Jordan Peterson: Critical Responses

Sandra Woien, Sandra Woien

• Publisher: Open Universe
• Year: 2022
• ISBN:
  9781637700136
• Topic: Filosofia
• Subtopic: Saggi di filosofia

Volume #1 in the series Critical Responses®

The Canadian psychology professor Jordan Peterson burst into public awareness when he opposed "the compulsory use of newfangled gender-pronouns". He has since published two best-selling books, 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos (2018) and Beyond Order: 12 More Rules for Life (2021), and has become the leading public intellectual on social media.

Peterson has an almost cult-like following. Although he arouses strong passions both for and against his points, there has been very little focused, objective criticism of his provocative views on a wide variety of topics: the role of religion, the alleged need for more value and meaning in the modern world, the way young people should conduct their lives, the history of Marxism and postmodernism, male-female relations; the interpretation of Bible stories, the inevitability of hierarchy and inequality, and the application of Jungian archetypes.

Jordan Peterson: Critical Responses brings together new and searching criticisms of various specific aspects of Peterson's ideas. Though on balance decidedly critical, the authors represent a range of different backgrounds and philosophical assumptions, and the criticisms are fair and temperate, eschewing the personal attacks which have marred many of the pronouncements of Peterson's opponents.

Part I The Culture Warrior

[ 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 “Set your house in order before you criticize the world” we hear sage advice! Some may discern echoes of Confucius or the I Ching: “Sincere commitment to higher things travels outward in powerful waves …” Perhaps many immediately picture him rebuking loud-mouthed adolescents! Still others might recall him riffing on “Clean up your room” in an influential Joe Rogan podcast.

Incognito Christian?

Despite Peterson’s 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 ‘professing believer’ may not be the big deal we might imagine. Why? Because once we set up doctrinal and ritual ‘correctness’ as a hallmark of legitimacy, other avenues get closed off. The idea that following prescriptions of any sort could be a route to ‘living faith’ seems almost absurd.

And it isn’t 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 Christ—an 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 ‘measure’ of faith, Peterson’s contributions might help us excavate a much deeper construal of the ‘Christian’ 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 ‘objective’ research that led him to instate the hero journey as pivotal to human meaning-making? Or did Peterson’s 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 ‘miles apart’. Yet “Set your house in order before you criticize the world” (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 patient’s 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 scheme—simply reading Christ as a particularly prominent and graphic expression of the archetype? Notwithstanding Peterson’s characterization of Lewis as a Christian apologist and himself as having an ‘outside’, psychology-based focus, the Christian imprint of vice and virtue upon Peterson’s 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 Peterson’s 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 ‘inner hero awakening’ (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 it’s good versus evil, as a narrative structure. It’s good versus evil, against a background of order and chaos. (2021, 26:36).

‘Storied worlds’ therefore are key to Peterson’s sense-making. Insofar as individuals lack ‘hero awakening’ 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 Peterson’s aforementioned narrative structure—a structure prominent within the movie Stigmata, which configures it in both a novel and illuminating way.

Stigmata: The Death of Dogma

Peterson’s 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 ‘conflicted’ 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 Alameida’s 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 ‘possession event’ after her dramatic public scourging on a tube train. Kiernan quickly terminates this investigation, because Paige admits she doesn’t believe in God. According to dogma, that such a person “should exhibit the wounds of Christ is a self-contradiction.” After Paige’s third wounding (crown of thorns) Kiernan re-engages, thus beginning a triangulation between himself, Houseman and Paige, revolving around a sacred text. ‘Possessions’ occur, that unveil suppressed text fragments, culminating in a shocking scene, where ‘possessed’ Paige challenges Kiernan about his rejection of her romantic advances, based on purity doctrines. Finally, it transpires that she is merely Alameida’s messenger and Kiernan has to save her from Houseman’s 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 Peterson’s 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 ‘becomes’ 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 ‘holy’ 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 ‘religious leader’. A priest is, however, best pictured as God and humankind’s go-between. Thus, Peterson might be designated ‘secular priest’, 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 Peterson’s pastoral concern for younger men core functions implied by the title ‘Father’ 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 ‘disciple-hero’ story that involves a fresh, productive path opening up—the follower’s 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 Trump’s 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 world’s eye—evaluating, 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 Chomsky’s attacks on US foreign policy, Jordan Peterson entered the spotlight in October 2016:

I’m 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...