Jordan Peterson has a message for a lost generation
It was astounding to see an audience so completed rivetted to and engaged in what was a nearly two-hour lecture
Upon first learning that Jordan Peterson was coming to the Centre in the Square to promote “12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos,” I did what any follower of the controversial University of Toronto psychology professor would do. I immediately purchased tickets.
But I also wondered, with some trepidation, which Jordan Peterson would show up. The misogynistic, transphobic, pseudo-intellectual and alt-right champion, as some left leaning critics and journalists have painted him? Or would it be the most important influential Canadian thinker since Marshall McLuhan to grace centre stage?
In 2016, the Canadian parliament passed into law Bill C-16 It added gender expression and gender identity as protected grounds to the Canadian Human Rights Act.
Peterson vehemently opposes Bill C-16, based on its freedom of speech and compelled speech implications. He has argued convincingly in several YouTube videos and media interviews, for instance, that no one should be compelled, by law, to address someone else by an arbitrary gender-neutral pronoun such as zie, zim or zir.
Since then, the charismatic 56-year-old clinical psychologist and father of two, has calmly faced and stared down a tsunami of vitriol from a host of detractors; in-yourface protesters, fellow academics, journalists, feminists, lawyers, politicians and a barrage of attacks launched by an indignant army of social media warriors.
As if this were not drama enough, his visit to Waterloo Region also included the interesting fact that Peterson is currently suing Wilfrid Laurier University for defamation. The lawsuit followed on the heels of a November 2017 incident involving WLU teaching assistant Lindsay Shepherd, who showed a video of Peterson’s critique of Bill C-16 in her Canadian Communication in Context class.
Shephard was reprimanded by faculty members claiming she had created “a toxic climate” for students by showing excerpts of Peterson’s argument. They also compared it to “neutrally playing a speech by Hitler,” and indicated she had violated Bill C-16. “How many of you are from Wilfrid Laurier University?” asked Peterson in his first question to the capacity audience. Several dozen or so students cheered and raised their hands, to which he remarked, “You are very brave to be here.”
Yet despite the obvious police presence, security and pre-event media hype — the half dozen or so silent protesters outside the venue and expectant audience inside, were all well-behaved and as quiet and respectful as monks in a cloister.
What is truly astounding is that such a large and diverse audience, many of whom appeared to be in their 20s and 30s, could be so completed rivetted to and engaged in what was a nearly two-hour, intermission-free lecture. And despite his stated noble goal to discuss all 12 of his rules for life by evening’s end, Peterson only covered about half of them.
The “Jordan Peterson effect” is gaining incredible momentum by quickly replicating itself in speaking engagements across the global village. The prolific professor would be the first to admit that, though he is both awed and humbled by his meteoric rise, he is not that surprised.
In fact, he argues that his growing fame speaks to a deep-seated hunger, more evident in young men than women, for meaning and direction in an overtly politically correct world. That an entire generation weaned on video games, ubiquitous 24-7 internet access and endless entertainment options, eagerly chose to spend an evening listening to a university professor, is testament to Peterson’s powerful message, magnetic appeal and their insatiable appetite for meaning.
Though it contains many simple ancient truths, provocative anecdotes and heaps of common sense, make no mistake, “12 Rules for Life” is quickly becoming a blueprint for a lost generation of mostly 20something males.
More McLuhan than Machiavelli, Peterson charms, inspires, and slows the frenetic pace of life down for his devotees, male and female, if only for a few brief hours. For like the luminous Canadian communications guru before him — he intuitively seems to have internalized the dictum, that, at the speed of light, everybody tends to become a nobody.