What I would say about Jordan Peterson is that he is confused, and that, because of his attitude, it is unlikely that this confusion will soon end. He has built very successful defenses preventing any information from getting in.
"What is the meaning of life?" This is a question that philosophers have pondered for millennia. Well, Dr. Peterson wrote a book called "Maps of Meaning." Dr. Peterson thought that he could answer this question, and not only that, but draw little pictures - charts - maps, as he calls them, just to clear it up once and for all.
But he wasn't done there. He ventures into all kinds of topics, about which he has no training or education at all, such as global climate change, and dares to pronounce his dictum about what should be believed about these issues - not only to the general public, but to the experts in the field. Their evidence is worthless, compared with his passionate, emotional appeal. I recently heard the term "cry-bully" used to describe a person who is like a "cry-baby" but who uses their emotional vulnerability to bully others.
What kind of personality is capable of this kind of behavior? What results would such a person get back when taking a personality test? What kind of attributes would they have?
I have to admit, I get it. I mean, look at this blog. I claim to have solved the problem of free will vs. determinism. I likewise have dispatched the ageless question of whether math is invented or discovered. What kind of maniac would even attempt such a thing?
For whatever reason, I keep thinking to myself: it's a personality a bit like Lenin's personality. Not exactly a philosophical temperament. A recklessness, almost a kind of abandon. Jordan Peterson's m.o. seems to be: Just do it. Strike out. Attack. Risk everything. Invade deep into enemy territory. Say something. Then you can always go back and correct it, if you need to. But the important thing is the will, the willful spontaneous thrust, the creative will to organize the chaos of existence into some kind arrangement, no matter how artificial, how contrived.
I have to acknowledge that there is something heroic about this. This quality of Jordan Peterson could be described as bravery, courage, chutzpah. He definitely has a lot of it, and people respond to it. They are attracted to it.
The question is: what kind of hero is Jordan Peterson? What kind of story is this hero marching through?
Is he a tragic hero?
Or is he a comic hero?
It's clearly a little bit of both, as the best stories often are.
But he is propelled unstoppably forward by his own particular constellation of psychodynamics, his own traumatic dysfunction, every gear and pulley whirring against each other, mechanically. He can't stop. The indignity and the indignation are two sides of the same process. He will continue to insist all the more passionately upon his honor, and he will continue to make himself a fool. What can one say in such a situation? What is the right response? Pity? Contempt? Bemusement? I genuinely don't know. I have to admit that in some small way, I do empathize with him.
But at the end of the day, I feel the same way about him as I do when I heard about the extent of Elon Musk's drug abuse. I want to feel bad for him, but as much as I want to shake my head and ask, "How did he get himself into this mess?" the truth is that, of course, I know how he got himself into this mess, I cannot not know, because it is constantly broadcast into my eyes and ears, and at the same time I cannot not know that we're all in this mess with him.
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