Jordan Peterson Critiques and Commentary – He’s the Secular Complementarian
When anyone disagrees with anything Jordan Peterson says or writes, his fan boys – his advocates, his supporters, whatever you wish to call them (some of them are touchy about this!) – tend to react in the same way that supporters of James Damore, of Google Memo infamy react.
The moment you say on Twitter or a blog post that you disagreed with Damore’s memo about women in tech fields, invariably, you get one of these reactions:
“I bet you didn’t read the memo!”
And you reply,
“Why, yes, actually, I did read the memo.”
Then you get the next comment:
“Well, you didn’t understand it! I understood it! Stop mischaracterizing Damore or his memo!”
And you say, why yes, you understood the memo just fine, and you’re not misrepresenting it, but you still disagree with Damore’s assumptions, his use of gender stereotypes, and his premises.
And so it is with disciples of Lobster-loving Peterson.
Jordan Peterson sycophants play at the same game.
First, they will ask if you have read EVERY book or article he’s ever written.
If you have not, some of them will dismiss you out of hand.
Some will start pasting in 456,334 links to very long articles (that would take days to read) explaining Peterson or his views and expect you to read all of them.
Even if you have read Peterson’s works, or have read some material he’s written, read interviews with him in magazines, watched interviews he’s given, and so forth, the Peterson acolyte will insist you do not understand Peterson, and so, you are misrepresenting Peterson or his views (even though you are not).
This comic sums up Jordan Peterson fan boys succinctly (and it’s accurate):
Every Conversation with a Jordan Peterson Fan
I am right wing, a moderate conservative. I am not a liberal.
I’ve seen Peterson in television interviews, I’ve read some of his interviews online, I watched a video or two of him on You Tube, and I’ve read articles about him and his views.
About one of the only areas of agreement I have with Peterson is that many staff, faculty, and student bodies of many university campuses are very liberal, and they try to silence the views of conservatives who dissent from whatever the liberal talking points are.
I agree with him that this problem or situation exists, and it’s not a good thing.
I’m familiar enough with Peterson’s work and his view points on some issues to say his views strike me as sexist (I can say the same thing about Damore, but as I’ve written about Damore in the past, I’ll try to stick more to discussing Peterson here).
Here is what I’ve concluded about Peterson after reading some of his articles, comments, or listening to him in video or televised interviews:
Peterson is the secular equivalent of Christian gender complementarians.
I am an ex-complementarian, and I have no intention of jumping back into that mindset or world of ideas.
Christian gender complementarianism is nothing but sexism with a religious or biblical-sounding veneer applied to it, to make it sound as though it is God-approved and that it’s not immoral or insulting.
Based upon what I’ve been exposed to so far, here’s my understanding of Peterson’s views in regards to the biological sexes and gender roles:
Peterson seems to think that men and women are biologically programmed, since the dawn of time or the start of civilization, to want to prefer and to live out traditional gender roles, and he feels this is a good thing, that it provides structure for a culture, and women would be at their happiest and most fulfilled if they would abide by traditional gender roles.