Get the Ricochet app
Ricochet will work fine in a browser on your mobile devices, but for the best experience please download our app.
“Meteoric” is thrown about somewhat excessively to describe our age’s rapid success stories. It’s a shame that’s so for two reasons: Firstly, grand words shouldn’t be so often wasted on even the pretty dang impressive; and second, the successes often burn out in pathetic fashion. A full professor at the University of Toronto cannot really be rescued from obscurity, but the ascension of Jordan Peterson shows that superstars can be made faster than ever before. (If old terms for greatness are reduced to cliche, it makes one wonder if neologisms are in order.) On top of it, he’s approaching six years of abiding influence in the digital age. I haven’t sorted the attention span inflation rate, but that’s quite a feat. I can’t say what will come of the liberal experiment, but, if it has a future, we might be discussing the most important figure of this careening chapter of its history.
But there are a handful of presuppositions implied here–beyond the aforementioned survival of Western civilization, which in any case will likely at least sputter along in such a way that noble optimists of centuries to come might be able to squint their eyes, tilt their heads and say, “Yeah! It wasn’t so bad back then.” For future optimists to be in such a position, we are assuming that history manages to survive as a science. (This is strangely taken for granted, both by a Left that insists on their placement on the “right side of history,” as much as it is by a Right, which, however consigned to supposedly-honorable defeat, appears to still believe in Nock’s remnant.) The most important assumption, which I’ll get to shortly, is that American conservatives are willing to jump in with both feet. The last is that someone more significant doesn’t come around. That’s something we could all reasonably hope for, but which I wouldn’t recommend waiting on.
So what’s the big deal with Jordan Peterson? It’s a fantastic question, and I’d suggest that the collapse of everything we hold dear relies on us merely reacting to our rivals when they take a shot at answering it. Crackpot mediocrities aplenty have oered expensive feminist, queer and racial theories with the hopes of taking out the hero of the basement dweller. Most are aimed at knocking the king by humiliating his court, homing in on their belief in the worthlessness of his followers. They insist that he appeals to young white men who are resentful of a world made fairer via the discrimination against them. They’re charged as sexually frustrated creeps — “Incel” is the put-down of preference, curiously suggesting that involuntary celibacy is an unnatural state for single young men. Accusations of latent fascism make monsters out of our tongue-tied nice guys.
A few have taken a more honest approach to explain the crowds lined up around an auditorium where he’d been set to speak. I can recall one positing that the Peterson phenomenon is the result of an abundance of young men who didn’t have someone (id est, a father) to teach them the basics of life. While incomplete–even good fathers can’t do everything for their sons–at least we’re getting somewhere.
What interests me is how few conservative writers have seriously wondered, out loud or in print, about the rise of Jordan Peterson. By that I mean, asking why this guy, whom I don’t think they don’t take that seriously, became the guru of everybody’s awkward nephew. I can state with confidence that his fandom includes the sons of good fathers, and even if I hadn’t had conversations with adoring fans who’ve either told me as much, or whose fathers I know, it would still seem worthwhile for “thought leaders” — many who are fathers of boys themselves — to inquire about the overnight sensation who’s enthralled the nation’s males. There’s a surplus of articles criticizing the countless libelous statements made against him, but scant discussion about what his rise tells us about our society.
Why they’re okay with all this is easy to understand: Jordan Peterson is a good influence, a positive development. But positive or not, there’s something troublesome about this.
The smart guys who remember Reagan, Buckley, Friedman, Kristol, Sowell, and the academics of lesser prominence aren’t wrong to scratch their heads and wonder privately about Peterson. After all, the man isn’t a political philosopher, yet it was political activity that made him famous. But activity is the operative word here, and that’s why he means the world to the frightened young men of the rickety postmodern West. His emergence began in 2016 by a video uploaded to YouTube following an excruciating series of frenetic arguments over his opposition to Canada’s Bill C-16. The bill would require professors to adhere to “gender identity and expression” stipulations under the auspices of protecting the human rights of Canada’s psycho-sexually confused students. (It should be noted that Peterson expressed a willingness to accommodate such classroom cases for the sake of respect; he maintained that his protest was exclusively against the government mandate.)
One would be disappointed if they expected to find thundering oratory in the course of these debates. An adult familiar with the great actors of the past might wonder how an intellectual icon came out of that.
Well, it didn’t exactly. But if we consider that there are guys who’d like to have a more commanding presence (because it is, and will always be, the thing that gets men ahead in this life) it’s clear how this quite-literally 15 minutes of fame were made. Fortunately, it turned out Peterson had the talent to make more time out of it, and to show he had more than what met the eye. (By the time he had his public square showdown, he had already posted many hours of course lectures to YouTube.)
After bravado made up for the fact that the viral episode doesn’t allow for especially stirring speeches or particularly memorable... anything, the man concentrated on his hard-earned new followers and got creative. His publicly posted lectures started incorporating production beyond a single camera in the back of the classroom, and he took the stories the young are familiar with, The Lion King and Pinocchio, to educate them on his real area of expertise (Jungian psychology), directing them toward grown-up considerations on the hero’s journey. More recently he’s worked his way to stories they’re less familiar with: the Old and New testaments, most notably; along with the works of Plato, Aristotle, Nietzsche and Dostoyevsky. He began Q&A sessions to semi-directly answer fan inquiries about their troubles with everything from study habits to substance abuse, pornography addiction to the ever-widening plethora of diagnosable anxieties. It’s remarkable how much you can find by typing the guy’s name into a YouTube search box. And the number of views is staggering.
But in real life, there’s the Louvre problem.
It’s hard to say how many fans he has, but for our purposes, and caution’s sake, I’ll just say there are three million of them. Peterson’s roughly 60 years old; so if we gave him 30 more years of life — I think I’m being generous — and then, to counteract my generosity, subjected him to 24 hours of day-in, day-out service, all 365, to meet in-person with his three million fans, he would have a little over five minutes for each. The man, special as he may be (special as he probably is), cannot be everywhere for his admirers. And I think it’s safe to say that subjecting Jordan Peterson to 30 years of torture wouldn’t do much more to save the world than an endless library of thought-provoking video content. Even in the postmodern West, filled at this point with little more than inanimate movable objects, a single mighty force won’t cut it.
This poses a problem, but we’ve got something to work with. The rise of Jordan Peterson tells us that the young men of our time, no matter how defeated, haven’t given up entirely. They don’t actually want to talk about their feelings. They don’t want to be what feminists say they ought to, because they at least faintly understand that young women don’t really know what they want. They don’t want to be told how special and wonderful they are — they know they aren’t. What they’d like to do is to get their acts together. They would like to pick themselves up. Without knowing it, they want what conservatives are selling. Despite all appearances, young American men yearn for greatness. And even if they won’t achieve it (most will not), they need to strive for something worthwhile. To do so they’ll need help.
There’s a craterous opportunity for those of us who’d like to see a reversal of the wretched revolutions that have sapped our hopes for the future. The only question is whether we’ll act on the bittersweet good news. The right correctly frets over fatherlessness, and it’s becoming the case that in the land of the all-too-free, you could throw a rock in a crowd of people and your best bet is that it’ll land on a bastard or a child of divorce. Our dilemma is that nobody wants to adopt them. I can’t blame conservative adults for this. For one thing, they’ve had their hands full bringing up their own children. For another, today’s youth are, generally speaking, among the most grating the world has ever seen. But I’m not sure we have any other option than to do what we can to make up for other people's parents’ failures. This isn’t so much a new circumstance as it is a forgotten one.
I’ve always liked chatting with ole-timer men. A handful of the ones I’ve known have even made something of themselves. I’ve noticed something that they all share in common that my generation commonly lacks. They all have stories about the men who took them under their wing. The self-awareness that comes with growing up, and the concomitant realization that one wasn’t as charming as they thought they were, usually makes them wonder why their role models saw something in them in the first place. That doesn’t matter though. What matters is that the adults were on the lookout.
Without those now-deceased even-older timers, I wonder if guys like my father (whose dad abandoned his family) or my mother’s father (whose dad committed suicide) would’ve stood a chance. Thankfully one was given to these guys whom an outsider might mistake for self-made. It was really something to see when, after the latter’s funeral, my family was approached by over a dozen men in their 40s and 50s to tell us that Bill–a father of nine–was like a second father to them. I can count myself as one of the many my grandfather collected — though I suppose grandfathers generally take a liking to their grandsons. But if I add myself and a friend, who’s the only other I’ve heard use the word “mentor” to describe a man who’d helped him get his career started, we’re still outnumbered by three peers who’ve told me that they wished they had the money to hire a “life coach.” (While generally well-disposed to market solutions, I’m not so keen on this innovation.)
And it’s why I think there’s something of a Peterson paradox. The prosperity that’s long been over-cited as the defense for Conservatism has begat such a preference for comfortable private lives that Americans lack the energy for even voluntary public service. This will hardly do for the party that claims Americans ought to fix our problems rather than turning to the state. The prosperity we enjoy delivered the televisions and video games which have pacified our young. As these technologies exacerbate the alienation between the generations, the adults avoid the kids and fight o the inklings of guilt by citing the newfound opportunities granted by cybernetic innovation. This faith in the intuitive abilities of the young to work with digital tools is especially strange given that most young men of generations past required instruction on how to swing a hammer.
With few resources beyond the internet for help, and a you’re-on-your-own ethos masquerading as an invitation to the All-American can-do tradition, we’re surprised to find purely transactional substitutes to relationships (therapy), digital alternatives to communal activities (the metaverse, live streamed multiplayer video games), and an obsession with self-help that appears as much a means for suicide prevention as a resource for personal growth.
We’re right to appreciate Jordan Peterson’s contribution to the cause of liberty, but if we want to avoid the meteoric catastrophe we’re worried about—whether it comes tomorrow, or more likely decades down the line—we’ll have to get the boys out of the house, and we’ll need some men to help them figure out where to go.
This post was promoted to the Main Feed at the recommendation of Ricochet's members.
Discussion (33)
CONTRIBUTOR • CHARTER MEMBER
To read this bio, please join Ricochet.
One of the youngest Ricochet members just came up with one of the wisest of Ricochet posts! Thanks, SamBlock!
To read this bio, please join Ricochet.
I think buried in your last paragraph is a call to action. For men (and women I hope) to speak up whenever the opportunity arises with a young person. a worthy call. Something as simple as telling someone to speak up, because you’re generally interested in what they have to stay. And to stand up straight (one of Jordan’s favorites).
My standard command (language warning) is: shoulders back. Tits out. Chin high. Think tall.
I’ve watched closely JP’s rise since his first Joe Rogan podcast, and seen him in person once. His ability to communicate and connect is unsurpassed.
And I tear up whenever he speaks of how just a little encouragement goes a long way. Our young are not stupid, they knew the participation trophies were BS. They need a personal and intimate message. And JP is the dude for those willing to listen.
Amazing.
To read this bio, please join Ricochet.
Not stand tall? :)
To read this bio, please join Ricochet.
What an articulate, beautifully written post, Samuel. I think you've hit on something very important. Thank you.
To read this bio, please join Ricochet.
Yeah man, right on with your description of why so many follow Peterson.
I've decided he's our generation's C.S. Lewis. But we also need a Tolkien, an N.T. Wright, and a Billy Graham.
Still trying to figure out my role.
That's the trick: finding and stepping into our roles, no matter how small, and (especially) no matter how large.
You're seeing five of 33 comments. Sign in, or join for just $5 per month, to read them all and add your own.