Is Jordan Peterson a Jerk?

Why it’s healthy to push past first impressions

Photo by Ståle Grut on Unsplash

Disclaimer: The words that follow are solely the opinion of the author and are inevitably wrong. The best stuff is in the hyperlinks. Please enjoy.

When I first encountered Jordan Peterson, I didn’t like him. First impressions were formed through watching interviews on the news site Vice. They didn’t want me to like him. Nothing against Vice — I still watch their videos and read their articles. I expose myself to content from all over the place. But they did not want me to like Jordan Peterson. They more or less wanted me to think he was a stuck up jerk who hates women and wants to make the lives of transgendered people worse. Initially, they succeeded in making me think along those lines.

Thing is, I’m endlessly curious. I’ve since watched a lot of video interviews with Peterson. I’ve read both 12 Rules for Life and Maps of Meaning. Maps of Meaning is the one that really shook me.*

I write marginalia in all the books I read. It’s something I’ve done at least since high school when I would obsessively highlight and scrawl all over my Newsweek magazines.¹ I’m an introvert who talks to the books he’s reading the way Tom Hanks talks to volleyballs on deserted islands. I’ve never written so much marginalia in my life. Practically every other page of my copy of Maps of Meaning is filled with my babbling commentary.

It was thrilling to read.

Do you understand that?

Thrilling?

To read?

“Shut up man; that’s stupid.”

I’m serious. I’m a nerd who reads a lot, but even I have to admit that I don’t often find reading thrilling. This is nonfiction we’re talking about; not The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo or a Jack Ryan novel. This was intellectually thrilling. I’m not saying Peterson is a flawless academic. I’m not saying he is perfectly enlightened.² He, without question, has his blind spots and biases, as we all do.

My initial reaction was, “Well of course the old white guy doesn’t want to talk about identity politics. He’s reaping all the benefits of a system biased in…