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Bishops use electronic voting devices during the 2019 spring general assembly of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops in Baltimore. When the bishops meet Nov. 15-18 in Baltimore, their agenda includes review of a draft on "eucharistic consistency" and elections for treasurer and several committee chairs. (CNS/Bob Roller)

As the nation's Catholic bishops begin their annual fall assembly in Baltimore on Nov. 15, much attention will focus on the debate over a document that was originally meant to address pro-choice Catholic politicians like President Joe Biden.

But during the four-day event the bishops will also vote to elect a new treasurer for their national conference, as well as five new chairmen of their standing committees. The bishops selected will have a year to learn their new duties before beginning three-year terms in November 2022. They likely will exercise leadership and influence in the conference for years to come.

The slate of prelates nominated includes a few well-known figures, but also several lower-profile prelates whose ideologies run the gamut from conservative to liberal.

Jesuit Fr. Tom Reese, a journalist who has covered bishops' meetings for decades, told NCR the outcome of these committee elections can be political, personality-driven or based on simple geography.

"Sometimes the election is ideological, where [the bishops] feel there's one guy who represents a particular point of view and the other one represents another point of view," he said. "Other times, the election is just really about personalities, who the bishops think is easier to work with."

"All these kinds of things can come into play," said Reese, former editor-in-chief of America magazine and a columnist for Religion News Service. "One of the toughest things is getting guys to run for the office sometimes."

Mercy Sr. Sharon Euart, executive director of the Resource Center for Religious Studies, said the committee chairmanships can have a significant impact on the conference, depending on the topic and circumstances.

"It depends on what the agenda is, the agenda of the bishops and the agenda of Rome," said Euart, a former associate general secretary to the U.S. bishops' conference.

If new documents are promulgated by Rome calling for action on the part of the conference or statements are proposed by a conference committee requiring approval by the full body of bishops, the respective committee chair and his committee could significantly impact the work of the conference, Euart said.

The bishops attending the Nov. 15-18 general assembly will be voting on candidates from all four regions of the United States, but none from areas where archbishops have traditionally been elevated to cardinals, noted Massimo Faggioli, a church historian and professor of theology and religious studies at Villanova University.

My impression continues to be that the most important prelates in the United States have more or less given up on the USCCB.

Massimo Faggioli

"There's no Philadelphia, there's no New York, there's no Boston," said Faggioli, who told NCR that he believes the influential "Vatican II bishops" who support Pope Francis and his vision for the church appear to not be investing too much time and energy into the bishops conference.

"My impression continues to be that the most important prelates in the United States have more or less given up on the USCCB," said Faggioli, who suggested that the bishops' conference today is "in the hands" of prelates who are "out of sync" with Francis.

"The bishops and cardinals who are in sync with his pontificate, they are playing largely outside the USCCB. That seems to me to be the fundamental dynamic of these last few years," Faggioli said.

Among the nominees for election in Baltimore are five bishops who appear to be among "rising stars" of the national conference. Some are known for prioritizing similar issues as Francis, such as immigration, economic injustice, climate change and reaching out to those on the margins. Others have not been always known for emphasizing issues favored by the pope.

Archbishop Paul Etienne of Seattle, WashingtonNominee for treasurer-elect, U.S. bishops' conference

Etienne, 62, has been the archbishop of Seattle since September 2019. The Indiana native, who was ordained a priest for the Archdiocese of Indianapolis in 1992, has previously served as the archbishop of Anchorage, Alaska, and as bishop of Cheyenne, Wyoming.

Seattle Archbishop Paul Etienne is a nominee for treasurer-elect. (CNS/Paul Haring)

Etienne, a former parish priest, vocations director and seminary vice-rector, struck a Francis-like note in 2019 when he announced that he would not live in the archbishop's mansion. "I prefer to live a more simplified life," he said at the time.

In June, Etienne said he would vote against the proposed document on "eucharistic consistency" that more conservative prelates hope will include norms to deny the Eucharist to pro-choice politicians. Etienne said the document had become too politicized.

"Jesus came into the world to save, not to condemn," said Etienne, who added that the document was "enmeshed in a way that makes it very difficult for us to keep the Eucharist as it's, I think, intended by the Lord himself."

The other nominee for treasurer-elect is Metuchen, New Jersey Bishop James Checchio, a former rector of the Pontifical North American College in Rome.

Archbishop Mitchell Rozanski of St. Louis, MissouriNominee for chairman-elect, U.S. bishops' Committee on Divine Worship

Rozanski, 63, a Baltimore native, was named an auxiliary for his home archdiocese by Pope John Paul II in 2004. Since Francis became pope in 2013, Rozanski's profile has risen. In 2014, Rozanaksi was appointed as the bishop in Springfield, Massachusetts, where he served for six years before Francis chose him in 2020 to lead St. Louis, an archdiocese often called the "Rome of the West."

Archbishop Mitchell Rozanski of St. Louis is a nominee for chairman-elect of the Committee on Divine Worship. (CNS photo/Screen Grab)

Rozanski has been a parish priest and is a previous chairman of the conference's Committee for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs. As a young auxiliary bishop in Baltimore, Rozanski was vicar for Hispanic Ministry and supported Maryland's DREAM ACT to allow some migrants living in the country illegally to receive in-state college tuition.

After becoming bishop in Springfield, Rozanski told The Catholic Review that it was important for the church to "look outward." Last year, he told NCR that there has to be "more dialogue, more understanding."

"There's a demonization of the other automatically. If a person holds a different opinion, if a person holds a different set of values, the reaction seems to be to demonize. And if that is the fabric of our society, then something is terribly, terribly wrong," Rozanski said in 2020, adding that the church has to be "the one who generates light" amid heated rhetoric.

Rozanski has embraced Francis' vision of a more synodal church. He was one of 67 church leaders who signed a letter in advance of the conference's general assembly in June to urge that the prelates not vote on the "eucharistic consistency document."

Bishop Steven Lopes of the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St. PeterNominee for chairman-elect, U.S. bishops' Committee on Divine Worship

In 2015, Lopes, now 46, became the first bishop of the church structure in North America that Pope Benedict XVI created for Catholics who had left the Anglican Communion. Lopes was previously an official in the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and a personal aide to Cardinal William Levada, the former head of that office and a former Archbishop of San Francisco.

Bishop Steven Lopes of the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter is a nominee for chairman-elect of the Committee on Divine Worship. (CNS screen grab/YouTube, EWTN)

Lopes, whom Levada ordained a priest in 2001, also served as secretary for the Vatican commission that developed a new missal that blends Roman and Anglican liturgical elements for the new ordinariates.

More recently, Lopes was a member of the working group that Archbishop Jos Gomez, the conference president, formed after Biden's election in November 2020 to consider the implications of a pro-choice Catholic being elected president. That group recommended the document on "eucharistic consistency."

Lopes is one of eight bishops on the U.S. bishops' doctrine committee, which was charged with writing the draft of that document. At the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast in September, Lopes delivered a speech in which he said that "unity requires truth," or else it will fail.

Reese, the journalist, called Lopes' nomination for the liturgical committee "bizarre" in that he leads a unique church structure with a liturgy that is quite distinct from the Latin Rite.

"It's not quite the same as electing an Eastern rite bishop to that job, but it's a head-scratcher," Reese said.

Auxiliary Bishop Robert Barron of Los AngelesNominee for chairman-elect, U.S. bishops' Committee on Laity, Marriage, Family Life, and Youth

Barron, 61, is arguably the best-known auxiliary bishop in the United States. When Francis appointed him as one of the Los Angeles Archdiocese's five auxiliaries in 2015, Barron was already a Catholic "celebrity" as the founder of Word on Fire, a multimedia organization.

Los Angeles Auxiliary Bishop Robert Barron is a nominee for chairman-elect of the Committee on Laity, Marriage, Family Life, and Youth. (CNS photo/Bob Roller)

Barron, the former rector of Mundelein Seminary in Chicago, hosted the Catholicism series, which ran on public television. He has published several books, columns and essays about spiritual matters and current events in secular and Catholic publications. He has provided commentary on secular cable news networks.

On the Internet and social media, Barron the current chairman of the conference's Committee on Evangelization and Catechesis is an active figure, producing YouTube videos and hosting Reddit "ask me" sessions where he comments on the intersections of Catholic matters, popular culture, atheism, faith and politics.

Over the years, Catholics on the left and the right have criticized Barron: the right for what they see as him watering down difficult truths, such as the possibility of being sent to hell for sin; the left for what they see as Barron dismissing social justice as "wokeness" and cozying up to right-wing figures like Jordan Peterson and Sohrab Ahmari.

Barron counters that he will engage anyone willing to dialogue.

Barron's popularity could be enough for his brother bishops to vote for him over the lesser-known Bishop Edward Burns of Dallas, though historically the higher-ranking prelate is chosen.

"We're a hierarchical organization, and there's a deference to people with bigger titles," Reese said. The Jesuit added though that is "not always the case" and noted that Barron has name recognition and other bishops see him as someone who can communicate effectively with young people.

Bishop Mark Seitz of El Paso, TexasNominee for chairman-elect, U.S. bishops' Committee on Migration

As the bishop of a city that borders, CiudadJurez, Mexico, Seitz has been a leading voice for migrants, refugees and asylum seekers.

Bishop Mark Seitz of El Paso, Texas, is a nominee for chairman-elect of the Committee on Migration. (CNS/David Agren)

In June 2017, he wrote a pastoral letter on immigration that said elected leaders had "not yet mustered the moral courage" to enact comprehensive immigration. In July 2019, he and others escorted seven Central American asylum seekers to the Santa Fe international bridge in Ciudad Jurez to assist them in claiming asylum.

Seitz, 67, has also spoken out against racism and white supremacy. He wrote a pastoral letter on the topic in the aftermath of an August 2019 shooting at a Walmart in El Paso, where a gunman who espoused anti-Hispanic and anti-immigrant views killed 23 people and wounded dozens of others.

"If we are honest, racism is really about advancing, shoring up, and failing to oppose a system of white privilege and advantage based on skin color," wrote Seitz, who in 2020 took a knee while holding a Black Lives Matter sign during a rally in El Paso.

More recently, Seitz has called on the Biden administration to do away with the Trump-era Migrant Protection Protocols that require migrants and asylum-seekers to stay in Mexico while their immigration and asylum cases are pending in the United States. Seitz is currently a member of the conference's Subcommittee on the Church in Latin America.

On political matters and controversies related to abortion, Seitz wrote in America magazine last year that some Catholics "in pursuit of 'single-issue' strategies to end abortion" had "scandalously turned a blind eye to real breakdowns in solidarity and dehumanizing policies" such as crackdowns on worker rights and voting rights, racism, and the exploitation of migrants and the environment.

The other nominee for the Committee on Migration is Miami Archbishop Thomas Wenski.

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These 5 US bishops may be in the spotlight for years to come - National Catholic Reporter

Patrick Carr, Standard-Examiner

Northern Utah prep volleyball teams had pretty solid postseasons. Bountiful won the 5A state crown, Morgan was the 3A runner-up and Syracuse took third place in 6A.

Region 1 and Region 5 teams found success as a whole, but also in their own ways.

In 5A, the state-champ Redhawks carried the banner to finish the season 27-3. The region also had a fourth-place finish from Woods Cross and nearly had two more teams, Northridge and Box Elder, place in the top eight.

Region 1s success was seen in the main bracket with Syracusebut also in the one-loss brackets and consolation championships.

No. 6 Fremont finished in seventh place, beating Riverton in the one-loss bracket before losing in four sets to Skyridge in the fifth-place game.

The sixth-place championship game saw No. 17 Weber face No. 18 Farmington, the former of which beat the latter in five close sets.

The Warriors won six of their final seven matches in 2021.

In the playoffs, they swept No. 16 American Fork on the road to get to Utah Valley University and took No. 1 Copper Hills to four sets before getting bumped to the one-loss bracket.

Then, Weber beat No. 8 West Jordan, No 12 Corner Canyon and finally Farmington in what can be called outperforming the No. 17 seed.

In those final seven matches, outside hitter Sadie Dodson had 101 kills to finish the year with exactly 400. Against Farmington, setter Makena Barrows tallied 60 assists, which ranks fifth all-time in Utahs single-game assists category in the state record book.

At the same time, Farmington also had a great finish to the season, going 6-4 in the final 10 matches after starting the year 4-11.

The Phoenix beat No. 15 Roy on the road in the first round of the playoffs, lost to No. 2 Syracuse, then beat No. 7 Hunter and No. 11 Clearfield in the one-loss bracket.

The Phoenix finished eighth in the tournament, also outperforming its No. 18 seed.

Several area volleyball players and teams finished in the top 10 for the whole state in certain statistical categories, according to MaxPreps.

Heres a way-too-early look at the 2022 season, assuming every school returns all their juniors, sophomores and freshmen from this season.

Ogdens volleyball team was barely off the court after losing in the one-loss bracket at last months 3A state tournament when coach Brad Hulse told the team that offseason prep started right then.

Lots of coaches say that same thing. Not many say it to a team whose roster consisted of three juniors, six sophomores and three freshmen.

The Tigers could return their whole team in 2022, including outside hitter Bockwoldt, setter Megan Aardema, whose 766 assists ranked third in 3A, and libero Olivia Blackford, whose 403 digs were fourth in 3A.

They could be much better than 16-14 next season, but Ogden still has to contend in Region 13 with Morgan. The Trojans should return setter Peterson and middle blocker Jaffa (378 kills, .284 hitting percentage, 110 blocks).

Morgan graduates some pretty impactful players, but the Trojans are consistently a 20-win team each year no matter what. Since 3A champ Union graduated some key players, the door might be open again for MHS.

Bountiful won the 5A state championship, won all 12 sets it played in the tournament and the Redhawks roster had players who should return.

Leading hitter Jordyn Harvey (375 kills, .267 hitting percentage) was a junior, No. 3 hitter Taylor Harvey (208 kills, .363 hitting) was a freshman and setter Chism (912 assists) was a junior.

Bountiful wont totally run it back in 2022, but the Redhawks are probably the team to beat in Region 5 and probably the team, or at least one of the teams, to beat in 5A.

In Region 5, its probably favored for Bountiful because Northridges top five hitters this year were four juniors and a sophomore, so the Knights could improve from their 20-11 season, and because Woods Cross, the regions second-place team, has shown it can reload year after year.

In 6A, Region 1 champ Syracuse graduates four-year setter Garcia and four-year outside hitter Andie Thomas.

Three-year starting libero Kambree Rodriguez should return along with the Nos. 2-4 hitters, so the Titans could be favorites to repeat as region champs, but could also struggle early with a new starting setter.

Most Region 1 teams should have anywhere from two to five of their best players returning in 2022.

Fremonts the exception, since the Silverwolves lose Oregon-committed setter Ayva Cebollero and reclassified star senior hitter Mendelson, and FHS will start 2022 with a different head coach than it did in 2021.

Theoretically, the region could be pretty competitive across the board in 22.

In Region 2, Roy High finished in second place with a 10-2 record, coming just short of its first region volleyball title since 1982.

The Royals were 14-9 overall, winning more games in 2021 than they did the previous 10 seasons combined, according to MaxPreps.

They may have been senior-heavy, save for junior hitter Sierra Jones, but the Royals could have a lot of excitement and energy this offseason for the first time in a long time.

In 2A, St. Joseph went 24-7 this year and won Region 17.

The Jayhawks could have most of their team returning again in 22, as three of the top four hitters were underclassmen along with both setters, the libero and the three players who combined for 266 service aces in 21.

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3 thoughts on the prep volleyball season: Northern success, stat leaders and a too-early look at 2022 - Standard-Examiner

This weeks edition of Skyler on Sports is all about basketball. Stephen Curry of the Golden State Warriors surpassed Ray Allens career mark in 3-pointers to officially end the debate of who is the greatest shooter of all time. Meanwhile, the mens and womens basketball teams at USC both opened their seasons hotter than ever, with both teams registering 40-point blowouts.

Steph Curry proves hes the greatest shooter in NBA history

Even if we all already knew, point guard Stephen Curry is the greatest shooter in NBA history. He became the NBAs all-time leader in 3-point shots by making the 3,359th 3-pointer of his career Friday. Curry did it at 33 years old, five years earlier than when Allen drained the final 3-pointer of his career at 38 years old.

Curry also hit one of the most iconic shots in NBA history during this game. He saw a fan pointing at him, and he was so confident his shot would go in that he made time to turn around and point back at the fan, essentially saying, this ones for you, all before his shot swished through the net.

NBA circles are already calling the picture of Curry pointing at a fan one of the most iconic in NBA history. The greatest shooter of all-time shot 9 of 17 from downtown on the night.

Curry is in a league of his own when it comes to 3-point shooting, as he single-handedly revolutionized the game for better or worse in the opinion of some to include 3-point shots as a regular part of a players repertoire. For context, Curry has 36 games with at least 9 3-pointers while the next five closest players have combined for 34 total.

This list includes other NBA stars such as guards James Harden, Damian Lillard and Klay Thompson. Some other honorable mentions for the greatest-shooter title are Allen and shooting guard Reggie Miller who both made their marks on the league with their long-range shooting. But when you consider the level of greatness on this list and that Curry surpassed them all when it comes to hot 3-point shooting streaks, its clear that Curry is the greatest shooter in NBA history.

Mens basketball proves they can go even further this year

USC began its season hotter than the Southern California sun, as they put an absolute beatdown on California State University, Northridge in a 40-point blowout victory Nov. 9. at the Galen Center.

The Trojans are coming off an Elite Eight appearance last year in the and look to improve on that this year. There is a giant Evan Mobley-sized hole in the roster, but other scoring options are showing up. Guard Boogie Ellis showed off his scoring prowess, forward Isaiah Mobley beat most of his season averages from last year while showing off improvement in his scoring from all over the floor, and guard Drew Peterson looks like a potential X-factor with a smooth mid-range jumper that led to 14 points on opening night. The Trojans seem to have retained and maybe even built upon their stellar chemistry from last year.

USC also held CSUN to just 32.8% shooting and outrebounded them 40-25 with a promising frontcourt of Mobley and forward Chevez Goodwin. If USC can keep this defensive solidity up and the three-headed monster of Ellis, Mobley and Peterson continues to perform throughout the season, then theres no reason to doubt that this team can go further than last years and maybe all the way. USC has always been a football school, but after the success of last year and the promise of this year, it looks as though the mens basketball team could be the most exciting mens team on campus.

Womens basketball shows its dominance under new Head Coach

When Head Coach Lindsay Gottlieb came over to USC from her role as an assistant coach of the Cleveland Cavaliers, one of only 15 women to hold such a position in NBA history, it became clear that womens basketball was about to reach a new level of competitiveness. However, Im not sure anyone could have predicted that they would reach the level of giving out a 40-point beatdown in their season debut against Hawaii. They also got a gritty road win over the weekend against Virginia.

Graduate student forward Jordan Sanders led the way with 17 points on 5 of 10 shooting. She also couldnt miss from 3-point range, as she went 3 of 3 from deep. Freshman guard/forward Rayah Marshall went 5 of 10 from the field in her debut for the Trojans while scoring 15 points. After beating Virginia on Sunday behind 13 from Sanders and 16 from Marshall on 8-of-14 shooting, it seems clear that the team has greatly improved from last year.

The main reason for this newfound success is that they have Gottlieb at the helm to create a winning culture for a team filled with talent. Once junior forward Alissa Pili finds her groove, this team should be nearly unstoppable and ready to compete for a spot in the NCAA tournament, where theyll have a chance to prove themselves amongst the highest level of competition.

Womens basketballs success only further enhances the notion that USC may be a basketball school this year, and theres a lot of excitement around both programs at the moment.

Skyler Trepel is a graduate student providing updates on the general sports happenings with an emphasis on professional and collegiate football and basketball. His column Skyler on Sports, runs every other Tuesday.

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Skyler on Sports: Curry, USC basketball teams thrive early in their seasons - Daily Trojan Online

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.

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

Psychology of the Radical

By CPT David M. Tillman

The Study of Terrorism is plagued with ambiguity and contradiction, much of which stems from the inability to agree upon a universal definition. This is particularly apparent when analyzing the various contributing factors surrounding individuals who gravitate towards and ultimately adopt extremist ideologies. To reduce the complexity of analyzing this topic, we will focus exclusively on individuals who have adopted an extremist ideology and are prone to commit violence in support of it. There is a multitude of characteristics that may be associated with these types of individuals, but as Boaz Ganor (2021) alludes to, it is typically an amalgamation of variables that precipitate the manifestation of these ideologies. While some characteristics appear almost symbiotic in nature, others may be viewed as directly contradicting one another. This article argues that there are five major factors that perpetuate extremist ideology and acts of terrorism including sociocultural incompatibility, lack of personal achievement, aptitude toward ignoring contradictory evidence, elevating basic values into sacred ones, and falling well outside the typical socioeconomic distribution curve. It is the amalgamation of these factors that leads individuals to become receptive to extremist ideologies which, as this article will later discuss, all typically follow a consisently specific archetype.

For many radicalized individuals, the first two factors seem to go hand in hand, but it's important to note that they are in fact distinct from one another. Sociocultural incompatibility, otherwise known as social exclusion, has been observed at a neuroscientific level to have a significant impact on an individuals aptitude toward committing violence to further an extremist ideology (Hamid & Pretus, 2019). A study of three dozen Islamic extremists in Barcelona conducted various psychological exams while simultaneously using brain imaging to examine possible neurological abnormalities. The findings demonstrated that sociocultural incompatibility effectively influenced individuals both toward violent radicalism and away from it, depending on the collective. For example, the study found that the artificially induced social exclusion of the subjects appeared to increase their propensity toward violence, as well as activate brain function in the inferior frontal gyrus, which is associated with the repository of deeply held sacred values (Hamid & Pretus, 2019). However, when the subjects were made aware of the far less radical (and fabricated) opinions of their peers, they demonstrated an ability to reduce the level of commitment they had toward committing violence in support of their sacred values (Hamid & Pretus, 2019). Juxtaposing these two methodologies and their differing effects on the subjects demonstrates that social exclusion can have either positive or negative effects on radicalization, depending on whether the exclusion manifests in a direct or indirect manner.

The notion that individuals lacking personal achievement could somehow contribute to radicalism was best described by Eric Hoffer (1951) when he outlined the archetype of the permanent misfit. These individuals are often unable (or unwilling) to attain personal goals and/or ascend the societal hierarchy to a level which they deem appropriate. As a result, they completely reject the notion of free agency and personal responsibility, and instead divert their rage toward the culture itself and its institutions of power; they lay blame on the collective system. As Eric Hoffer (1951) points out By renouncing individual will, judgement and ambition, and dedicating all their power to the service of an eternal cause, they are at last lifted off the endless treadmill which can never lead them to fulfillment. However, a requisite for maintaining the above perspective requires the consistent rejection of both logic and reasoning.

Individuals, even radicalized ones, require a unique mental framework that can reliably and unjustifiably reject objective evidence and basic reasoning, particularly when the evidence in question discredits their deeply held sacred-values (Hoffer, 1951; Hamid & Pretus, 2019). This denunciation of objectivity and reasoning is a foundational element to nearly all mass movements and radical agendas. However, to do so requires that the radicalized establish sacred values that are neither negotiable nor inviolable (Hamid & Pretus, 2019). While many common examples of sacred values are centered upon religious causes, due to the shared archetype, there are also many non-religious ideologies that utilize them as well. To further complicate this phenomenon, it has been shown that individuals who hold extremist views, especially when coupled with sociocultural incompatibility, are extremely adept at elevating basic values to the status of sacred values, which then provide the needed justification to defend the ideology with outrage and violence (Hamid & Pretus, 2019).

Lastly, and perhaps one of the most unexpected factors, are individuals who fall well outside of the socioeconomic distribution curve. When Eric Hoffer wrote True Believer, he was specifically focused on these statistical outliers among minority groups. He theorized that within minority groups, those who were least and most successful were the most likely to see the appeal of mass movements (Hoffer, 1951). Today, we can expand upon this concept by extrapolating that the statistical outliers of all groups, not just minorities, are more likely to gravitate toward extremist ideologies and mass movements; a notion that is most clearly supported by Fat-Tail Distribution Theory. Fat-Tail Distribution demonstrates how the statistical outliers of nearly any subset tend to have a disproportionate societal impact, especially when compared to the overall percentage of the general population that they represent. For example, as Jordan Peterson points out (2018), if we were to create a Bell Curve of IQ scores across the general population, we would quickly find that most individuals (68%) fall well within one standard deviation of the mean (100) IQ score. If expand our analysis to include two standard deviations, it would account for 96% of the population. However, it is the remaining 4% that tend to have the most disproportionate outcomes, when compared to remaining 96%. For example, the top 2%, with IQ scores over 130 are far more likely to achieve a high level of socioeconomic success when compared to the general population. Meanwhile, the bottom 2%, with IQ scores below 70, are far more likely to be incarcerated and exhibit violent behaviors. This Fat-Tail Distribution Theory transcends IQ and has proven consistent across a variety of psychoanalytic studies of the relationship between various character traits and socioeconomic status (Peterson, 2018). It may seem logical for those that are least socioeconomically successful to be susceptible to radicalization, but it is surprising to find that same susceptibility among the most successful in society. However, as Eric Hoffer (2015) points out, once individuals climb the socioeconomic ladder and attain success, they are faced with the guilt prompted by the evidence of their individual superiority, coupled with the realization of the implied inferiority of the rest of their respective group (Hoffer, 1951).

While all the above factors may create conditions for individuals to become receptive to radical ideologies, they only account for half of the equation. The other remaining requirements are centered upon both the existence and access to a suitable ideology, most of which follow the Tyrannical Father archetype (Peterson, 2021). This is best demonstrated through the Freudian lens of the Id, Ego, and Superego. The Id represents the natural world or nature itself, the Ego represents the individual, and the Superego represents the father or culture. All well-developed religious systems, as well as extremist ideologies, follow this standard archetype with each component presenting intrinsic positive and negative elements. Radical environmentalists provide an excellent example of an extremist ideology that relies on the Tyrannical Father - evil human (Ego), who is a part of a corrupt culture (SuperEgo/Tyrranical Father), deliberately assaulting mother nature (Id/the benevolent feminine) (Peterson, 2021). While each ideology provides its own requisite elements, they consistently rely on this framework to develop their narrative.

All of the above discourse is great in theory but requires further work to fully operationalize. For example, during the primitive stages of a movement, the best approach is to leverage non-kinetic means to foster conditions that directly challenge the pervasive narrative being spread by extremist ideologies. One effective approach would be to leverage the social exclusion approach. When individuals are actively being outcasted, they gravitate toward violence. However, when they are passively outcasted, by discovering the more moderate opinions of their peers, they tend to soften their extremist point of view, to better fit in (Hamid & Pretus, 2018). In the modern information age, there is no shortage of mediums that can be used to broadcast these messaging campaigns, even if they are completely fabricated. The goal will be to convince the radical movement that the general population does not share their sacred values and therefore is unwilling to commit violence to further that cause. This would be the first, and least aggressive step in a tiered approach, which is designed to respond directly and proportionally to the reality on the ground. Another Soft-Power alternative could include combating the extremist ideology indirectly. Rather than directly contest each claim made by the movement, an attempt is made to systematically dismantle the underlying foundation upon which the ideology was built - The Tyrannical Father. When it comes to terrorism, there are no effective one size fits all approaches, and methodologies are seldom prescriptive; operational flexibility and creativity will prove to be the cornerstones to combating the five contributing factors of extremism described above.

References

Crenshaw, D., & Peterson, J. (2021, July 5). The Mind of Jordan Peterson. Hold These Truths with Dan Crenshaw. other.

Ganor, B. (2021). Understanding the Motivations of Lone Wolf Terrorists: The Bathtub Model, 15(2), 2332. http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2307/27007294?refreqid=search-gateway.

Hamid, N., & Pretus, C. (2021, March 19). The neuroscience of terrorism: how we convinced a group of radicals to let us scan their brains. The Conversation. https://theconversation.com/the-neuroscience-of-terrorism-how-we-convinced-a-group-of-radicals-to-let-us-scan-their-brains-114855.

Hoffer, E. (2010). The true believer: thoughts on the nature of mass movements. Harper Perennial.

Peterson, J. (2018, February). Hierarchies, Inequality, Big-5. Simulation.

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