Category Archives: Jordan Peterson

When Roger Scruton died early last year at the age of seventy-five, right-wing outlets hailed him as the most important conservative thinker of his era, even sacred. The honorifics were understandable. The British philosopher possessed a rare combination of theoretical intelligence and expository panache that made him both a deep and accessible thinker. Whereas conservative figures like Jordan Peterson and Ben Shapiro blow a lot of hot air complaining about Marxist authors, Scruton took the increasingly novel step of actually reading leftists and meticulously responding to their points.

But Ive come here to criticize Sir Roger, not praise him, and Scrutons virtues should not blind us to the severe ethical and political flaws of his traditionalist conservatism. So I want to do two things. First, explore Scrutons conservatism and what it tells us about the right-wing worldview. And second, explain one of the key moves in the conservative playbook: to naturalize power and existing forms of authority. For thinkers like Scruton, such arrangements are to be revered and rarely questioned yet like Dorothys Oz, when you look past the flash and bang and peel back the curtain of power, the authorities Scruton defends often look not only unimpressive but theoretically and morally bankrupt.

For many people, the bond of allegiance has immediate authority, while the call to individuality is unheard. It is therefore wrong to consider that a politician has some kind of duty to minister to the second of these, and to ignore the first. . . . But if individuality threatens allegiance as it must do in a society where individuality seeks to realize itself in opposition to the institutions and traditions from which it grows then the civil order is threatened too.

Roger Scruton, The Meaning of Conservatism

Conservatives like Scruton are right to regard themselves as defending a more ancient set of ideas than their liberal and socialist rivals: in this case, the notion that inequalities whether of virtue, status, wealth, or strength are natural and should be reflected in society. But modern conservatism is in fact younger than left-wing politics, arising as a response to Enlightenment-era revolutions in France, Haiti, and the United States.

For early thinkers on the Left who insisted that individuals were moral equals and thus deserving of political and economic rights a central task was to unmask power by revealing its contradictions, hypocrisies, and reliance on violence and coercion. Above all, they argued that the world as it is doesnt conform to some inviolable pattern, vindicated either by nature or religion. It is the product of human decisions, and thus capable of being remade.

This desacralized vision of political society, with authority exposed as mere power, was anathema to early conservatives like Edmund Burke. They castigated their opponents abstract and chaotic visions of the world and claimed to be realists, unmoved by fanciful visions. When progressive movements toppled their preferred authorities (kings, priests, even slaveowners), reactionaries and counterrevolutionaries fought to restore the proper order of things in some modified form.

Right-wing intellectuals labored, often begrudgingly, to reinvest the toppled system of power with moral gravity to, in a sense, sublimate power as authority. I say begrudgingly because, as Scruton himself noted, conservatives have traditionally preferred the natural instinct in unthinking people who, tolerant of the burdens that life lays on them, and unwilling to lodge blame where they seek no remedy, seek fulfillment in the world as it is to accept and endorse through their actions the institutions and practices into which they are born. In an ideal world, conservatism would need only offer reaffirmations rather than apologetics and counterblows. After all, the danger of defending power is that it implies power is open to analysis and criticism and not, as conservative philosopher Russell Kirk put it, an enduring moral order beyond critique.

In his book On Human Nature, Scruton calls our attention to an interesting (and, to my mind, correct) point from Hegel: my sense of being me, of being an I, depends on an immense net of inherited social relations. The autonomous I of liberal theory, creating a wholly independent identity, simply isnt tenable.

But Scruton takes this point much further: he argues, in true conservative fashion, that inherited social relations shouldnt be subjected to scrutiny because they are sacred a move that very quickly becomes an apologia for some people getting more power than others. Later in the book, Scruton says we should adopt a posture of submission and obedience toward authorities that you have never chosen. The obligations of piety, unlike the obligations of contract, do not arise from the consent to be bound by them. He goes on to claim that the main task of political conservatism, as represented by Burke, Maistre, and Hegel, was to put obligations of piety back where they belong, at the center of the picture.

At times, Scruton lends the point a sentimental gloss by likening it to a filial obligation. Just as a child loves and appreciates their parents, so too should we accept the guidance, protection, and, yes, discipline that those in power mete out. Scruton makes this association most explicit in his metaphysical tome The Soul of the World: Not all of our obligations are freely undertaken, and created by choice. Some we receive from outside the will. . . . It is hardly surprising, therefore, if they are wound into the order of things by moments of sacrificial awe.

Scrutons analogy between a political association and a family is wildly, even comically, stretched. Putting aside the fact that abusive families and marriages warrant dissolution, a political union is ultimately backed not by mutual relations of love and assistance but violence. Scruton gestures at this, rather disturbingly, when he talks about securing society against the forces of selfish desire through sacrificial awe.

The obvious question is whether those who would sacrifice others for their preferred eternal social order are in fact the selfless ones dedicated to filial love and community. But there is a deeper point here. Underneath Scrutons call to defer to political and economic authorities is a history of prisons, imperial wars, torture of dissidents, mass starvation, genocide, racism, poverty, patriarchal abuse, and more. From the perspective of those who have suffered and died at the hands of such authorities, calls for pious reverence can only seem a mockery. If such is to be our god, we should celebrate the death of God.

It would overstate things to call Scruton an out-and-out apologist for authoritarianism (though he had a sneaky habit of going soft on regimes like Francos Spain, Pinochets Chile, and the post-antebellum South). Scruton was squarely in the tradition of British ordered liberty conservatism, accepting many of the classical liberal freedoms when complemented by a respect for traditional authorities, practices, and culture mores. What he opposed, above all, was the idea that political allegiance should be seen as voluntary and that individuals should be free to recreate society as they like.

His main target on this point was the social contract tradition inaugurated by Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau and carried on in the twentieth century by thinkers like Rawls and Nozick. Social contract theorists argue that it is voluntary consent, not mere allegiance, that grants political and economic authorities their legitimacy. If I never explicitly agreed to respect political power, or to venerate the existing regime of property rights, then I am under no obligation to do so.

Scruton is relentlessly critical of this idea, arguing that it animates a wildly emancipatory impulse that quickly becomes destructive. In Fools, Frauds and Firebrands: Thinkers of the New Left, he pillories the restless demands for liberation since the French Revolution, always seeking out new victims and emancipation of the structures: from the institutions, customs and conventions that shaped the bourgeois order, and which established a shared systems of norms and values at the heart of Western society.

Theres a long history of right-wing intellectuals criticizing the contractarian model. Edmund Burke famously mocked its rootless abstraction before putting forth his own grandiose vision of political society as a contract between those who are living, those who are dead, and those who are to be born. In Burkes mind, no generation is entitled to break the great and primaeval contract of eternal society that allocates all physical and moral natures to their appointed place. Rather than a voluntary contract, Burkes covenant is a duty imposed upon all, the high and the low alike, to keep to their appointed place.

Scrutons criticisms are in the same vein. He claims that our pious obligations to respect authority are unlike a contract because they do not arise from the consent to be bound by them but instead from the predicament of the individual. I am born into a system of political authority and hierarchical traditions, which apparently requires me to not just tolerate but revere them.

This is an extremely bizarre claim that no one would consistently hold to, Scruton included. No person born into, say, Hitlers Germany had a moral obligation to revere the authorities quite the opposite. The only criteria Scruton seems to accept in differentiating the good authorities from the bad is ultimately aesthetic those who seem worthy of respect just are. Scruton writes in The Meaning of Conservatism that it does not matter if the reason for venerating traditional authority cannot be voiced by the person who obeys it because tradition is enacted and not designed.

Scruton is right to criticize the hyper-libertarian vision of a social contract, which assumes only those obligations I deliberately chose are binding upon me. But this vision was never adopted by any of the classical social contract theorists or contemporaries like John Rawls. For these theorists, the point of thinking about a hypothetical social contract was to determine what kind of political system a group of equals would choose for themselves.

Predictably, the result of this exercise is usually more egalitarian and free than conservatives are willing to permit, since no contractor in an equal position would accept a political system that severely limited their personal freedom or left them deeply impoverished. They would demand a political system that worked in the interests of all, not just the few.

So the real problem with the contractarian model for conservatives like Scruton is that it inspires us to think of political authority as mere power that must continuously justify its legitimacy to all those it seeks to rule, and not just those who benefit from it. Where power fails to do so, we are under no obligation to obey, let alone revere, the authorities. We may even be obligated to overthrow them.

It is this emancipatory and revolutionary impulse that has inspired the liberatory movements that have arisen since the French Revolution. And we are all the better for them.

Much of human history has conformed to Thucydidess gloomy diagnosis that the strong do as they will, and the weak suffer what they must. Whatever improvement weve seen in modern times has been inspired by the idea that there is nothing morally impressive about mere strength and power that in fact they have all too often accrued in the hands of people like Donald Trump or Jair Bolsonaro who are comically ill-equipped to command much of anything.

Rather than revere authority or wealth and ask what we owe it, we should recognize that any granting of authority and power is contingent upon what it does for all. It is this ideal of a truly just society that we should venerate and seek to create not the rust and fantasia of sacred power that conservatives like Scruton would have us bow before.

More:

Conservatives Are Wrong: There's Nothing Natural About Hierarchy - Jacobin magazine

A video showing controversial Canadian psychologist Jordan Peterson's remarks about institutional racism has gone viral after he used air quotes when discussing the issue during a Thursday appearance on the BBC show Question Time.

Peterson, 59, alongside other guests, was discussing whistleblower Azeem Rafiq's ordeal with the racism he experienced while he played for Yorkshire County Cricket Club.

Rafiq, 30, who is of Pakistani descent, told a British parliamentary on Tuesday committee that he experienced "inhuman" treatment during his time with the club. He played for Yorkshire from 2008 to 2014.

"This cricket player was experiencing racism, by his own account," said Peterson in a clip that has at the time of writing amassed more than 400,000 views. "The question is: Who, when, what, exactly because otherwise it degenerates into something like a discussion of structural racism."

"And when it becomes obstructed up to that level, it pits group against group which I think is entirely counterproductive. That actually doesn't address the issue," he continued.

Using his hands to make air quotes when saying "racism," Peterson said it is a "global and vague term."

Peterson was interrupted by Scottish National Party MP Stephen Flynn on his use of the hand gesture, who asked: "Sorry, why would you possibly do that, what does that mean? The inverted commas as if it's not a real thing?"

Peterson responded by claiming he meant the gesture is "indicative of low-resolution thinking."

After a brief silence, he added: "What I mean by that is we use all these terms frequently in discussions like this which are containers of undifferentiated content."

The 59-year-old went on to defend his use of air quotes, saying that he is not "denying his [Rafiq's] experience."

"What I'm asking is who and when and you just answered that," he said. "So I would say those specific people should be held specifically to account to their actions, before any movement up the hierarchy to something like discussion of racism, which I don't think is helpful."

"It doesn't address the issuethat does not mean "racism" [in air quotes] does not exist, that is not what I'm saying in the least," Peterson continued.

"Maybe let's do less of the hand movements and look at the evidence," Labour MP Stella Creasy told Peterson.

Earlier, on Wednesday, Rafiq said he expects that his account of racism in the English game may encourage other victims to come forward with their ordeals.

"I do feel now it's going to be a little bit of floodgates and a lot of victims of abuse are going to come forward and we need to listen to them, hear them, support them and work out a plan to make sure this doesn't happen again," Rafiq told Sky Sports.

Original post:

Jordan Peterson Repeatedly Makes Air Quotes While Saying the Word 'Racism' During Debate - Newsweek

Conservatives kvetch about Hollywoods liberal messaging, and they often have a point.

Movies and TV shows promote unfettered immigration (Netflixs Living Undocumented), President TrumpDonald TrumpTrump tells former aide Navarro to 'protect executive privilege' in House COVID-19 probe Jan. 6 panel may see leverage from Bannon prosecution Texas Democrat Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson announces retirement at end of term MOREs alleged sins (Showtimes The Comey Rule), and climate change horror stories (every third post-apocalyptic yarn, like Tom Hanks Apple TV+ original, Finch). The last season of Brooklyn Nine-Nine, a previously benign cop comedy, became a BLM treatise following George Floyds death.

Yet King Richard offers something starkly conservative.

The November release captures the meteoric rise of Venus Williams, the Compton girl who bullied past societal expectations to change the sport she adored. Her younger sister, Serena, did the same just a short while later.

The title character, Richard Williams, is given life by Oscar-nominee Will Smith. The erstwhile Fresh Prince establishes the patriarchs flaws and his unshakable faith in his daughters talent.

The buzz behind King Richard reminds us of America's racist past and, more importantly, how Venus and Serena Williams shattered boundaries by dominating women's tennis for more than a decade.

None of that is wrong, and both elements are featured proudly in the film.

What's equally clear, but will get far less attention, is that King Richard could be the most profoundly conservative movie of the year. The story of a man with a plan for his golden-girl daughters plays out as if Jordan Peterson and Ben Shapiro had pounded out the script after reading "Atlas Shrugged."

Venus and Serena Williams are never victims. Their daddy wont allow it. Theyre strong, proud and laser-focused on greatness. Its the American dream times two, and King Richard captures it with flag-waving joy.

The sisters stand at the heart of the film, but its how Richard molded their success that demands our attention. He took his daughters to a hardscrabble tennis court near their home, day in and day out, to practice until they absorbed every lesson he had to offer.

They played in the rain, in the blazing sun, and they never ducked homework to do it. He pushed them hard but he did so with love and compassion. He made sure their mental strength rivalled their on-court skills.

That combination made them invincible, which tennis fans watched with awe once they officially entered the sport.

The Williams family had every opportunity to cry racism and demand preferential treatment in the lily-white tennis world. Instead, Richard Williams made sure his girls could fend off insults and quiet indignities en route to tennis glory.

The elder Williams grew up in a racist South, and the punishments he absorbed early in life never left his memory. He still embraced several white tennis collaborators, ignoring the color of their skin. His only qualifier: Who could help his daughters reach the top.

His daughters similarly embraced his color-blind view without ignoring the remnants of racism they still saw around them.

Papa Williams stood as an empowering figure and role model. He weaponized his growing clout in tennis to protect and prepare his girls for life under the microscope.

Father knows best? Not always, but the Williams girls respected their father even when he made the wrong calls.

Smiths character also dressed his daughters down when they started spouting off about their tennis skills, something any pre-teen talent might do. He wouldnt stand for children who werent humble, who left God and good manners out of their success equation.

King Richard doesnt ignore racism. At times, bigotry gets a long, lingering closeup. Richard Williams recoils at TV images of Rodney King getting beaten by L.A. police officers. He also stares down a pair of tennis executives guilty of nothing more than condescending kindness.

He doesnt let any of that flavor his parental choices. Venus Williams will be a champion on her terms, and no amount of racism, be it microaggressions or something uglier, will prevent that from happening.

Family always came first in the Williams household. Even when Venus Williams stands at the cusp of stardom, Richard pulls back his beloved daughter. Being a kid is just as important as an early career start, he argued, and the results eventually proved him right.

The essential traits Richard Williams passed down to his daughters wouldnt be considered odd, or refreshing, 20 years ago. Maybe even 10. But today? Victimhood is the ultimate goal, something even a literal princess like Meghan MarkleMeghan MarkleWilliams sisters' biopic takes Hollywood on a conservative turn Prince Harry: 'Megxit' a misogynistic term Democrats deploy a divisive duchess to lobby on paid leave MORE embraces amidst her startling privilege. Hard work is considered white privilege. Separating people by the color of their skin is now part of the hard-left agenda.

Richard Williams is out of the limelight today. Hes nearly 80, and his magnificent work preparing his daughters for stardom is complete. He must be proud of King Richard, co-produced by his now-adult daughters. Heres betting he hopes his conservative spirit isnt lost on modern moviegoers. Who couldnt benefit from a few royal lessons today?

"King Richard" is now playing in theaters and on HBO Max.

Christian Toto is the editor of the conservative entertainment site HollywoodInToto.com, the Right Take on Entertainment, and host of the weekly Right On Hollywood podcast. He is the author of the forthcoming Virtue Bombs: How Hollywood Got Woke and Lost Its Soul.

View original post here:

Williams sisters' biopic takes Hollywood on a conservative turn | TheHill - The Hill

Our very own theatreCAT Libby Purves reviews Zadie Smiths play The Wife of Willesden at the Kiln Theatre.Scott Miller (Ryan) and Clare Pderkins (Alvita) in The Wife Of Willesden. Photo: Marc Brenner

The Wife Of WillesdenKiln Theatre4 StarsUntil 15 January 2022Book Tickets

Zadie Smith humbly refers to her first play as more like homework than the novelists usual dread of a blank page. Chaucer, after all, laid down its tale, framework and attitudes 600 years ago with the Wife of Bath. She entertains fellow pilgrims on the Canterbury road with a long personal prologue about her five husbands, cheerful attitude to sex and clear-eyed view of male delusions. And for those who have read Chaucer, probably long ago, it is remarkable how close Smith stays both to the spirit and the stories in this deft and jolly modernization.

The rumbustious Clare Perkins in her tight red dress and Cockney-Jamaican patois may refer to wifi, buses, Jordan Peterson, and other pillars and plagues of modern life but shes gloriously Chaucerian all the same. Attitudes to clerics, St Paul, all-male theoreticians, and female prudes, annoying husbands, and emphatically a womans right to sexual pleasure are all there. Especially the latter: if I was a man her line Your body is my playground! would set me trembling with nervous apprehension. Shes a bit Donald McGill that way. But its the intelligence, the witheringly female perception, and realism, that are at the heart of the character.

The setting is glorious. She dominates a lovely, bottle-lined, patched-carpet London pub set by Robert Jones, conjuring up each husband, best-friend and pious auntie from the locals as she lays out her life story and robust views in the first hour, and finally in the last half-hour turns the lot of them carnival-costumed- into the characters of the actual tale she tells. It is the old one about the knight forced to wed a loathly woman who then becomes lovely, transposed from King Arthurs Court in Chaucer to 18c Jamaica with magnificently poetic patois.

This is, deliberately, the Kilns joyful invitation to its local multicultural community to come back and come round to rejoice, and I hope very much that a lot of it turns up, beyond this opening nights theatre regulars. Its selling like mad, I hope to some big local groups with discounts, but seats are always reasonable here and go down to 15 full-price: and frankly, Id go for the gallery or the back stalls anyway for a better view, and avoid the sides if you cant get one of the pub tables. It would be a pity to miss any of the pantomimic larking or have to keep standing up and craning as I did.

But wherever you are, its fun and refreshingly faithful to the ancient larkiness of working-class England. Among the ensemble with the wonderful Perkins, I especially liked Ellen Thomas as Aunty P and the Old Wife, and Marcus Adolphy as, among other things, a black Jesus. Andrew Frame, as the lone straight-white-middle-class male among her wives, is also shamelessly funny in his various humiliations. But theyre all great, and Indhu Rubasinghams direction ( movement and fight directors have been painstakingly at work) is creative, fast and funny. You get the sense that the fun theyre all having absolutely includes and invites you. That means a lot.

KILN THEATRE BOX OFFICE

Read more here:

REVIEW: The Wife Of Willesden, Kiln Theatre - British Theatre

This week brings both good and bad news, depending on where you look it from. For Metaverse aficionados, the week was quite great, but for the rest of the market it was downright bleak. So, lets start with the broader market.

Bitcoin is down over 10% in the past seven days, and theres no other way of looking at it it wasnt pleasant. The cryptocurrency tumbled below $56K for the first time since late October and liquidated millions worth of both long and short positions because of the volatility. The decline started on Monday, and for the first time in a long time, the market sentiment has turned fearful.

Naturally, this had an impact on the entire cryptocurrency field as most of the coins are also charting double-digit declines. Ethereum is down about 10.7%, BNB, SOL, ADA, and XRP are all down about the same 10%. The total market capitalization has declined to $2699 billion in the past seven days a substantial drop given that it was above $3 trillion at one point.

However, not all is doom and gloom. Metaverse-related and play-to-earn tokens are popping off. At the time of this writing, Decentralands MANA is up 25%, while The Sandboxs SAND is up 60%. ENJ is also up almost 20%, while WAXP is up almost 60%.

Elsewhere, it appears that the season of high valuations keeps on rolling. Gemini the cryptocurrency exchange founded by the Winklevoss twins seems to be planning a $400 million raise, and if successful, that would put the companys total valuation upwards of $7 billion. DCG also raised $600 million in a debt capital raise. In other words big money continues to flow in the industry, perhaps giving further notion to the claim that the current downturn might be a good buying opportunity.

Market Cap: $2,700B | 24H Vol: 181B | BTC Dominance: 40.4%

BTC: $57,783 (-10.9%) | ETH: $4,226 (-10.7%) | BNB: $577 (-9.1%)

Solanas Anatoly Yakovenko Talks NFTs, Scalability and Where Solana is Headed in 5 Years (Exclusive).Solana is one of the fastest-growing ecosystems and undoubtedly amongst the hottest topics in the community. CryptoPotato got the chance to interview the President of the Solana Foundation and Co-Founder of Solana Labs, Anatoly Yakovenko.

Mt. Gox Rehabilitation Plan Now Binding: Crypto Proponents Deny Major Bitcoin Price Impact.The rehabilitation plan for Mt.Gox creditors is now final and binding. We reached out to prominent members of the community, and heres what they think in regards to any potential implications on Bitcoins price.

Bitcoin Dumps Below $56K as Cryptocurrency Correction Worsens.Its been a bloody week in the cryptocurrency market as the majority of the coins are trading well in the red. Bitcoin dumped below $56K for the first time since late in October.

Gemini Eyes $400 Million Funding Round t Potential $7 Billion Valuation.Gemini, the cryptocurrency exchange founded by the Winklevoss twins, plans to raise $400 million. If successful, that would put the company at a total valuation upwards of $7 billion. Gemini would join the ranks of many other crypto-focused companies that have successfully raised millions in the past couple of months.

Acala Wins Polkadots First Parachain Auction With $1.3 Billion Secured.The Acala Network became the very first project to win a parachain slot on Polkadot through their auction mechanism. The project received over 32 million DOT from more than 81,000 community members through the crowd loan campaign.

Jordan Peterson Bought More Bitcoin as a Hedge Against Inflation.Jordan Peterson a renowned clinical psychologist and a professor of psychology, said that he bought more bitcoins as a means of hedging against inflation. He also debated on the anonymous creator of BTC and whether or not this is of any help to the protocol.

This week we have a chart analysis of Ethereum, Cardano, Ripple Binance Coin, and Solana click here for the full price analysis.

PrimeXBT Special Offer: Use this link to register & enter POTATO50 code to get 50% free bonus on any deposit up to $1750.

Disclaimer: Information found on CryptoPotato is those of writers quoted. It does not represent the opinions of CryptoPotato on whether to buy, sell, or hold any investments. You are advised to conduct your own research before making any investment decisions. Use provided information at your own risk. See Disclaimer for more information.

Originally posted here:

Bitcoin Corrects 10%, Metaverse Tokens on the Rise: This Weeks Recap - CryptoPotato

When I was in college, for the short time I was there, I studied under a philosophy professor who mentored me in doing research in academia. She was a successful philosopher barely 35 and already tenured at an Ivy League institution and sincerely interested in the pursuit of ideas and in helping me, a lowly undergraduate, with my research. She was specifically a moral psychologist (a philosopher who studies the meaning of emotions, feelings, and reactive attitudes) and I had entered into the ambitious project of writing a series of papers on the moral psychology of romantic love.

The subject was understudied in moral psychology, despite the fact that romantic love is one of the most (if not the most) significant psychological states an individual feels in his/her life. While collecting academic articles on the subject, I thought it would be important to read a few books written by academics and published by popular presses like Simon & Schuster or Random House to get an idea of how people currently talk about understanding romantic love.

One day while working with my advisor, I read off the list of suggested reading I developed. When I got to the popular press books, she scoffed and suggested I not waste my time on pop academic books. I was taken aback. She was the furthest thing in my mind from an ideologue or a dogmatist. Save a jab at Ayn Rand (which I expect from most academics), she had never given me the impression that trying to pursue and communicate these ideas to the general public was somehow normatively bad.

What was the point of further understanding these significant ideas if not to communicate to the general public how to better their lives? If academics were to stay in the Ivory Tower, why have students in the first place? Why not just employ all liberal arts professors at a liberal arts think tank and let them save their time? Sure, some nuance gets lost in communicating to non-experts, but thats a given with any form of communication. Good communicators build their nuance in and account for readers and listeners misinterpreting them. That shouldnt indict the pursuit of spreading enlightenment outside of university halls.

We both later left the university. Her to go run a department at prestigious liberal arts school and myself to pursue my studies outside of school.

This fall, Petersons Patreon page surpassed $60,000/month in donations and is probably well over $80,000 at this point.

That same discomfort I felt at being told not to waste my time on pop academia revisited my stomach over the last few months. Academics and intellectuals, many of whom I otherwise respect for their contributions in their specific fields, scoffing at the sudden popularity of Dr. Jordan B. Peterson brings the same feeling back. Ive tried to understand that scoffing and discomfort without dismissing it as pure academic politics. This is my attempt at explaining what I think is really going on. Ive avoided this topic for a few months, but seeing academics and intellectuals I otherwise respect acting in ways that are not commendable put me over the edge.

So here we go.

I first discovered Dr. Peterson in the winter of 2016 when a friend sent me a video of him being accosted by students at his university.

Between the context of who sent me the post and the recent hooplah over provocateurs like Milo Yiannopolous at the time, I moved on thinking that Peterson was at worst himself a right-wing provocateur (although the above video suggests otherwise by his reactions, such as his earnest, yeah, I dont like Nazis,) or at best just being used as a shelling point for the kinds of people who find their time is better spent arguing online than actually working in the real world. Entertaining? Sure, but not really worth the time or stress to get pulled into political drama.

I paid little attention to his political campaigning in Canada around Bill C16 and heard little of him until another friend sent me a video lecture of his on Jung and Nietzsche after we had discussed interpretations of dreams. The video was low-quality, taken from an iPad or iPhone sitting on his podium at UofT and recorded in 2015, long before Peterson became the poster child of free speech activists online.

At this point, I thought, okay, interesting. Im glad to see a professor putting his lectures online, and little more of it.

Then this article passed my timeline:

$50,000 per month?

In donations?

What.

This fall, Petersons Patreon page surpassed $60,000/month in donations and is probably well over $80,000 at this point. Peterson eventually stopped displaying how much he was earning per month on Patreon because of criticism directed his way (which is important and well get to below).

This caught my attention. Ive spent the last few years thinking about how to upend higher education and have worked with some leading entrepreneurs and thinkers in this space. Continually, we come back to the question of liberal arts education and its value (remember, I studied philosophy!). Some people are too quick to dismiss liberal arts education as useless and not worth the time. Instead, they insist on purely vocational education. Yet many of the most successful and happiest individuals I know are widely read (rarely because of their college courses), can discuss ideas from Aristotle to Jung to Jacobs with you, and love the idea of entertaining big ideas.

I visited Petersons lectures and found them to be nuanced, intricate, and to jump well between clinical experience, psychological research (most of which was well-validated, hard to do in psychology), and Jungian myth interpretation. When he released his Bible lecture series, I found myself, for the first time since I was a child, intimately listening about the ideas that go into religion and how these ideas surface elsewhere in the culture. More than a decade of skepticism towards religious texts due to their shallow readings and uses for the Joel Osteens of the world melted away.

His lectures rarely touch on politics in any capacity. When it gets brought up, hes quick to note that he does not oppose calling trans individuals by their pronouns but that he opposes having his language dictated by a central political committee. This seems commonsensical to me. Part of what made the American and Canadian traditions so egalitarian is their rejection of forced speech and titles.

And for those who listen to Peterson, he bridges any kind of ideological gap (in fact, those I know in the alt-right crowd dislike him more than the honest progressives I know). Petersons worldview is a classical liberal rejection of collectivism (an ideology that killed more than 50 million people in the 20th century alone) while simultaneously not falling into an atomized view of the individual relative to his culture.

Just last week, I met with an acquaintance in San Francisco, the Mecca of American political correctness, who described herself as a liberal democrat type, who had listened to and met Peterson at a company event. She admitted that she couldnt read into his politics and found his talk compelling about the nature of the world, men in it today, and why people like Peterson must appeal to so many people outside the San Francisco and Washington DC bubbles. She was explicit in saying that she was neither a libertarian nor a conservative and still Peterson motivated her to introspect, read into Jungian archetypes, and better understand the culture that shapes the world.

Shes not alone. I regularly speak to friends and acquaintances from across the political spectrum who find value in Petersons talks. These are people years out of college (or who never went) who now pick up classics like Dostoyevsky, Jung, Neumann, and even the Bible with a critical intellectual lens. Peterson regularly talks about and shares letters from fans who admit that his moralistic talks inspired them to pull themselves together and sort themselves out by figuring out what they want from life and pursuing that. r/JordanPeterson (yes, he has his own subreddit) is filled to the brim with stories of people saying how Peterson helped them get control of their lives and navigate the world.

Jordan Peterson is accomplishing for depth psychology what colleges failed to do for the liberal arts in general. When discussing the value of higher education, eventually somebody brings up the point that a liberal arts education is something that helps make life worth living. Learning the liberal arts, learning about culture and history, learning about your place in this big tradition of human civilization, they say, helps you better navigate the world. Those advocating for straight-vocational training are doing students a disservice by not giving them the opportunity to study the liberal arts.

Graduate school marketing departments and collegiate salesmen speak of the virtues of reading thinkers like Jung and Dostoyevsky and how great it is to learn from those who studied them in depth. If college and the universities fail at preparing people with vocational skills, at least they should be able to provide them with a liberal arts education that they can actually use, right?

This is exactly what Peterson is doing. To read an alt-right political agenda or something else into it is willful ignorance.

Jordan Peterson is accomplishing for depth psychology what colleges failed to do for the liberal arts in general: ignite curiosity in free individuals and create lifelong students.

The academic is quick to shoot back that his pop psychology is just smarter-looking self-help and that Peterson reeks of charlatanism. This piece below is one such example.

Rather than fact-checking the piece (which has been done online already by numerous others) its worth trying to get a better understanding of the question. Petersons crime is giving listeners and students tools they can use to improve their lives and connecting these tools to literature, mythology, and clinical experience.

Isnt the point of understanding oneself and the world better to help oneself? Isnt liberal arts, properly done, self-help? What should liberal arts look like if it can never be used to improve ones own life?

If intellectuals were honest about Peterson and what hes accomplishing, even the most anti-Peterson intellectual should be able to admit that his project is a net-good accomplishing the goals on which most of his colleagues set out in going to graduate school. Hes a prolific researcher and reputable to boot formerly a professor at Harvard and now at University of Toronto. 12 Rules for Life is not his first book, with Maps of Meaning coming in as a tome of a textbook and depth psychology.

Even the claim that Peterson is unfairly parlaying his prominence into profit falls apart on its face. 12 Rules for Life was proposed before Petersons prominence due to Bill C16 (as anybody who knows the timeline for publishing a book should realize) and Peterson started posting his lectures on YouTube years before late 2016.

Peterson influences lifelong students in and outside his classroom and inspires a generation of readers and learners.

Thats why intellectuals oppose him.

The model of the world by which an intellectual or academic operates is the model taught in school. Study hard, do well, get good grades, and you will ascend the dominance hierarchy. Students who follow this system are rewarded in the school framework while those who fail to follow it are punished.

The intellectual wants the whole society to be a school writ large, to be like the environment where he did so well and was so well appreciated. By incorporating standards of reward that are different from the wider society, the schools guarantee that some will experience downward mobility later. Those at the top of the schools hierarchy will feel entitled to a top position, not only in that micro-society but in the wider one, a society whose system they will resent when it fails to treat them according to their self-prescribed wants and entitlements. Robert Nozick"

Once the dozen-plus years of compulsory schooling comes to an end, some young people pursue their success outside of the school framework and do so quite well. People who got poor or mediocre grades in school go on to become successful businessmen and women and accrue wealth. Even more, they accrue influence. They may be intelligent but their intelligence manifests itself better in the business world than in the schoolhouse.

Meanwhile, the intellectuals who spend years in graduate school go on to do well, put together their theses and their presentations, get their professorships (sometimes at prestigious universities!) and still fail to accrue much wealth. Even worse, outside of their small intellectual fiefdoms, they fail to accrue influence. Save the occasional Peter Singer or Jordan Peterson, few academics acquire influence outside of the academy.

When you spend so many years growing up in a system that tells you that you will be at the top of the dominance hierarchy and then youre not, your expectations are violated. This violation of expectations manifests itself as resentment. You followed the rules, you did things as you were supposed to, and some guy who runs a construction company or built an app gets more influence and respect than you.

Peterson brings an additional level of resentment to the table for these academics and intellectuals who envy his success in their own hierarchies. Not only did he win at their own game with professorships at Harvard and Toronto and more citations than most of his peers get in a lifetime, but he also succeeds in the game of influence outside of the academy. To use his own analogy, hes the largest lobster in their own circles and a big lobster in society at large.

Many otherwise-level headed intellectuals who turn into dogmatic ideologues at the mention of Peterson are those who spend the most time trying to become influential outside of the traditional classroom. They go on podcasts. They write articles for popular publications and blogs. They build their own little fiefdoms on social media. Yet they dont touch the nerve Peterson touches. He succeeds where they, too, followed the rules and did not succeed as widely.

When you spend so many years in a system that tells you that you will be at the top of the dominance hierarchy and then youre not, your expectations are violated.

The academy is, ultimately, a guild system. Like the guild systems of old and the guild systems of skilled trades today, those who operate outside of the system buck the expectations of everybody else. There are norms about how to succeed and fail. Having dominated the traditional guild through citations, research, and years at Harvard and Toronto, Peterson moves on to disrupt the guild itself.

By putting his lectures online, raising money via Patreon, and hosting independent lectures that anybody can attend, Peterson is unbundling the intellectual experience of the academy and removing the gatekeepers. The resentment sent his way by academics and intellectuals in the guild is much like the resentment and indignation sent the way of independent bloggers and reporters when the Internet started to displace the Mainstream Media as a source of information.

Not only does Peterson win at the academics game and disrupt their game, he wins in the marketplace. While most of his content is available for free, hes committed the cardinal sin of placing his feet into the marketplace and succeeding at it.

Academics and intellectuals spend years studying ideas and rarely make more than six figures every year in the pursuit of their ideas. That stings. You expect that performing well and doing your job well will bring you rewards but the marketplace rewards value creation not merely understanding ideas.

People value what Peterson is saying and are willing to part with their money to hear more of it. What is wrong with that? Again, go search r/JordanPeterson for people who have quit smoking, lost weight, regained their relationships, gotten promotions, forgiven loved ones, and put themselves together thanks to Petersons work.

Peterson brings in more than $60,000/month in small donations on Patreon and his lectures reach more people than the entirety of people who have ever attended the University of Toronto, ever. If thats improving peoples lives, what could possibly be wrong with that?

That intellectuals resent Petersons success in the marketplace says more about their own relationship to value creation than it does of Petersons character.

Reprinted from Medium.

More:

Many Intellectuals Can't Stand Jordan Peterson. Why ...

Target Jordan Howard On Fantasy Waiver Wire?Samantha Previte

Howard led the Eagles backfield in carries in Week 10 and saw 12 carries for 83 yards, though it was Boston Scott who posted the better day for fantasy. He saw 11 carries for 81 yards and caught two of two targets for 24 yards. This backfield has been unpredictable and messy without Miles Sanders, who could return from injured reserve as soon as next week. This puts both Scott and Howard lower on the priority list in terms of waivers, but they may be worth rostering if Sanders misses more time.

Howard is a low-priority RB add in myWeek 11 breakdown of the waiver wire market.

Howard has had a good run over the past three weeks, totaling 41 carries for 211 yards and 3 TDs as the Eagles newly-minted lead back. The caveat: All three of his performances came against run defenses that rank 22nd or worse in Football Outsiders DVOA: the Lions (29th), Chargers (32nd) and Broncos (22nd).

This week he faces the Saints aka none other than the top run defense in football. The Saints are No. 1 in run defense DVOA and are allowing just 2.9 yards per carry to RBs. Not only is Howard at risk of being woefully inefficient, but he could see a decline in usage as the Eagles would be silly to include a high volume of backfield handoffs in their game plan this week. With an incredibly prohibitive matchup this week and starter Miles Sanders nearing a return, I would let someone else bid for Howard.

Foreman led the Tennessee backfield in Week 10 ahead of both Adrian Peterson and Jeremy McNichols and saw 11 carries for 30 yards. He also reeled in two of two targets for 48 yards, tallying nearly three times the scrimmage yards of Peterson and McNichols combined. This is the second week in a row in which Foreman outperformed his counterparts out of the backfield. He is worth rostering in deeper leagues.

He is a low- to medium-priority RB add in myWeek 11 breakdown of the waiver wire market.

Foreman is worth targeting as the top add at RB (assuming Rhamondre Stevenson is already rostered). Foreman was the Titans most productive running back last week, talking 78 yards from scrimmage on 13 touches. And for the second week in a row, Foreman was the Titans most efficient running back as well.

Since Derrick Henry has gone down, Foreman is averaging 5.9 yards per touch (18-107) while Jeremy McNichols averaged 3.0 (14-42) and Adrian Peterson averaged 2.4 (20-48). Most importantly, Foreman led the backfield is snaps for the first time last week, playing 35% of the offensive downs while Peterson played 33% and McNichols 27%.

At this rate, Foremans usage is likely to increase, and theres an outside shot he is used in a Henry-like workhorse role if he continues to outperform a washed AP. The Titans are double-digit home favorites against the Texans this week, so this is the perfect spot for a lead back to go off in fantasy. This is also a #RevengeGame for Foreman, who was let go by Houston two years after the Texans selected him with the 89th overall pick of the 2017 NFL Draft. I would bid around 25% FAAB for Foreman here.

How would you rate this article?

The rest is here:

How To Target Jordan Howard & DOnta Foreman On Fantasy Waiver Wire: How Much FAAB To Bid To Roster These RBs - The Action Network

Article highlights:

Everyone knows of Michael Jordans significant NBA success. He won six championships and is widely recognized as the greatest player of all time. He is also now the governor of the Charlotte Hornets. However, MJ isnt the only person in the Jordan family accomplishing a great deal in the league. His brother Larry is actually working his way up through the ranks as well.

Michael Jordan is one of five kids, but his brother Larry is only 11 months older than him, so it appears the two had a close bond growing up.

Like Michael, Larry was also athletic. He just didnt grow up to be 6-feet-6-inches tall, as hes, instead, 5-foot-8.

Larry was so driven and so competitive an athlete that if he had been 6-2 instead of 5-7, Im sure Michael would have been known as Larrys brother instead of Larry always being known as Michaels brother, their high school coach Pop Herring said, per Biography.com.

Larry and Michael even shared the court during one season of high school ball when the elder Jordan was a senior and MJ was a junior. That was also the year Michael picked his famous No. 23 jersey, as Larry wore 45 on varsity, and he wore the same number on JV. So, when MJ moved up, he split it in half (or at least close to it).

Thats when his play just went to another level, Larry said, per ESPN. Even though there were five guys on the floor, he pretty much played all five positions. His level of play was just so much higher than the rest of us. People ask me all the time if it bothered me, but I can honestly say no, because I had the opportunity to see him grow. I knew how hard he worked.

Of course, after high school, Michael went on to play for the North Carolina Tar Heels and then became one of the greatest players of all-time in the NBA with the Chicago Bulls and Washington Wizards. Larry, on the other hand, played for the Chicago Express in the only year the World Basketball League existed in 1988, per Bleacher Report.

But hes now finding success in the NBA.

The Michael Jordan-owned Charlotte Hornets announced on Nov. 15 that Larry Jordan and others received promotions. Larry moved up from Director of Player Personnel to Vice President of Player Personnel. According to Yahoo Sports, Larry started working in his previous role in 2013 after serving as Director of Special Projects before that.

He has apparently done impressive work within the organization, too. Buzz Peterson, who the Hornets recently promoted to Senior Vice President of Basketball Operations and Assistant General Manager, praised Larry earlier in 2021 for his role in bringing in LaMelo Ball and some of their other recent draft picks.

Ive got to give Larry a lot of credit for staying on top of the scouts, Peterson said to Sports Illustrateds All Hornets. Its a long season. And theres motivation, theres get your reports in, theres intel reports. Hes constantly looking over five, six guys not every day but several times during the week. Howd that game go? Whatd you see? Where are you off to next? Checking their reports, theres a lot that goes into that.

Now, it appears Michael, Larry, and others are finally getting the Hornets on a path toward success.

The Charlotte Bobcats/Hornets have had limited success since Jordan became the majority governor in 2010. They have only reached the postseason twice and lost in the first round both times. They have also had nine losing seasons since then.

However, after drafting the 2020-21 Rookie of the Year, LaMelo Ball, the Hornets improved from 23-42 in 2019-20 to 33-39 last season and reached the NBA Play-In Tournament. They seem to be even better in 2021-22 so far, too, starting 8-7 with wins over the Brooklyn Nets and Golden State Warriors.

It has taken Michael Jordan and his brother Larry a long time to turn the Hornets around, but it appears theyre finally on their way toward the top.

Stats courtesy of Basketball Reference

RELATED: Michael Jordans Competitiveness Seeps Into All but 1 Area of His Life, According to Actor Will Smith

Original post:

Michael Jordan Is an NBA Legend, but His Brother Is Now Finding Success in the League He Once Dominated - Sportscasting

Posted:November 14, 2021

Book Review

By Derryll White

Hurwitz, Gregg (2016). Orphan X.

Act so that you can tell the truth about how you act. Jordan Peterson

I have never read Gregg Hurwitz before. He has an interesting writing style, layering detail upon detail until even the unknown or unfamiliar takes shape for the reader. It works well, as it kept me engaged through the whole story.

Orphan X is a compelling read. Hurwitz has created an interesting character in Evan Smoak. He is self-contained and completely on his own. Ruthless and a killing machine, he also has a soul and strong sense of responsibility. He negotiates a grim and nasty world, helping those who have no option left to them.

Gregg Hurwitz does a great job, making the Nowhere Man a believable super hero. There is a believable juxtaposition this is what can be accomplished with the human form by intensive training and discipline, and this is what it costs. Sobering in the extreme.

I will look for another volume in this series, hoping that Evan Smoak is forced to deal with his own awakening of self.

****

Excerpts from the novel:

EXPOSURE We live in a celebrity culture now. Or a wannabe-celebrity culture. The name of the game is visibility. If you arent tweeted, liked, YouTubed, or Instagrammed, you dont exist.

MAN A guy can love a million women. But a man, a man loves one woman a million ways.

DEATH We keep death at a distance here, X. Hospitals and nursing homes tuck it away. Our food comes to us neatly packaged. Refrigerators preserve it. It used to be you wanted a chicken, you walked out back and snapped its neck.

WOMEN Respect for women is essential, Jock tells him. Womens rights and economic development within a country are highly correlated. Treating women properly is not just a moral position which it is or an American value which it is. Its a strategic imperative, and you will always, always lead by example in this regard.

Derryll Whiteonce wrote books but now chooses to read and write about them. When not reading he writes history for the web atwww.basininstitute.org.

Continued here:

I will look for another volume in this series | Columbia Valley, Cranbrook, East Kootenay, Elk Valley, Kimberley - E-Know.ca

With Monday Night Football between the Bears and Steelers in the books, Week 9 is over and the NFLs first 17-game season is officially past the halfway point. While we cant get to everything like the rise of road-field advantage in the league here are four of the top storylines to emerge with the seasons ninth week in the books, and whether were buying or selling on em.

In his first career start in the NFL for the Green Bay Packers on Sunday afternoon, second-year quarterback Jordan Love did not appear ready for primetime.

Filling in for immunized-but-not-vaccinated Aaron Rodgers, Love completed 19-of-34 passes for 190 yards with a touchdown and an interception in a 13-7 loss. On a day that saw Patrick Mahomes complete just 54% of his passes and play one of his worst games of the season, Love was worse. Bad news for him and the Packers; good news for Rodgers.

Love, who had trouble avoiding the blitz, appeared to have issues identifying coverages and missed open wide receivers down the field, is being groomed as Rodgerss successor. The second-year quarterback will theoretically be given the starting job if the reigning NFL MVP departs from the team this offseason, which has seemed imminent at times. Theoretically is the operative word her, as Love being any sort of replacement for Rodgers is far from a reality if Sunday is representative of his skillset as a pro.

With a starting-caliber quarterback on an affordable contract in his back pocket, Green Bay general manager Brian Gutekunst would have had options this offseason if things with Rodgers (who has two seasons left on the bloated contract he restructured this summer) reach what seems to be an inevitable denouement: trading the 37-year-old away for a slew of valuable draft picks. If Love cant play, the balance of power in that equation shifts dramatically, as Rodgers would then be an even more valuable commodity than he already is, and Green Bay would likely be inclined to bend to his will and figure out how to retain him.

It was a losing day for the Packers and Love after Rodgerss COVID-19 diagnosis kicked off a losing week for the franchise. Had Love played better on Sunday, it would have been a win for Green Bay in more ways than one. As it stands, Rodgers is the big winner of his longtime teams loss to the Chiefs.

Favored by 15 points heading into a game against the toothless Jaguars on Sunday afternoon, the Bills and star quarterback Josh Allen had just been anointed as the favorites to win the Super Bowl in February in L.A.

Allen and the Bills were then upset in grand fashion by Jacksonville, losing 9-6, in a game that saw Jacksonville defensive end Josh Allen register a sack, interception and fumble recovery against his Buffalo namesake to go along with a team-high eight tackles and a pass defense. In sacking Buffalos Allen, Jacksonvilles Allen became the first player in NFL history to sack a quarterback of the same name, even though Sunday marked the fourth instance in NFL history that a starting QB and defensive player with the same name have faced off.

Drafted No. 7 overall by the Jaguars the year after the Bills selected their franchise quarterback at No. 7 in the first round, Jacksonvilles Allen recorded 10.5 sacks his rookie season and was named to the Pro Bowl, though Sundays interception of his quarterback counterpart was the first pick of his three-season career.

I know were about to play against another freaking Josh [Allen]. Got a little beef with that but hes been a helluva player, the Jacksonville Allen told Pro Football Focus before the game.You know, I definitely wanna be one of those guys that people talk about and people know about. I want to be respected by my peers. I know its not given. I know I have to work it and Im gonna work my ass off just to be the best out there and get my name called as, OK, this dudes a top guy in the NFL that you need to keep an eye on. So, thats one of my goals, earning the respect of my peers and go out there and have fun.

Mission accomplished.

As for Buffalos Allen, it may have been preordained he was going to be outshined by Jacksonvilles Allen on Sunday after he appeared on Monday nights ManningCast alongside Peyton and Eli. With Allen and the Bills going down in flames, all six players who have joined the ManningCast went on to lose their next game.

A surefire Hall-of-Famer with a complicated legacy due to his history of child abuse, Adrian Peterson took the field for Tennessee on Sunday Night Football after being signed by the Titans earlier in the week to help fill the void left by a long-term injury to star running back Derrick Henry.

In his first game action since carrying the ball seven times for 63 yards (nine yards per carry) and a score for the Lions in a season-ending loss to the Vikings in 2020, the 36-year-old had 10 carries for just 21 yards (2.1 yards per carry), but did score a touchdown in Tennessees convincing victory over the Rams in Los Angeles. The touchdown was the 125th of Petersons career, making him just the 12th player in NFL history to reach the mark.

Without Henry, Tennessees run game as a whole struggled against a sturdy LA defense and the Titans produced season-low 69 rushing yards, the fewest rushing yards the franchise has had in a win since 2012. If the Titans want to extend their five-game win streak, getting their running game back on track will be crucial, and it appears Peterson may actually be able to help accomplish that.

The last non-quarterback to be named NFL MVP, Peterson is clearly not even close to the player he was during his 2012 MVP season. But with eight rushing touchdowns in his last 17 games, Peterson is still showing he has a nose for the endzone and can be utilized as a goal-line back and in other short-yardage situations. Can he carry the ball 20 times and turn the corner? No. But 10 or fewer touches in gotta-have-it situations seems plausible.

I felt like it was OK, Peterson said of his debut with the Titans. I think we left a lot out there as a running back group. I know I did as well. As we continue to get practice and get reps in, well continue to build that chemistry with those guys up front. I try to just stay focused on just being the best teammate I can, and just grinding and putting in work. And I know those things will come into play.

Crazy as it sounds given that the four-time All-Pro has now rushed for 14,841 yards while playing for six teams across parts of 15 seasons, Peterson may actually be right.

Entering Week 10 of the season, the only NFL teams with fewer wins than the San Francisco 49ers are two-win Jets, Dolphins, Jaguars and WFT, one-win Texans and winless Lions. For a team that started this season with real aspirations of making it to the Super Bowl for the second time in three years following an injury-plagued 2020 campaign in the midst of a pandemic, that is some pretty poor company to keep.

But upon closer examination of what the 49ers have really been since they blew a 10-point lead with seven minutes left in Super Bowl LIV and lost to the Chiefs, perhaps the perception of the Niners as something other than a cellar-dweller is incorrect.

Sitting in the basement of the NFC West 3-5 following yesterdays 31-17 home loss to the Arizona Cardinals and backup quarterback Colt McCoy (who did not have the benefit of throwing to injured star wideout DeAndre Hopkins), the 49ers are now losers of eight straight games in San Francisco.

Since losing that game to the Chiefs, the Niners are 9-15 overall and appear on their way to missing the postseason for the fourth time in the five seasons since Kyle Shanahan took over as coach and John Lynch took over as general manager prior to the 2017 season. Overall, the Shanahan/Lynch regime has a 32-40 and has only finished above .500 once, when San Fran went 13-3 on the way to the Super Bowl. Remove that year and theyre 19-37.

Whats truly amazing about the collective record of Shanahan and Lynch, who both received extensions in 2020 that run through 2025, is that often-blamed Niners quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo has a career record of 25-12 with the team. Collectively, Shanahan and Lynch are losers while Garoppolo is a winner (albeit a flawed one that threw an interception and took five sacks against the Cardinals) who the coach and GM are dead-set on replacing with rookie Trey Lance after surrendering first-round picks in 2022 and 2023 to obtain him in Aprils draft.

We didnt play very well today at all,Shanahan saidafter the loss to Arizona. I was real disappointed. I thought wed played really well. We had a good week of practice that wed even improved from the week prior, but obviously it didnt go that way.

It hasnt gone that way since the Super Bowl and, outside of one year, it really hasnt gone that way with Lynch and Shanahan running things. The Super Bowl hangover is lingering in San Fran, but that may not be whats truly ailing the team.

This article was featured in the InsideHook newsletter. Sign up now.

Follow this link:

Week 9's Top NFL Storylines: Jordan Love, Adrian Peterson and the Other Josh Allen - InsideHook