Application for a Grant 895830 Identification This Page Will Be Made Available to Selection Committee Members and External Assessors

Total Page:16

File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb

Application for a Grant 895830 Identification This Page Will Be Made Available to Selection Committee Members and External Assessors Social Sciences and Humanities Conseil de recherches en Research Council of Canada sciences humaines du Canada Internal use Application for a Grant 895830 Identification This page will be made available to selection committee members and external assessors. Funding opportunity Insight Grants Joint or special initiative Application title Personality and Performance Measurement, Understanding, Prediction and Enhancement Applicant family name Applicant given name Initials Peterson Jordan B Org. code Full name of applicant's organization and department 1350911 University of Toronto Psychology Org. code Full name of administrative organization and department 1350911 University of Toronto Psychology Preferred Adjudication Committee 435-10 Does your proposal involve Aboriginal Research as defined by SSHRC? Yes No Does your proposal involve human beings as research subjects? If "Yes", consult the Tri-Council Policy Statement: Ethical Conduct for Research Involving Humans and submit your proposal to Yes No your organization’s Research Ethics Board. Does any phase of the proposed research or research-related activity: A. Constitute a physical activity carried out on federal lands in Canada, as defined in sub-section 2(1), Yes No in relation to a physical work and that is not a designated project; B. Constitute a physical activity carried out outside of Canada in relation to a physical work and that Yes No is not a designated project; C. (i) Permit a designated project (listed in the CEAA 2012 Regulations Designating Physical Activities Yes No (RDPA)) to be carried out in whole or in part; C. (ii) Depend on a designated project (listed in the RDPA) that is, or will be, carried out by a third party? Yes No Year 1 Year 2 Year 3 Year 4 Year 5 Total Total funds requested from SSHRC 73,325 82,325 79,325 82,325 82,325 399,625 Personal information will be stored in the Personal Information Bank for the appropriate program. Application WEB 2016/10/17 Page 1 PROTECTED B WHEN COMPLETED Social Sciences and Humanities Conseil de recherches en Research Council of Canada sciences humaines du Canada Family name, Given name Peterson, Jordan Participants List names of your team members (co-applicants and collaborators) who will take part in the intellectual direction of the research. Do not include assistants, students or consultants. Role Co-applicant Collaborator Family name Given name Initials Org. code Full organization name Department/Division name Role Co-applicant Collaborator Family name Given name Initials Org. code Full organization name Department/Division name Role Co-applicant Collaborator Family name Given name Initials Org. code Full organization name Department/Division name Role Co-applicant Collaborator Family name Given name Initials Org. code Full organization name Department/Division name Role Co-applicant Collaborator Family name Given name Initials Org. code Full organization name Department/Division name Personal information will be stored in the Personal Information Bank for the appropriate program. Application WEB Page 2 PROTECTED B WHEN COMPLETED Social Sciences and Humanities Conseil de recherches en Family name, Given name Research Council of Canada sciences humaines du Canada Peterson, Jordan Research Activity The information provided in this section refers to your research proposal. Keywords List keywords that best describe your proposed research or research activity. Separate keywords with a semicolon. Personality; Individual differences; psychometrics; performance enhancement; Big Five; expressive writing; cognition; industrial and organizational performance; conscientiousness; openness; extraversion; agreeableness; neuroticism Disciplines - Indicate and rank up to 3 disciplines that best correspond to your activity. Rank Code Discipline If "Other", specify Personality 1 63018 Psychometrics 2 63020 Industrial, Organizational Psychology 3 63028 Areas of Research Indicate and rank up to 3 areas of research related to your proposal. Rank Code Area 1 332 Productivity 2 244 Innovation, Industrial and Technological Development 3 160 Employment and labour Temporal Periods If applicable, indicate up to 2 historical periods covered by your proposal. From To Year Year BC AD BC AD Personal information will be stored in the Personal Information Bank for the appropriate program. Application WEB Page 3 PROTECTED B WHEN COMPLETED Social Sciences and Humanities Conseil de recherches en Research Council of Canada sciences humaines du Canada Family name, Given name Peterson, Jordan Research Activity (cont'd) Geographical Regions If applicable, indicate and rank up to 3 geographical regions covered by or related to your proposal. Duplicate entries are not permitted. Rank Code Region 1 2 3 Countries If applicable, indicate and rank up to 5 countries covered by or related to your proposal. Duplicate entries are not permitted. Rank Code Country Prov./ State 1 1100 CANADA 2 3218 NETHERLANDS, THE 3 1200 UNITED STATES 4 3225 UNITED KINGDOM 5 Personal information will be stored in the Personal Information Bank for the appropriate program. Application WEB Page 4 PROTECTED B WHEN COMPLETED Social Sciences and Humanities Conseil de recherches en Research Council of Canada sciences humaines du Canada Family name, Given name Peterson, Jordan Response to Previous Critiques - maximum one page Applicants may, if they wish, address criticisms and suggestions offered by adjudication committees and external assessors who have reviewed previous applications. Personal information will be stored in the Personal Information Bank for the appropriate program. Application Web Page 5 PROTECTED B WHEN COMPLETED Social Sciences and Humanities Conseil de recherches en Research Council of Canada sciences humaines du Canada Family name, Given name Peterson, Jordan Summary of Proposal The summary of your research proposal should indicate clearly the problem or issue to be addressed, the potential contribution of the research both in terms of the advancement of knowledge and of the wider social benefit, etc. The studies outlined in this grant application have two objectives: (1) To improve measurement, understanding & prediction of personality and behavior, including academic/IO performance, creativity and political orientation; (2) To increase academic retention & enhance academic performance. My lab has played a significant role in the formal detailing of the Big 5 trait personality model, extending it into a hierarchy, with the Big 2 (Plasticity and Stability) at the top (DeYoung et al., 2002), following Digman (1997), and the 10 Aspects on the bottom, with the Big Five Aspect Scale (DeYoung et al., 2007), which provides an empirical differentiation of each trait (something that had been done previously only at a theoretical level), and which has been widely cited and used. We have also produced other measures, ranging from the Creative Achievement Questionnaire (Carson et al., 2005), which might now constitute the standard measure of lifetime creative production, to a series of political belief measures, which are too new to be gauged for impact. We have also examined the inter-relationships between these measures, and examined them in detail in relationship to general cognitive ability and important demographic factors. The consequence of all this has been a significant improvement in modeling personality at multiple levels of analysis and understanding of its relationship with other aspects of human psychology and behavior. The first 9 of the 11 studies in this application extend such basic psychometric work and exploration, proposing to improve the Big-5 models further, by re-deriving it from the ground up at the adjective level, and extending that derivation to nouns, verbs, and behaviors; examining the relationship between personality and facial expression, with a new mode of exploring the latter; relating personality to a range of hormonal factors; extracting personality information from narratives, using a new algorithm designed for such work; evaluating the different response of different personality types to task design and performance feedback, so that we can understand motivation in relationship to traits; and extending our work modeling and predicting performance in the workplace. We recently developed an online writing tool, the Future Authoring (FA) program, which helps its users envision and plan their lives for the next 3-5 years. Over the last 5 years, Over the last 5 yrs, ~10,000 people have now used the program, ~5000 of whom have been student research participants. The results have been stellar, with dramatic decreases in dropout rates (~25%) reported at three different post-secondary educational institutions (McGill U (Morisano et al., 2010), Erasmus University (Schippers et al., 2015), and Mohawk College (Finnie et al., in prep) and improvements of grades of approximately the same magnitude, particularly among currently poorer-performing cadres of students. The second 2 studies of the 11 proposed describe our plans to develop a high-school version of the FA program and to test its effectiveness in 15 schools with 1500 students, as well as to produce another program to help people understand and improve their personalities and map them on to John Holland's RIASEC job category scheme (Nauta, 2010), so that they will be able to make far more informed career choices. The completion of all these studies will result in the production of 4 Master's and at least 5 Ph.D. theses, a minimum of 25 published papers, a solid increment in our understanding
Recommended publications
  • How Jordan Peterson Became an Intellectual Guru
    I think I have discovered something that no one else has any idea about, and I’m not sure I can do it justice. Its scope is so broad that I can see only parts of it clearly at one time, and it is exceedingly difficult to set down comprehensibly in writing. – Jordan Peterson (1999, 473) April 19, Toronto’s Sony Centre was sold out. The occasion? Not a big sports match, not a rock concert, but the ‘debate of the century.’ A crowd of over 3000 people gathered voluntarily to hear two intellectuals talk for 2.5 hours. One of them was Slavoj Žižek; the other, Jordan Peterson, is the topic of this post. Jordan B. Peterson, Canadian professor of psychology at the University of Toronto, has been called the most important public intellectual of our time (Cowen 2018; Brooks 2018). His book 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos (2018) is a bestseller in Canada, the US, and UK. After he expressed worries about the future of his academic career because of his controversial critique of Bill C-16 that would make the use of gender-neutral pronouns mandatory, soon the donations he received through crowd funding platform Patreon exceeded his salary. Peterson voices polarizing standpoints, for instance on cultural practices such as (gay) marriage, religion or political correctness. He has 1.9 million subscribers and 92.5 million views on his YouTube channel (Socialblade 2019) and over 300.000 Twitter followers. He has his own subreddit about him and another one, Maps of Memeing, is exclusively devoted to Peterson memes.
    [Show full text]
  • Maps of Meaning: the Architecture of Belief
    MAPS OF MEANING: THE ARCHITECTURE OF BELIEF ROUTLEDGE (1999) Jordan B. Peterson, Ph.D. PDF Version with Figures May 2002 2 PREFACE: DESCENSUS AD INFEROS ___________________________________________________________ 7 CHAPTER 1: MAPS OF EXPERIENCE: OBJECT AND MEANING ___________________________________ 15 CHAPTER 2: MAPS OF MEANING: THREE LEVELS OF ANALSIS__________________________________ 28 2.1. Normal and Revolutionary Life: Two Prosaic Stories__________________________________________ 29 2.1.1. Normal Life _________________________________________________________________________ 31 2.1.2. Revolutionary Life ____________________________________________________________________ 35 2.2. Neuropsychological Function: The Nature of the Mind ________________________________________ 37 2.2.1. The Valence of Things_________________________________________________________________ 38 2.2.2. Unexplored Territory: Phenomenology and Neuropsychology__________________________________ 44 2.2.3. Exploration: Phenomenology and Neuropsychology _________________________________________ 49 2.2.4. Explored Territory: Phenomenology and Neuropsychology ____________________________________ 59 2.3. Mythological Representation: The Constituent Elements of Experience __________________________ 80 2.3.1. Introduction _________________________________________________________________________ 81 2.3.2. The Enuma elish: A Comprehensive Exemplar of Narrative Categorization _______________________ 93 2.3.3. The Dragon of Primordial Chaos________________________________________________________
    [Show full text]
  • Jordan Peterson and the (F)Law of ‘Scientific Inquiry’: a Critical Evaluation of Peterson’S Use of Science and Philosophy in His Conquest Against Social Justice
    POLITIKON: The IAPSS Journal of Political Science Vol 41 (June 2019) Jordan Peterson and the (F)law of ‘Scientific Inquiry’: A Critical Evaluation of Peterson’s Use of Science and Philosophy in His Conquest Against Social Justice David Guignion https://doi.org/10.22151/politikon.41.1 David Guignion is a Doctoral Student in Media Studies at The University of Western Ontario, Ontario, Canada. His Master’s thesis explored the intersection of Jean Baudrillard’s work with posthumanism. E-mail: [email protected] Abstract This article explores Jordan Peterson’s political project in response to Canada’s legislation of Bill C-16, a bill seeking to add gender expression to the list of grounds for discrimination under the criminal code. Peterson opposes Bill C-16 because it presents, for him, an ideological mode of speech and thought regulation. For Peterson, this bill is the result of the decline of scientific validity and the rise of a postmodernism motivated by the desire to undermine Western civilization. Therefore, this article argues that Peterson’s challenge to postmodern thought as an anti-scientific doctrine is perplexing given the general lack of consensus between his views and those of the greater scientific community. The article presents different theoretical frameworks attesting to the reality of gender non-conforming identities as well as to the consequences of denying these identities, and argues that rather than challenging oppressive systems of governance, Peterson’s project actually mirrors them. Keywords Friedrich Nietzsche; Gender; Hannah Arendt; Jean Baudrillard; Jordan Peterson; Judith Butler; Totalitarianism; Trans-identities 7 POLITIKON: The IAPSS Journal of Political Science Vol 41 (June 2019) Introduction If all enigmas are resolved, the stars go out.
    [Show full text]
  • Jordan Peterson and the (F)Law of 'Scientific Inquiry'
    POLITIKON: The IAPSS Journal of Political Science Vol 41 (June 2019) Jordan Peterson and the (F)law of ‘Scientific Inquiry’: A Critical Evaluation of Peterson’s Use of Science and Philosophy in His Conquest Against Social Justice David Guignion https://doi.org/10.22151/politikon.41.1 David Guignion is a Doctoral Student in Media Studies at The University of Western Ontario, Ontario, Canada. His Master’s thesis explored the intersection of Jean Baudrillard’s work with posthumanism. E-mail: [email protected] Abstract This article explores Jordan Peterson’s political project in response to Canada’s legislation of Bill C-16, a bill seeking to add gender expression to the list of grounds for discrimination under the criminal code. Peterson opposes Bill C-16 because it presents, for him, an ideological mode of speech and thought regulation. For Peterson, this bill is the result of the decline of scientific validity and the rise of a postmodernism motivated by the desire to undermine Western civilization. Therefore, this article argues that Peterson’s challenge to postmodern thought as an anti-scientific doctrine is perplexing given the general lack of consensus between his views and those of the greater scientific community. The article presents different theoretical frameworks attesting to the reality of gender non-conforming identities as well as to the consequences of denying these identities, and argues that rather than challenging oppressive systems of governance, Peterson’s project actually mirrors them. Keywords Friedrich Nietzsche; Gender; Hannah Arendt; Jean Baudrillard; Jordan Peterson; Judith Butler; Totalitarianism; Trans-identities 7 POLITIKON: The IAPSS Journal of Political Science Vol 41 (June 2019) Introduction If all enigmas are resolved, the stars go out.
    [Show full text]
  • Religion and Morality in the Thought of Nietzsche, Zen Buddhism and Jordan Peterson
    BETWEEN EAST AND WEST: RELIGION AND MORALITY IN THE THOUGHT OF NIETZSCHE, ZEN BUDDHISM AND JORDAN PETERSON Christopher Ryan Maboloc Ateneo de Davao University, Philippines ABSTRACT This paper investigates the proximate relation between religion and morality through the shared features of the philosophy of F. Nietzsche, Zen Buddhism, and the psychologist Jordan Peterson. Peterson associates the concept of multiple hierarchies in the evolution of life and society to the behavior of lobsters, also drawing from religion, psychology, and Nietzsche’s thought. While finding a common theme between Eastern and Western philosophy appears difficult if we follow Peterson’s concept of an ethos, this study will reveal that transcendence as self-overcoming is a dominant idea that can be found in all three perspectives. Keywords: Nietzsche, Zen, Peterson, Self-overcoming, Ethos Prajñā Vihāra Vol. 19 No 2, July - December 2018, 71-92 © 2000 by Assumption University Press 72 Prajñā Vihāra Introduction What does it mean to be human? How can man rise above himself? What is the relation between evolution and truth? Are morals built upon a longer historical process? What is truth? In what truth is religion rooted? These important questions often draw our attention into the structure of an ethos that determines for us the meaning of human life. In pursuing the connection between the Eastern and Western views of the self, this paper will put into contrast the thoughts of Friedrich Nietzsche, Zen Buddhism, and the psychologist Jordan Peterson. The focus of this investigation is the latter, who offers an insight by making an association between the human ethos and biology.
    [Show full text]
  • The Purpose of Life Is Finding the Largest Burden That You Can Bear and Bearing It.” – a Study of the Making of Meaning Among Jordan Peterson Supporters
    UPPSALA UNIVERSITET Teologiska institutionen Religionshistoria och religionsbeteendevetenskap C, 15hp Höstterminen 2018 Handledare: Cecilia Melder Betygsbestämmande lärare: Andreas Önver Cetrez “The purpose of life is finding the largest burden that you can bear and bearing it.” – A study of the making of meaning among Jordan Peterson supporters Erik Lindvall 9302213898 [email protected] Abstract The aim of this thesis is to study, understand and explain the theories and work of the Canadian psychologist Jordan Peterson, whose controversial statements and lectures have made him a darling of certain factions of the political right, as he portrays himself as an enemy of progressive ideology. With a focus on understanding and explaining Peterson and how he provides meaning to his followers, the study will go through Peterson’s work in his two books Maps of Meaning and 12 Rules for Life in order to analyze their content and the follower’s reaction to the books as well as Peterson’s persona as a whole. To analyze these works, hermeneutic methods based on the work of finnish theologian Björn Vikström will be utilized. The texts will be analyzed on a textual and intertextual level, but the role of the author as well as the readers will also be put under scrutiny in order to elaborate on many aspects of Peterson’s writing. To analyze how he provides meaning to his followers and the definition of the terms lifestance and meaning, the work of Swedish theologian Carl Reinhold Bråkenhielm will be referenced and compared to Peterson’s work. While Vikström and Bråkenhielm will be the main sources of intertextual comparison with Jordan Peterson, they will also be supplemented with the work of other established theologians such as Hjalmar Sundén and others to further understand and compare the making of meaning undertaken by Jordan Peterson to other academic studies in the field of making meaning.
    [Show full text]
  • On the Ideas of Jordan Peterson
    Champagne, Marc. Myth, Meaning, and Antifragile Individualism: On the Ideas of Jordan Peterson. Exeter, UK: Imprint Academic, 2020. To some, Jordan Peterson is like the mythical heroes he discusses, while to others, he is a type of anti-hero, and to others yet, he is a downright villain. Regardless of one’s position on Peterson, most people can agree that he has many potent ideas. Thus, it is not surprising that some people want to understand the works of a controversial, notable, and expansive thinker like Peterson, but do not have the time or energy to do so. This is where Marc Champagne’s book Myth, Meaning, and Antifragile Individualism acts as a helpful aid. When Peterson burst into public consciousness propelled by the success of his second book, 12 Rules for Life,1 few had read his first book, Maps of Meaning.2 Champagne takes these books, along with Peterson’s lectures and interviews, and uses his expertise to make these ideas digestible. As a scholar with joint Ph.D.s in philosophy and semiotics, Champagne is well qualified to distill the essential wisdom from Peterson’s work. His book is an excellent starting place for anyone who wants to understand Peterson better, partly because Champagne makes a valiant effort to understand Peterson and partly because of its breadth and clarity. It unites Peterson’s ideas with ideas in philosophy, psychology, and religion under the theme of “how humans use stories to generate meaning” (p. 1). The book is divided into two parts: exposition and evaluation. The first ten chapters seek to understand Peterson’s worldview; the second part, comprising four chapters, evaluates Peterson’s ideas.
    [Show full text]
  • Jordan Peterson's Antidote to Modernity
    Politics and Prophecy: Jordan Peterson’s Antidote to Modernity asjournal.org/66-2019/politics-and-prophecy/ by David Dennen One person’s prophet has always been another’s crackpot. Nowhere is this more obvious currently than with psychology professor turned public intellectual Jordan B. Peterson. Peterson has attained a large following online and is esteemed by centrist members of the American media. Yet few intellectuals are currently so reviled by younger leftists. This article argues for some conceptual and cultural-historical clarification of Peterson’s work. I suggest that Peterson and some (not all) of his leftist critics are actually on the same side of an effort to preserve the open-access order (the basic political-economic organization of the Western democracies). However, they focus on different problems endemic to such orders. While his critics focus on power imbalances and material inequalities, Peterson is a manifestation of the need to manage spiritual crisis while at the same time maintaining relative openness of access to political and economic institutions. Recurrent spiritual crisis, I argue, inheres in open-access orders. Because these orders depend on impersonality and value relativism, they provide no spiritual grounding for individuals. In open-access societies, spiritual crises get temporarily resolved by the development of ‘secular theodicies,’ modes of making sense of suffering in a world in which God is dead. Peterson is a purveyor of a secular theodicy, the contours and context of which are shown through consideration of Peterson’s writings and online videos. Introduction That Carlyle did have a message, or at least was widely believed to have a message, no one can seriously question.
    [Show full text]
  • An Epistemic Thunderstorm: What We Learned and Failed to Learn from Jordan Peterson’S Rise to Fame1
    An Epistemic Thunderstorm: What We Learned and Failed to Learn from 1 Jordan Peterson’s Rise to Fame Jonathan Rowson2 Abstract: The cultural pressure to endorse or reject public intellectuals wholesale can be problematic, perpetuating groupthink and diminishing scope for intellectual growth, societal maturation, and political imagination. On encountering public figures who appear to be both right and wrong, sometimes simultaneously, perhaps dangerously, there is scope to be more creative and less reactive in our response. In the illustrative case of Jordan Peterson, commentators often oriented their analysis within a conceptually moribund political spectrum; e.g. Peterson is “alt-right” attacking “the radical left.” Social media echo chambers lead some to read that Peterson’s “fanboys” were “misogynist trolls” while others heard that his critics were “virtue signaling snowflakes”. The tendency of print and broadcast media to seek a defining angle diminishes rather than distills complexity; for instance, Peterson’s fame was associated with a perceived crisis in masculinity, but that was not the whole story. “Petersonitis” is introduced here as a serious joke to describe the intellectual and emotional discomfort that arose from the author’s attempt to seek a fuller understanding of complex characters in a divisive political culture. In a response to Peterson’s book, 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos, twelve relatively dispassionate perspectives on his contribution are offered as an antidote to the language of allergy and infatuation that surrounded his rise to fame. Peterson is described here as symptomatic, multiphrenic, theatrical, solipsistic, sacralizing, hypervigilant, monocular, ideological, Manichean, Piagetian, masculine, and prismatic. First person language is used to reflect the author’s experience of Petersonitis, after having been drawn to Peterson’s online video lectures, debating with him in a public forum, and gradually clarifying the nature of the limitations in his outlook and approach.
    [Show full text]
  • Neuropsychology of Motivation for Group Aggression and Mythology
    Provided for non-commercial research and educational use. Not for reproduction, distribution or commercial use. This article was originally published in the Encyclopedia of Violence, Peace, & Conflict, Volumes 1-3 published by Elsevier, and the attached copy is provided by Elsevier for the author’s benefit and for the benefit of the author’s institution, for non-commercial research and educational use including without limitation use in instruction at your institution, sending it to specific colleagues who you know, and providing a copy to your institution’s administrator. All other uses, reproduction and distribution, including without limitation commercial reprints, selling or licensing copies or access, or posting on open internet sites, your personal or institution’s website or repository, are prohibited. For exceptions, permission may be sought for such use through Elsevier’s permissions site at: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/permissionusematerial Jordan B Peterson. Neuropsychology of Motivation for Group Aggression and Mythology. In Lester Kurtz (Editor-in-Chief), Vol. [2] of Encyclopedia of Violence, Peace, & Conflict, 3 vols. pp. [1329-1340] Oxford: Elsevier. Author's personal copy Neuropsychology of Motivation for Group Aggression and Mythology 1329 Neuropsychology of Motivation for Group Aggression and Mythology Jordan B Peterson, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada Published by Elsevier Inc. Introduction: Atrocity for Its Own Sake Temperamental and Personality Variables in Territoriality: Inside the Walls Is Safe, Outside
    [Show full text]
  • Moving Grammars of the Political, Affirm Different Verbs in Its Wake
    Moving Grammars ofthe Political: Beyond Sovereign Thought and Action A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE GRADUATE DIVISION OF THE UNIVERSITY OF HAWAI'I IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN POLITICAL SCIENCE DECEMBER 2004 By Geoffrey Alexander Wallace Whitehall Dissertation Committee: Michael J. Shapiro, Chairperson Kathy Ferguson Jon Goldberg-Hiller Jon Goss Sankaran Krishna Nevzat Soguk ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank my entire committee for the generosity ofoffering their time to this project. iii ABSTRACT This dissertation challenges the failure of the contemporary political imagination. Effectively to do politics today is to say I oppose. With this failure in mind, the dissertation explores what it can mean to affirm new horizons of political possibility by being attentive to political grammars. I ask what it means to exceed the political grammar of sovereignty and, by moving grammars of the political, affirm different verbs in its wake. In the wake of sovereignty, I explore the following types of questions: 1) how can what exceeds accepted structures of intelligibility be appreciated. 2) How can difference be politicized without reducing it to the logic ofthe same? 3) How is it possible to think about a politics of time? How is language, grammatically and rhetorically, a set of limits that holds people to singular identities and calibrates political action to predetermined positions? With these questions in mind, the general question being asked is: how can different linguistic practices open up competing political grammars? To this end, the dissertation pushes Gilles Deleuze beyond his inherited political grammar. Specifically, I amplify Deleuze's philosophy, which celebrates creating concepts above all else, into a moving politics.
    [Show full text]
  • The Jordan Peterson Phenomena: Why Fromm’S Ideas and Public Intellectual Vision Is Essential for Responding to Reactionary Populism
    74 Articles The Jordan Peterson Phenomena: Why Fromm’s ideas and public intellectual vision is essential for responding to reactionary populism Neil McLaughlin s a sociologist living in Toronto, I had a ring side A seat for watching the remarkable rise to global fame of Canadian psychologist Jordan Peterson in the fall of 2016. Peterson was teaching at the University of Toronto, living within walking distance from my home and was a presence in the local media as a scholar who was skilled at giving lectures and doing TV appearances. At the time, however, he was essentially unknown outside of circles of undergraduate students who had taken his popular »Maps of Meaning« survey class. Increasingly becoming visible and adept at social media and the public performances of lectures, Peterson became world famous in the aftermath of posting three YouTube videos. One offered a critique of Canada’s Bill C-16 to amend the Canadian Human Rights Act and Criminal code to include gender identity and expression as a protected class.1 A second 1 This is a complex issue that is debated all around the world now in different legal-natio- nal contexts but in its essentials involves the rights of all humans to be free of discrimi- nation, threats, violence and hate speech due to their identity as transgender, intersex or non-binary individuals. The law was designed to extend protects in Federal Law to those laws that already exists to protect other groups besides gender-diverse people and to take existing Provincial laws to the national level. There are a number of controversies that flowed from these debates, and Peterson’s framing of the issues put a lot of attention on the right to choose gender-neutral pronouns (they, or them) or shift from he/him to she/ her by choice.
    [Show full text]