapists act.
The goal is to establish some sense of control over one's life. That cannot happen if one immerses themselves in victimhood.
Facing reality and developing a sense of human agency in dealing with reality is the goal. Read Albert Bandura. He was a researcher, not a clinician.
@YH: "It's a strange day when Nietzsche is trotted out as indicative of a "conservative ideology"."
Not Nietzsche as such, perhaps, but Nietzsche as a reminder that a sacred order exists, or once existed, and that, as Peterson suggests, there's a price to pay for blowing it up. I believe that's how he appeared to Philip Rieff as well.
A human only owns their motive, their desire, and their effort. It’s a plan for misery to attempt to own anything else, particularly standing and position, reputation, and wealth. It’s also a plan for pointless disaster to attempt to own or control other people’s motives desires or efforts.
True liberty in a society can only occur whrn each of us attends to the things we individually own.
Bondage and slavery come when people attempt to control other people even for good and right ends.
This, I believe, is what Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn learned in the Russian prison camps, which turned him completely away from the various forms of Marxism per se.
“If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?”
The answer is: precious few. Precious few want to look at themselves and root out what in themselves is causing society to stumble or be unjust or inmerciful. It’s always the other person that’s at fault, so lets oppose/resist/control/disenfranchise/kill thrm.
I have learned not to steal my clients’ problems from them....
I would speculate that Peterson's client has enough clues to solve the problem on her own and that in fact that it's essential if she is to become a more powerful human being that she solve and assign her own meaning to it.
I suspect that Peterson is drawing on Jean Piaget's work with how the mind develops in the child. What Piaget found was that there are distinct mental models of the world that children go through as they develop. These are different ways of thinking about the world, and you can identify and recognize them when you ask children to explain how something works. There is a standard progression of increasingly sophisticated mental models that most people go through, but there is also quite a lot of variation as to when different people reach the same stage. And some people get stuck in a stage and never get beyond it.
These ideas and different ways of thinking are not taught. Normally, no teacher is teaching the children to think this way.
I imagine that Peterson believes that people get stronger by doing things themselves, and that if you prematurely give the answer to something they could solve themselves you are kind of cheating them. What Peterson is supplying in the therapy is that he is listening and the client is talking and thinking about things that quite possibly she has been avoiding thinking about. The simple act of listening and the person talking brings attention to the issue, an issue that may be so highly charged that the client has been avoiding thinking about it for a long time.
Without knowing the details, I would suspect that the truth is usually closer to the second scenario than the first. But most of the value of that discovery lies in the person realizing that herself.
Is 'Miss S' meant to invoke Emma Sulkowicz (of "Mattress Performance" fame)?
I don't see her tag on the post, and wonder if the Miss S/Sulkowicz is a coincidence or if we are expected to make that connection.
The Germans have a word for this.
Okay, I bought the damn book. The issue with Miss S. is not resolved:
"Miss S would have had to talk for twenty years to figure out whether she had been raped. And someone would have had to be there to listen. I started the process, but circumstances made it impossible for me to finish. She left therapy with me only somewhat less ill-formed and vague than when she first met me. But at least she didn’t leave as the living embodiment of my damned ideology."
A page or two before this unsatisfactory conclusion, Peterson tells us the lesson we should learn:
"There was no objective observer, and there never would be. There was no complete and accurate story. Such a thing did not and could not exist. There were, and are, only partial accounts and fragmentary viewpoints. But some are still better than others. Memory is not a description of the objective past. Memory is a tool. Memory is the past’s guide to the future. If you remember that something bad happened, and you can figure out why, then you can try to avoid that bad thing happening again. That’s the purpose of memory. It’s not “to remember the past.” It’s to stop the same damn thing from happening over and over."
Peterson is saying, I think, that there could never be an objective determination if she had been victim of others or herself, the important thing was to sopt being a victim. Good advice! Except Peterson hates giving advice. Miss S would have to figure out on her own (through talk therapy) that the most important thing was to be a director of her life, and not a victim of things (including herself) that she could not control.
I'm certain most cuckservatives and proggies don't understand what Peterson is saying because it hits too close to home that his underlying thesis is ideology is a parasite on the great mythological stories derived from the depths of humanity.
Ideology only Half the Story
In addition, Peterson examines the Christ myth as Comedy
Christ as Comedic mythological Archetype
Not unsurprising since proggies hate Scott Adams and Cucks love him whilst he makes the point that Trump is a Con Man for the ages duping his supporters into blind cuck devotion.
Howard the Fuck is no more entertaining than Howard the Duck.
Thanks Lewis for telling the rest of that story. His belief that if he gives an interpretation, an answer, then she will pick that up and make it her belief system, is the part of this story that I feel I don't understand. I can see a certain chance of that happening, but he talks about it as if it will definitely happen. I haven't seen this in my experience. She must have been in an very suggestible state. But then maybe she was and he knew that she was.
And thank you Howard for your links. Both of those videos are great, although I don't really get what he's saying. But I know I'd like to figure it out.
I'm guessing that part of his idea is that buried in religion, or at least Christianity, are ideas that are almost universally present in people, and that are in sense buried in our brains, and will always be there. And that in a full-blown religion, all of these basic myths are present -- you get the full set.
Whereas ideologies, in Peterson's meaning, are simplified, and although an ideology might use some of the basic, built-in stories, it's never the whole set.
In my vocabulary, a religion is an ideology. And yes I get that political ideologies tend to be simple compared to religious ideologies.
mandrewa said...
Thanks Lewis for telling the rest of that story. His belief that if he gives an interpretation, an answer, then she will pick that up and make it her belief system, is the part of this story that I feel I don't understand. I can see a certain chance of that happening
Situationally, he must have been certain. I find this believable - you've never met someone on the brink, who could readily be pushed this way or that? If you have, you feel an obligation to be careful.
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