Saying dumb stuff for fun & profit


I wish I’d jumped on this bandwagon ages ago: just fart out incredibly stupid things with no context and no reason, and then reap the harvest of attention, while never having to justify what I just said. It’s too late for me, though, because Jordan Peterson has already cornered the market.

Atheistic hedonists unconsciously worship Pan.

Look at that! Just 5 idiotic words, and here I am paying attention. The thing is, I can’t resist a puzzle, and the puzzle here is to decipher what’s going through his drug-addled brain to prompt this blurt.

“Atheistic hedonists”…atheism and hedonism are not linked properties. There are theistic hedonists — they probably outnumber the atheist kind — so I don’t understand why he narrowed the subject so much. I suspect it’s more about stringing together seven syllables to sound fancy than about actually making a point.

“Unconsciously worship”…OK, how do they do that? What’s involved in worship that you can do it without intent? What other things does Peterson think human beings worship? He’s using that word rather casually, I think to provide a jarring contrast with atheism, which we don’t generally associate with worship, at least not with the kind of practice followed by theists. So what’s the point? Is he trying to talk about atheists, or hedonists?

After all, the next thing he mentions is an ancient god, Pan. No, atheists don’t worship Pan, consciously or unconsciously. Hedonists might, but not atheistic hedonists who I’d expect to explicitly deny the existence of a god driving their desires. You can be a hedonist for secular reasons, you know.

This is one of those deepities, isn’t it? He subsequently claims we worship Priapus, which suggests an ulterior cause. Priapus was the Greek god of fruits and vegetables, as well as the male genitalia. That hints at another deepity:

Constipated authoritarians deny the divinity of phallic vegetables.

Think about that one for a while. Too bad I’m not on the inanity gravy train like Peterson.

Comments

  1. Reginald Selkirk says

    Priapus was the Greek god of fruits and vegetables, as well as the male genitalia.

    All hail the eggplant god!

  2. raven says

    I wish I’d jumped on this bandwagon ages ago: just fart out incredibly stupid things with no context and no reason, and then reap the harvest of attention, while never having to justify what I just said

    That was Elon Musk’s latest accomplishment.

    It took him 50 years to figure that out.

    Elon Musk is so starved for attention and so much an attention seeker that it is hard not to wonder what his childhood was like.
    He has discovered that echoing back right wingnut memes gets him a lot of attention. From the right wingnuts.

    This is a guy who is vaccinated and boosted and is now an antivaxxer.

    This is also the strategy of Fox NoNews, Tucker Carlson, and the GOP.

  3. ajbjasus says

    Percy:
    Well, my lord… while Baldrick and I were preparing the t-turnip surprise… we had a surprise! We came across a turnip… that was exactly the same shape… as a ‘thingy’!

    Blackadder:
    [long pause]… A ‘thingy’?!

    Baldrick:
    A great big ‘thingy’! It was terrific!

    Blackadder:
    Size is no guarantee of quality, Baldrick. Most horses are very well-endowed, but that does not necessarily make them sensitive lovers. I trust you have removed this hilarious item?

    Baldrick:
    Oh- yes, my Lord.

    Blackadder:
    Good, because there’s nothing more likely to stop an inheritance than a ‘thingy’-shaped turnip!

    Percy:
    Absolutely, Edmund… [looks serious for a moment, then breaks into giggles again] But it was jolly funny!!

    Baldrick:
    I found it particularly ironic, my Lord, ’cause I’ve got a ‘thingy’ that’s shaped like a turnip!

    Blackadder:
    [dismissively] Yes, yes…

    Baldrick:
    I’m quite fun at parties.

    Blackadder:
    Are you?

    Baldrick:
    Yeah, I hide in the vegetable rack and frighten the children!

    Blackadder:
    [crossly] What fun!

  4. StevoR says

    Dionysus?*

    The pipes, the pipes are calling.. Also some types of pizza.

    Also ..this toxic masculinists is projecting ..er, saying that we’re the one’s worshipping Priapus .. For certain values of “we” natch.

    All supported by, well, his mere assertion really..

    Seriously that people might simplyt NOT “worship” anything does seem beyond his ken or grokking.

    Vs Apollonian vs okay, ain’t this fool meant to be Catholic not classicist anyhow? Wonder if he’s ever heard of Euripides (The) Bacchae & King Pentheus? ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bacchae )

  5. raven says

    Atheistic hedonists unconsciously worship Pan.

    This is an assertion without proof or data and may be dismissed without proof or data.

    Not they don’t.
    Even most Pagans don’t worship Pan.

    Peterson’s main message is that he hates almost everyone. Muslims, women, educated people, progressives, atheists, gays, Trans, nonwhites, etc..
    After he spent a few years letting everyone know that, he ran out of things to say.

    These days he just repeats right wingnut talking points back to them for a few bucks.

  6. Ed Seedhouse says

    I think the only possible meaning to take out of that mess of words is that Peterson believes Pan is an actually existing God. I think he needs to find some better drugs.

  7. says

    …and the puzzle here is to decipher what’s going through his drug-addled brain to prompt this blurt.

    That’s easy: “My right-wing Christian fan-base have been saying this, so I’ll just repeat it and they’ll cheer me on!”

    Oh, and Reginald, where would you prefer someone find God — a dog’s butt?

  8. StevoR says

    Is it just me or does “Atheistic hedonists unconsciously worship Pan.” look like an AI’s failed attempt at aline of attempted Haiku that edns up word salad to anyone else here?

    Atheistic hedonists unconsciously worship Pan
    Dionysus Apollo fused is mess of opposites repelled?
    Atrractive meat aubergine?

  9. woozy says

    But… what the heck would be wrong with unconsciously worshiping Pan? To the extent that Pan is ever mentioned “unconsciously worshiping” doesn’t seem to involve believing in the existence of. And as a concept anything else one can do with Pan seems… like a pleasant and whimsical idea.

  10. drsteve says

    Slander! This atheistic hedonist worships at the altars of Athena, and of Anansi, with a medium-heavy dose of Ben Franklin.

  11. birgerjohansson says

    I can play that game too.
    “Atheists persist in believing in a round Earth because they are secret leprechaun furries”.
    Now I am targeting both the religious and the flat-Earth community.
    I just need the email of Jordan Peterson ‘s publisher and the $$$ will be mine.

  12. StevoR says

    @17. Reginald Selkirk : Well, I didn’t say a good or recent AI ..more an artificial stupidity even maybe?

    Maybe even one almost as bad as we can be at times..Exhibit A : Jordan Peterson? (Could he pass the Turing test?)

  13. Akira MacKenzie says

    There are theistic hedonists…

    Theistic Hedonists are the only theists I can tolerate. They generally don’t try to tell you what you can’t do and you don’t hear of any genocides committed in the name of Dionysus or Aphrodite.

  14. says

    Maybe he meant atheistic hedonists unconsciously worship Pam, which gives a great high if you’re not terribly attached to breathing & stuff.

  15. StevoR says

    Jovian, Saturnian it’s all just a big gas.. Ooops. Wrong gas giant planet. Mea culpa. (Blushes.)

    So many grandiose names for so many small space rocks..

    (Thinking #19. Seriously if I or someone else were to write Peterson or Trump or Santos or so many others as fictional or satirical characters who would believe they’d be plausible and remotely realistic rather than hyperpole stretched far beyond reasonable caricature and how many would say no way, they’re far too OTT tune it down there? No one would be that .. yet they are. )

  16. says

    Remember when Mark Steyn was the US right’s pet Canadian? I bet he hates Peterson for not only stealing that role from him, but getting lots more attention and money than he ever did.

  17. sc_262299b298126f9a3cc21fb87cce79da says

    Early morning. Gummy eyes. Tiny font. I read “Athletic hedonists ….”
    Makes about the same amount of sense.

  18. microraptor says

    @22: Or he meant that they unconsciously worship nap. Which I certainly wouldn’t mind getting more of.

  19. raven says

    Jordan Peterson found some other group to hate!!!
    It’s harder than it looks since he already hates almost everyone.
    It is also astonishingly stupid.

    It’s Ukraine and Ukrainians.

    Jordan Peterson’s Dangerous Projections on Ukraine and the .. .https://pesaagora.com › columns › jordan-petersons-da…

    Peterson argued that Vladimir Putin was forced into the war with Ukraine in order to prevent ‘degenerate’ US culture from breaching the borders of Russia. ‘The …

    This is so stupid it is hard to know where to start.

    The culture that is degenerate is the Russians inasmuch as they even have something that could be called a culture.
    They never managed to even reach the 19th century much less the 21st.

    .1 Human life is cheap and meaningless in Russia.
    You can die at any time for about any reason and no one is surprised and no one much cares.

    .2. The society is run by organized criminals with the Third World model.
    Much of the GDP is siphoned off by the elites of St. Petersberg and Moscow while the outlying areas live in poverty.

    .3. This doesn’t even make any sense.
    Ukraine isn’t the only border with Russia.
    And ideas and culture don’t crawl across the borders on tiny feet.
    You can’t kill them with guns and land mines.
    They cross borders at the speed of light on radio, TV, movies, and the internet.

    Genociding Ukraine isn’t going to stop anything.
    What it will do is just set up Russia for its next imperialist wars of conquest. Moldova is next, followed by Kazakhstan and Georgia.

    What Peterson is doing is just finding the worst comments from the worst people of our society and repeating them back to them.
    It’s not original. It’s not hard.
    Being a horrible person is easy.

  20. keinsignal says

    A sentence weirdly reminiscent of the famous linguistic chestnut “colorless green ideas sleep furiously,” and exactly as meaningful.

  21. Snarki, child of Loki says

    Congrats!
    Peterson just revealed his master password, that he recently changed from “Correct Horse Battery Staple” because it was too well known.

    Haxx0rs, attack!

  22. hemidactylus says

    Pan is an archetypal inner god projected from our collective unconscious so of course we worship him. How could we not? It’s inevitably stamped into our racial collective psyche from the repeated instances of our ancestors doing the same, if those ancestors were Greek and not Norse or Japanese. Japanese atheist hedonists worship in their own autochthonic manner, though not of good Christian stock so they are already hellbound heathen.

    Hedonistic atheists worship erection gods because Papa Jung happened upon an inmate with dementia praecox schizophrenia institutionalized at Burghölzli who claimed to see a wind producing cock protruding turgidly from the sun (see the solar phallus man) and since this is proof for the collective unconscious Papa Jung, JP’s idol, cannot be wrong. Hedonistically revere sun cocks y’all in spite of Peterson, cause it’s etched by repetition in our mnemic phylogenetic safe deposit box and Jung was wise. We recapitulate ancestral states when we worship Pan penises. Besides you can’t really be an atheist because you haven’t murdered anybody. Atheism means all is permitted. Real Atheists eat their own feces and go on murderous rampages. Read the 12 Rules to nip this godless impulse in the bud.

    Witches live in swamps and garter snakes twisted in an orgiastic love embrace resemble the double helix because archetypes abound and ancient myth and symbolism foretold modern molecular biology.

  23. cartomancer says

    I think the people most offended by this would be actual ancient adherents of Pan and Priapus. These were actual religious cults, and to suggest that their worship is something akin to hedonistic atheism would very much have rubbed pious Greeks and Romans up the wrong way.

  24. says

    Is it just me or does “Atheistic hedonists unconsciously worship Pan.” look like an AI’s failed attempt at aline of attempted Haiku that edns up word salad to anyone else here?

    Maybe it came from a Christian-owned AI that will start pretending to be Jesus once they get the bugs out…

  25. Akira MacKenzie says

    What can you expect from a member of a religion that started as an ascetic doomsday cult that’s still waiting for Armageddon 2000-or-so-years after their apocryphal founder died?

  26. steve oberski says

    The College of Psychologists of Ontario has sanctioned Mr. Peterson (I say Mr. as he may not be a Dr. for much longer) as posing a risk to the public and needs extensive therapy, coaching, and education.

    Based on its review of the file, including the submissions of Dr. Peterson, and for the reasons below, the Panel has identified some risks to the public regarding Dr. Peterson’s conduct in this case. The Panel therefore decided it was appropriate and in the public interest to order Dr. Peterson to complete a SPECIFIED CONTINUING EDUCATION OR REMEDIAL PROGRAM (SCERP).

    https://deanblundell.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/ICRC-DECISION.pdf

    Could this be part of Mr. Peterson’s rehabilitation ?

  27. fentex says

    An interesting thing about ‘Hedonism’ – it doesn’t mean indulging to excess, as many think.

    The philosophy is about taking as much as you can from what you have, little as it might be.Wringing experience and joy from what there is to work with; not seeking out excess which you can never fully enjoy.

  28. raven says

    The Panel therefore decided it was appropriate and in the public interest to order Dr. Peterson to complete a SPECIFIED CONTINUING EDUCATION OR REMEDIAL PROGRAM (SCERP).

    Good find.

    The chances of Peterson actually taking a SPECIFIED CONTINUING EDUCATION OR REMEDIAL PROGRAM is very low. Once they are as far gone as Peterson, they usually don’t bother.

    I knew a doc that got in trouble for overprescribing opiates.
    He was ordered to take some Continuing Medical Education courses. These aren’t all that hard and this is not a difficult task.
    He never did them.
    Then he got in trouble again for overprescribing opiates.
    That was it. They took his medical license away.
    He could have gotten it back by…taking some Continuing Medical Education courses, which never happened.

    U. of Toronto already grew a pair of ovaries and managed to push Peterson out. Long after they should have.

  29. Larry says

    And what is so terrifying is his mouth-breathing followers out there in MAGA-land are nodding their heads and going “make sense to me”.

  30. UnknownEric the Apostate says

    All hail the eggplant god!

    I am the eggplant.
    They are the eggplants.
    I am the WalMart.
    Goo goo goo dolls.

  31. benedic says

    Mr Peterson must have not been told that according to Plutarch in The Silence of Oracles a sea born voice announced to a wide public that « the great god Pan is dead. » He really needs to brush up his inanities.

  32. monad says

    Well, if atheists did have to worship someone, Pan is a good choice. Alone of the Greek gods, the great Pan was said to have died.

  33. John Morales says

    I’ve read the The Golden Bough; apparently, at festivals and after a bad hunt, his statue would be whipped about the genitals with squills.

    (Ah, religion!)

  34. rietpluim says

    Actually, I have never found anything Peterson says to be interesting or entertaining. Totally overestimated.

  35. Kagehi says

    All I can say is.. he needs to try harder – one lady has a video in which she goes on in length about how the shape of the M on Monster drinks look vaguely like numbers on some language or other, and those numbers are “of course” 666, along with even more rambling about how you can, probably by squinting, find the word “Satan” on the can some place. Its totally how the “devil” tricks people… (into doing f-ing what exactly?) By comparison Peterson’s gibberish about worshipping Pan is weak sauce.

  36. says

    As with a lot of Peterson quotes, I don’t even think he’s wrong, for a given value of wrong.
    His mistake, as always, is thinking that his thoughts are in any way profound, or meaningful.
    Peterson is a master of perfect deepities. If they are true, they are trivial, and if they’re meaningful, they’re wrong.

  37. cheerfulcharlie says

    Thamus, a sailor on his way to Italy by way of the Greek island of Paxi. A divine voice hailed him across the salt water, “Thamus, are you there? When you reach Palodes,[52] take care to proclaim that the great god Pan is dead.” Which Thamus did, and the news was greeted from shore with groans and laments.

    Ia! Ia! Cthulhu f’tagn!

  38. cheerfulcharlie says

    Thamus, a sailor on his way to Italy by way of the Greek island of Paxi. A divine voice hailed him across the salt water, “Thamus, are you there? When you reach Palodes,[52] take care to proclaim that the great god Pan is dead.” Which Thamus did, and the news was greeted from shore with groans and laments.

    Ia! Ia! Cthulhu f’tagn!

  39. outis says

    Mmh, how about… he took five random words and posted them? Looks about right, it’s easy and trivially automatable.
    Horse gives buttons blues direly.
    Physics takes low sunshine apple.
    There, it makes just about the same amount of sense.
    (further: I worship no gods, but if I had to, I’d go for Saraswati. Kind, learned, free from the sadism normally associated with most gods, AFAIK).

  40. Alverant says

    Peterson sounds like he’s gas lighting us, telling us he knows us better than us. It would be like if we said, “He doesn’t really believe what he’s saying. He just does it to make easy money off morons.”