{"id":11551,"date":"2019-05-23T12:00:33","date_gmt":"2019-05-23T10:00:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cognitionandculture.local\/?p=11551"},"modified":"2023-08-07T12:23:38","modified_gmt":"2023-08-07T10:23:38","slug":"how-jordan-peterson-became-an-intellectual-guru","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cognitionandculture.local\/blogs\/inge-van-de-ven\/how-jordan-peterson-became-an-intellectual-guru\/","title":{"rendered":"How Jordan Peterson became an Intellectual Guru"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I think I have discovered something that no one else has any idea about, and I\u2019m not sure I can do it justice. Its scope is so broad that I can see only parts of it clearly at one time, and it is exceedingly difficult to set down comprehensibly in writing<\/em>.
– Jordan Peterson (1999, 473)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

April 19, Toronto\u2019s Sony Centre was sold out. The occasion? Not a big sports match, not a rock concert, but the \u2018debate of the century.\u2019 A crowd of over 3000 people gathered voluntarily to hear two intellectuals talk for 2.5 hours. One of them was Slavoj \u017di\u017eek; the other, Jordan Peterson, is the topic of this post. <\/p>\n\n\n

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Jordan B. Peterson, Canadian\nprofessor of psychology at the University of Toronto, has been called the most\nimportant public intellectual of our time (Cowen 2018; Brooks 2018). His book 12\nRules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos <\/em>(2018)\nis a bestseller in Canada, the US, and UK. After he expressed worries about the\nfuture of his academic career because of his controversial critique of Bill\nC-16 that would make the use of gender-neutral pronouns mandatory, soon the\ndonations he received through crowd funding platform Patreon exceeded his\nsalary. Peterson voices polarizing\nstandpoints, for instance on cultural\npractices such as (gay) marriage, religion or political correctness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He has 1.9 million\nsubscribers and 92.5 million views on his YouTube channel (Socialblade 2019)\nand over 300.000 Twitter followers. He has his own subreddit about him and\nanother one, Maps of Memeing<\/em>, is exclusively devoted to Peterson memes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Peterson\u2019s\npopularity often takes on extreme forms. Psychology professor Shelley\nCarson, a PhD student at Harvard when he was a professor there, recollects:\n\u201cTaking a course from him was like taking psychedelic drugs without the drugs\n…. I remember students crying on the last day of class because they wouldn\u2019t\nget to hear him anymore\u201d (cit. Bartlett 2018). His website displays testimonials\nfrom YouTube viewers saying things like \u201cIt\u2019s heartbreaking to finally see the\nlight and look back at 41 years of suffering\u201d (cit. Robinson 2018).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How did a psychology professor reach such levels of fame? I suggest this could be seen as an interesting case to the \u2018guru effect\u2019 (Sperber, 2010<\/a>). Consider the following lines from a lecture where Peterson describes what he calls the \u2018moment of error\u2019:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

The thing that announces itself as error has a two-fold nature. Because it\u2019s chaos and order at the same time. Or its all the archetypal structures at the same time. It\u2019s the dragon of chaos, it’s the great mother positive and negative, it’s the great father positive and negative, it\u2019s the individual. Hero and adversary. All of that manifests itself in the moment of error. … what do you encounter when things fall apart? You encounter the adversary, you encounter the tyrant, you encounter the catastrophe of nature, and you encounter the dragon of the chaos. (“Down the rabbit hole”, 2018)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

The fragment is characteristic of his\nrhetorical style, and the way he mixes folklore and fiction with (Jungian)\ntheory. In an ordinary speaker, such\nobscurity of expression would normally be considered a deficit. In Peterson\u2019s\ncase, his fan base will deem the passage profound despite, or rather because\nof, their failure to grasp its meaning. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

How\ndoes this work? When it comes to\nauthority figures such as public intellectuals, adapting our trust in their\nmessages can be susceptible to what in psychology and media studies is called\nconfirmation bias (Nickerson 1998). Subconsciously wanting to justify what they\nalready believe, readers or listeners may pay more attention to confirming than\ndisconfirming evidence, and so strengthening their initial belief becomes a\nself-fulfilling prophecy. The more evidence is open to a variety of interpretations,\nthe bigger the chance of confirmation bias. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This\nexplains how obscure statements like these can inspire a response of \u2018interpretive\ncharity\u2019. The greater effort required for interpretation is taken to indicate\nhigh relevance, which leads the reader to interpretations consistent with this\nindication. Such obscure statements and arguments are held as signs of depth\nand proof of the sender\u2019s genius, and can become the object of collective\ninterpretation\u2014in Peterson\u2019s case, this happens online, for instance on the subreddits\ndevoted to him. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Maps of Meaning<\/em> (1999), he asks how humans generate meaning.\nStudying myths, he says, will help us see how certain meaning-making frames are\nshared cross-culturally. This is in itself hardly surprising, almost too\nobvious. The presentation of this point, however, deliberately erects a smoke\nscreen. Marked by a high density of platitudes,\npresented in a complex and verbose manner, and larded with technical jargon\nfrom different academic disciplines, the rhetoric is challenging to any single\ncritic, as most scholars will not have an overview of all these fields. The\nepigraph reads: \u201cI will utter things which have been kept secret from the\nfoundation of the world\u201d (Matthew 13:35).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Typographically,\nPeterson makes excessive use of italics, which lends his texts a sense of\nurgency and preciseness lacking in the sentences themselves (\u201cI could not see\nhow there could be any alternative to either having <\/em>a belief system or\nto not havin<\/em>g a belief system\u2014and could see little but the disadvantage\nof both positions,\u201d 1999, 473). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

More importantly,\nhe rarely states his key terms clearly. When asked for his definition\nfor God, Peterson churns out a list of abstractions: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

\u201chow we imaginatively and collectively represent the existence and action of consciousness across time\u201d; \u201cthat which eternally dies and is reborn in the pursuit of higher being and truth\u201d; \u201cthe highest value in the hierarchy of values\u201d; \u201cvoice of conscience\u201d; \u201csource of judgment and mercy and guilt\u201d; \u201cfuture to which we make sacrifices and something akin to the transcendental repository of reputation\u201d; and \u201cthat which selects among men in the eternal hierarchy of men\u201d (cit. in Johnson 2018). <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Meaning,\u2019 possibly the most important\nconcept is his oeuvre, is defined and redefined in a similarly diffuse manner: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

\u201cMeaning is manifestation of the divine individual adaptive path\u201d (1999, 481); \u201cIt is during contact with the unknown that human power grows, individually and then historically. Meaning is the subjective experience associated with that contact, in sufficient proportion (482); \u201cMeaning is the most profound manifestation of instinct\u201d (Ibid.); \u201cMeaning emerges from the interplay between the possibilities of the world and the value structure operating within that world\u201d (2018, 1999); \u201cMeaning is the ultimate balance between \u2026 the chaos of transformation and the possibility and \u2026 the discipline of pristine order\u201d (2018, 201); \u201cMeaning is when everything there is comes together in an ecstatic dance of single purpose\u201d (Ibid.) \u201cMeaning is an expression of the instinct that guides us out into the unknown so that we can conquer it … and prevail\u201d (McKay 2017).<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

As Matt Johnson\nnotes, such definitions becomes \u201cso elastic and subjective as to be almost\nmeaningless\u201d (2018). This enables Peterson to argue that any skeptic or critic\nwill simply have misinterpreted his words (Robinson 2018). Multi-interpretability\nmakes him a slippery debater, as it allows him to later insist he intended a\ndifferent meaning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Closer to a self-help book, Twelve Rules for Life<\/em> (2018) has simple\nlife lessons like\u2014ironically\u2014\u201cBe precise in your speech\u201d (259); \u201cSet your house\nin perfect order before you criticize the world\u201d (147); or \u201cPet a cat when you\nencounter one on the street\u201d (355). Putting a spin on the guru effect, often\nthese pieces of wisdom are in fact so<\/em>\nsimple that the reader is again urged to look for deeper, allegorical meanings.\nThese simple life rules are then clad in a certain\ngrandeur and mystification:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

I hope that these rules and their accompanying essays will help people understand what they already know: that the soul of the individual eternally hungers for the heroism of genuine Being, and that the willingness to take on that responsibility is identical to the decision to live a meaningful life. (xxviii-xxix)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

The failure to correctly interpret the meaning of such utterances without unusual (collective) effort might cause a reader to be awe-struck by the depth of Peterson\u2019s thought and knowledge, heightening his authority and possibly marking his genius. The same words, uttered by a mentally ill person in the streets, would likely be ignored. Inaccessibility becomes a marker for brilliance. <\/p>\n\n\n

\n\n\n

Works cited<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDown the rabbithole you meet the archetypes\u201d. YouTube<\/em>, uploaded by TheArchangel911.\n05-09-2018.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bartlett, Tom. \u201cWhat\u2019s So Dangerous About Jordan Peterson?\u201d The Chronicle of Higher Education<\/em>, 17-01-2018. <\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Johnson, Matt. \u201cThe Peculiar Opacity of Jordan Peterson\u2019s Religious Views.\u201d IDW News, 23-07-2018.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nickerson, R. S. (1998). Confirmation bias: A ubiquitous phenomenon in many guises. Review of general psychology, 2(2), 175-220.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Peterson, Jordan B. Maps of\nMeaning: The Architecture of Belief<\/em>. New York: Routledge, 2018.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Peterson, Jordan B. 12 Rules\nfor Life: An Antidote to Chaos<\/em>. New York: Penguin Random House, 2018.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Robinson. Nathan J The Intellectual We Deserve, <\/a>Current Affairs<\/a><\/em>, 14-03-2018. <\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sperber, Dan. The Guru Effect. Review of Philosophy and Psychology<\/em>, 1(4), 2010. 583\u2013592.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I think I have discovered something that no one else has any idea about, and I\u2019m not sure I can do it justice. Its scope is so broad that I can see only parts of it clearly at one time, and it is exceedingly difficult to set down comprehensibly in writing. – Jordan Peterson (1999, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1923,"featured_media":11552,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[292],"tags":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nHow Jordan Peterson became an Intellectual Guru - International Cognition and Culture Institute<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"http:\/\/cognitionandculture.local\/blogs\/inge-van-de-ven\/how-jordan-peterson-became-an-intellectual-guru\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"How Jordan Peterson became an Intellectual Guru\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\""I think I have discovered something that no one else has any idea about, and I\u2019m not sure I can do it justice. 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