Jordan Peterson

Jordan Peterson

Credentials

  • Ph.D. Clinical Psychology, McGill University (1991). [1]
  • B.A., Psychology, University of Alberta (1984). [1]
  • B.A., Political Science, University of Alberta  (1982). [2]

Background

Jordan B Peterson is a clinical psychologist and professor at the University of Toronto. According to his profile, Peterson regularly talks about “personal responsibility, truth and meaning in life” regularly at live events. [3]

Peterson produces online programs including “UnderstandMyself” and the “Self Authoring Suite” which “helped over 200,000 people resolve the problems of their past, rectify their personality faults and enhance their virtues.” [3]

Peterson published his first book, Mas of Meaning, in 1999 while still a psychology professor at U of T. In 2013, Peterson began broadcasting lectures on YouTube. The Financial Times described him as “the anti-#MeToo, the anti-1968, the defender of old-school masculinity.” [4]

Stance on Climate Change

“Predictably, Peterson doubts climate change is man-made. His book is scathing about environmentalists, whom he accuses of wanting fewer humans on the planet,” Henry Mance wrote of Peterson in an article at Financial Times. [4]

Key Quotes

January 2018

In his 2018 book, “12 Rules for Life,” Peterson described environmentalists as “anti-human.” Under “Rule 2,” titled “A Spark of the Divine,” Peterson wrote: [5]

“The moral of Genesis I is that Being brought into existence through true speech is Good. This is true even of man himself, prior to his separation from God. This goodness is terribly disrupted by the events of the fall (and of Cain and Abel and the Flood and the Tower of Babel), but we retain an intimation of the prelapsarian state. We remember, so to speak. We remain eternally nostalgic for the innocense of childhood, the divine, unconscious Being of the animal, and the untouched cathedral-like old-growth forest. We find respite in souch things. We worship them, even if we are self-proclaimed atheistic environmentalists of the most anti-human sort.” (Emphasis added).

2016

In a video that some argue made Jordan Peterson famous, he debated a group of transgender students about the use of pronouns. [6]

“I don’t believe using your pronouns will do you any good in the long run,” he said. “I believe it’s quite the contrary.” 

November 4, 2016

The following is from an interview with The Daily Wire: [7]

Aaron Bandler/The Daily Wire: “In writing about this [Bill C-16] you have talked about your opposition to using gender-neutral pronouns. What is your reasoning behind that?”

Jordan Peterson: “Well, I don't like the language itself, especially the made-up ones, the manufactured word ze or zir and that sort of thing. I don't regard them as legitimate words; I regard those as the ideological construct of radicals who hold a view of the world I find disturbing and dangerous as well as impractical and narrow-minded. So, I'm not using their words because that would make me a mouthpiece of their particular worldview and ideology, and I'm not going to do that.”

Key Deeds

May 25, 2018

A former colleague and supporter of Jordan Peterson wrote an article in The Star describing him as “dangerous.” [8]

“I was once his strongest supporter,” Bernard Schiff wrote at The Star. “That all changed with his rise to celebrity. I am alarmed by his now-questionable relationship to truth, intellectual integrity and common decency, which I had not seen before. His output is voluminous and filled with oversimplifications which obscure or misrepresent complex matters in the service of a message which is difficult to pin down. He can be very persuasive, and toys with facts and with people’s emotions. I believe he is a man with a mission. It is less clear what that mission is.” [8]

March 23, 2018

Peterson appeared on Dose of Truth where he described why he would've voted for Donald Trump if he were an American. [9]

September 27, 2016

Peterson released the first part of a three-part lecture series titled “Professor against political correctness” where he argued against Canada's Bill C-16 which proposed to add “gender identity or expression” as prohibited grounds for discrimination under the Canadian Human Rights Act. [10]

“There’s a difference between saying something you can’t say and saying that there are things that you have to say,” Peterson told one audience.”“I regard these made-up pronouns, all of them as neologisms of a radical PC authoritarianism. I’m not going to be a mouthpiece for language I detest.” [11]

View the first video and full series below: [12]

Affiliations

  • University of Toronto — Undergraduate Faculty in the Department of Psychology (Area of research “Social/Personality/Abnormal”). [13]
  • ExamCorp — Vice President. [1]
  • TVOntario — Essayist (Mar 2011 – Jul 2012) [1]
  • Funded Founder Institute — Assessment Process Designer (2009 – 2012) [1]
  • Praxis Partners — Consultant (2005 – 2009) [1]
  • Harvard University — Associate Professor (1993 – 1998) [1]

Social Media

Publications

Peterson is the author of 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos (Jan 2018, Penguin Books) and  Maps of Meaning: The Architecture of Belief (March 1999, Routledge).

Resources

  1. “Jordan Peterson,” LinkedIn. Accessed July 20, 2018. Archived .pdf on file at DeSmog.

  2. “Gateway Archive: Articles by writer 'Jordan Peterson',” The Gateway, February 11, 2018. Archived July 20, 2018. Archive.is URL: https://archive.fo/vgHl4

  3. “About Jordan Peterson,” JordanPeterson.com. Archived July 20, 2018. Archive.is URL: https://archive.fo/mzuNP

  4. Henry Mance. “Jordan Peterson: ‘One thing I’m not is naive’,” Financial Times, June 1, 2018. Archive.is URL: http://archive.is/R5rax

  5. Jordan B. Peterson. 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos. Random House (January 2010. Page 56.

  6. “Dr. Jordan Peterson gives up trying to reason with SJWs,” YouTube video uploaded by user “1791L” October 20, 2016. Archived .mp4 on file at DeSmog.

  7. Aaron Bandler. “EXCLUSIVE: Q&A with Prof. Jordan Peterson on Genderless Pronouns and the Left's 'PC Game',” The Daily Wire. November 4, 2016. Archived July 20, 2018. Archive.is URL: https://archive.fo/nBsIO

  8. Bernard Schiff. “I was Jordan Peterson’s strongest supporter. Now I think he’s dangerous,” The Star, May 25, 2018. Archived July 20, 2018. Archive.is URL: https://archive.fo/iiqdy

  9. “Jordan Peterson 'I'd Vote Donald Trump and Here's Why',” YouTube video uploaded by user “Dose of Truth,” March 23, 2018. Archived .mp4 on file at DeSmog.

  10. Patty Winsa. “He says freedom, they say hate. The pronoun fight is back,” The Star, January 15, 2017. Archived July 20, 2018. Archive.is URL: https://archive.fo/dvk9k

  11. Rosie Dimanno. “New words trigger an abstract clash on campus: DiManno,” The Star, November 19, 2016. Archived July 20, 2018. Archive.is URL: https://archive.fo/lfa6a

  12. “2016/09/27: Part 1: Fear and the Law,” Youtube video uploaded by user “Jordan B Peterson,” September 27, 2016. Archived .mp4 on file at DeSmog.

  13. “Undergraduate Faculty,” University of Toronto. Archived July 20, 2018. Archive.is URL: https://archive.fo/3s53T

Other Resources

Profile image by Gage Skidmore [CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], from Wikimedia Commons.

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Jordan Peterson