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Comment by simonh | Hacker News Reader

Paglia is a force of nature. It's so exhilarating to come across such a passionate yet clear-sighted academic, battle scarred by exposure of her past misconceptions to the brutality of testing in the real world, and with such a stronger voice for it.

I know he's just as much of a divisive figure, but there's a great video of a conversation between Paglia and Jordan Peterson on Youtube.

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Agreed - Peterson has some important things to say, and much nonsense, but that specific conversation is absolutely hilarious, by virtue of her hyperbolic and rambling, but fun excursions.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-hIVnmUdXM

https://www.jordanbpeterson.com/podcast/episode-31/

She’s got the same level of understanding of Foucault and Derrida as Jordan Peterson, ie. ill-informed and superficial. What a shame to call these people clear-sighted when they clearly not only misread Continental philosophers but it becomes apparent that they didn’t even read some of the works they’re criticizing.

Peterson is unbelievably well read, he was on a project for the United Nations and read 300 books on climate science. I'd be very hesitant before accusing him of criticising a book or author without having done his research. I've seen him catch out interviewers a few times where they hadn't read the material in question, but he had and knew it very well.

Doubtful that a clinical psychologist would grasp 300 books in a highly mathematical field. You know, next to doing his job.

I’m not saying he isn’t smart just that his conceptions about Continental philosophers stem from poor understanding and shallow reading of the philosophers’ works.

At the time that was his job.

Reading books he's missing the bare basic understanding of?

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