Those who are after Jordan Peterson are, in fact, after us. They are at our throats as well, make no mistake.
And we know how civilized it all is; these are well informed, well-educated men and women with highly respected positions. So we must put all of this into context. That is, anyone as educated as these people—these masters of doctoral learning and peer group study who have spent their lives, or at least most of their lives, in compliance with one another, never daring (and that is a word, isn’t it, daring) to venture too far afield, never creating waves that would separate them from the common dingy—are here to save us from those who just may have independent ideas about how the world might be better, and how it is being used by those who refuse to take a stand for independent thought and the championing of individual character.
Oh, I shouldn’t say that, really—take a stand. This common-room herd is very able to take stands as long as everyone else does. They are the first to say they are appalled as soon as they are told what they should be appalled about. I know professors who passed statues of eminent men every day for 40 years without a whiff of protest until the glut of new opinion and false woke theatrics said those statues should be tumbled. And oh, the outrage that came from their lips, the true heroics of their measure! Never to be outclassed by their colleague sitting in the room across the hall who just might give a favourable peer study review on one of their most recent exposes. ’Tis these heroics our Mr. Peterson is facing now. The problem is, of course, that he is facing it much of the time alone.
This is not just the idea of what can or cannot be said on internet babble, the algorithm, and other things no man my age understands or cares to (and that is a strike against us as well). It is about much more—it is about telling us what men or women like us must think for the comfort of others who would hold all we value in disdain. And if we do this, then by this we might not be targeted as a problem for the new conscience.
The new conscience, so implicit in its demands for obedience.
One which has spilled over in the last number of years to the murdering of both books and principles, the deleting of names from buildings, the assassination of character, the lie about individual responsibility, the weaponizing of victimization in the name of blatant intolerance, the trashing of conscience, and the burning of churches and books. All in the name of a manufactured freedom. The holding forth, the shouting of Barabbas in the marketplace and the scapegoating of men, the self-inflicted wounds of dishonest piety, and the censuring of men like Jordan Peterson.
Years ago, when I started to write, when I skipped school in order to do so, the school board, fearing who I might be, ordered me to see a psychiatrist or be expelled permanently from school. After I went to this psychiatrist, then I was strapped and expelled for the rest of the year as a problem in class. So I was beaten and forced to see a psychiatrist to be allowed access to someplace I never wanted to be.
I was 17 when I faced my first evaluators. I have been facing them ever since, and like Mr. Peterson, I know exactly who they are.
