TL:DR: I’m on the fence when it comes to Dr. Peterson and would like to hear your opinions on him and your reasonings for holding them.
I began to take an interest in Jordan Peterson following his now infamous college speech video when he talks about freedom of speech and bill C16.
Watching the majority of his lectures it seemed that the man spoke a great deal of sense concerning morality, personal responsibility, archetypal characters, meaning and the dangers and pressing threats of totalitarianism. I bought 12 Rules For Life and continued to follow his path (interviews, talks, channel etc) closely up until his disappearance. I wouldn’t have called myself partisan, but the message from Dr. Peterson seemed generally worth listening to.
With that being said I cannot help but notice a shift since he returned from his absence a while ago. Something definitely feels, and continues to feel different about the mans' presentation, demeanor and choise of topic of discussio - however I cannot quite put my finger on what it is and why I feel it. More recent videos and interviews aren't the "same" and I couldn’t remove the feeling that his second book 12 More Rules was only an effort to capitalise on the success of his previous publication rather than a means of trying to help people, so I abstained from buying it.
Many videos featuring Dr. Peterson now appear to be a part of an increasingly common trend on social media of content creators highlighting how bad things are, and how they are going to get much much worse. The irony of this of course being that these people are usually incredibly financially secure and will likely be unaffected by the hardships that will cripple the layman who they preach to. Regardless of the intent behind it, such content often makes people feel more isolated, scared and hopeless. Is this deliberate? I don't know, it may be a consequence of being increasingly well known and an attempt to keep views coming in (as people love doom scrolling). It seems like he has taken a leaf out of the Russel Brand "Grift-n-Go" playbook. Regardless, it is a stark contrast to Dr. Peterson's older content where advice was presented on how to counter pressing issues and build oneself up.
Plus, the fact that he has gone from being cancelled and banned to blue checkmark, verified and recommended on multiple social media sights is also somewhat of a red flag to me. It seems to be a paradigm shift in the powers’ that be’s approach toward him.
Has he been bought? Threatened? Is this subversion? OR has the current state of the world made me look too deeply to find issues that don’t exist? I don’t know.
TLDR (again): I’m not really sure where I stand when it comes to Dr.Peterson, a great deal of what he says still resonates strongly with me, but there is an ever growing feeling of distrust and doubt in my mind as to his motive and intent. I would be interested to hear your thoughts.
Well, I think he was in genuine emotional destress at first while getting attacked for his stance. I felt for him. He has struggled with mental health and that really brought about crisis.
I think his brain is somewhat disordered. He has depression etc. I don't think he is a genius but he is very good at persuasion and influence and performance.
Unlike most people, he actually studied the works of geniuses for years until he was able to understand them at a basic level. So he translated that into something the dumbed down population can understance. The dumbed populations sees him as a genius.
I think he did help bring attention to the Bible and Jung and trad values and self improvement. But he never discouraged his fame and idolworship. He sold a rug for $5000 just for some shekels lol
He started getting his daughter into the grift before he went away.
When he came back he intensely promoted her in front of camera and behind the scenes. He got her set up with good gigs. She has no degree in psychology but since she is his daughter, people think she is a genius too. Good for a dad to help his daughter. But they are at this point grifting.
From the beginning I had a concern at the extreme level of devotion that his vulnerable male followers have for him. If you had a question about him they would swarm and attack you. They consider him a replacement daddy. It was cult-like. Peterson was their God and father. Now Andrew Tate is filling the void and also receiving idol worship. To a life destroying level for many of his followers.
Now Peterson's daughter also has a massive platform...
When he came back, I was very disappointed that he just went on a fluff celebrity tour, interviewing socially acceptable and cool people like Wim Hof. He basically completely ignored what was going on about lockdowns /brutality/ rights being trampled across the world, and especially the situation in Canada. If he had really spoken truth to power in that situation, it would have made a massive difference.. I think he was bought off in exchange for his daughter's fame as well.
I agree, now he is in fear porn. That is a good point that I couldn't put my finger on.