If Peterson is on the right lines then he has set
all manner of hares running.
To take a highly speculative example, obesity could be explained by
increased social complexity. This would fit Peterson’s idea where the weakest
biological point is the one which first causes problems when complexity stresses become too acute to bear. In the case of
obesity, eating too much is an
easy flight to comfort in a world where food is cheap and always available.
If so, then official attempts to control general calorie
intake are misconceived and won’t work. If anything, they are likely to make
the situation worse because government interference increases life’s
complexities.
What else might we expect from a world too complex for many
people to handle? How about simpler and correspondingly extreme political
mantras? Politics for dummies may be a welcome relief in a world already too complex to
understand.
7 comments:
Peterson is one of the marvels of the age, but I'm not sure about the complexity issue. Often, people get depressed or otherwise mentally unwell when their lives are very simple - but hopeless. I remember my parents talking in the early 1960s about local women who suffered from "nerves", as it was then called. They tended to be the ones who were confined to the home, with no interests or much hope of change. I think they would have done better with more complexity and challenges. Maybe for the type of students Peterson is addressing, though, he is correct.
I disagree - I know several mentally ill people very well, and each of them has had their symptoms since childhood. Things have gotten worse over time, for sure, but the fundamental problem was always there from a young age. I'd say that the basic root cause of mental illness is genetic. I would agree that incredibly stressful environments can induce problems in people's lives, but most of the people who have mental health problems in Western society do not experience those high stress scenarios, they are unable to cope with very basic normal unstressed lifestyles. I don't think you could find a version of human society that has ever existed throughout history that would not be too complex for these type of people, and they would suffer exactly the same reaction regardless of where and when they lived.
Mmmm, a feeling of deep scepticism comes over me regarding this chap. A look at his wiki and his relationship with his mother suggests a conflict situation. This seems to come out not in over-eating but the over-production of loony (and profitable) theories. A definite maybe.
"Politics for dummies may be a welcome relief" Sorry, no room; it's full of them already.
Sam and Sobers - I don't know much about him apart from a few videos which Google thought I would find interesting - and I certainly did so well played spooky Google. What is interesting is that people like Peterson reduce complexity via explanations which, right or wrong, are certainly comforting. As they should be because they reduce mental effort.
I assume the guy is talking about a large number of people he has encountered professionally at first or second hand, people who are presumably to some extent self-selected. This kind of selection may not match what most of us see in our lives.
Roger - he seems to be a very articulate critic of political correctness which is bound to make him controversial however many nails he hits on the head. Seems interesting to me and not at all loony.
DCB - and they have the gall to stage conferences to show us how little they have learned.
If you cast your eye over the vast bulk of dietary and obesity studies, then one thing becomes clear: restrictive diets only work because they restrict calorific input in some way.
Why are people getting fatter, then? The easy answer is that they are eating more calories than their lifestyle requires. The principle energetic demand on people is keeping warm, that is to say keeping our bodies at 37 degrees.
We are getting fatter because maintaining this body temperature has become less costly in energetic terms. Two major factors affect this: central heating in homes, and the switch from sheets and blankets to duvets.
Higher house temperatures, and more insulating bedclothes reduce the calorific output needed to keep warm, and the excess gets laid down as fat.
Dan - yes, I'm sure that is at least part of the problem. It is possible to be remarkably sedentary while still remaining warm even in winter and it is not at all easy to burn off the calories we don't need.
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