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Comment by indubitable | Hacker News Reader

In this particular article I find it most interesting that they conclude with a tale of bad happenings to one who, instead of debating his views, "distorted, simplified and restated his views to make them appear offensive and cartoonish." This from an article that chose to characterize the readers of one of his books as, "men who feel fatherless, solitary, floating in a chaotic moral vacuum, constantly outperformed and humiliated by women, haunted by pain and self-contempt." This degree of lack of self awareness and coherence, and in such a brief article, is really disappointing from the NYT.

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>This from an article that chose to characterize the readers of one of his books as, "men who feel fatherless, solitary, floating in a chaotic moral vacuum, constantly outperformed and humiliated by women, haunted by pain and self-contempt."

The NYT actually got this right. Jordan Peterson is explicitly targeting his message for that type of men, because he feels that they need it. It applies to everyone, of course, but that's his primary target.

They got it entirely wrong. Peterson has explicitly and repeatedly stated that he never intended to target young men specifically but, since YouTube's audience is predominantly male, supply-and-demand decided the distribution for him.

Edit: the article actually uses the vague term "the implied readers"... which I guess means it's the author's own implication. I have to agree with the above, heavily-downvoted comment above as such baseless speculation appears to serve the writer's agenda over the need to inform the reader.

> since YouTube's audience is predominantly male

Uh. Doesnt youtube have like billions of users at this point? Do you have any stats demonstrating that more men use youtube?

I've heard that that's true, but I think he meant Peterson's audience. According to Peterson, his YouTube audience is about 80% male.

Those stats are one search away, but I have no point to prove. I am saying, for the record, that this is Jordan Peterson's stated explanation for why his audience is predominantly male, and the assertion that he specifically targeted them is false (unless JP is lying).

I certainly get the impression (though I don't have the data) that JP's clinical practice does not have the same gender disparity, so it is at least plausible that the medium is a greater factor than the message.

I've heard as much of the guy's message as I can tolerate, and he's a friggin misogynist. It's scary that his message resonates with anybody. It's a negative message with its own "axis of evil": Nearly all women, a nebulous group of superior men (pick any: attractive, wealthy, educated, lucky), and modern society in general. It comes off as the rant of a brat upset that women are getting closer to having equal opportunities.

If you're going to levy an accusation, please include some evidence.

Cathy, is that you?

Please don't do this here

> The NYT actually got this right. Jordan Peterson is explicitly targeting his message for that type of men, because he feels that they need it.

And your source for that assertion is?

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