If There are No Collectives, Jordan, What Are the Churches?

Jordan Peterson

Sunday mornings on BBC Radio Scotland is usually an unbearable Godfest, but when they interview right-wing religious lifestyle guru Jordan Peterson, enough is enough. I know this scumbag has a cult following nowadays but he's not very bright. Peterson suggested that there's no such thing as collectives; that everybody within a movement was working for self-interest. In this he includes the civil rights movement and the suffragettes. He then went on to say that the entire basis of western civilisation is based on a Biblical moral code. Leaving aside the fact that morality is subjective, if there is no collectivism, only individuals, then how could they possibly have a shared moral code? That's clearly baloney. Morality changes between cultures and with time. As to there only being individuals, this is the crap that Thatcher once came out with; "There is no such thing as society, there are only individuals." It could be argued that collectives are made up on individuals who all seek the same goal for their own personal gain. But is this always the case? I support and campaign for an independent Scotland. As a single male in his 50s, what would I gain from independence? Very little to nothing in fact. I do it because I want others more vulnerable than I to have a better Scotland. Particularly I do it for today's children and young people, and the generations of Scots yet to come. Likewise the suffragettes fought not only for votes for themselves, but for the generations of women who would follow. And the civil rights movement swelled so that African Americans of the future would have a better future than they did. Even taken to it's extension of what makes society, Peterson's ideas fall down. For if there were no collectives, only self-seeking individuals, then who would join the armed forces? Who would join the emergency services? Who would be willing to put their lives in danger and even lay down their lives for their country and / or society? No-one. When someone loves someone else, but the other person wants to be free, would they let them go because they only seek their happiness? Where is the personal gain in that? For a man who professes to be a Christian, Jordan Peterson grossly underestimates the selflessness that human beings often display. I'd also like to know where in his Bible it teaches "Me first, second, and last." That doesn't sound very moral to me. Peterson also stated that western Judeo/Christian society has done more to enhance the freedom of the individual than any other portion of the planet, and that those freedoms were based on common law. Well, right away he again contradicts his claims about there being no collectives, as if that were the case, then it would take a society with shared ideals to uphold those freedoms. He also makes the mistake of thinking that common law - he says "British common law" when there's never been any such thing; Scotland and England have always had separate law systems - is based upon Biblical laws. They are not; for the most part they are secular and based upon Roman Law. But even then, the freedoms we enjoy were bought dearly by those who fought for them - often at a terrible price - and Judeo / Christian ideals not only rarely came into them, but it was people who claimed to be Christians who often very strongly opposed them, based upon Biblical teachings. Where was the church support for the suffragettes? There was none. If anything it was the churches who were telling women that their husbands ruled over them. Sure, Martin Luther King's faith played a big part in his struggle, but at the same time he and the civil rights movement were coming up against people - and laws - which opposed them based on what they claimed were Biblical teachings. It's like the Christians who try to boast they ended slavery. And so they should have - given that it was Christians who introduced slavery to the west in the first place, and used the Bible to back up their case for doing so. And most slave owners honestly believed they were doing right by their slaves; that in giving them a roof over their heads, work to do, and food to eat, they were doing the "Christian" thing. Feminism, which Peterson is opposed to, only became a movement because women fought and fight for the rights of women and girls, and the churches remain largely opposed to it. And don't even suggest for a moment that Judeo/Christian 'moral' ideals have ever been behind the struggle for LGBT rights. Even in his own narrative and at the basest level Peterson contradicted himself. While claiming that western society spread freedom of the individual, he correctly stated that in 1901 most people lived on around a dollar a day, which put them way below the poverty threshhold. It wasn't the churches who changed that Rather it was people - in collectives - fighting for workers rights and for benefits. Quite the opposite, the establishments in many western countries, fully backed up by the churches, did their utmost to oppose and even to physically crush these movements. After all, those who fought for those rights were for the most part socialists, who opposed both the establishment and the churches. Peterson claims that one of his You Tube videos has had 10 million views. That's more than probably an exaggeration, but even if he has had a lot of views on You Tube, then I'm sure it's for all the wrong reasons.