CynicalContrarian said:
I think part of it was the fact that Peterson didn't dumb down his speech at all, and he was talking to Rogan using the same vocabulary and seriousness he might use with a colleague, and was using a lot of words that Rogan wasn't sure the meaning of. He chose the playing field, a serious intellectual discussion, and in that arena, there is no advantage to being a comedian, a shit talker, a martial artist, a cool guy who smokes a lot of weed, meditates in a flotation tank, knows about brain supplements, or is a MMA announcer.
Rogan usually takes cheap shots at religion, and the reason he couldn't in this interview was that he wasn't sure what Peterson was saying. He kept trying to corral Peterson into a traditional view of Christianity even though Peterson never said he was a traditional Christian, so it didn't work.
Remember all the bone-headed cheap shots he lobbed at Milo? He couldn't do it because Peterson is a serious intellectual and a serious person. He is not a show business figure, or even a person selling a self conscious brand. The lowing hanging fruit of image bashing and nitpicking would have seemed boorish and petty if he had tried it.
Peterson, through his integrity, his seriousness, and his moral probity totally dominated the frame of the discussion. He was the AMOG because he couldn't care less about things like being alpha in this discussion.
This is his strength, along with his obvious passion for what he is saying, and also the reason why I kept disagreeing with Ghost Tiger in the other Peterson thread when he kept saying Peterson was making a mistake by being too reasonable, and not using enough rhetoric.
Being reasonable is his strength, and if he got all rhetorical, he would lose all his power and just be another guy on the internet saying outrageous things to get a reaction.
Unflinching sincerity, backed up by some courage, intellectual rigorousness, some humor, and humility has a power of its own.
how much longer until they get to Antarctic?