1.  Different domains. As long as the control of the domain is not interfered with, both can win at their own games.


    As an ENTP, I tend to take into consideration external patterns, and the feelings people have about embracing these external patterns. Then I think about them and form connections between different conceptual structures, or what we might call “paradigms”. This really isn't a form of magic, although it might be taken to be as much by those who can't see how I got there. What I'm really doing is making a mental map of outlying terrain. This helps me to understand systems, how they function, and where their functional flaws are. But more than that, over an extensive period of time and experience, I can also make effective cognitive leaps, for instance to see that the Myer-Briggs function Fi is most likely undergirding belief systems in Ontology, and that such consequent implicit beliefs in “the soul”, “self”, or an identity that remains unchanging, are inevitably linked to a moralizing tendency, which is in turn linked to the notion of teleology. (That “we are here on this Earth to undergo systems of improvement.”) And I can link ALL of this to Nietzsche’s critique of “slave morality”. In short “ontology=slave morality”.


    The problem is to explain the long and tireless process by which I came to this conclusion or realisation. It's not that I don't know — I can state what I've encountered over time — but every time I point to the exterior world and say, “Look there, there are actually patterns we can register!” I hit a blank. This is even with INTJs, who lack Ne (extraverted intuition ) and so fail to see “the patterns”.


    And so that's the problem, right there! I can win on my own terms, every time, if I just go along with my own mental map, on which I see “patterns”, but if I try to explain it, I meet with hostility. Apparently to register reality in this way is “grandiose”, no matter how painstaking ones methods may be or how much they include checking and rechecking.


    So we can see how the INTJs can win by stealth, simply by relabelling something that is very good ( extraverted intuition, in fact) as something more mysterious and harmful, in fact something very bad indeed. Certainly they do not directly observe the external ”patterns” in the world, that make up our environment. They're more inclined to just pick up a sense of things and run with it. If they are wrong, then they are overcommitted to being very wrong. Of course they could knit together a plausible sounding explanation, and because they are much more systematic than an ENTP ( due to extraverted thinking), they would be more likely to believed.


    Somehow, however, I don't like reverse alchemy: this changing back from gold into its former base metal. But alas it is one of the INTJs covert powers to beat the ENTP.

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  2.  I love it. But Twain was in a sense too optimistic as travel is not always the answer. Or rather nothing beats being a local yokel and experiencing things from the ground. For instance a traveling diplomat may well be insulated from experiencing the worst a country has to offer, not just in terms of his own mind —his bubble of expectations — but what others design to show him.


    In the case of myself, most definitely home grown, I've now been able to recognise the crudity of the very typical American response to me in its constant iteration, “You couldn't have experienced patriarchy, Jennifer. You were brought up in a leafy suburb, and were treated like a Disney Princess.”. I mean, really? Comprehension starting at zero point, and then maintaining its consistent speed? Again?!

    https://www.quora.com/How-do-I-get-someone-to-use-language-that-confirms-they-have-understood-my-perspective-and-not-just-my-words/answer/Jennifer-Armstrong-115?comment_id=402925539&comment_type=2

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  3.  So, a major shift that has happened in the past decade or so is that there has been movement away from troubling oneself with complexity. At the forefront of this movement is Jordan Peterson, who sees the problem from a psychological viewpoint, but not from a philosophical one.


    The situation itself is very interesting to me. Complexity, as a philosophical facet of meaning, has been foisted on the public, some might argue. The edifice of poststructuralism and postmodernism does not seem to do society as much good at all, other than fuel confusion and infighting. From a psychological point of view this is highly problematic. (I, myself, was tiring if complexity, since it never seemed to have an end, but only allowed others to hide behind a few foggy notion of my own historical reality in order to attack me.)


    But here's the rub. Due to a general intolerance of what is perceived as “postmodernism” (let's not even debate if this is the correct name at this point) complexity, as such, as been blacklisted. From a philosophical point of view now we have a problem. Psychology want to take it upon itself to label complexity as “grandiosity”. In doing so, it expects to get rid of the problem of “postmodernism”.


    Ok, this is not a small problem. I've looked into it, and found that the ramifications of this choice are enormous. There is also a structure here: the broader majority actually have no use for philosophy, so their own psychology is better served by notions that embrace simplicity. So it is that those who feel that they have no use for philosophy defend themselves from the clumsy complexity of college graduates, along with the real complexity of meaning that exists beyond the ken of basic, popular psychology.


    The institute of psychology, however, now feeling renewed vigor, immediately steps in to label those who feel some complexity in life as “grandiose”. It's false from the point of view of philosophy, but completely the right things to do from the point of view of the needs of the majority (since they don't actually need philosophy and feel confused by it, as evidenced by the surfeit of confused college graduates over the past couple of decades).


    I, myself, was in another way completely confused by this turn of events. Why was something treated as grandiose just because it was complex? I couldn't get my points across no matter how hard I tried, and found myself questioning whether they were too complex to meet the criteria for human understanding. It didn't add up that more difficult thoughts ought not to be conveyed, since this higher level of complexity merely meant a wider net for reality. But I found myself constantly stymied and forced to attempt to express myself in a range that was much narrower than my needs.


    In terms of philosophy versus popular and institutional psychology, it was philosophy that came to my rescue. Or, rather it was a very careful read if Nietzsche's Will to Power that clued me in to what was actually happening. I could understand it in terms of a rift developing between popular needs and values and those who actually needed philosophy to make sense of their lives.


    So, in conclusion , JP as a leader of the masses, or more general populace, is right. Or right so long as Nietzsche’s views are right. There ought to be a limit to what levels of complexity the masses should endure. (On this they both tacitly agree ). In Nietzsche ‘s view, philosophy ought not to be spread around, but should be for those who need it. The majority do not need it. When philosophy, as complexity, enters the popular terrain, it only makes things worse. (Whether or not one agrees with this, the material reality of this consensus is demonstrated in just how many followers JP has accrued.)


    To add another personal note, this sense of Nietzschean elitism with regard to philosophy doesn't entirely sit well with me, but I've had my own sense of complexity persecuted and run to ground to such a high degree that for my own personal safety and sanctity of mind I am obliged to side with it anyway.

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  6.  

    Oh, that’s what really gets you in the end, all that intelligent, or rather cunning, misunderstanding being practised bloody everywhere, at every level. The stupidity is bad enough, but this at least straightforward most of the time. But the innumerable strategies developed for missing the point, just slightly, deliberately and sabotaging communication, whilst signalling good intentions and preferably concurrently exploiting any triggers to possibly provoke a little irritability or aggression in the other, to come across as the mature one, or the victim. Is there an academy somewhere these days? The energy people expend on not avoiding responsibility while still looking accountable most often far exceeds the efforts they’re shirking.

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    Ah yes! An extremely pertinent point you make here! The human capacity to ‘Intelligently misunderstand” seems to extend way beyond their invention of metaphysics, and is a key feature of middle class “professionalism” and its politics. Although as you say, it also seems to be practiced “on every level”. The little narcissistic stabs by the terminal “misunderstanders”. — these would eventually build up enough poison in us to destroy us in the end. But I think there is a game changer on the horizon, which is A.I. and especially the technology such as ChatGPT. It will render this style of misunderstanding not only meaningless, but genuinely counter-productive. The cost will accrue to the willful “misunderstander”, because A.I. is going to make the professional middle classed largely redundant. After this point, humanity will be divided into two functions. The majority will consist of those who cannot think at all, because they are too easily “triggered’ to be able to endure an education. The other level, of the minority, will be those who never stopped thinking and observing, but are too strong minded to submit to the way carved out by A.I. Meet me on that side.

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  7.  

    What part of being a psychologist harmed your personal mind?
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    Well I’m not a psychologist. But what confused and bewitched me for the longest time, and harmed my IMpersonal mind was not realizing that psychology, in this day and age, is a language of sensitivity. This is quite an interest point to discover, since if one speaks the language of psychology (specifically I mean that taught in the Freudian school onward, and in the psychotherapeutic context), one is speaking with the sensitivity of a small child, whether or not one really feels that way.

    There is a problem here because this form of contemporary psychology has entered the humanities, too, to the degree that Freud has permeated its fabric. My background in education and training was up to PhD level in the humanities, hence, one may say that in a sense I was well and truly brainwashed. Thus one is educated to speak a language that in turn connotes to others that one is tangled up in threads of hyper-sensitivity. But what if this is false? What if it becomes an overlay that prevents one from telling the real narrative?

    Specifically, and some might say “ironically”, what the therapeutic language does is to prevent one from conveying ANY of the meaning of one’s real world problems. They simply do not make sense, or will not be believed. One’s own language, which implies a reference to childhood experience, or to mere “subjectivities” mitigates against it.

    The consequence of using the language provided by the therapists and Freudian psychologists is that as the real life problems mount, which includes the problem of communication, one has absolutely no means to set things back on course. I’ve had extremely Pinteresque interactions with psychologists, which go absolutely nowhere, because they have ignored more remarks that the issues I am speaking about having absolutely nothing to do with sensitivity — my own, or that of those around me. The therapeutic language itself mitigates against speaking about any aspect of reality.

    I had a year’s worth of therapy in one instance, during which time I tried to cope with an extreme level of inflammation in my body, which had been caused by vast hormonal fluctuations. Eventually, during this time and later, I figured out the problem, gave a name to it — systemic inflammation — and found lifestyle adaptations to resolve it. But the problem itself was not something we could talk about, since it had no bearing on the language of sensitivity, so my indifference and frustration mounted.

    But the most Pintaresque thing of all was when she made up her mind to ask the patient directly: “Why will nobody help you?” At this point I had a feeling like when the screws ask you, in a prison drama, who it was that beat you up. You realize that all answers would incriminate only yourself. I kept mum.

    I haven’t been in prison, but the sense that whatever I had to say at that point would only expedite the imposition of another false narrative was something I felt palpably.

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  8. Jennifer Armstrong - Quora

    Well postmodernism was an attempt to deal with the irrational nature of existence, particularly the sense that there were now too many moral principles, counter-weaving and contradicting one another. Postmodernism was, in a sense, glib, but in the face of a real seriousness and sense of being overwhelmed as to how to make sense of power structures, and their conflicting demands, in a manner that embraced a transcendental morality.

    So now what do we have? A moral earnestness which attempts to make the old Christian moral paradigm work again, but this time anchoring it in “biology” rather than in transcendental reason. This is the ideological newcomer to the stage, which attempts to reconstruct some of the features of the past, although more modestly, but nonetheless using the rhetoric of appealing to biology in order to instruct women back into the home, and to encourage men to be on top.

    I think we need to give this new fledgling some time to consolidate its gains. It may be that a large number of people will embrace it, some unwittingly, but others because it furthers their own agenda, to gain strength through ideological simplification.

    Ultimately, though, I foresee that this will be a consolidation of mediocrity, which Nietzsche’s philosophy addresses at length in the last two books of Will to Power. This is in the context of the idea that the majority of people are capable only of reproducing the human race, without leaving an intellectual or creative mark. Even the leader of the movement, J P himself, admits that the majority of people are simply not going to be highly intellectual or creative. Perhaps what one can learn from this is that they need a morality that can consolidate their own strengths, which is to maintain a certain level of “averageness”, whilst assuring that what is average and normative is also reproduced. (In my own view the heavy emphasis on biological reproduction, as seen in J P’s videos, also comes into this.)

    So, postmodernism is out, and perhaps this is a good thing too, as it was always rather elitist. It was also stymied in effectiveness by its own insistence on a Kantian transcendentalism. It made sense to very few people, and muddled the minds of many, whilst making a fetish in wallowing in its own self-gratifying sense of moral indecisiveness.

    What will have to happen next is that the consolidated mass of humanity, that embraces quite self-consciously the morality of averageness — or what Nietzsche calls “mediocrity” — will gain an extreme level of self-assurety to the point that they close the circle around themselves to prevent any further change. By locking themselves into solid moral values, they will also lock out other modes of thought that would be too challenging.

    Thus it will be that finally, as Nietzsche had expected, two human races will develop — one that safeguards the importance of convention and simplicity in morality, and the other that “plays dangerously” with ideas and thoughts, whilst living far outside of the awareness of the mass majority.

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  9. (6) Jennifer Armstrong's answer to What are your thoughts on Jordan Peterson's chances of winning the Nobel Prize? - Quora

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    Well he has striven to come up with a middle-class ideology to save the intellectual middle classes — those who are not too bright to be real intellectuals, but who are better off having a firm moral system to guide them. It is also clear that he is speaking to, and behalf of these people, who actually form a demographic majority, when he focuses primarily on reproductive issues. The idea he promulgates is that reproduction provides the primary meaning in life. Now, this would be the case only for the majority, but not for the exceptions in humanity — a point Nietzsche mentions.

    But can JP’s efforts help to bolster those in the “intellectual middle”? Can he provide a system or a way of thinking that is simple enough, authoritative enough, and reliable enough to improve the quality of life of those who view reproduction as their life’s mission? And can he do so without making it worse for those of us who view things very differently?

    I do sense that these middle class values have become stronger online, in the past ten years or so, and this is largely indicated by a shift to Christian influenced values, and away from humanism. Along with the advent of this new online culture, we also find the idea of sinfulness and the notion that it is possible to “burn” (perhaps through guilt and shame).. These metaphysical notions are required to keep our middle classes on the straight and narrow. The point is that they accept their different roles as men and women, and produce babies, which is their life’s mission. (This is a different twist from old-fashioned Christianity, which had the goal of purifying the soul.)

    But once again, what effect does this new ideology have on others who may want something entirely different? We can certainly speak of a hegemony that is in place when those of us who think very, very differently indeed are silenced, on the basis that it is inferred that all we really, really want to do is to reproduce. We don’t.

    I have, personally, found a difficulty with people not being able to correctly grasp my written tone, ever since the shift took place from humanism back to Christianity. This ideology maintains that there is a distinctly feminine tone, and that it is to be disregarded on all matters other than to do with femininity. So what I say and do is regularly disregarded as though I had a neurotic tone. I don’t.

    It’s very vexing, though, and so much so that I have finally understood a large portion of Nietzsche’s philosophizing in Will to Power, where he insists that the middle class and its morality should be destroyed, and instead a chasm should open up between those who are high and those who are low, with no bridging mechanism in-between. The fact that there is a middle-class morality can obscure the actual differences between two types of humans, by making them seem to merge into one another though different shades of grey. Nietzsche wants a stark black and white instead, so that we are not confounded with one another.

    I would have found this idea weird and extreme in the past, but now I see the need to make a division as a very basic requirement for my own dignity and sanity. If I look at the material that JP produces, I cannot identify with how he characterizes “human nature”. I find it mispresents everything I do and everything I think, at least to the extent that I am coerced to viewing things in his terms. And the coercion, believe me, is there and palpable. For instance if I were to object to a video I saw yesterday, that stated that women, essentially, and hormonally were “neurotic” from puberty onward, you can bet your bottom dollar (I am willing to receive your money as a bet) that there would be people popping up to tell me that my views on this matter were merely “neurotic”. So, to me, the spiritual middle classes are a problem, and I must worker harder to separate myself from the law and the ideology they impose.

    I can’t actually, you know, totally destroy this bridging class, as Nietzsche suggests. But I will be increasingly divorcing myself from any participation online, as my resolution for the new year.

    But as for whether J P deserves a Nobel prize for saving that which Nietzsche planned to destroy, I think that would come down to the values of the bestowers. Let them bestow in terms of what they feel is fit.

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  10. Jennifer Armstrong's answer to What did Nietzsche think about meta-languages? - Quora


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    Nietzsche was very interested in how language works. One of his critiques is that language gives us an unexamined metaphysics. In fact, not only does language cause us to conjure up entities that are then presumed to exist in certain ways, but even our very “common sense” is contaminated by this metaphysics.

    Consider the way that language insists on there being a subject and an object in every sentence. But in fact our experience of reality is more of a single cloth. When we look back over our own experiences, we are forced to divide the subject from the object in order to “make sense” of what occurred. In other words we reflexively import a “doer”(somebody who “does” something), even in cases where it is not automatically clear that there was a “doer”.

    To illustrate this point, Nietzsche suggested we consider the sentence, “Lightning strikes.” In this case the “doer” is lightning and its implied action is that “it strikes”. But, hold on a second. It is enough for us to realize “There is lightning”. The idea that lightning does something in order to strike is redundant.

    In the case of human beings, the artificiality of this division into subject and object is not so obvious. But for this very reason, the metaphysics embedded in our use of grammar could be causing us more problems than we know.

    For instance, we have very much trained ourselves, perhaps on the basis of the lure of this pattern of grammar, to seek out “doers” in every instance where something dramatic takes place. It is as if, in the case of a lightning strike that damages our roof,, we set up a police crack team to find a certain “Mr lightning”, who can be held responsible. Actually what I am getting at is we seek certain culpable individuals, whom we can blame, in instances where things go wrong. We are on the look out for those who can be held responsible — the alleged “doers”.

    No doubt, in life, there really are some actual “doers” in a lot of cases, and in real police work, an action or a crime can be traced back to them. But it is amazing how often we seek to nail the presumed perpetrators when the situation isn’t really like that: for instance there is no particular person who did a particular thing, that brought about a particular outcome. Often our minds don’t stop to realize this, because we in hot pursuit for the responsible “doer”, spurred on by our inurement to grammar.

    Just to give you one example of how far this tendency can go, I will relate something from my own experience, as unbelievable as it can be. As I have said, it is unbelievable enough, but the fact that I was born in Africa during the time that a colonial regime had some power, is deemed by some to have been an extraordinary crime that I was atone for. Actually, the event of colonialism is much, much bigger than me. But he idea that there should be someone, somewhere, who atones for an event that one disapproves of would seem to be strongly inbuilt into our human mode of reasoning. By contrast, it is much more difficult, it seems, to say, “these sorts of things just happen!”

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