Jordan Peterson

A fundamental issue plaguing conservatism/libertarianism over the past decade has been almost a complete absence of intellectual heft behind it.  Milton Friedman passed away in 2006 and William F. Buckley departed in 2008.   With the loss of those two giants, conservatism lost its intellectual moorings and no one has emerged to replace them, none that could combine intellectual rigor with an ability to communicate ideas on a mass level.   Friedman wrote his book, Free to Choose and PBS carried the television series with the same name.   Buckley had his writings and Firing Line, also carried on PBS.  Both were witty, charming and could disassemble liberal arguments with aplomb and without personal enmity.   Personal attacks were so rare that they were noteworthy.  Buckley only lost his temper once, with Gore Vidal, documented in the film Best of Enemies.  Otherwise, Buckley and Friedman most often dislodged ideological opponents with reason and witty barbs.

I had brief hopes that Tucker Carlson could be that person, and he does have his moments.   He often picks the right issues, and is generally well-prepared.  But having to perform nightly and perform for ratings doesn’t lend itself to that kind of depth that is required to be a true public intellectual.  Carlson hasn’t published, which is a critical aspect of establishing intellectual bona fides.  He also has too many puffball guests—far left wing whackadoodle idealogues that are too easy to obliterate.  His segments sometimes have the feel of hunting at the zoo.  Buckley and Friedman used PBS as a main platform for their message—an entirely different ballgame.  Still, Carlson has not yet shown that he has the stature to attract and persuade much more than the Fox loyalists.

But an unlikely professor has shown up on the scene and may be one that has the potential to fill the void.  Jordan Peterson, an unlikely figure from the University of Toronto, has suddenly garnered the attention of millions, and he has been especially popular among young people.  His book, 12 Rules for Life has sold over a million copies and the popularity of his YouTube videos and podcasts has blossomed.

Of course, he has drawn the ire of the Left, especially since he voiced opposition to Canadian measures against “offensive speech.”  He has been attacked by the Left as Alt-Right.  The Chronicle of Higher Education recently had an article on Peterson entitled, “What’s So Dangerous About Jordan Peterson?”  

I was attracted to his message after I saw a YouTube video last year in which he discussed the pathology of post-modernism.   Hisis destruction (metaphorically) of reporter Cathy Newman which rendered her speechless convinced me that Peterson is somebody that we should take seriously.   I began to listen to his podcasts and read his book.  His appearance in Chicago was perfectly timed, so I bought a ticket to see and hear him in person.

As I waited in line (which was as long as the one I waited in for the Allman Brothers a few years ago), I noticed that the crowd was younger, primarily late 20’s to early 30’s.   I happened to strike up a conversation with the two young guys in front of me, both of whom had copies of Peterson’s book in hand.  They had just graduated from medical school and were on to their residency.  “You don’t understand,” one of them said, “Universities have become indoctrination centers.”   That set the stage for Dr. Peterson.

Peterson began his two and a half hour talk with a discussion of stories, talking about “getting our story straight,”  and of universal themes that bind a culture together.  He leaned heavily on Carl Jung, Friederich Nietzsche, and Fyodor Dostoevsky in his thinking.    He emphasizes that we are a largely Judeo-Christian culture and a good portion of his talk revolved around the symbolism in Genesis, the Abrahamic stories as well as the importance of “picking up your cross and carrying it up the hill.”  He talked about how universal these stories are and that the Harry Potter books really pick up on biblical themes.   He talked about other symbols that appear in stories—dragons, for instance and the story of Hansel and Gretel and Snow White.  All of these stories have universal themes to them. For Peterson, the Hero Myth is paramount and that we want to live a life of truth, and to strengthen ourselves to be able to take on the dragon—the things we are loathe to face.  He believes that Western civilization’s gift to the world has been to value the individual and that we cannot fix the social order until we fix ourselves (which the modern university often gets backwards).  We need to adopt a stance of ready engagement in the world and categorically reject victimhood. 

He talked about the right being concerned with a hierarchical system that produces winners and losers.  He rejects the notion that hierarchical organizations are a consequence of the capitalist patriarchy, and illustrates that with his description of lobster society in the first chapter of his book.  Hierarchical organizations of our society is hard wired into our being.  The left, he said, is much more concerned with government taking care of the losers.  Peterson is sympathetic to the Left’s desire  to do so--you don’t want to crush these people and you want them to get up and try again.   But he eschews the excesses of the Left and he gets animated when he talks about the likes of Stalin, Mao, and Maduro.   He talked about his anger with the intellectual left complicity in Mao, Stalin, Khymer Rouge, and the millions of deaths and millions more lives shattered—and they have never apologized for it.  

Peterson is most passionate when he is arguing against tribalism and for free speech.  He gets animated, his volume raises and he speaks in categorical terms.   With respect to tribalism.  You. Don’t. Want. To. Go.  There.  Ever.   Bad things happen to societies when they revert to tribalism.  It is clear that he worries about that a lot (as does Victor Davis Hanson).   He regards The Gulag Archipelago as the most important work of the 20^th century as it exposed the lies of the Soviet system.

He would certainly have gotten on well with Buckley and Friedman, but his focus is entirely different.  Friedman was a Nobel prize winning economist, and his message was primarily about the human as an economic actor, making choices that are best for him or her.  Buckley spoke a great deal about politics and the individual’s relationship to the state.  Peterson’s approach is primarily from the psychological and philosophical perspective.  He only spoke about economics in the broadest terms.  He did not even mention the names of Trudeau, Trump or Clinton.  He is concerned with the culture wars, free speech and “social justice.”   He is Canadian, which necessarily implies that he has no skin in the game of U.S. politics.   But as I thought about this, perhaps it is in the culture wars,   where the courageous intellectual firepower is needed as more politicians engage in identity politics, and our universities clamp down on free speech.   Friedman and Buckley largely won the war in economics in a sustainable way.   Even Obama’s signature program, Obamacare, was based on a Heritage Foundation plan.  Flawed as Obamacare was, it was not socialized medicine but a failed attempt at creating a “market.”   It didn’t even contain a public option.   And Obama didn’t raise individual tax rates anywhere near the levels that existed under Roosevelt, Kennedy or Eisenhower (Obama did raise taxes in other ways, however).  But where the battle between right and left is fiercest and where the left has made a great deal of headway is in the media and academics and on social matters, and that is where Peterson comes in.

Peterson is not a garden variety self-help guru.   He blends philosophy and psychology in a powerful way and in a way in which people can understand it.  He is an antidote to the pathology and irrationality of post-modernism.  And he is very, very smart.

It was with irony that I saw Peterson speak during the same week the New York Times ran an article celebrating Karl Marx’s birthday and the town in which Marx was born put up a statue commemorating him.  At the same time, American university students are circulating petitions to take down statues of Thomas Jefferson.

Can Peterson provide the intellectual backbone that conservatism has been missing all these years and sustain it?   I sure hope so.   The West badly needs a convincing voice to remind itself that its culture is worth preserving, that individualism, not tribal grievances should guide us, and that attempts to constraint “offensive speech” must be constrained.   No one since Buckley and Friedman has been able to provide the intellectual platform and articulate traditional Western liberalism and free markets need to be defended.  Until Jordan’s arrival, conservatism has been adrift with most American Republican politicians becoming “swamp denizens” instead (which is why Donald Trump was able to seize the nomination in 2016).   That Peterson does not seek political power and cannot because he is Canadian adds to his credibility.

Jordan Peterson is a person worth watching.  I encourage you to listen to his podcasts and YouTube videos and judge for yourself.  He may, if fact, be the right person at the right time, emphasizing the right things.  His popularity among young people gives me hope that he is the kind of intellectual force that will compete for the minds of our youth with a university system that has gone off the rails.