[ 1 ] Jordan Peterson, Secular Priest
ALEX BROCKLEHURST
Looking for a role model for twenty-first century human being? Perhaps you might consider Jordan Peterson. As a public intellectual, his independence of thought and unconventional courage in confronting contemporary challenges, offers prospect of guiding us away from any looming cliff edge. In the early twenty-twenties, fundamental questions about the nature of what it is to be human assail us, and it seems to me that this anthropological imperative is what makes Peterson so interesting. Attempting a wide-ranging understanding of his noteworthy contributions, therefore seems highly worthwhile.
When in 12 Rules for Life Peterson says âSet your house in order before you criticize the worldâ we hear sage advice! Some may discern echoes of Confucius or the I Ching: âSincere commitment to higher things travels outward in powerful waves âŚâ Perhaps many immediately picture him rebuking loud-mouthed adolescents! Still others might recall him riffing on âClean up your roomâ in an influential Joe Rogan podcast.
Incognito Christian?
Despite Petersonâs evident fondness for Christian thinkers such as Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, and Solzhenitsyn, he does not appear to be a Christian. But this may simply be a classification issue. In fact, not being a âprofessing believerâ may not be the big deal we might imagine. Why? Because once we set up doctrinal and ritual âcorrectnessâ as a hallmark of legitimacy, other avenues get closed off. The idea that following prescriptions of any sort could be a route to âliving faithâ seems almost absurd.
And it isnât as if this has not been examined in popular culture. The central motif of the 1999 movie, Stigmata, involved an atheistic woman, Frankie Paige, receiving the wounds of Christâan impossibility for orthodoxy and bone of contention within the movie. Suffice to say at this point that once truth statements and their corresponding ritualized confessions are jettisoned as the âmeasureâ of faith, Petersonâs contributions might help us excavate a much deeper construal of the âChristianâ story.
Hero Myths Everywhere!
Primeval human experiences are archived in the collective human unconscious, according to Jung. His protege Erich Neumann, explored this further and Peterson followed suit. Archaic stories are therefore considered to provide the backdrop to each living human drama. Think, for example, of Luke Skywalker as a modern expression of an ancient hero myth. Everyone has become comprised of these archetypal structures. Moreover, human beings wrestle with huge questions. When therefore, Peterson highlights Jacob wrestling an angel (Genesis 32:22-32), does this not apply equally to Jesus Christ in Gethsemane or Skywalker confronted with Darth Vader being his father?
Might Peterson seeing contemporary human struggle in this primitive story and others, such as the Old Testament story of Job, not sync with his drive for answers that really work? Was it, therefore, primarily clinical and âobjectiveâ research that led him to instate the hero journey as pivotal to human meaning-making? Or did Petersonâs own narrative struggle lead him to select this explanatory scheme? Even were Peterson openly to disavow Christ, his attention to Christian thinkers and Old Testament texts would remain striking. From a confessional standpoint, Peterson and C.S. Lewis, for example, might be considered âmiles apartâ. Yet âSet your house in order before you criticize the worldâ (which is not an especially original insight), certainly exhibits an approach to virtue consistent with Lewis in The Screwtape Letters: Letters from a Senior to a Junior Devil:
Do what you will, there is going to be some benevolence, as well as some malice, in your patientâs soul. The great thing is to direct the malice to his immediate neighbours whom he meets every day and to thrust his benevolence out to the circumference, to people he does not know ⌠Think of your man as a series of concentric circles, his will being the innermost ⌠It is only in so far as they reach the will and are there embodied as habits that virtues are really fatal to us. (p. 37)
Unquestionably, as therapist, storyteller, and problem solver, Jordan Peterson has deployed all his tools and knowledge to help light the path of budding heroes. Could it therefore be that without becoming a confessing Christian, he has grafted a Judeo-Christian framework of applied virtues and wisdom onto the underlying, universal hero schemeâsimply reading Christ as a particularly prominent and graphic expression of the archetype? Notwithstanding Petersonâs characterization of Lewis as a Christian apologist and himself as having an âoutsideâ, psychology-based focus, the Christian imprint of vice and virtue upon Petersonâs thought appears unmistakable.
Of course, we usually see a Christian confession first, followed by an ordering of the life in line with Christian prescriptions. There is no reason, however, why this cannot work in reverse. The evidence, since Petersonâs personal crisis and return to public life, is certainly in line with such a trajectory. In any case, the hero archetype seems no less suitable a foundation for experiential Christian faith than mental agreement with doctrines and rituals.
Phenomenological Peterson
The insights Peterson wishes to convey to his audience involve âinner hero awakeningâ (constituting a gestalt shift). Additionally, in a Gad Saad interview he provides a phenomenological schema for his twenty-four rules. The totality of reality involves both objective and subjective facets. He thinks
⌠the phenomenological world has a structure and itâs good versus evil, as a narrative structure. Itâs good versus evil, against a background of order and chaos. (2021, 26:36).
âStoried worldsâ therefore are key to Petersonâs sense-making. Insofar as individuals lack âhero awakeningâ they will chronically mismanage order and chaos, leading to moral deficits. Yet once awakened, subjective and objective domains must be harmonized continually. Specific journeys contain universal themes, yet they also encounter situational challenges. So your story is both my story and not my story. Still, every story conforms to Petersonâs aforementioned narrative structureâa structure prominent within the movie Stigmata, which configures it in both a novel and illuminating way.
Stigmata: The Death of Dogma
Petersonâs great emphasis on archetypes suggests an approach to the four major characters of the 1999 movie Stigmata, as archetypal:
Cardinal Daniel Houseman represents the corrupt leader/ institution.
Father Andrew Kiernan (priest and scientist) represents the authentic âconflictedâ mediator.
Atheistic stigmatic Frankie Paige represents the rebel/outsider.
Murdered iconoclast, Father Paulo Alameida represents the true voice of God.
In a key scene, Paige appears to receive wounds to the wrists while bathing. This after her mother purchased the departed Alameidaâs Rosary from a Brazilian market stall, as a gift. After Paige receives the Rosary it becomes a trinket of contagious magic, connecting her with the departed Alameida. Thereafter, Frankie Paige is periodically wounded at differing body sites.
Houseman orders Kiernan to investigate a âpossession eventâ after her dramatic public scourging on a tube train. Kiernan quickly terminates this investigation, because Paige admits she doesnât believe in God. According to dogma, that such a person âshould exhibit the wounds of Christ is a self-contradiction.â After Paigeâs third wounding (crown of thorns) Kiernan re-engages, thus beginning a triangulation between himself, Houseman and Paige, revolving around a sacred text. âPossessionsâ occur, that unveil suppressed text fragments, culminating in a shocking scene, where âpossessedâ Paige challenges Kiernan about his rejection of her romantic advances, based on purity doctrines. Finally, it transpires that she is merely Alameidaâs messenger and Kiernan has to save her from Housemanâs murder attempt. The closing scene portrays Frankie as the resurrected Saint Francis of Assisi.
So the pivotal story arc sees a tradition turned upside down. A cardinal became obsessed that a document would destroy the institutional tradition (equated with true faith). Kiernan (organic chemist as well as priest) demonstrates identity conflict between his old life as a scientist and later role as priest. Clearly, he has one hand clasping institutional orthodoxy and the other reaching into the modern world with its uncertainties and extremes. This scientist versus man of faith struggle bears striking resemblance to Petersonâs Enlightenment versus depth psychology dilemma. The movie clearly accords with our earlier observation about Peterson perhaps offering a model of Christian virtue without identifying as a believer (paralleling Paige the atheist who âbecomesâ Saint Francis at the climax).
This reinforces the message that neither beliefs, nor elected position; not sacred trinkets and traditions, determine fitness for office. Instead, deep-seated human qualities are vital and these revolve around integrity. Human struggle cannot sidestep the grey areas of lived experience, simply by adherence to prescribed âholyâ principles, as if living in a vacuum. The requisite integrity is portrayed as necessitating personal struggle and it attracts persecution for Kiernan from Houseman. In the same way, Peterson embraces the Kiernan archetype of authentic, conflicted mediator.
A Secular Priest?
Simplistic views of the priest might reduce to âreligious leaderâ. A priest is, however, best pictured as God and humankindâs go-between. Thus, Peterson might be designated âsecular priestâ, as he discharges related teaching and pastoral functions, not ceremonial ones. Such functions are crucial in respect of identity and validation needs of followers, engendering belonging. We see in Petersonâs pastoral concern for younger men core functions implied by the title âFatherâ which indicate protection as well as challenge. These fit Peterson, akin to a priest facilitating the connection of the earthly domain to the heavenly domain. A specific language and practice develop, around a âdisciple-heroâ story that involves a fresh, productive path opening upâthe followerâs hero quest.
Public Intellectual Peterson
Public intellectuals fulfil very important societal functions. Noam Chomsky was perhaps the last truly towering one prior to Peterson. His role was born before the Internet age, which makes his prominence the more striking. A deliberate and concrete communicator, Chomsky is quite the opposite to fast thinking and talking Peterson. While Chomsky positioned himself on the political left, Peterson has been categorized within the political right (something he contests).
Public intellectuals like Chomsky and Peterson (despite marked differences), function as defenders of the public good. They operate as proxies for the masses who must trust sources because their busy lives dictate their time preferences. They address wide-ranging issues threatening society, at both the individual (micro) and structural (macro) levels. Chomsky has remained implacably against nation state tyranny, especially as constant critic and researcher of US foreign policy abuses.
In the mid-2010s, he became more vocal in his attacks specifically on the Republican party. In doing so he appears to have neglected the impact of Democratic party shifts upon the prevailing political climate. Chomsky remaining glued to his anti-Republican focus may have created a vacancy for Peterson! This despite public intellectuals not being elected, yet invariably arising because a counterbalance is required to the political zeitgeist (compare Trumpâs meteoric ascent, as non-politician in an exclusively career politician culture).
Becoming a Public Intellectual
Alan Lightman of MIT has offered two helpful descriptions of the public intellectual from Ralph Waldo Emerson and Edward Said. Emerson considered the intellectual to be the worldâs eyeâevaluating, generating, and communicating worthy ideas as an integrated man. Said considered the intellectual to be constantly balancing private and public. Passionate ideals drive the quest, but that quest must be significant for society. Here we might make an important distinction between the public intellectual (tackling structural problems) and the self-help guru (addressing individual adaptations in the world). Coming out against mandated gender-neutral pronouns, in a way reminiscent of Chomskyâs attacks on US foreign policy, Jordan Peterson entered the spotlight in October 2016:
Iâm against the use of legislation to determine what words myself and other people are required to utter.
This man was never going to applaud the creeping cancel culture! Small wonder that the heated Toronto campus debate and subsequent Canadian Broadcasting Corporation exchanges, brought about a s...