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Why People Hate Jordan Peterson So Much

(Elliot Ferguson/Postmedia Network)

“Peterson continued, ‘So the Soviets really implemented and perfected the idea of class and ethnicity based guilt, and it’s a very bad road to walk down, and it’s something that we’re very much engaged in at the moment.'”  

To understand why people hate Dr. Jordan Peterson, the subject of my recent book Savage Messiah, I think it is best to let Peterson himself introduce the subject, “I explore the dreadful socio-political consequences of the individual inauthentic life: the degeneration of society into nihilism or totalitarianism, often of the most murderous sort, employing as an example the work/death camps of the Soviet Union.”

Available on YouTube, this introduction describes a 2017 lecture Peterson gave at the University of Toronto called “2017 Personality 13: Existentialism via Solzhenitsyn and the Gulag.” And, when we get right down to it, hatred is a personal thing. For instance, those who fear or are disgusted by the Soviet death camps hate Joseph Stalin, who created them. It’s personal.

So when Peterson exposes the Stalinist mindset of today’s popular “woke” culture, it evokes a deeply hateful reaction. The fact that he will not back down or even soften his accusations escalates the hatred of the woke to the nihilistic rage we see being acted out on America’s streets today. This is, after all, evidence of how accurate Peterson has been all along.

Peterson suffers the pointed rage of these groups because he knows exactly who they are, their personalities, and where they come from ideologically.

Peterson’s thorough historical knowledge and detailed analysis of the tyrant’s personality leaves little room for rebuttal from its modern exemplars, whom Peterson calls “postmodern neo-Marxists.” These include Third Wave feminists, Black Lives Matter activists, and transgender zealots, the three legs of woke culture. Peterson suffers the pointed rage of these groups because he knows exactly who they are, their personalities, and where they come from ideologically. In effect, Peterson knows them better than they know themselves, and he knows they are akin to “…very, very seriously bad people,” such as Joseph Stalin, Mao Zedong, and Pol Pot.

For instance, the modern popular concept of “privilege” (as in “white privilege”) was first used to identify the most successful Soviet peasants called kulaks who were, “…regarded as ‘privileged’ and, therefore, as enemies of the state. And it didn’t matter if it was your father, or your grandfather, or your great-grandfather who happened to be ‘privileged,’ but the mere fact that you were a member of that group was sufficient reason to put you into a camp,” lectured Peterson. 

Peterson continued, “So the Soviets really implemented and perfected the idea of class and ethnicity based guilt, and it’s a very bad road to walk down, and it’s something that we’re very much engaged in at the moment.”  

So one can readily see why someone who has committed any part of his life to fighting “white privilege” today would resent Peterson personally. To these historical illiterati, Peterson is clearly a white supremacist. But it goes even deeper than this; it goes all the way back to the American generation that first adopted the Marxist and Communist doctrines and taught them to their children. They are the leftist radicals of the 1960’s, the Yippies, the Woodstock Generation, and these groups were the ones completely unable to process former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s electoral defeat. 

The outpouring of genuine grief and rage at Secretary Clinton’s loss in the presidential election of 2016 was an accurate measure of the generational hatred that was soon directed at Peterson. He became “the man” in the vernacular of that vanished Aquarian Age and a “capitalist pig” to these aging provocateurs—not to mention a “transphobic piece of s—” to their children and grandchildren for his unwavering adherence to biological facts regarding transgenderism. As Peterson bore down to the nub of their Neo-Marxist belief system in his university lectures, the universities themselves, his life-long workplaces, turned hostile.  

Speaking out against any of the three pillars of woke culture, as Peterson energetically does, was suddenly an offense against the collective. And Peterson was having absolutely none of that.  

The universities, themselves the traditional defenders of free speech, had become riddled with the ideologies Peterson takes aim at. The universities also became home to crippling speech codes. Speaking out against any of the three pillars of woke culture, as Peterson energetically does, was suddenly an offense against the collective. And Peterson was having absolutely none of that.  

Even as his academic colleagues demurred and capitulated to the woke Komsomol, Peterson not only stood defiant, he counter-attacked. He understood wokeness correctly as intellectual warfare against the foundational Judeo-Christian values of Western civilization and knew from history that only gulags awaited the faint-hearted. And so the battle was joined, with Peterson and his adherents at the front. In this current culture war, apparently there will be no quarter given. One culture will die, and many lives are likely to be ruined, even in victory.

Jim Proser is the author of Savage Messiah: How Dr. Jordan Peterson Is Saving Western Civilization. 

53 thoughts on “Why People Hate Jordan Peterson So Much

  1. Another perfect article by Jim Proser. Minimal words yet maximum effect.
    As someone who just spent 9 years in college, the last 4 at Columbia, i can say that what Jim (and JP) says is true. I have lived it.

    1. This is complete trash. I’d love for them to actually talk to Peterson and get destroyed.

      1. Agreed. Proser’s article and book are garbage. The bootlicking sycophantic cult-like support to Peterson is exactly the kind of groupthink they purport to oppose. It’s pathetic.

        1. you’re right.we should’ve eliminate the other side of our point of view,why?,because we’re right,and we’ll always be right,and they’re stupid for oposing us because were gonna make tis world a better place.THATS EXACTLY WHAT STALIN,MAO,POL POT,LENIN AND A BUNCH OF THEIR FOLLOWERS(assuming they have one)WERE THINKING.owh and look,venezuela is hell,owh dont you forget scandovenia,cuz there,men and women are morre unequal(thats the oposite of what those radical-left were expecting).you should be grateful to have the other sides point of view,to tell you that you’re plans are wrong and stupid for time to time,since both sides are just as stupid as the other.its a form of comradeship

    2. lol. if your definition of perfect is “nothing but lies”, then yeah. otherwise reality disagrees.

  2. Yes, I think Jordan Peterson does know the radical Left better than they know themselves; their hypocrisy and delusions. He is a psychologist above all.
    The BLM activists extraordinary affiliation to the rabid racist Marx (among his multiple deficiencies as a reasonable human being) a great example.

    1. wow, your delusional lies are just not supported by reality. your wilful ignorance is what allows all the problems of the world to continue unabated. shame on you forever.

    2. He didn’t knew Zizek well enough then did he. Got his backside handed to him in that debate. S’what happens when a fraud comes up against an expert on leftist theory. Also, how on earth has Marxism played a hand into the BLM movement? Or are you one of those who believe that ‘cultural Marxism’ exists?

      1. Both founders of the BLM are Marxists. You can find that your bu asimple google search. There’s an interview where one of the women who started the movement talk about that. There’s nothing hidden or hard to find out about this

      2. “how on earth has marxism played a hand into the BLM movement?”haha,youre gonna regret saying that for the rest of your life

    3. Neo-Marxism is phantom Stalin/Mao theory dressed up to be Utopian.
      Watch any of 100 UTube presentations by Jordan Peterson.

  3. As usual, wannabe fake-Jung to the rescue. ‘Puts one in mind of the lame SOB in the old, failed “The Greatest American Hero”…

    Sadly (and that’s really the word for Peterson’s efforts, they’re sad), herein is why the man fails as a man: the belief that “the monster” is something utilized, instead of What Man Is. Effectively, he tells his classroom of bleating girlboys that to “be a man” (as in the sort who might defeat black terrorists, mmm?), they must use their evil wisely (Harry Potter. Good God! At least Walt Disney proceeded from a place where, if you dug deep enough, you popped in the Black Forest, somewhere)…but there exists no “good” evil. You have the {Characterization Omitted} weak babies ashamed of their testes (uncertain where they came from; the current Western Culture is so gutless, compared to say, 13 years ago, I’m struck), and the actual men Peterson in his shaky-butt trembles, calls out as psychopathic. He dismisses What Is A Man Upon The Planet, then advises the weak, meek and cowards to shoot up a tincture’s worth of that which he has condemned. It would be nice if the man could decide what he prefers.

    There is (here it comes) no such thing as being a little pregnant, and no “good” destroyer or controlled brute. And if it comes to black terrorism, as with any terrorists, you defeat this with more bullets from better guns…with bombs, if necessary. Their demagogic mouthpieces, off to Gitmo. Destruction, is what heroes do, so that opponents of Order do not exist to oppose. He’s right in the final quotation…but any real man, isn’t going to cry about it. Overpopulation is the largest threat to our spaceship, anyway.

    1. You couldn’t be more confused or more wrong about Peterson if you intentionally set out to be so. And you’re clearly angry about it.

    2. Incoherence from someone who desperately needs Dr Peterson’s therapeutic intervention, or at least a different prescription.

    3. What a laugh. School-yard name calling mixed in with a bunch of big words and phrases obviously copied and pasted from other text that he thinks sounds cool but doesn’t understand. And that last bit of wisdom concerning overpopulation leads one to recommend the solution that the late Bill Hicks had for marketing professionals. I don’t care how you do it, – find bridge high enough or whatever. You’re free to make your little contribution to mitigate this threat to our spaceship.

      1. While I do not entirely disagree with our characterization of this original poster, we should be cautious of what comments we make to people. People who we don’t know, really know, why they feel a certain way and what is going on in their lives that contributed to those feelings.

    4. Wow..You sound like a complete and utter nutjob. Seek help or get on a prescription or both. Such hatred. Seek God. You sound like a rambling, airbag who wants to sound like an intellect.

  4. I used to think Mr. Peterson perhaps was a bit histrionic carrying on about postmodern neo-Marxists. But now I’ve spent a year and a half reading quite a lot and paying close attention to the so-called culture wars. Funny thing: it seems to me Mr. Peterson turns out to be entirely correct.
    It’s been a slow process, but the real turning point for me was reading the books, “The God That Failed,” edited by Richard H. Crossman, and, “The Opium of the Intellectuals,” by Raymond Aron.

    1. Did you do any reading of the postmodern books? Peterson fails to address their texts specifically, so I have yet to see a relevant or effective criticism of postmodernism by him that isn’t simply just broad strokes hand-waiving.

  5. Bloody hell, that’s an oversimplified take if I’ve ever seen one. And he got a whole book out that?!

    1. That’s a thoughtless comment if I ever heard one. But then most of Peterson’s critics can’t back up their hatred of him with any kind of logical explanation why.

      1. You’re probably not looking hard enough. There are many criticisms across the media which are entirely legitimate that have been levelled at Peterson. Some even in this very magazine. There are a few books out now which take him seriously enough to do in depth analysis.

  6. I’ve never met a person outside of the ultra-woke Twittersphere that ‘hates’ JP. The whole pretense of this article is false.

    1. That’s an absurdly inflammatory comment. “Progressive” ideas have brought about modern civil rights and labour protections, and increased freedom, not let people to the gulags. Claiming otherwise is an absolute abuse of history tantamount to propaganda. Reference Dr Margaret MacMillans “Abuses of History” for a discussion on your poor choice of words.

      1. I was surrounded by neo-Marxists in University Labor Unions …. I kept my politics hidden from them …. but, I observed them up-close and personal for years and they were leftists from the 60s (when I was in College). Being a “Conservative” professor is like being in the zoo caged with the large mammals …. bloody awful!!!!

    2. Don’t forget Cuba, China, Venezuela, North Korea and half of Africa … these countries fell to totalitarianism and poverty in the 20th Century. China’s neo-market-style economy saved it for another day…. by stealing from the ole USA!!!

  7. I love Professor Peterson I wish our universities created more open minded thinkers instead of authoritarian ideologically possesed marxists. I owe Jordan Peterson so much for introducing me to humanities great works of literature and he gave me my first exposure to many grand myths,

    1. How much have you seriously engaged in post-modernism? Or for that matter, to what extent are you familiar with scholars like Mary Douglas – who have discussed the relationship between social structures, morality and storytelling, and in many cases are in complete disagreement with Peterson? People like Mikhail Bakthin, Victor Schlovsky, or Victor Turner? Peterson’s ideas on mythology aren’t new or original, and frankly given a few of the names mentioned from fields of theology, anthropology, literature etc aren’t even mentioned in key discussions in Maps Of Meaning, leading me to question his academic rigour (even many of his citations within the book are unrelated to the points he is making).

      1. Let’s put Jordon and Mary on the same stage at the same time and have at it … my $1 will be on Peterson’s definitions of Post-Modern Idiology.. Q & A should be written questions and oral responses …. 5 minutes back-n-forth each. Moderated by Tucker Carlson or Dave Rubin or Ben Shapiro.

  8. Thank you Dr. Peterson. I have enjoyed almost the entire collection of available lectures you have produced online. I am also glad that your seeing the light at the end of the health tunnel. I am thankful that the amazing journey you were on did not destroy you or your family. Praise God. Please continue promoting your work. It is truly needed and forgotten (erased history) that demands remembering and space in our minds. My greatest fear is that we as humans are doomed to repeat this history we find distasteful. We as a people are not born good.

  9. Sorry I’m still waiting for the part of the article where they tell people (by putting words into their mouths apparently) why they hate Jordan Peterson so much.

  10. Peterson could be right; he could be wrong. But I am certain beyond measure that the screaming, red-faced persons denouncing him are a threat to individual freedom(s). In Canada, I’ve just learned that my university is removing the name of our first prime minister from one of its buildings. If you feel that this represents “progress,” you know very little about the meaning of the word.

  11. So he knows “radical leftist” college students and what they’re like but not left wing intellectuals like Zizek? And he never seemed to take Richard D. Wolff’s offer for a debate about Marxism….hmmm…… says more about his own understanding of leftist theory than the people who actually studied such things in detail.

    Oh, and slapping two unrelated concepts like Marxism and Postmodernism together and calling it a day doesn’t make you a prophetic genius either. Nor does pointing out systemic racism in our society mean that white people are going to be sent to gulags by ethnic minorities.

    All this (and his ‘muh western civilization’ shtick) tells me about JBP is that he’s stuck in his own subjective worldview and creates arguments out of thin air….. he’ll (rightfully) say that 1984 isn’t meant to be an instruction manual. But guess what, ‘Tlon, uqbar, orbis tertius’ ain’t meant to be gospel either.

  12. What will ultimately be everyone of you narcissistic, femdom, sexist ass, ignorant, beta cucks downfall will be is complete lack of any compassion, honesty, intelligence, understanding, or even a conscienceness! LETS GET IT!

  13. I knew very little about Jordan Peterson, so I did a good search. I ended up here when I learn very little. I did see, however, a lot of JP supporters spreading hatred about those who may disagee with him, so the article may be attempting to say people hate JP, but the comments show me that JP followers sure do hate those who disagree with him.

    I do not have enough information on either point to make a determination, certainly not from the (lack of) details in this article. That’s for sure…

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