Encounter with a Jordan Peterson Follower
A few weeks ago, through no desire of my own, I got into such an argument with a Peterson follower on Facebook. The person—a young Peterson advocate—was introduced to some of my essays by a mutual friend, who had added his own commentary about how (he believed) Peterson was inadvertently creating a cult, and how those who are in a cult do not ever realize it.
The Peterson follower’s method of “discourse” had various central elements to it: it involved praising Peterson in hyperbolic terms and with generalities, making comments about his courage, his truth-telling, how he was making the world a better place, and so forth (specifically, he was “a voice of individualism balancing out the collectivist circus”).
This was combined with an inference that any attempt to criticize him was evidence of inferiority, mean-spiritedness, and/or envy, comments such as: “He is a rare example of a man who has actually changed the world for the better and you criticize him because of his influence.”
Who the Fuck Cares About a Cult of Personality?
This person’s viewpoint suggested that, since Peterson is a heroic figure, any attempt to criticize him, even if driven by a desire to better understand what he is doing, can only be meant to sabotage something good. Hence it must be driven by neurotic patterns, projection, desire for attention, and so forth. By criticizing Peterson, I was an enemy to be undermined, irrespective of the precise nature of my criticism (which at this stage the person had not taken the time to read).
When I pointed out that he wasn’t actually presenting any arguments, much less counter-points to my own, he replied that Peterson “makes his own arguments. I don’t see what there is in what he has said to criticize.” Peterson’s follower was defending Peterson by arguing (quite aggressively) that there was no need to defend Peterson because: a) Peterson made his own arguments and b) Peterson’s arguments were beyond criticism. What was that about cults?
When I suggested that this person hadn’t read my articles, he responded: “I think you’re concerned about it being a cult of personality, specifically. If that’s what comes of speaking the truth, who the fuck cares?”
So much for the truth shall set ye free.
Spray & Pray
Here, at least, the Peterson follower was being honest about his feelings, indicating that a cult of personality is not a cult when its leader is speaking the truth. This of course is what every cult member believes, which is why they do not see their group as a cult.
Rather than making a serious attempt to understand or engage with the material, the Peterson follower launched a “spray and pray” volley of posts, designed not to discover more about my position but to drown it out with denials, dismissals, derogatory remarks, and denunciations. This is exactly how cult members are trained to react to critics, via a compulsive, frenetic reframing of everything anomalous or threatening, and by creating straw-men to sacrifice on their altar of worship.
One of the strawmen arguments the Peterson follower set fire to was that, if a cult is defined as any large-scale following of ideas, then everything was a cult. This missed the subtler point that a cult is not defined by how many people agree with the beliefs, but by the ways in which its members adopt another person’s beliefs and take them to heart, become possessed by them, and fight to protect them.
Cult members seek to reinforce their sense of individuality via group identification. They join the collectivist circus by pretending to beat it, and invariably wind up in a corner desperately defending their double-think.
For Love of Peterson
Of course, the Peterson follower saw me the same way, and even if I am right about his behavior, his unpleasantness or poor discursive method can’t be laid at Peterson’s feet. I am sure the follower was this way before he ever encountered Peterson. But even if he was temperamentally reactive, he was also reacting to something, namely, my attempt to question Peterson’s social influence and look at the ways in which it might be less than beneficial, or cultish.
It was his love of Peterson that caused him to take a defensive and offensive position, and I think Peterson can and should be held accountable, to some small degree, for that. If Peterson is to be credited with inspiring people into ways of thought and action, as this particular follower demanded, it’s reasonable to examine the behaviors being inspired.
Did this Peterson follower believe he was being more masculine by acting assertive and impatient? He was not an unintelligent person, and many of his points showed social education. But his focus was entirely on championing and defending Peterson, i.e., standing up (shoulders back and spine straight) for his paternal model of masculinity and maintaining the sacred order of restored masculinity that Peterson’s mythos provided him with.
Like his mentor, he was battling the dragons of chaos.
Is Anyone Who Critiques Peterson Envious of His Success?
Maybe this person was right and it is not possible to criticize Peterson without being motivated by some degree of personal animosity, envy, rivalry, or resentment. But if so, what of Peterson’s motivations in taking on political correctness, cultural Marxism, social justice warriors and the radical Left? Is he to be presumed pure and uncompromised purely by dint of his cultural efficacy?
This particular Peterson follower made a comment about how my critiques of Peterson probably got more hits than anything I had written previously at my blog. This is sadly untrue, but it’s a revealing kind of “criticism” unto itself. I doubt if anyone is likely to criticize Peterson for his attack on, say, Jacques Derrida, by accusing him of sour grapes, envy, or opportunism. Ironically, he is now in a high enough position that his motives no longer need to be questioned.
From narrative challenger, he has become a narrative definer.
The Ratio of Popularity to Integrity
I have been criticized for suggesting that Peterson’s mass popularity is a cause for suspicion or a reason to question his influence. (I have even been accused of envy for taking such a position.) On the surface, this seems reasonable enough (and I have freely admitted to feeling envy, though I try to prevent it from informing my arguments). Why would we assume that anything that attains popularity is compromised? Isn’t this akin to elitism—to assuming that most people lack discernment and only gather around corpses to feed?
Let’s turn it around for a moment and look at it from the opposite angle, namely, that Peterson’s popularity is evidence of competence and virtue and of the inherent value of his enterprise. On the face of it, this seems a much more reliable assumption, even self-evidential. If hundreds of thousands of people believe they are benefiting from Peterson’s work, who are we to argue?
The answer depends on how much we take people’s beliefs and feelings as equivalent to reality. People enjoy things that are bad for them all the time; they are even known to persuade themselves that their pleasures are benign. What’s more, there are perhaps as many people who have a negative reaction to Peterson, and who regard him as a monstrous opportunist, as deluded, hateful, malevolent, and so on.
Based on this, at the very least we need to reserve judgment when it comes to using people’s subjective feelings as a gauge for Peterson’s benevolence or legitimacy. This means his popularity is really neither here nor there insofar as having an observable impact on the quality of his message itself, and at least until we can show either, a) that Peterson’s popularity is altering or compromising his message; or b) that his message is having observable effects on people, for good or ill.
Audience Cults & Group Identity
Figures who are able to project an image of virtue large, dramatic, vague, general, and protean enough to receive and absorb the projections of a multitude assume a central position on the world stage. That’s just how it works, and it was ever thus.
Such people certainly serve a function. Perhaps primarily they act as mirrors for our own aspirations, fears, untapped potentials, and delusions. They become almost mythical characters and they act on us in the same way that creations of fiction act on us, with one key difference: we do not mistake fictional characters for living human beings, much less people we have a relationship with.
The value of human interaction is dependent on mutual respect, compassion, and understanding. It entails an opportunity for all parties to be seen, appreciated, and engaged with, on an individual level, through a process of intimate dialogue and sharing, and it is such one-to-one contact that nourishes the human soul. Based on these definitions, celebrity worship, however benign it appears, is the very inverse of valuable human interaction.
Sure, Peterson followers can buy tickets to Peterson’s shows, and if they are solvent or dedicated enough, they can buy VIP tickets and get to shake the great man’s hand after the show, in a thirty-second window of opportunity to ask their burning question and express their gratitude. But isn’t there something inherently demeaning, disempowering, even dehumanizing, about this set-up, for both parties? If so, it goes almost entirely unquestioned.
What’s worse: if I do question this social arrangement of celebrity-as-virtue, it can only be because I am envious and resentful, and competitively trying to tear the great man down and steal a piece of his pie for myself. The proof, of course, is that I don’t have a mass following, and am demonstrably inferior. So what other motive could I have besides a desire to boost my own following by criticizing Peterson’s?