Jordan Peterson, a controversial professor of psychology from the University of Toronto, recently spoke in Durham to promote his book.
Peterson spoke at the Durham Performing Arts Center Sept. 10 for his “12 Rules for Life” book tour. The speech came after the Durham City Council publicly denounced Peterson in July for what they claimed were his “racist, misogynist and transphobic” views.
“Each of us stands on an island of knowledge surrounded by a sea of ignorance,” he said at the beginning of the speech.
Although Peterson is outspoken about his political views, his book falls under the category of “self-help,” with chapters titled “Stand straight with your shoulders back” and “Don’t let your children do anything that will make you dislike them.”
Peterson gained fame through a YouTube video where he laid out his opposition to Bill C-16 in Canada, the contested legislation proposed by the Canadian Human Rights Commission that extended protection against hate speech and gender discrimination, which can now be considered by judges in sentencing for crimes.
His YouTube channel, which currently has 1.4 million subscribers, is frequently updated with videos of Peterson’s lectures, interviews and answers to questions submitted to him by viewers.
Much of Peterson's talk reflected this non-political sentiment, as the majority of the event covered topics in developmental psychology and self-actualization.
The central topic of the lecture was to determine how people—even experts in a particular area—manage to survive in a complex world and live successful lives even when surrounded by “huge expanses of what we don’t know.”
He argued that humans don’t situate themselves in the world as if it simply consists of material things. Instead, people carry out life as if the world was a "dramatic forum”—a place to act out narratives, character embodiments and archetypes. To support his claim, he showed how children learn by acting things out and playing pretend.
Peterson was not able to keep the talk entirely apolitical—he fought against the idea of a repressive patriarchy that has persisted throughout history.
He described how his critics view history through a gender lens differently than he does.
“[They] view history as a battleground between men and women, where women bore the burden of oppression for centuries and men played the role of oppressive tyrants, and the only reason that that was rectified was as result of the actions of a handful of feminist types in the late 1800s and early 20th century,” Peterson said.
He claimed that young men—specifically college students—are trying get their lives together, but cannot in the current cultural climate.
“Because our culture is deemed an oppressive patriarchy, their attempt to take positions with high levels of success can’t be distinguished from participating in the tyrannical process, and that’s absolutely brutal," Peterson said.
Although he pushed back against patriarchy theory, he still conceded that it had partial validity—there is a need for masculine structures to evolve, as there is also a “proclivity for those structures to degenerate into tyranny.”
However, he argued that this is only a fraction of the story, not a method to describe the entire human experience. To him, the positive side of masculinity is order whereas its negative is tyranny, and the positive side of femininity is compassion and its negative is chaos.
Peterson's talk came after a spat with Durham City Council about when his visit to Durham was initially announced.
“Everything that is reprehensible about the radical and ideologically-possessed left," Peterson wrote in his response to the council's message. "All the moral self-righteousness, the platitudes, the clichés, the mindless celebration of diversity for the sake of the demonstration of tolerance, the naïveté, and the appalling malevolence of casual denunciation—is on painful display in this missive.”
Correction: Bill C-16 extends protection against hate speech and gender discrimination, which can now be considered by judges in sentencing for crimes. The Chronicle regrets the error.
Get The Chronicle straight to your inbox
Signup for our weekly newsletter. Cancel at any time.