Well, this monk is very happy for you, so there’s that.
yet.
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This resonates. I was a member of Dhammawheel for about a week until I couldn’t handle the right wing politics. I found it truly disturbing.
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Sorry to hear about your experience. Rest assured, in the scheme of things they are but a noisy minority.
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I have no idea where these communists are. I’ve only met one actual communist in my life, and he was 80 years old, wore a lot of buttons and was completely harmless. Unfortunately, often the far right equates giving people access to affordable healthcare as “communism”. Very few of these folks have the first clue what communism actually is, or can name a true communist country. A lot of it is just political fear mongering.
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Dear All,
Just a gentle reminder.
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Having been a member of the communist party I have met more than one, and no I don’t equate calls for a welfare state with communism.
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Well, DhammaWheel and SuttaCentral have that in common 
Either way, I’m done with this discussion and won’t be responding again. I quit Dhammawheel to get away from these pointless political discussions.
Topic temporarily closed pending mod deliberation.
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Dear Forum Members,
Please remember the rules before posting, in particular about Right Speech and also about keeping within the topic of the OP. If needed, please open a new thread, as it allows others to give appropriate attention to the new discussion.
Rules will be enforced and escalated as necessary.
Thanks in advance for your understanding and contributions.
With Metta,
Ric
On behalf of the moderators
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I didn’t. Read more carefully, and don’t make bad faith arguments.
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they say, as they post a video of a nazi sympathizer.
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my sincere gratitude to you for representing the triple gem and demonstrating how to not make bad faith arguments
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A wild and enjoyable read.
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I listened to most of that video. Have to admit, I felt sad for those folks. They struck me as the least spiritual, least enlightened, most troubled and troubling seekers I’ve seen in a good while. the “What’s with this climate change nonsense” seemed to come out of nowhere. Thanks for sharing but man, those folks seem majorly F’d up.
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To be honest, I never understood the fascination with JP as a public intellectual. I’m happy I finished up at U of T before he became a newsworthy item and got on the amazon bestseller list.
In comparison, I’d rather see Noam Chomsky get more airtime 
.
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The article I linked above was quite insightful.
I think it’s people who are looking for some sense of validation and can see themselves in his thoughts. JP sounds like he is constantly reaching for something profound. Even if he fails to articulate what that is, he conveys the impression that the profound is there. He appeals to people who feel left behind in the modern world, yet who can’t admit to themselves that their defilements, especially misogyny, are flaws.
I find his manner of communication similar to Trump in that way (not in others, obviously). Both speak in this incoherent manner, and have this oddness to their physical presence and vocal cadence. And when you analyze the details, they often fail to say anything at all. Yet they convey this impression of meaning, which allows their audience to fill in the gaps. And that means that, for the audience, the meaning is formed in their own minds, not by the words as such. The truth is not something that is conveyed from the speaker to the audience, it is a shared reality that they both grasp.
Now, that “shared reality” is not, of course, real. It is a delusion, fueled by the energies that erupt when you validate and encourage the worst impulses of humanity. But it is given life and shape by the man on the stage, who fulfills a longed-for archetype: the “successful” man who “did it his way”; or the revered “intellectual” who “sees the truth” that others are too blind to see, or too cowardly to admit. This elevated status means that they both get to publicly indulge their base instincts, for example, gratuitous comments on women’s bodies. And if they do it, it must be okay, right?
This is why no intellectual criticism of JP would matter to his acolytes. I think JP himself believes that he has access to a hidden, secret wisdom that only he understands. To me, it sounds like warmed-over Jung served on a self-help platter, with a rich sauce of grandiosity spiced with lashings of resentment.
Both Trump and JP are masters at saying nothing but seeming like they are saying exactly what their audience wants to hear.
There’s a good critique of his work here:
Peterson’s allusive style makes critiquing him like trying to nail jelly to a cloud
Finally, I’ll just leave this here. In case you’re wondering, yes, this is Skeletor speaking the actual words of JP.
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