More of a Comment Really #1 - Dawkins vs. Peterson

In which a new series appears and the Peterson/Dawkins chat is discussed

Sometimes I watch things or read things and don’t have much to say but have a little to say. I don’t tweet (I’m not concise enough; also I don’t want to lose my sanity and faith in humanity) so I need another outlet. And so: “More of a Comment Really” was born. Maybe this will be the only ever instalment. Maybe it’ll be the greatest thing ever. Who knows? I don’t.

But for now, I had a few thoughts on Jordan Peterson’s interview with Richard Dawkins last week and after Brandon Stahl reminded me of it I thought I’d share a few thoughts in a post.

Initial thoughts

Point one: it’s the first longform Peterson piece I’ve sat through in two years (the last one being his sit down with Jonathan Pageau and Greg Hurwitz where they discussed whether he is a madhead on Twitter and whether he should stop. It was a moment of false hope) and I was swiftly reminded of why I don’t like to listen to Peterson anymore: he’s a terrible listener. He monopolises most of the time on monologues, dodges questions and indulges himself. He’s a great rhetorician but a less-than-meh conversationalist.

Point two: I come to dislike comment sections more and more on videos like this. I go to the comments looking for people who share my sentiments and I find walls of anti-Dawkins Peterson-simping. Not so surprising. I’ve been having a similar experience with the All-In podcast recently as well. It’s full of radical far-right Sacks-simps. Makes sense I guess. The Friedbergians are a bit more thoughtful.

A novel arc

Watching it, I found myself in a strange position: for the last 15 years, I’ve been much closer to Peterson than Dawkins. I’ve spent much of that time with Dawkins occupying a privileged place as my Shadow’s face. I managed to dispel my Dawkinsian animus a number of years ago by reading The God Delusion and finding that I quite liked it. It brought out a nostalgic fondness in me for my early teenage atheism. It was like getting a part of my soul back.

Peterson on the other hand speaks the language that I adored for much of that decade and a half. He is steeped in the Jungian, Nietzschean and symbolical waters. He speaks about the deeper truth beneath the literal that was my bread and butter throughout my 20s.

How odd then to find myself on Dawkins’s side throughout this discussion. Dawkins struck me as so…dignified. He was willing to concede points when he saw the logic but was far from shy to push on a point he disagreed with (and push and push no matter how much word salad tried to tangentially bluster). I found myself enjoying him — rooting for him. But of course, it wasn’t so simple.