Jordan Peterson: Free Speech Warrior or Status Quo Warrior?
In the public sphere, Jordan Peterson is first and foremost a religious traditionalist. Next a clinical psychologist. This is how he presented himself when he first started making appearances on Canadian television. It wasn’t til much later that he invented the “rational”, “free speech warrior” persona and i’ll give you a couple examples why he did so.
First.. for people who held their religiosity close to their heart (like Peterson) there was a period in the 2000s where it started to feel difficult to express your views on atheism and religion. Evolutionary biologist, Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion had practically shifted the entire zeitgeist to accepting atheism. Or at least speaking openly about it. With rational, science minded people like Dawkins and brilliant thinkers / orators like Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris (among others). People who argued for religion started to realize that they just couldn’t argue from the standpoint of faith vs. science anymore. Nor from an overly emotional standpoint. Logic was winning out. Science was winning out. It’s just hard to argue against incontrovertibly true statements revealed through science and technology. Free speech and science almost looked like they were being weaponized against religious traditionalism.
Here is Peterson showing his disdain towards atheists and the newborn mild cultural acceptance of atheism… and in doing so making a sarcastic but still telling suggestion that maybe Richard Dawkins shouldn’t have his free speech. Ask yourself with free speech being important to you… would you even be capable of making such a “joke”?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_SNCrNqxPNM
So how does a religious traditionalist fight against rationality and free speech being used against their ideology? Well, with rationality and free speech, of course.
When Jordan Peterson confronted a bill that was designed to simply add transgender people as a protected class here in Canada, the same way women and gay people are protected. Peterson decided to paint this as a free speech issue.. and though he’d never admit it I think it’s obvious the core of his issue with this Bill is it’s affront to normalized traditionalist views. Peterson did this to uphold traditionalist views. Sure there was some mild possibility of the bill being taken too far just as there is with any legislature. He started claiming you could be jailed for misgendering someone. People went wild. But he was even corrected and assured in written form by the Canadian bar Association. Here is a small excerpt from it but you can look it up:
“C-16 Will Not Impede Freedom of Expression Recently, the debate has turned to whether the amendments will force individuals to embrace concepts, even use pronouns, which they find objectionable. This is a misunderstanding of human rights and hate crimes legislation. Hate Crimes and Freedom of Expression For hate crimes, Bill C-16 adds gender identity or expression to the identifiable groups protected from those who advocate genocide, publicly incite hatred likely to lead to a breach of the peace or willfully promote hatred against them. The Supreme Court of Canada found subsection 319(2) (willful promotion of hatred) to be “
He couldn’t just let this slide. 6 years later guess how many people have been jailed for misgendering anyone? Zero. ZERO.
He started building a name for himself as some brave professor fighting against his college willing to stand up for free speech. Of course many people supporting this rise are likely just extreme conservatives who hate “fags” and anything deviating from the norm. Still there are surely people involved with a genuine interest in free speech. At which ratio and how many shades of gray in between is difficult to say but you can be sure the majority of people in the former camp wouldn’t admit it.
At one point he was trying to create an internet database of “marxist professors” to expose them… a sort of smear campaign. He more recently has demanded Google allow him more options for silencing his critics in Youtube comments… and even more recently asked Elon Musk to shadowban the speech of people on Twitter he doesn’t like. At another point he wanted to sue someone I believe for calling him a nazi. Did I mention he once said “Nazism is an atheistic doctrine”? Despite the fact that every nazi wore a belt buckle that said “Got Mitt Uns” “God Be With Us”.
Peterson started attacking atheism again not long after… but just as he didn’t want to admit he was conservative, or right wing… he had a difficult time even admitting he was Christian. Presumably to distance himself from the more easily disputable claims made in the Bible or within the doctrine. Because remember… now he is selling himself as a rational, critical thinking person. It’s as if he decided the best way to support the ideas he holds… is to attack the ideas he despises from a seemingly (but not really) neutral position. Doing so masks his bias. He started using this idea of “metaphorical truth” and how religion was “more true than true”. Which is quite interesting because this is a core facet of the postmodernism he so wildly and constantly attacks… that people can make their own truths (switch genders for example).
“Postmodernist philosophers in general argue that truth is always contingent on historical and social context rather than being absolute and universal and that truth is always partial and “at issue” rather than being complete and certain.”
He went on Sam Harris’ podcast which was a total shitshow. Sam didn’t hold his feet to the fire on this nearly enough. Same with when I attended their debate. Sam did have a couple great responses though.
Jordan Peterson likes to dance around subjects and go on long diatribes arguably in the service of giving proper respect to the subject matter. When I attended a “debate” (more like speaking tour) between Sam and Jordan. At one point Sam asked him “What do you mean by God” Jordan grabbed his laptop and started reading this:
“ God is “how we imaginatively and collectively represent the existence and action of consciousness across time.” God is “that which eternally dies and is reborn in the pursuit of higher being and truth.” God is “the highest value in the hierarchy of values.” God is the “voice of conscience.” God is the “source of judgment and mercy and guilt.” God is the “future to which we make sacrifices and something akin to the transcendental repository of reputation.” God is “that which selects among men in the eternal hierarchy of men...”
It went on and on like this… on and on and on… Harris responded: “That’s not how most people most of the time are using the word, and there’s something misleading about that.”
The ways Peterson is unclear and dances around subjects seems contradictory to his constantly talking about speaking clearly to be understood and telling the truth…. (what is true?) quoted from 12 Rules for Life:
“ Telling the truth is a gamble on the benevolence of being. So the idea is you tell the truth, you don’t manipulate the world to make it give you what you want, you try to articulate yourself — and articulate the manner of your being, as clearly and as comprehensively as possible — and then you see what happens. And you decide — this is the act of faith — you decide that no matter what happens, if you tell the truth, that that’s the best possible outcome. (As cited by Lovins, 2018)”
Humans in general are walking contradictions but he’s a special case for some reason. He’s known for speaking in Deepak Chopraesque word salad. I know the best and most common response to that would be… “well you just don’t understand what he’s saying.. I do”. But are you sure I don’t understand what he’s saying when he does this?
He also has a peculiar relationship with science. Selling himself as a supporter of science and reason yet… repeatedly dismissing climate change and engaging in and even implicitly teaching his students pseduoscience. In a since deleted tweet he once called someone a “biology denier” I believe in regards to a transgender person. He a couple years later tweeted:
“ He’s casually called a “climate change denier,” for example, which is an appallingly treacherous term of criticism, used to denigrate someone personally by associating them with Holocaust deniers. The ethics of anyone who employs it should be instantly questioned.”
My problem with him is not that he challenges norms. It’s what he is trying to do in doing so. Something he would never admit but to me and many others his agenda is quite obvious. I’m an atheist, a transhumanist, a techno-optimist and someone who genuinely believes humans have the capacity to create an unfathomably wonderful future if we tackle our grand challenges with science, technology and ridding ourselves of ignorance to the greatest extent possible. What Peterson is trying to do is the exact opposite of that. I could go on and on. Obviously. I don’t believe much of what he says although he has said something that are true… you have to do that if you want to be heard at all. You have to play the game so to speak.
But if you’re a fan then Peterson is just an extremely logical man who happens to believe that imaginary things are “true”, climate change isn’t anthropogenic, hospitals cause more deaths than they prevent and that ancient civilization’s drawings of snakes prove that they knew about DNA.
In my view he’s not selling free speech.. he’s selling religious conservatism and all the personal responsibility that comes along with that. He’s a status quo warrior disguised as a freedom of speech warrior. Charlatan. Sophist, pseudo intellect.
Peterson is the FOX news academic. You see often conservatives don’t have academics side with them. Intellectuals tend to have a liberal bias. FOX news likes to bring on black people who are willing to disparage black issues. Gay people who are willing to disparage gay issues. Atheists who are willing to disparage atheist issues. Women who are willing… you get the idea. Peterson is the academic willing to disparage academics.
