Jordan Peterson, 12 Rules for Life Tour, Christchurch 20th Feb 2019
By Deputy Wizard of Christchurch, Ari Freeman
Part I
Depending on who you ask Jordan Peterson is ‘literally hitler’, priest of the patriarchy, self-help hero of the disenchanted or the new spokesman for the young conservative.
There might be some very genuine reasons for hating Jordan Peterson, but I have been perplexed at the near complete lack of well articulated critique. The written pieces about him in the established media have mostly complained about some of the people who are his followers, or have been knee jerk reactions, or at worst hack pieces and rarely tackle the things that Jordan Peterson says in context, let alone his beliefs.
As someone who is more interested in what motivates people than ‘tribal’ politics, I decided to look into the professor behind the controversial Bill C-16 protest at Toronto University back in 2016.
I was surprised to found something which deeply piqued my interest. Hours of documented lectures on youtube material Dr Peterson talked about modern psychology, Jungian psychoanalysis, religious apology, Jungian comparative mythology, philosophical pragmatism and behavioural science. All of these, subjects that I am deeply interested in. Peterson was the first public intellectual I had come across who is both a Jungian, and a Pragmatist (from the philosophy of William James). Before discovering him I thought I might be the only one (lonely tears no more).
Since then Peterson has gone on to produce his biblical series of lectures where he again uses Jungian theory and pragmatism to explain his views on the book of Genesis. To me this was a breath of fresh air in the post Richard Dawkins/New Atheist climate. As someone interested in the psychology of religion I have been waiting for someone to step up and raise some solid pragmatic apologetics for religion for some time. The same tired anti-historical 19th century arguments that Dawkins regurgitated in ‘The God Delusion’ have been swallowed for too long.
As Peterson developed on YouTube he began to interview other thinkers, some of whom do a better job on certain topics than he does. The Weinstein Brothers, Brett and Eric, speak more finely about free speech, Jonathan and Matthieu Pageau have stronger discussions of bible symbolism and how such traditions can still be relevant in a techno-modern age. Peterson has proved to be a portal for popularising a new wave of intellectual discourse.
As time went on Peterson’s political motivation has grown, even at once stage mentioning he might run for government in Canada. To which my gut response was, ‘what the hell are you thinking Dr Peterson?’, Stick to being a public educator. I find his politics, and the controversy he has courted dull in comparison to his intellectual ideas. On one hand he argues for charity in debate, and for people to engage intellectually with each other over political divides in open discussion. On the other hand he uses straw-man arguments, spitting out terms like ‘Postmodernism’ and ‘Marxism’ as if they are vile terms, whilst being unable (or unwilling?) to provide anything other than frankly anti-historical definitions for either.
Youtube Links:
Jordan Peterson Doesn’t understand Postmodernism
Richard Wolff Takes on Jordan Peterson (About Marxism)
In discussions my with friends, a small contingent brought up the curious idea of what would happen if Jordan Peterson were to cross paths with our own Wizard of New Zealand, who I have served as deputy Wizard in Christchurch New Zealand for the last 4 1/2 years. Here the Wizard is an admired rhetorician, and debater. Several efforts were made by people I am in contact with to get Dr Peterson out to Christchurch or Auckland to meet the Wizard, and maybe have them engage in a fun and entertaining debate. Unfortunately as Peterson’s fame rapidly grew, he disappeared behind a wall of celebrity and demand.
The Wizard of New Zealand is an interesting phenomenon. As an academic sociologist active in university reform in Australia in the late 1960s, he faced similar persecution to Petersen. This came from both the powerful left wing humanities academics and the Maoist student leaders who suddenly took over the student unions with their compulsory funding and campus newspaper monopolies. Prior to the advent of social media and, like Petersen unable to find support in the commercial mass media, his solution was to come to Christchurch in 1974 to speak daily in Cathedral Square. Like Cicero facing a similar situation in Ancient Rome, he made his opinions known through oratory, but leavened with English playfulness and wit.
It was with this in mind that I decided to take our Arch Wizard on an outing to Jordan Peterson’s talk. I bought him a VIP ticket so that they would be certain to meet, and we could pass on our message that perhaps Peterson (and his audience) would have an easier time if he engaged in more humour, as per the Wizard’s example, instead of his usual droll seriousness and occasional bad tempered outbursts.
Logic, Love and Levity.
In Part II of our adventure I will give an account of my impression of Peterson on the night and a critique some of the content of his talk. Stay tuned.
-Ari Freeman Deputy Wizard of Christchurch.
Part II
In which I dare Dr Peterson to come out of the closet and declare himself a magician!
Apart from the large amount of security outside Isaac Royal Theatre, and the lines of attendees waiting to be processed, the first thing I noticed was a surprisingly diverse crowd. Roughly half of the attendees were middle aged, about a third were women, and (though I wish we lived in a world where it didn’t require mentioning) there were plenty of shades of skin, at least by Christchurch standards.
The second thing I noticed was a total lack of protesters. Not one. Perhaps the controversy of his visit is over-reported by the local media? They do love a scandal, even where one is barely present.
After chatting in a friendly manner with various attendees who were interested by the presence of two Wizards, we were seated.
As the crowd murmured in expectations there was a sudden gasp as Dr Peterson playfully dipped his head around the stage curtain for a split second then disappeared. My heart was warmed that maybe he we were in for a fun and playful show, but unfortunately this was Peterson’s only major act of frivolity, aside from a few good jokes later on.
The first two thirds of the show played out like a cross between a sermon and listening the eccentric guy at a party who is recounting his acid trip from the previous weekend. Quite different than what I was expecting. I had considered constructing a bingo board with well known Peterson catch phrases and buzz words such as ‘Post-Modernism!’, ‘The Marxists!’, ‘The Feminists!’, ‘The Radical Left!’. Upon completion I imagined myself leaping out of my seat shouting bingo! Waving my board in triumph, but to the disappointment of my inner subversive sub-personality, Peterson made no mention of any of those.
Instead he spoke a lot about a Wizard’s favourite subject: Magic!
Well sort of. He spoke as much about magic as one can possibly speak without actually stating he was talking about magic. Which lead me to think about what the difference is between what we Wizards do, and what Peterson does.
We Wizards walk around town in pointy hats and robes, clearly signifying ourselves to the general public as weirdos, who are likely to rant on about magic and other such eccentric topics. The pointy hat shows everyone knows what they are going to get. In fact people are pleasantly surprised to find out that the Arch Wizard and his sub-wizards around New Zealand actually have some coherent things to say. I feel this is the most honest way I can interact with people. Why engage in false advertising?
The logical end-point of Peterson’s world view, in my opinion is magic and the pragmatic use of magical thinking, and I wish he would come right out and say it. Peterson, I dare you to declare yourself a magician!
The structure of Peterson’s speech for the night centred around an automatic writing episode he had after being given some sort of laser-pen by a friend of his. Or as he put it ‘A pen of light’. The first thing he recounted asking his pen of light was
“What are the words I would like inscribed upon my soul?”.
What followed was meandering yet interesting stroll down the subjects of lucid dreaming, scientific experiments that aimed to communicate with people in the dream state, hypnotism, wishing upon a star as a metaphor for aiming oneself towards perfection, prayer as a self-help meditation, engagement with the realms of chaos and order. All of this is, magical thinking.
Dr Peterson wears a few different hats. Psychologist, free speech advocate, religious apologist, political polemicist (his most inane and boring opinions), mystic, gender theorist (perhaps the centre point of his controversy, and where he is often the least careful) and most recently, self-help guru for the directionless. His self-help techniques are remarkably conservative as one can tell by some of the things he said on the night:
“You should do what everyone else does, unless you have a good reason not to”. Okey doke. I've gone and declared myself a wizard to the world, and life is now 1000% more interesting. Perhaps I have made a wrong turn?
Other tidbits are rather practical.
• On the need for direction:
“People don’t accomplish what they want because they don’t really aim for it.”
“If you ‘sort of’ want 50 things you will end up with none of them”
“Aim for paradise, concentrate on today”
“It’s paradise you are aiming for, but you do it brick by brick”
• On arguing with your spouse:
“Do you really want to be married to the person who is ‘absolutely wrong’? It doesn’t reflect well on you”
• On the type of prayers that will get answered:
“Ask yourself, ‘how am I stupid.’”
“What shall I do to make the most good possible in the shortest amount of time?”
• On morality:
“What shall I do with the lying man? - Let him speak so he reveals himself.”
“I’ve never seen anyone get away with anything” - In regards to counselling his patients as a clinical psychologist.
• On not being so sure of yourself
“What shall I do with the enlightened one? - Replace him with the seeker of enlightenment”
“You are enlightened because you know you don’t know” -In reference to Socrates.
There is a slight contradiction to be found in some of the absolute statements such as
“Set your own house in order before you ask the world to change itself”.
Immediately after he admitted that obtaining order is a goal without end, raising the question, at what point does one together enough as an individual to tell other people what they should or shouldn’t be doing? Perhaps there’s an endearing element to Peterson’s admission that he is still sorting himself out. On the other hand perhaps this is the very jugular where Peterson’s opponents might plunge the proverbial dagger. Either way, Peterson failed to acknowledge the irony.
Other topics covered included the difficult life of the artist/creative type. He brought up the tendency of creative people towards depression, and how that can lead to despair. I found this a little strange and as a creative type and a teacher to other musicians, I felt he failed to understand that frustration and the tendency towards dissatisfaction with the status quo, are very often the very things that drive the creative person’s ambition in the first place. What’s more, the engagement with dark or difficult emotions that some creatives present in their work is often the very thing that their audience likes about them the most. The ability to communicate feelings that most of us find hard to express can be very useful to the artist's audience.
Creativity is often not felt to be a ‘choice’ by the creative type, the way Peterson suggests. Rather we often create out of compulsion. For such a person, telling them that the creative career path is going to be difficult is rather pointless, and one should just instead find ways to encourage them. They are going to do it anyway. It's that or dropping out of life. Something that as a music teacher, and professional musician I am often confronted with.
All in all, the performance was an unusual one. Peterson sat in an introverted pose, apparently improvising most of the speech, often going on 15, even 20 minute long digressions before steering the ship back to the, kind of, central subject of how to have a meaningful life. Some in the audience found this frustrating whilst others respected his courage in improvising in front of a full house of people.
Either way everyone agreed that the energy picked up at question time, where Peterson leaped out of his seat, enthusiastically pacing the stage and gesturing like an charismatic preacher.
Probably the most interesting and provocative question of the night was ‘when is a good time to have a baby’?.
Peterson went on a long but profound discussion of child psychology drawing heavily from psychologists Lev Vygotsky, and Jean Piaget.
Eventually Peterson answered the question of whether we should have children with the joking answer;
“Not if you have any sense, but definitely”.
He put forth the conservative point of view. The personal fulfilment of parenthood. If you don’t have kids then;
“What do you do with your life?”.
Not mentioned was whether, in a world with 7.7 billion people, everyone really needs to have children anymore.
Peterson tends to avoid this question, instead remaining focused on individual meaning.
Perhaps Peterson could try a little harder to explore other ways in which people ‘reproduce’. We as human beings reproduce through our ideas, our art, our culture, our institutions etc. Where does Peterson’s astronomic level of personal ambition come from? Certainly being a father of two was not the end all for him. He now strives to become the father-figure to a whole generation of lost souls who could use a little encouragement to get their life back on track.
And that’s the thing I hear over and over from Peterson’s most heartfelt fans.
“Jordan Peterson really cares” said a friend of mine who also attended the show.
“I looked into his eyes at the meet and greet and he looked right into me”.
As for all my friends and audience who strongly dislike Jordan Peterson’s ideas about gender, human rights, ‘the radical left’, etc. I wish I could comment based on his talk, but the fact is he made no mention of those in this particular talk, aside from some small musings on fatherhood and that having children young might be a good idea because the fertility of women can deteriorate with age.
However as one who strives to be fair minded I have found the following youtube critique, by literary critic, John David Ebert, to be my favourite. It challenges Jordan Peterson’s ideas of the masculine and feminine, comparing him unfavourably to his hero Carl Jung, and Peterson's Jungian predecessor, Joseph Campbell :
Jordan Peterson's Maps of Meaning Part 1 by John David Ebert
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NjJ1LjVEWIk
Part 2
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9DRrN12fc4E&t=3s
Part 3
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EtYd9c7Amxs
Over all, and perhaps as can be expected, the audience was very satisfied with their experience. For me, as a regular performer, I found it very strange to watch a man muse on stage, thoughts running all over the place, going on 15 minute digressions, only just barely maintaining a structure. I think it might be one of the strangest performances I have seen that still ended in a standing ovation.
I hope this can be of use to you all.
Logic, Love and Levity
-Ari Freeman, Deputy Wizard of Christchurch.
