The other day Jordan Peterson tweeted out a list of 12 principles for 21st century conservatism. They're all basically wrong, not useful, or dangerous. I don't think Jordan Peterson is a bad person by any means, and he certainly creates interesting conversations which already puts him in the top 0.1% of academics.
Unfortunately he, like so many people on the right, thinks that conservatism is the opposite of progressivism. Michael Malice sets the record straight consistently, clarifying that conservatism is just progressivism driving the speed limit. It's just another face of progressivism, a watered down version to subdue people who are at first resistant to whatever method of social control that progressives are presently proposing. Conservatives always eventually fall in line. The opposite of authoritarianism (here manifested as progressivism) is not conservatism. It's anarchism.
This is why Jordan Peterson's attempt to outline "conservative principles" was always going to fall flat on its face. Here are my thoughts (mostly criticisms) of his 12 rules for 21st century conservatism:
1. The fundamental assumptions of Western civilization are valid.
Sure, I guess? I'm not sure what he means by this, because western civilization has changed constantly over time. Does the west start in Greece, Rome, the British Empire, the United States? My best guess would be that he means a general inclination towards freedom, but also respect of God, the nuclear family, and the Protestant work ethic. This is kind of a throw away statement because the west is not characterized by strictly defined principles. It has always changed over time.
2. Peaceful social being is preferable to isolation and to war. In consequence, it justly and rightly demands some sacrifice of individual impulse and idiosyncrasy.
The first part: 100% agree. If you value human life then this is true.
The second part is complicated. If the sacrifice of individual impulse and idiosyncrasy (individualism) is voluntary to God or a higher purpose then there is nothing wrong with it, but is still never necessary for a peaceful society. The incentives in people favor peace. The Hobbesian claim that you have to sacrifice freedom for peace has always and everywhere been a thinly veiled grab for social control.
3. Hierarchies of competence are desirable and should be promoted.
I'm always skeptical of people who say hierarchy should be promoted. I think Jordan Peterson would agree that hierarchy is natural and unavoidable. If you can't avoid it then why do you feel the need to promote it and make sure everybody knows the hierarchy of society? It's creepy and not useful.
4. Borders are reasonable. Likewise, limits on immigration are reasonable. Furthermore, it should not be assumed that citizens of societies that have not evolved functional individual rights predicated polities will hold values in keeping such polities.
First of all, saying polity makes you sound like a prick.
But otherwise, this is the easiest one yet. (National) borders are not reasonable. At all. Ever. Governments are invalid, so are (national) borders. To the second issue: you know what keeps people in places that we consider un-evolved? Borders. Free movement of all people will result in the "best" culture becoming dominant all over the world, in the same way that companies gain market share by offering the best product.
5. People should be paid so that they are able and willing to perform socially useful and desirable duties.
Oh boy. First, the phrase "should be paid" or "should be" in general is very dangerous and is often a blank check for government power.
People are paid according to whatever they offer somebody else. It's not dictated by anything else, and tampering will leave you worse than before.
Saying anything is "socially useful" is never useful and usually destructive to freedom. "Society" doesn't have any use for anything at all. Value is subjective and therefore only determinable by individuals. And they can only determine value for themselves, and it changes based on almost every condition of the situation.
6. Citizens have the inalienable right to benefit from their own honest labor
Yes. It's not literally inalienable because taxes etc. exist, but if he means that it cannot be alienated morally then yes. I have some questions about what he means by honest though. Is he excluding drugs, prostitution, etc. or simply eliminating fraud?
7. It is more noble to teach young people about responsibilities than rights.
Not only is this dangerous and soul crushing, it's sinister when used by people with worse intentions than Peterson.
I know what he means: that kids should be taught that nobody owes them anything before they're taught that nobody owns them. I also know he's not saying to throw rights out the window. You could say this is a difference of opinion between Peterson and I, but I think it goes beyond that.
He values stability over freedom. I do not. Children especially need to be taught to be free first and reign themselves in second. If you tech freedom first you will learn responsibility regardless, because you need to work to eat and have a house and stay alive. But if you teach responsibility first, that freedom can never be regained.
The creators of the public school system knew this. They knew they had to break kids like horses and teach them that they are beholden to society and their freedom would never return. If you let them be free first, they will fight you every step of the way, because they will never have known anything else.
8. It is better to do what everyone has always done, unless you have some extraordinarily valid reason to do otherwise.
I'm not sure what he means by better. Happier? Richer? More free? At any rate most definitions of better are going to be immeasurable or at the very least subjective.
Most things that I consider to be good experiences or the most rewarding are things that other people tend not to do. The things that I hate the most are in general things that everybody else is doing and has been doing. This may be opposite for him, but who is he to say what is better for other people? Thinking you know what's best for other people that you know nothing about is a key component of progressivism.
It also reeks of collectivism. Not only is it less interesting to do what has always been done, it will probably cement you as a common person who by definition has never accomplished anything exceptional.
9. Radical change should be viewed with suspicion, particularly in a time of radical change
I agree with this, but not the sentiment that Peterson is assigning to it. Anything should be viewed with skepticism. Being naive gets people into terrible situations. But where he's mistaken is his fear of change.
Change is neither good nor bad, it simply is. Whether you like it or not, you are constantly in change all the time. It's the only constant anybody has. Peterson is telling you not to fall into a river that you're drowning in. It's sink or swim, not "don't fall in."
You can't isolate yourself from change. All you can do is make sure you're ahead of it. Change is not something to avoid or to weigh the pros and cons. Certain changes may bring any number of other factors into the equation, and you should probably at first be suspicious of them and make decisions about them based on what you think of them. But their inherent goodness or badness is separate from whether they are brought about by change.
10. The government, local and distal, should leave people to their own devices as much as possible.
Sounds great! Except that it has literally never happened in the history of the world, and when you examine incentives in the context of political structures, doesn't make sense even in theory. The founding fathers of the US built the perfect system and wrote a document very explicitly detailing which things were proper government functions and which weren't. Actually determining what was intended in the Constitution is very easy. But it is all ignored. The bill of rights is routinely violated with impunity and almost everything the federal government does now is explicitly not allowed under the Constitution.
Lysander Spooner puts it perfectly "But whether the Constitution really be one thing, or another, this much is certain - that it has either authorized such a government as we have had, or has been powerless to prevent it. In either case it is unfit to exist."
There are literally more examples of functional anarchy than a properly minarchist government.
11. Intact heterosexual two-parent families constitute the necessary bedrock for a stable polity.
Again with the polity?
Assuming you want a stable polity (assuming he means government here, which I absolutely do not want) intact heterosexual two parent families are 100% not necessary. The idea of the nuclear family, that families are simply two parents and the children is a very new idea that has only been around since the industrial revolution.
The family has traditionally been 3 generations living under one roof, which means the grandparents are the top of the hierarchy and then their children and their spouses, and the grandchildren. In fact in much of the world this is still a very common arrangement. People in other countries find it odd how Americans move out of the house at 18 and don't live with other members of their families. So it is absolutely not a necessary condition.
This one also is kind of weird that he has to mention how heterosexuality is necessary for a society. I don't know if Jordan Peterson knows this, but gay people cannot make babies on their own. Straight people make all the babies. So I wouldn't be too worried about a society where intact homosexual two parent families are the bedrock.
12. We should judge our political system in comparison to other actual political systems and not to hypothetical utopias.
He did everything but say the words "anarchy" and "communism."
The biggest mistake here is that he said hypothetical when he meant impossible. Hypothetical just means that it's in the hypothesis stage for now. Airplanes, cars, vaccines, the atom bomb, the internet were all hypothetical at some point. It doesn't mean they can't or won't eventually happen. Once you've invented the plane is it crazy to think hey let's give this plane big engines and make it go really fast? Was a jet "just a hypothetical that shouldn't be entertained?" When is it close enough to fall into the realm of possibility?
Every time somebody proposes a change to government policy, whether it's an addition or subtraction, it's always originally hypothetical. The existence of democracies all over the world is self evident to us but under feudalism would Jordan Peterson have said "well, we need to evaluate our monarchy against all the other slightly different monarchies out there and not try to change entirely into a democracy"?
You should of course compare what you want in terms of what is possible. But only comparing what you want to what you already have is not going to get you anything better than what you've always had.