Somehow I became familiar with Peterson outside of the gender pronouns debate that seems to have been the catalyst of his meteoric rise. So I had the good fortune of listening to his lectures without any of the madness of that debate coloring my thoughts on the man and his life’s work. What I saw was an incredibly intelligent, thoughtful, and curious figure.
Peterson is a clinical psychologist by training and, it seems to me, a public intellectual by necessity. His academic and clinical work as a psychologist has brought him to realizations about human behavior, as influenced by our biology, psychology, and beliefs, which have led him into the public domain on topics such as individual rights, societal structures, and government power. He seems to be on a mission to identify and call out systems, structures, and ideas that run counter to who we are as humans and how we’re designed to behave.
What I see from Peterson is genuine intellectual curiosity. He’s not a partisan political actor as some have accused him of – he’s an earnest, truthful, public voice. And that’s a rare thing. Most public voices, whether on Youtube, CNN, or FOX, would like us to think they are every bit as earnest and truthful, when they’re actually hiding their partisan politics beneath a layer of false objectivity and pseudo-intellectualism. In that context I find Jordan Peterson to be a welcome breath of fresh air.
Peterson’s rise has not been without it’s challenges, of course.
One challenge keeps repeating, which is the continued connection that many in the news media have drawn between Peterson and the alt-right. If you take a minute to dig into this alleged connection you find that it’s really disingenuous, 1) because you can’t control who agrees with your ideas, and 2) because Peterson himself doesn’t identify a member of the alt-right and, in fact, criticizes the movement openly. This clip is a good example:
I’m a huge fan of the press keeping public figures honest about their connections and possible motivations. By all means, raise the question. But – if you have an intellectually honest bone in your body – don’t repeat false claims over and over when there is mounting evidence that you’re wrong. It causes us to question your own connections and motivations…
For example, NBC Nightly News, it’s almost as if linking Jordan Peterson to the alt-right is an attempt by left-leaning media outlets such as yourself to discredit an educated, tenured, member of the intellectual elite because his viewpoints have deviated too far from the accepted norm. And that connecting him to the alt-right is a strategy designed to put him in league with racists and vehement nationalists, in order to delegitimize and silence him.
But judging motivations is difficult, so who really knows. 😉
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Ultimately, I view Jordan Peterson as a public intellectual who seeks to better the world through factually-informed, independent thought. We need more people like that. We need more people thinking about the big ideas that built the world as we know it, and whether those ideas are enough to carry us into the future.
MW 