Nellie Bowles’ May 18 New York Times profile of academic-turned-patriarchal self-help guru Jordan Peterson has made waves in the past three days as readers have pondered Peterson's answer to a question about the April 23 killings in Toronto, apparently perpetrated by a young man named Alek Minassian.
That attack, which killed 10 people and injured 16, may have stemmed from Minassian’s self-identified status as an “incel,” or an involuntarily celibate man. In the Times interview, Peterson described “the cure” that could prevent future incidents as “enforced monogamy,” a phrasing that has led many to paint him as a proponent of dystopian, fascistic methods that would infringe on the civil liberties of women everywhere.
Since the article's publication, Peterson has fervently claimed he was misrepresented and that his answer referred more to the societal values that might promote monogamous behaviors, whether those be pressures or rewards. Others have cited the resulting controversy as further proof of “liberal hysteria.” There are certainly differing perspectives on just what Peterson meant – an unearthed tweet from Dec. 17, 2016, seems suspiciously pertinent: “Could ‘casual’ sex necessitate state tyranny? The missing responsibility has to be enforced somehow . . .” – there’s no doubt that his opinions have been drumming up significant support and controversy over the past two years, particularly in Peterson's consistent defense of “culture” against the barbarous hordes of postmodernists, feminists and progressives, all of whom, according to him, mean to ruin society as we know it.
Some have charged Peterson's opinions as being steadfastly patriarchal, while others describe them as “old-fashioned” and “common-sense.” One thing that’s for sure, however, is that the University of Toronto psychologist has benefited greatly from his recent attention and controversy. Peterson's lectures have become some of the hottest tickets in all of professional speaking and his books have sold millions of copies, including his most recent release "12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos."
This success, however great, is a recent phenomenon for the Canadian academic, who only garnered international attention in late 2016 after his public opposition to Canada’s Bill C-16, legislation that expanded anti-discrimination laws to protect transgender citizens. Peterson opposed the law on the grounds that it would curtail his free speech -- and instantly became a cultural hero of sorts on the right. The story, after all, was too perfect. Here was an academic putting his foot down and saying no to the progressive movement that’s so often associated with higher learning.
Soon, Peterson became a fixture on Fox News and every influential right-wing media apparatus, not to mention the emerging “Intellectual Dark Web,” a loose conglomeration of blogs, YouTube channels, social media feeds, podcasts and other alternative media. The principal feature of the IDW is endless conversations between academics and public intellectuals, ranging from the dangers of identity politics to the very nature of human consciousness, nearly all of them sounding like the chitchat at the end of a freshman-level Introduction to Philosophy course.
Peterson is easily one of the most sought-after personalities in this sphere and has garnered considerable controversy for his frequent criticisms of liberal politics and his insistence that the patriarchy -- the invisible construction of society by which men are granted privilege over women -- is a hierarchy of competence, while referring to feminists as “crazy, harpy sisters” who are “undermining the masculine power of culture.”
Though that kind of incendiary rhetoric certainly leads to uproar in the era of backlash-backlash, it also leads to power, influence and riches for a man who’s preaching to a choir that's starving for a particular kind of made-to-order science.
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It’s important to note that “Intellectual Dark Webs” have existed as long as there’s been a society interlinked with science. There has always been an adversarial relationship between the unbiased accrual of knowledge for the sake of discovery and progress and the search for tainted “facts” meant to prove twisted hypotheses. Such intellectual expeditions have been carried out for any number of purposes, often in a quest for knowledge and often to prove ignorant racist worldviews, as was the case with craniometry or the bastardized popular versions of Charles Darwin’s theories.
The tradition of bad science, championed by scholars who either willingly or unwittingly set precedents for intellectualized racism, has been carried on by white supremacists who rebranded their hatred as “race realism.” Luminaries like Jared Taylor have actively continued the pseudo-academic farce by founding publications like American Renaissance and Occidental Quarterly, overtly designed to resemble and read like academic journals. Richard Spencer, who gained notoriety in the run-up to the 2016 presidential election as the (joint) inventor of the term “alt-right,” even founded his own white supremacist think tank, the National Policy Institute, which sounds and conducts itself like so many other political houses and lends his racism an air of borrowed intellectualism.
Taylor and Spencer are both graduates of the academy – Taylor went to Yale and the Paris Institute of Political Studies, while Spencer did his undergrad at Virginia and received his M.A. from the University of Chicago – and carry themselves like rogue intellectuals. For years they’ve toured the country and given lectures at conferences and colleges, their activities mirroring the rigorous academic life of professors. Their talks are concerned with establishing ethno-states for white people and pushing fascist or pseudo-fascist policies that would benefit Caucasians, aims antithetical to virtually all the ideals of academic discourse. Yet, they are presented as if they were simply shadow versions of the same means, a rebel knowledge to which you have been scurrilously denied access.
The success of the "alt-right" is predicated on this illusion. Just as people flocked to the ethos of New Age healing and conspiracy – William Cooper, author of "Behold, A Pale Horse," founded one of the precursors to the Intellectual Dark Web when he toured the country in the 1990s lecturing on aliens, the Illuminati and New World Order plots, topics he also talked about extensively on his alternative radio show, a forerunner to today's podcasts – the "alt-right’"s emphasis on “knowledge-based” racism provides its followers with a work-around for the cognitive dissonance that might have demanded they question the inherent ignorance at the movement's heart.
Now, in a time of unrest and anxiety, many are flocking to “thought leaders” to tell them what’s happening and give them direction. Insecure men log onto Reddit’s infamous “Red Pill” forum and read articles on how to pick up women and manipulate them. The posts there are adorned with pictures of beakers and other artifacts of a scientific lab, and the format often crudely approximates academic papers. They buy Mike Cernovich’s book "Gorilla Mindset," which mixes self-help idioms with tips on better posture and observations that "while American women suck in general, there are plenty of guys pulling hot ass.” Rollo Tomassi, who gives lectures with charts and graphs of dubious construction and origin, advises men to beware the possibility that their female partners, when ovulating, will go out with their friends for drinks in order to find secret breeding opportunities with other men.
At least that’s what “studies” say.
Those who buy into these mindsets are overwhelmingly insecure white men who feel they are failing for some reason and are in desperate need of professional help in turning their lives around. Instead of seeking out assistance, they spend their time and money on products designed to “scientifically” get them laid and change their lives.
This is where Jordan Peterson comes in. When viewing one of his many videos online you might receive a pop-up ad from “pickup artists” who promise they can sell you the means to find a woman to have sex with, or gloat that they’ve discovered the secret to success, love and all the women you can handle. You might find yourself plunging down a rabbit hole of video clips bearing such titles as "Jordan Peterson: How to NOT Become A Beta Male," "Jordan Peterson: Things Nice Guys Should Know to Attract Women," "Jordan Peterson: Why women reject men," "Jordan Peterson – Would I Ever Hit a Woman?" or "Jordan Peterson – Don’t Be the Nice Guy."
Often the content only tangentially relates to the titles, but what is universally true is that a Peterson clip is a self-help masculinity sales pitch dressed up as an academic presentation.
The trappings are like something you might hear in a lecture hall at 9 a.m. on a Tuesday of the fall semester. But the message is more like something you’d pay for in a dimly lit hotel conference room next to the interstate.
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It was on Sam Harris’ podcast "Waking Up" – another outpost of the Intellectual Dark Web – that I first heard Peterson say that "the most permanent things are the most real.” That instantly struck me as a logical fallacy, one of the first things you learn about when receiving a college education, particularly the fallacy of appealing to tradition or the idea that future things should adhere to the past.
Peterson’s philosophies seem to fall within those boundaries. His view is a synthesis of Jungian psychology with traces of evolutionary biology, the two combining for new meaning in his lectures and rants at breakneck pace. One moment Peterson is retelling the ancient Egyptian myth of Horus and the next he’s marveling over the phoenix. But his attention, more often than not, focuses on the Bible, a book he imbues with great mythological power that can be used to shape the world and one’s life.
This perspective amounts to a new brand of secular Christianity that appeals to men who question literal interpretation but still thirst for the benefits of orthodoxy. Peterson appeals to that thirst by parsing archetypes and suggesting that they hold knowledge of how the world should work, or that the world we know is in chaos because it has deviated from the world of ancient mythologies and, thus, its natural path.
In this philosophy, which Peterson likens to the symbol of the yin and yang, men represent the order of society and women the chaos of nature. The “hero” archetype we’ve all come to know is decidedly masculine, and he brings knowledge by braving the feminine chaos and returning it to order. If that sounds misogynistic, that’s only because it is. The traditions Peterson appeals to are decidedly patriarchal – it bears stating that women, in these texts, are often the downfall of men and are responsible for great falls of individuals and societies – a fact never addressed in his “studies.” What he is doing, essentially, is examining the construction of the patriarchy and justifying its existence by pointing out that it was built in the first place.
Frustrated men are being assured, by a credentialed academic no less, that their failures are not their own faults. It’s the chaos of a society unmoored from tradition or common sense. It’s “crazy, harpy sisters” and their “terrible femininity.” It’s Peterson lamenting that men can use violence to deal with men who don’t make sense, but, since we're not allowed to hit women, it’s up to “non-crazy” women to deal with their sisters by stepping in and saying “enough with the man-hating.”
Like any myth, this narrative is populated with heroes and villains. Certainly Peterson fancies himself a hero out of the antiquities. After all, he’s bringing the light of fire and wisdom to civilization like Prometheus, and his daily sufferings are much akin to Zeus’ curse of eternal consumption. The antagonists, as Peterson describes them, are “counter-civilization activists” engaged in a plot to overthrow the natural order of things.
Simply put, it’s order versus chaos, the masculine versus the feminine, the good versus the evil.
The path Peterson has taken, however, isn’t as stable as he might believe. Carl Jung’s work has certainly been influential, but there’s a subjective nature to the discipline. Just as Peterson has cherry-picked archetypes to underpin his own political beliefs, so have others, including the Nazi Party, which used Jung’s words to bolster their academic bonafides.
That’s not to compare Peterson’s work to full-on fascist ideology, simply to note that when subjective “science” is used to promote dubious political opinions, there are inherent dangers. While Peterson has insisted he was not endorsing state control of women or their social, sexual and reproductive rights in that New York Times interview, he regularly cites texts that do that very thing -- and were used to perpetuate that abuse for generations.
More frightening still, it's not impossible to imagine someone someday parsing Peterson's words in search of meaning and finding just the right line of reasoning to resurrect just such a "Handmaid's Tale" regime, like some flaming phoenix of old.
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