Psychology Today carried an 8/26/2019 article written by Ilana Simons, Ph.D.. The article was: Jordan Peterson: His Attractive Power: Why the famous psychologist thrills and scares me.
She describes Jordan as a psychologist with a cult-like following, now a famous celebrity due to his public opposing of Canadian Bill C-16, a law that protected diverse Canadians. Jordan spoke out as refusing to be compelled to refer to transgenders by their preferred pronouns in his personal speech as a free speech issue, even if he would be jailed for violating C-16.
Simons writes: "His position sparked both outrage and support, and his articulate fight for individualism has skyrocketed his image since."
He is a YouTube video sensation with over 2 million viewers.
Simons writes: "His rallyig cry, 'Clean up your room,' is a psychologically minded call to self-reliance. In his podcasts and videos . . ., he emphasizes personal responsibility, discipline and confidence in personal growth."
Jordan is for us becoming strong, self-sustaining individuals that lead and make something of our lives. We know hurt, loss, doubt and uncertainty but that is not enough. I have a similar if more specific and more powerful message to young people in my Mavellonialist invitation for them to self-realize, but he anticipates what I am offering.
Let me quote Simons further: "He does this, many would argue, at the expense of a more nuanced understanding of our grossly uneven playing field. He focuses on what an individual must do to improve himself, ardently rejecting the victim stance, but paying minimal respect to the forces of our society--like low minimum wage, the massive power of the rich over the poor, racism, and the housing crises--that make the American Dream an impractical and even sadistic tease for many."
Simons is a Marxist claiming that unless Jordan adopts her lament for the poor victims of social injustice (people like GLBTQs, people of color, women, the disabled, foreigners, the poor), his understanding is shallow--not nuanced, subtle and penetrating like that of a social justice warrior like her. He either denies the gross, unfair, even playing field in capitalist America or he even endorses it, justifying that class society is hard-wired into us for 350 million years so hierarchies are inevitable, and there will always be a king lobster, and his 100th wife way down the pecking order. All she can do is improve herself as an individual and not try to change the status quo, genetic destiny that stratified living entails. He sniffs at victim status, and she champions all the dispossessed and have nots, advocating the need for a Marxist dictatorship to right the ship in America.
Jordan like me does not think America is unjust, unfair, prejudiced or in need of more than mild, gentle, voluntary reforming without government mandate. We both reject all of this Leftist tyranncial push to transform America forever.
Where Jordan and I differ is that while I do not deny that our genetic predisposition is to live in social hierarchies with uneven amounts of status, wealth and power distributed unevenly among the population in the various classes, I do not accept such genetic proclivity as future inevitability. I see humans as born depraved, as psychological altruists that hate themselves. Despite being encumbered by this powerful orientation to the outer world, especially when bumping into other people in our communities, and in the thousands of communities that make up society, we can train our self-individuating, our normative psychological side to live as living angels, as individuating anarchists, supercitizens on a free market constitutional republic that will go a long ways towards alleviating the inequities inherent to class living that so frustrate and anger Leftists like Simons, without their using violent force to smash Western society to pieces as they force us at the barrel of a gun to live under Leninist authoritarian regime, whether we like it or not.
She admires him in many ways and describes these attributes at length in her article. Her 15 minute video on him is charming, sharp and captures him as a person, a cultural leader and lecturer.
She worries about his following of young white males and fears that they will turn fascist. Actually, young men are without role models now, and they need Jordan to guide them to clean their rooms, grow up, work, be good fathers and family men, strong, confident, competent and caring. That is his message and Hoffer, Bly and I have been harping on this for decades.
Read her article. It is an insightful introduction to Peterson.
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