THE Sidney Smith Building at the University of Toronto is central to campus life. Bake sales happen in the foyer, protests occupy the steps. Between the registrar’s office, professors’ offices and the coffee shop every student will spend some time waiting in lines at Sid Smith. If you are waiting at the psychology department on the fourth floor, you may be tempted with the promise of extra money. The bulletin boards in the hallway are plastered with notices for psychology experiments, ‘Participants needed. Compensation provided.’¹ On this floor you’ll find the office of Jordan Peterson, a best-selling author and the man The New York Times called ‘the most influential public intellectual in the Western world right now.’ He has almost 2 million youtube subscribers, his most recent book has sold more than 3 million copies and his international speaking tour has filled more than 250,000 seats in sold out auditoriums from Helsinki to Auckland.

Jordan Peterson is a clinical psychologist, university professor, author, public intellectual and lately nutritionist – having cured his depression and an unspecified autoimmune disorder with a beef-only diet. He shot to fame in Canada by making a series of YouTube videos protesting a piece of legislation to protect transgender people under hate crime laws. According to him it demands ‘compelled speech’: rather than limiting what one can say it makes demands on what one must say. On his interpretation (which the Canadian Bar Association did not endorse) he could be charged for not using a person’s preferred gender neutral pronoun, of which there are now many.

Well before his meteoric rise to fame he was consistently at the top of ‘Courses that will change your life’, an unofficial list circulated by University of Toronto students. By all accounts he’s a very good psychologist and I count myself as one of the students whose life he changed. I took his course ‘Maps of Meaning’ in the summer of 2009 between my second and third year. The course dealt with the importance of exploring and integrating dark chaotic elements of our psyche – the parts we’d rather ignore – lest they grow into monsters from which we must hide. One of his recurring themes is the tyranny of the well intentioned, a horror that emerges from a desire to excise all evil.

 

In the windowless first floor lecture room of Sid Smith we watched Pinocchio, the animated Walt Disney movie from the 1940s, over three weeks. Every ten minutes or so he’d pause the movie and launch into a story. The density and intensity with which Jordan Peterson delivers information is both captivating and challenging. He seems to enter some kind of liminal state, possessed by the force of his own ideas, becoming a conduit for truth. I was grateful for the movie interludes because they were a chance to catch my mental breath. By the end of class, heaven and hell on earth were in perspective – the only way to avoid the latter was to aim at the former. I would leave the dark room and return to the summer afternoon outside determined to be the more heroic version of myself.

Watching his YouTube videos transports me back to that room. His delivery transcends bad lighting and grainy picture quality. Peterson speaks with his hands, sculpting arguments in real time, long fingers pulling apart ideas as if they’re dough he’s forming into noodles. When he talks about the economic equality of Scandinavian countries his open palms slide down imaginary symmetrical slopes to level.

 

One of his favourite points is that as structural inequalities are evened out and differences based on environmental factors are reduced, the biological differences between men and women express themselves. Put another way, when data shows different behaviour, but environmental factors are the same, then there is a basis for believing that the differences are due to biology. Data from Scandinavian countries shows men are choosing more traditionally masculine jobs, and women are choosing more traditionally feminine jobs. Since Scandinavian countries have high equality of opportunity, Peterson argues this provides evidence for biological differences in behaviour between men and women.

He warns against the idea that all differences between men and women are culturally constructed: this being the product of a more general ideology so infatuated with equality that it will enforce it. Just as in Kurt Vonnegut’s short story ‘Harrison Bergeron’, the Handicapper General, Diana Moon Glampers, forces the tall to wear weights and the beautiful to wear masks, enforcing equal outcomes penalizes competence and drives the general level of excellence down to the lowest common denominator.

Nature is a harsh environment for any organism but it also sets the conditions for and rewards excellence. Lobsters are hundreds of millions of years old yet the effect of victory or defeat on serotonin levels in their brains is neurochemically similar to ours. The continuity of these neurological systems from lobsters to humans shows that dominance hierarchies have been around since before there were trees. As products of the same evolutionary history, we can’t lose sight of biological realities in our efforts to shape a just society. Winning and losing is part of the biological condition. It’s safe to say he’s against participation medals.

 

Peterson claims to be against all ideology but manifests that antipathy in a way that skews to the right. For example, he relentlessly points out the horrific failures of communist regimes.² These failures are due to the pursuit of equality of outcomes (as opposed to equality of opportunity) being a central tenet of Marxism (and by extension socialism). According to him, after Marxism was shown to be disastrous, Marxists had to switch tactics and pursue what he calls ‘cultural Marxism’. Instead of working towards structural change through collective action, in Peterson’s eyes contemporary ‘neo-Marxists’ are winning the fight by getting corporate ads pulled because of racist stereotypes, applauding companies for making ads with inclusive messages, de-platforming rappers because of misogynist lyrics, and adding to the ever growing list of words that are offensive to say.

 

The problem with this picture is that the far left is equally horrified by those who take the sentiments behind meaningful action and turn them into fashion statements. What he sees as neo-Marxism, many Marxists see as the distorted progress neoliberalism tolerates. In Canada, as an example, my non-Indian friends are accused of ‘cultural appropriation’ if they wear one of the khadi workers cooperative kurtas I’ve given as gifts, while a branded jersey knit t-shirt made in a sweatshop engenders no accusation. No Marxist would call that a victory.

Peterson plays fast and loose with history and ideas in order to paint a compelling picture. For example, he calls equality of outcome the central goal of Marxism, treating any instance of equality of outcome as a small but dangerous step towards a Handicapper General nightmare. This ignores the work of liberal economists on the ways in which equality of outcomes can create greater overall equality of opportunity. Amartya Sen explores this intersection in depth in his work on equality of autonomy.

Moreover, Marx was never even in favour of equality of outcomes; he believed in distribution based on one’s contribution. It was actually George Bernard Shaw in 1914 in a series of lectures titled ‘On Redistribution of Income’ who proposed pursuing income equality and a universal basic income.

The goal of such interventions is to maintain a robust middle class. If most of the population is clustered near the mean with a few big winners and a few big losers, that produces a Gaussian distribution, the Bell curve. This kind of distribution is so prevalent it’s also called the ‘normal distribution’. You’ll most reliably find a normal distribution in situations where one result doesn’t affect the other. My being 187 cm doesn’t inhibit someone else being 187cm as well, nor does it help me get more centimeters in the future. But money isn’t like that: having none makes it hard to get some, having some makes it easier to get more, and getting more means others having less.

 

In those circumstances, a Gaussian distribution can easily tip towards a Pareto distribution. A Pareto distribution occurs when the wealth is concentrated in a small percentage of individuals, 20% of individuals holding 80% of the wealth for example. The 80/20 rule is just one possible Pareto distribution.³

Peterson uses the widespread existence of Pareto distributions, especially in domains related to human creativity, to show the futility of pursuing income equality. But there are good reasons to aim at normal distributions – Pareto distributions aren’t as good at creating market competition. This isn’t some hippy idea, this is the principle behind antitrust laws. Billionaire sports team owners likewise understand the value of stemming trends towards Pareto distributions. The IPL, like most professional sports leagues, has a salary cap (a limit on how much a team is allowed to spend on players, regardless of how rich the team’s owner is) and revenue sharing systems where income from the rich teams is redistributed to the poorer teams. Leagues that enforce this equality of some outcomes through salary caps and revenue sharing have more parity – the teams have greater equality of opportunity of winning the cup.

Peterson mobilizes authors like George Orwell and Kurt Vonnegut to promote his particular brand of socialism bashing. In The Road to Wigan Pier, Orwell illustrates the ways in which radical socialist movements are motivated by vindictive grievances towards those with power rather than any real concern for those without. Peterson uses this observation as a condemnation of socialism itself, while ignoring that Orwell says, in an essay about the book, that such a reading is idiotic: ‘To recoil from Socialism because so many individual Socialists are inferior people is as absurd as refusing to travel by train because you dislike the ticket-collector’s face.’⁴ In fact Orwell defends socialism as the only logical response to our predicament: ‘Socialism is such elementary common sense that I am sometimes amazed that it has not established itself already.’

‘The world is a raft sailing through space with, potentially, plenty of provisions for everybody; the idea that we must all cooperate and see to it that everyone does his fair share of the work and gets his fair share of the provisions seems so blatantly obvious that one would say that no one could possibly fail to accept it unless he had some corrupt motive for clinging to the present system.’⁵

 

Vonnegut is equally strong in support of socialism: ‘"Socialism" is no more an evil word than "Christianity". Socialism no more prescribed Joseph Stalin and his secret police and shuttered churches than Christianity prescribed the Spanish Inquisition. Christianity and socialism alike, in fact, prescribe a society dedicated to the proposition that all men, women, and children are created equal and shall not starve.’⁶

Peterson is even willing to forego internal consistency in order to construct his world view. I don’t need to make the case that socialism is compatible with equality of opportunity, Peterson has already done it himself. He points out the job trends in Scandinavian countries because he sees the erosion of the traditional gender binary as an ideologically driven programme of postmodern neo-Marxism. I mentioned how high equality of opportunity (environmental factors) isolates biological differences. According to Peterson, research from Scandinavian countries shows differences between men and women are not culturally constructed. Scandinavian countries have the highest equality of opportunity in the world; therefore the differences must be biological. But with the highest taxes on the rich, free healthcare and education, high minimum wages, and extended paid maternity/paternity leave, Scandinavian countries are also the most socialist in the world. Either socialism is not contra equality of opportunity, or it is, in which case the biological gender differences aren’t actually isolated. He can’t have it both ways. He never puts these two ideas side by side so he’s able to get away with this intellectual sleight of hand.

 

Since he’s obviously smart, these kinds of glaring errors in fact and logic make it natural to wonder how honest he’s being. Perhaps his fear of communism is genuine, not surprising for someone who grew up during the ’70s and ’80s in a mostly white, small town in the politically conservative province of Alberta, sometimes referred to as the Texas of the North. His belief in the power of mythology has betrayed him – ‘commies’ were the mythical bad guys and he seems stuck within that framing.

Tackling Peterson’s faulty logic, factual errors and convenient omissions isn’t the wrong approach; the mistake is stopping there. It’s more important to recognize his purpose: not to convey information but to motivate. He sticks with questionable evidence in order to instigate insights that feel important, rather than convey a more nuanced and less exciting position in the interests of accuracy. Peterson is less concerned with seeing the world ‘as it really is’ and more concerned with seeing the world ‘as it needs to be seen in order to succeed in it.’ This isn’t a foolish insight. After all, we’re primarily actors in the world, not observers. Our outlook should serve each of us as an individual, not just as part of the collective.

When the interviewer for GQ suggested there is value in seeing the world through the lense of oppressor vs oppressed, Peterson responds with exasperation, saying ‘yeah, well good luck with that I suppose.’⁷ ‘Good luck’ seems like such an odd thing to say to a historical analysis. But he doesn’t mean ‘good luck being believed’, or ‘good luck getting a paper published’, he means ‘good luck living with that outlook.’ He’s most concerned with what your view of history will do for you. This makes him as much a social constructivist as those he parodies.

 

In the 72 years the NBA has been around no team has ever come back from being down three to nil to win a best of seven series – a series is over once one team gets to 4. For as long as I have been a basketball fan, when a team gets down 3-0 reporters repeatedly mention the fact that it’s never been done and ask the players how they deal with that knowledge. The closer it gets to game 7, the more it’s mentioned. Out of the 130 times one team has gone up 3-0 only 3 teams were able to bring it to 7 games.⁸ As a former athlete I think about what it would be like to be in that position, constantly reminded of the improbability of success. A team well versed in the hopelessness of their position will lose. A team that isn’t concerned with the history will probably lose too, but they at least stand a chance. If a team ever comes back to win, it won’t be because the coach spent time reciting bleak probabilities, accurate though they may be. It will be because the coach tells an inspiring apocryphal story to fire the team up and convince them that the past doesn’t apply to them.

 

What makes Peterson scary is his loose relationship to accuracy in ways that are so appealing to the alt-right. But what makes him great is that the energy he generates is existentially empowering. Peterson says he speaks to ‘people who are tired of hearing their ambition and forthrightness is a manifestation of something that’s fundamentally tyrannical.’⁹ In that way he’s like Krishna responding to a doubtful Arjuna facing the battlefield. If one believes, as Peterson does, that most people are fundamentally good, then it is natural to encourage them to manifest their desires on the world. There will always be tyrants; the way to prevent them is to have a population ready to act for what they believe in, motivated by a sense of justice, not petty resentment. Tyrants don’t get free rein over stubborn independently-minded people.

‘The forces of tyranny expand inexorably to fill the space made available for their existence. People who refuse to muster appropriately self-protective territorial responses are laid open to exploitation as much as those who genuinely can’t stand up for their own rights because of a more essential inability or a true imbalance in power.’¹⁰

Sadly, Peterson has become famous for his worst ideas. Lately it’s a beef-only diet made popular by his daughter, an Instagram-famous nutrition consultant with no formal training. On YouTube, ‘Jordan Peterson calmly dismantles feminism in front of two feminists’, has 4.2 million views while ‘Slaying the Dragon within Us’, a lecture from his Maps of Meaning course that had such a profound effect on me, has 299,000 views. This kind of disparity is emblematic. His recent book, 12 Rules for Life has sold millions of copies and is being translated into 40 languages but he’s admitted it stemmed from a publisher’s desire to cash in on his popularity and is a watered down, self-help version of his first, scholarly, book Maps of Meaning.

 

Lost entirely in the public discussion is his ‘Past and Future Authoring Programme’, a guided autobiographical and future planning exercise. As part of the research he did while at McGill University, the programme was given to students on academic probation. Those students who completed it and stayed in university saw significant improvements in academic performance compared to the control group.¹¹ When I talk to Jordan Peterson fans many of them don’t even know that it exists. But I think it is the single most valuable piece of publicly available work that he’s produced.

What sets it apart is that it’s not information but a practice. You do the exercises by yourself for yourself, discovering the things that are or have been meaningful in your own life, the meaningful things that you are already doing, and how to do more of them. When so many people, including Jordan Peterson himself, delight in telling you what to do, he’s created a way that you can figure it out for yourself. A profound practice has been made accessible.

 

While semantic content can motivate, it’s the technique and the practice of it, as difficult as that is, that can actually cause the change. His lectures in the class gave me the motivation to work towards being self-actualized, but it was through the past and future authoring assignments for the class that I started experiencing it. The motivation was necessary because of how hard the writing exercises were. In forcing myself to do them, I struggled with an almost physical force that I misinterpreted to be a particularly strong form of procrastination. But once I began to write I could see that these periods of constraint preceded writing about the parts of my life that were the most difficult to face. My subconscious was desperately distracting me before I – the conscious I – even knew there was anything to avoid. By the end of the process, there was no unpleasant event I couldn’t integrate, no memory that haunted me. For example, I was finally able to speak candidly about the time I tried to kill myself that up until then had been a deep dark secret. Specifically because of those assignments, I dropped out of university and threw myself into my kalaripayat practice in Kerala. When I eventually returned to the University of Toronto, not because it was expected of me but because I wanted to be there, I went from being a mediocre student to getting As.

Peterson’s first rule in his book 12 Simple Rules for Life is ‘stand up straight with your shoulders back.’ What he doesn’t tell you is that simply deciding to stand up straight doesn’t work. You tend to overcompensate and recruit muscles you don’t need, resulting in a forced chest out, chin up posture that’s uncomfortable and unconvincing. You’re better off doing scapular mobility exercises at regular intervals.

His reason for standing up straight with your shoulders back is to adopt a victorious stance, like a successful lobster within a dominance hierarchy. ‘There is an unspeakably primordial calculator, deep within you, at the very foundation of your brain, far below your thoughts and feelings. It monitors exactly where you are positioned in society… If you’re a number one… People compete to do you favours. You have limitless opportunity for romantic and sexual contact. You are a successful lobster, and the most desirable females line up and vie for your attention.’¹²

 

But unlike lobsters we get to decide the terms of our own defeat. A well framed loss doesn’t have to mean the serotonin restriction it means for lobsters. The ability to trick those systems is behind his advice to stand up straight so it’s surprising to see Peterson miss that point. The primordial calculator, if there is one, can be set to our own individual values. The central message behind Indian philosophy is to attain liberation through giving up one’s attachment to the illusions of society, status and wealth. Protecting the space for that is what sets liberal societies apart. The past and future authoring programme changed my life like scapular wall slides changed my posture. It was in his class, by doing those assignments, that I learned to start striving for success on my own terms.

 

Footnotes:

1. 80% of all participants of psychology experiments are undergraduate students, mostly of psychology. Studies that form the basis of psychology are informed by experiments conducted on this population: Western Educated Industrialized Rich Democracies, or WEIRD. Since it’s an important scientific principle that conclusions shouldn’t be presumed to extend beyond the sample that has actually been studied, it presents a problem when evidence from experiments on this highly atypical population are generalized as if it applies to all humans. Far from being the case, cross-cultural studies have shown that even experiments involving optical illusions weren’t perceived equally across cultures. When research recognizing this blind spot came out about eight years ago, it challenged long held assumptions. Rather than take the opportunity to reform psychology along more scientific principles, many academics in the field continue to ignore this data. Such wilful ignorance applies to Jordan Peterson as well when he discusses research findings. Joseph Henrich et al., ‘The Weirdest People in the World’, Behavioural and Brain Sciences 33(2-3), 2010, pp. 61-135.

2. He rightly expresses contempt at the ignorance of young people over the horrors of communism. Not enough people know that Stalin killed at least nine million and as many as 15. Peterson’s fascination seems squarely Soviet, he never mentions the 2-3 million (out of a total population of 8 million) that Pol Pot murdered; arguably a bigger crime because of what it meant for the country he was supposed to be serving. But the very same contempt Peterson directs towards leftists ignorant of the genocidal potential of communism must also be levelled against classic British liberals ignorant of the fact that Winston Churchill was directly responsible for the (avoidable) death of 4.3 million Bengalis in one year alone. (Shashi Tharoor, Inglorious Empire. Madusree Mukerjee, Churchill’s Secret War.)

3. In fact, according to the most recent Credit Suisse wealth report, 1% of the global population owns more than 50% of the wealth.

4. George Orwell, The Road to Wigan Pier, Chapter 13.

5. Ibid, Chapter 11.

6. Kurt Vonnegut, A Man Without a Country.

7. British GQ, Jordan Peterson: ‘There was plenty of reason to take me out. It just didn’t work’, YouTube (12:20).

8. The closest any of those three teams came to winning was the first one in 1951, the 5th year of the league. New York lost by four points after being tied 75-75 late in the game. I wonder how different future outcomes would have been if New York had won that game.

9. British GQ, Jordan Peterson, op. cit., YouTube (12:44).

10. Jordan Peterson, 12 Rules for Life. Allen Lane, Penguin, 2018, p. 46

11. D. Morisano et al., ‘Setting, Elaborating, and Reflecting on Personal Goals Improves Academic Performance’, Journal of Applied Psychology 95(2), 2010, pp. 255-264.

12. Jordan Peterson, 12 Rules for Life, op. cit., p. 40.