Originally Posted by flar
JP is an interesting case. He has a lot of insight, clearly he is thoughtful and pursues what he believes to be truth. I agree with many of his arguments, individually, as great insights into certain aspects of humanity. A lot of it is dark, willing to take things far and raw, like Nietzsche, but still he still holds a moral view as well (morality also being a necessity for civilization). His overall view is a little more pessimistic than mine, and because of that I have much less enthusiasm for religion than JP.
He is associated with the alt right for several reasons. Ultimately he is a functionalist, arguing that many things are the way they are because that's what works. This is an inherently conservative way of looking at things. He is trying to be provocative, obviously, which makes him interesting, and to be provocative in an academic setting, you have hit from the right. He looks at human beings from a naturalist perspective, his view of human nature understands that we are animals. There is a lot of ugliness and injustice in nature. Part of this is an evolutionary view of humanity, in which inequality is not only built-in, but a driving force of human progress. This verges on an Ayn Rand-like celebration of those who are naturally more full of life, talent, energy and ambition (I would bet a lot of JP's appeal shares motivations with Objectivism). From this, it follows that keeping those people down is a bad thing, as any attempt to make things equal impinges on and restricts someone else from reaching their potential. The flip side of the naturalist way of thinking is that there are archetypes that are rooted in the realities of human existence, which are manifest in culture. This too, can be taken as an apology for traditional ways of thinking, morality, etc (i.e. tinged with religion and therefore to the "right").
Because he leans to these ways of looking at things, he is to the right of mainstream thinking of the university-educated class. Because it's 2018, everything is ridiculously exaggerated, so that makes JP alt-right.
Even though I think he takes some things too far, as often happens when you probe into some aspect of truth, JP is a necessary thinker for today. His criticism of the radical-left is an example of his monolithic, verging on one-dimensional thinking, but is essentially correct. He has a real insight into the totalitarian tendencies of leftist thinking. Many legitimate ways of thinking are immediately labeled as some -ism and considered wrong just because it's considered wrong. In many cases the things considered wrong are rooted in aspects of human nature, so in order to "correct" them, you have to go against nature, which means forcing people to do something other than what they would have, which is totalitarian if you take it far enough. I think JP realizes that if you erase all the "currently undesirable" aspects of human nature, you destroy some of the beauty too, and risk these aspects bubbling up in even less desirable ways. He sees that the radical leftist way of looking at things is rooted in resentment (and it really is -- check out Neitzsche's idea of ressentiment, which has always fascinated me).
Anyway, I don't want to sound like I'm praising JP too much, because I disagree with him on a lot of things, and probably overall. I'm just saying even if you disagree with him, don't just write him off, because he has some interesting things to say, and I think he is more honest in his thinking than most people who attain his level of influence. He make some arguments that need to be reckoned with if you are serious about understanding people.
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