[Lanny_McDonald]

Originally Posted by Makarov

What is the difference between criticizing opposing viewpoints and "de-platforming" opposing viewpoints?

Discussion versus action?

I find that Peterson frequently says things very authoritatively when he has no expertise whatsoever about the topic.

This is a fault of many academics. They have worked hard to become subject matter experts with a very specific focus. Their understanding of their subject matter area is extremely deep, but it is very focused. They don't appreciate the taxonomy of their own knowledge and think they have a more broad expertise, applicable to every subject regardless of experience. Their problem solving skills become linked through to their focused knowledge area and grounded in the theory they are most knowledgeable about without thought for real world outcomes.

My problem with Peterson, and many like him, is they make assumptions based on outliers rather than making generalizations based on representative populations. Peterson sees one extreme faculty member at an institution that supports his very narrow view, then holds that up as a representation of all of academia. What he does in that instance is ignores the hundreds of other faculty members at that institution, and then the thousands across all of academia, who do not share these abhorrent views and are actually counter to these very positions. These extreme views are usually pretty much countered by the vast majority of the college, but because they are so different they stand out.

What makes things worse is these outliers are usually the squeaky wheels on campus who do everything they can to get their obnoxious views heard, taking full advantage of their special assignment time to become a burr under everyone's saddle blankets. Usually, when I come across a pain in the ass faculty member, who is not representative of the general herd, it is almost a certainty that they will end up on faculty senate, voted there out of spite toward the administration or who ran unopposed in their given department because no one wants to deal with the bull#### of the academic senate. Only after they screw up so badly at that level does the faculty finally turn on that individual, ostracize them, then eat one of their own.

What does he know about corporate HR departments? Has he done peer-reviewed research on the subject? Has he even spent significant time working in human resources? Or is he talking out of his ass to sell more copies of his book?

This completely supports my point on theory versus application. Theory is very seldom perfectly aligned with application. That is why many institutions are adding application components to their courses, so students do not fall into the traps that so much of the academics have been caught. It is wonderful to listen to the egg heads prattle on about post-modernist constructs and Marxist ideals, but in the real world, none of these theories hold much water. Walk into any HR department and ask a question and you will not get a reading of Heidegger or Marx, you're going to get a review of policy and standards, none of which have a foundation in the previously mentioned theorists.

The real world does not behave in the same way as the academy, and for good reason. Academia is slow to react and process driven. Whether it be shared governance or peer review, academia is designed to provide oversight of almost every single discussion/decision. The real world is affected by people who are not "subject matter experts" like those in academia. The subject matter experts in industry are subject matter experts because their experience in application. They are much more knowledgeable in many ways because they know how stuff really works. A law student may be well schooled in theory, but once you get into that court room where the interpretation of a judge comes into play, well the game changes dramatically. Things in academia are very clean and precise because theory can be taught in the vacuum of the classroom where the variable and chaos of the real world can be controlled or eliminated. Hence, Peterson sounding like he is talking out of his ass, mostly because he is, because he has not real world application to speak of.