We Need to Talk About Jordan: Examining the JBP Phenomenon, the Why, the Where, & the How

Ever notice how the word tactic includes the word tact?

It’s not really in my nature as an Aries to be tactful. I prefer the direct approach, straight to the heart of the problem with my sword. This can create problems of its own.

To be tactful is generally a good tactic, especially when publicly challenging someone’s long-held and widely-disseminated beliefs.

This weekend, I will be starting a series of essays analyzing the Jordan B. Peterson Phenomenon. I consider this, and him, a valuable opportunity for addressing social, cultural, psychological and spiritual questions of burning significance—not just for me but, I hope, to those who read this blog.

Some of you (a very small few) will never have heard of Jordan B. Peterson.

Some of you (quite a few more) will have followed his high-speed ascent from an unknown professor at the University of Toronto to the most controversial public speaker and intellectual since . . . I hesitate to make a comparison because: a) in the age of internet media, there probably isn’t one; b) comparing the JBP phenomenon to previous phenomena might suggest an unintended comparison of individuals, which would give the wrong impression (if for example I had inserted Martin Luther King or Adolf Hitler in the above blank).

The majority of readers at this blog, however, at a guess, have heard of Jordan B. Peterson but have not spent too much time on him. Possibly this is because you have assumed that he was just one more player in an ongoing program of social engineering, as mapped over the years at this blog. And it is true that Jordan B. Peterson is certainly possessed of many attributes characteristic of the agents of social engineering, and is even openly advocating it in his own idiosyncratic way. Add to this the fact of his huge popularity and social influence, and your reasonable assumption may be that, anything with this many flies buzzing around it, has to be stinky.

Maybe so, maybe not. I would say that, at this particular juncture in world history, it behooves us as psycho-cultural analysts and sociopolitical investigators not to jump Gabriel’s trumpet, to keep our minds open, and to proceed with diligence, respect, and caution through the minefield of mid-apocalypse signs and wonders. If we are going to perform an autopsy, let’s at the very first establish that the patient is really dead!

The Jordan B. Peterson phenomenon has many of the same, or similar, characteristics to other cultural leaders or ceremony masters (I will leave out the “false” for now) I have examined, over the past ten years or more, subjects like Whitley Strieber, Carlos Castaneda, John de Ruiter, Stanley Kubrick, and Aleister Crowley. But this time, the subject is front and center on the world stage, in the first full flowerings of a cultural Ministry as it takes root in the collective consciousness. This makes the opportunity that much more compelling, and also correspondingly more far-reaching in potential. (It also makes it a lot easier for me to find artwork for blog posts and not have to make my own. So many thanks in advance, to the artists whose work I will be featuring here, without necessarily giving credit.)

Love him, loathe him, or consider him not worth thinking about at all, Jordan B. Peterson is now a multinational phenomenon with hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of eyes on him. Many of these eyes and minds are deeply invested in him and his “Maps of Meaning,” but all of them, to one degree or another, are at least curious about the questions he is raising. These are questions which intersect, or collide, with questions I have been exploring at this blog and elsewhere for lo, the past twenty years or so. For example:

I have already indicated elsewhere some of the potential problems I see regarding Peterson’s “Ministry”; as this series progresses, I will return to these questions and delve deeper into them. First of all, however, I want to focus on the more positive aspects, in order to lay the groundwork for the critical examination to come (or at least create a shoe-horn into more resistant psyches). As such, I ask more regular readers, the more “paranoid” or parapolitically savvy among you, to bear with me. While I will continue making short videos over at my YouTube channel, I won’t necessarily post them here or even list them on YouTube, for the sake of being both tactful and tactical. If you want to keep track of these videos, go to my channel and subscribe. This will also help me to gauge how interested you are in this project.

This leads me to my past point. This project, like everything I do here, is a kind of experiment by which I can test some of my assumptions about the world I live in. One of those assumptions is that, in order to reach large numbers of people, a person must either be in some way complicit with or useful to the controlling agencies within and behind society. Jordan B. Peterson’s rise apparently came about organically and spontaneously, due to a confluence of elements and primarily through the support of a “grass-roots” community of YouTube users. This suggests it happened without the implementation or support of the mainstream media, even if the MSM has since “got with the program,” and ensured the JBP phenomenon continue to build. If this were really the case, it would mean that something other than a covert social engineering program brought about Jordan B. Peterson’s current prominence—something akin to “the will of the people.” Without being naïve about whether this is really possible, or even desirable (or in fact any different from a social engineering program, if the will of the people has already been engineered into them), it does suggest subtleties and nuances at play that a more “broad stroke” view of social engineering doesn’t allow for. It also has tantalizing (and possibly ominous) implications for independent or “liminal” researchers such as myself, struggling to be heard on the margins of the debate.

With this in mind, I would like to recruit a few of my more proactive readers and listeners to participate in an experiment in “viral management,” to help amplify the signal of my investigation and reach new readers who would otherwise be unaware of it and yet who are potentially the readers who might benefit most from it. This naturally includes—I am sure it won’t surprise anyone to hear—Jordan B. Peterson, the frog-man himself.

This won’t require a great deal of work, just a genuine interest and desire to help, and to those who require reward, it will be rewarded not just in the hereafter but in the here and now. If you are interested, Kek God bless you, and email me at my first name (spelled right!) [-at-] protonmail [-dot-] com or same at auticulture [dot] com.

23 thoughts on “We Need to Talk About Jordan: Examining the JBP Phenomenon, the Why, the Where, & the How”

  1. I awoke during the night. Wind was rushing down the valley echoing the final words of my abruptly ended dream, “I’ll be back.” Not, like, vengeful sounding and all, but playful – childish even.
    I awoke during the night and with the wind bearing down on my lonely mountain cottage I opened Microsoft Paint and put faces to the voice on the wind : https://imgur.com/a/adkQlvX
    I will never sleep again..

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  2. You know, I may have missed whatever it was you may have previously said about the Kek phenomena (if you ever did) but that little jab at the end reminds me that I don’t really have a grasp of what you think about that strange happening, passed the obvious fact that the heinously prolific spread of memes is a real and frog filled phenomenon.
    On a more Jordan B. Peterson note, I look forward to the series. I am one of those that had barely heard of him (I like the opinion of Mr. Dalrymple- that the work of psychologists is essentially inferior to what one can discover for themselves by indulging in well written literature), and so a cursory glance at his resume leads me to think he is too sensational and “helpful”. I will set aside some time to watch a video or two of him later.
    But the on-going theme of your recent posts (or all of them, ever)- which seem to harbour an eternal examination of whatever facts and evidence exist that could help ascertain the true nature of cryptic social phenomena -leads me to ask a question. People assume that since the origin of mankind there has been an inclination to explore “hidden realms” and taint the physical world with what is brought back from them (an idea which I think is simple to say, but far too complex in activity to be at all accurate), and many people just work off of this assumption and conclude that there are patently evil things which have ruined and mutated an otherwise human society. Dalrymple and a few others try to explain how that perception is an illusion and that it is the amalgamation of many inherently ambivalent actions that have formed what is obviously a broken and nefarious system (which I agree with). But I also share a sense of something existing that is shadowy and unexplained. I suppose because I have never met anyone so far gone as to partake in the occult to a Satanic sex rattled degree (and so never had the misfortune of being able to analyse such a person and discover how much of what they think they are doing is actually effecting their lives passed their internal gratification), I’m in a standard position of not really knowing much of anything or having much other than other people’s theories to work with.
    So my question, I suppose, is, if you took away the “hidden” aspect, the idea that there is groups of people with any more knowledge than the rest of us (but who do have more resources and more luxury with which to secure their own interests- people who are, in other words -good at trickery), do you think that could properly explain the state of the world throughout the centuries? No doubt ritualistic abuse is utilised by some among the crowd, no doubt there are individuals with a Frankensteinian drive to dissect one another for whatever end they think that will accomplish, and surly after WWII and beyond into Hollywood such things became very present in the minds of the people and also behind the walls of the government agencies. And you can’t fault anyone for considering UFO’s and mysterious technology or even ancient races which are somehow at odds with the humanity we know, in light of certain evidences. But surly we are at a place in history just before a massive cultural shattering (which has happened continuously throughout time) and so we are blind to how inconspicuous the times really are when held up to the rest of history. It all feels very overwhelming now and I believe our questions and research is vital for our own sakes and for our friends, but suppose there really isn’t all that much to it at all?
    (This is longer than I wanted and I can’t tell if it’s rambling just yet, but I do appreciate any response and thoughts you may have!)

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  3. This guy’s rise reminds me of when people insisted that Sam Hyde was the future of comedy (probably why they share similar fanbase). Summoning some basic Machismo to fill in for an inability, or refusal, to connect with others

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  4. Or he could really be meeting a deep need, especially among young men, to find order in the cultural chaos being thrust upon us! Maybe we really, I mean REALLY don’t want government, media, academia, law enforcement or even our own moms telling us how to think, what to say and when to feel guilty.

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    • There’s no doubt JBP is meeting a deep need; I don’t think there’s much doubt he’s had very positive results, so far, either. The key bit being “so far.”
      Are there historical precedents for cultural leaders whom we now view as pernicious yet who started out having positive effects?

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      • There’s no reason to believe he doesn’t practice what he preaches: aiming for the highest possible good. I’m also sure he’d be the first to acknowledge the nearly irresistible temptation wealth and power have on a man. Hopefully he can stand where lessor men have fallen.

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        • Whether or not there’s a reason to believe he doesn’t practice what he preaches (which would require close scrutiny of his practices ~ I would say there’s no reason to believe he DOES, either), what I will focus on in this series is whether what JBP is preaching is practicable and if so, whether it’s a good idea to practice it or not. Roughly.
          Needless to say, there can be no harm in tidying up one’s room; but that is, as I think JBP himself would acknowledge, the very thinnest end of the JBP project.

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  5. From author George MacDonald: “There is this difference between the growth of some human beings and that of others: in the one case it is a continuous dying, in the other a continuous resurrection. One of the latter sort comes at length to know at once whether a thing is true the moment it come before him; one of the former class grows more and more afraid of being taken in, so afraid of it hat he takes himself in altogether, and comes at length to believe in nothing but his dinner: to be sure of a thing with him is to have it between his teeth.” (from The Princess and Curdie). I’m afraid that as faith gives ground to fear we lose the capacity to know if a man is a true man…that says more about us than it does about good men.

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  6. All my family enjoy listening to Jordan P or “Mr Cool” as I refer to him……I am a middle aged female so don’t fit the box of young males but why he appeals is because firstly he is SENSIBLE and EDUCATED and INTELLIGENT in a sea of ranting or opinionated you tubers and political correctness etc etc. Being quite Saturnian in nature, when he appeared it was a breath of fresh air, “thank God for that, somebody is actually having the guts to talk common sense and is not afraid to speak it”………I haven’t read his book so can’t comment on that.

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  7. Here is the classic viral interview with ch 4 News journalist (uk) Cathy Newman in January and an interesting review, …..For those who don’t know, this interview created a huge backlash with Cathy Newman receiving hate mail and threats. JP had to put out an announcement that she was doing her job and that people should stop…… here, during the review interview, he says that Cathy, during the ch4 broadcast was an example of a woman “Animus Possesed”
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aMcjxSThD54
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vXkLaZLSzgM

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  8. “his high-speed ascent from an unknown professor at the University of Toronto to the most controversial public speaker and intellectual since . . . ” . . . since Marshall McLuhan! Both born in Edmonton… … but there were two famous Lit Professors at U of T back then: McLuhan and Northrop Frye. They formed a cordial but antagonistic dyad, people tending to strongly prefer one or the other… and Peterson is a total Frye guy.

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    • ah yes, of course; MM was quite the shooting star; I had heard of him for decades before I even knew what the hell he was. (cf. Annie Hall; and 7 years later, Videodrome.)
      I have to say Jordan seems to lack a certain je ne sais quoi that I associate with McLuhan. Sheer originality perhaps?
      For all his non-conformist positioning, does JBP think mostly inside the box?

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      • The Edmonton–>UofT–>polarized-global-fame progression is just about the only similarity… McLuhan was personally conservative, but that didn’t really inform his opposition in the 60s (except in France, where a determination to ignore the ‘reactionary’ Catholic McLuhan became an influence on French pomo & ‘poststructuralism’) … JBP’s communicative values are very very traditional, McLuhan’s were radical. JBP is super earnest etc., McLuhan was counting coup in the fields of the lord. I’m not sure what’s original about Peterson… other than his discovery that there’s still a vast market for highbrow earnestness, even (or especially) among the deplorables…

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  9. Hmm yeah good question, it made sense when I thought of it… I suppose I was thinking of McLuhan saying “I am not an optimist or pessimist. I am an apocalyptic only.” … if JBP is convinced it will end badly, McLuhan thought all ‘badly’ was relative ever since it all technically ended well 2000 years ago … things might go very badly indeed for the traditional ‘visual’ values of literacy and individualism, but MM didn’t identify those values as the core of goodness or humanism (as the Frye guys tend to), he considered them relative to the Protestant printing press … Anyway, I don’t know, but I agree that JBP is an interpreter-syncretizer rather than a visionary … He seems to emphasize that his ideas are not at all arcane or ‘difficult’ to understand, that one only needs an honest willingness-to-engage, he seems to aim for ‘common sense’…

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  10. For all his non-conformist positioning, does JBP think mostly inside the box?
    Yes, Yes and Yes, Jason~ You have summed him up perfectly and succinctly, if I may say. I’ve read Maps of Meaning; it’s tough going in places, but a wonderful introduction to the likes of Plato, Jung, Freud and a plethora of other historically outstanding thinkers.
    However, JP most definitely thinks INSIDE the establishment box, despite all his edgy commentaries and opinions on SOME controversial subjects. For example, he’s VERY ordinary in his thinking concerning: The demonisation of Islam; Darwinism (we are all just aggressive chimps who can talk); Democracy by the sword because we live in the most wonderful, free countries imaginable and other angry (usually brown) chimps want what we have and want to destroy us in order to take it—listen to him sucking up to brain-washed cretins like Jocko Willink, or Joe Rogan if you can stomach it (the ISIS debacle, gassing innocents, killing queers, etc., as justification for—yawn—military intervention); I could go on and on…
    I think Jordan is very, very clever COINTELPRO designed to vacuum up and give some focus to the millions upon millions of cultureless, rootless, Godless, aimless, consuming wretches wandering in and out of their paper-thin lives…kind of like Netflix, except JP’s aimed at the ones who can still function cognitively.
    God is dead…..so we need new ones in order to replace Him.
    I’d be very, very wary of JP—he thinks we are all just angry monkeys waiting for a chance to kill each other; thus, obviously, and for all his pontification, he’s absolutely clueless when it comes to the miracle of the human spirit. The real difference between us and a f**king monkey!
    In fact, IMHO he thinks very much like the Jew. They are clearly his sponsors, and can destroy him on a whim….hence his toeing of the mainstream line. And, moreover, he’s not the kind of guy one would want probing about in one’s skull, anyhoos.
    Caveat Emptor, I say.

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