Jordan Peterson and Conservative Critiques of Modernity

“If we value our heritage, conservative intellectuals like Peterson need to stop pandering to their followers, and instead start motivating them to be more reflective about the culpability of complex social forces.”

Canadian university Professor Jordan Peterson made headlines recently when left-wing superstar Slavoj Zizek attacked him for being an alt-right supporter in the pages of The Independent. This is an odd claim. Peterson has long described himself as something of a centrist, arguing that society needs a reasonable number of people to push for progress and an equal number to preserve traditions. That has not stopped him from becoming an intellectual hero to various groups on the right, due to his standing against using a diverse array of gender pronouns, for his fight against “PC culture” at the University, and his attacks on post-modernism.

Despite the accolades from these groups, bordering on hagiography at points, many of these groups, strangely, seem disinterested in the actual content of his ideas. There is a frustrating tendency to just accept the surface of what he says—post-modernism is bad, end of story—rather than actually probe why he makes these arguments. Here, I venture to theorize as to why he has taken these conservative positions, and to show that Peterson’s analysis of modernity is flawed in more than a few respects.

Peterson and Modernity

“And where he tries to update these argument by directing them at new targets—for instance, post-modernism—he often does not seem to have a good understanding of what he is criticizing.”

One of the unfair criticisms directed against Jordan Peterson by some on the far-left is that he strongly supports alt-right, and even racist, positions. While he has not done everything he could to disavow support (or taking money) from some of these groups, there is little to suggest Peterson is a closet racist. His book Maps of Meaning opens with a touching, if a tad sentimental, account of his interest in learning what accounts for the development of totalitarianism in society. Inspired by Jung and Nietzsche, Peterson then proceeds into a refreshing review of various foundational myths in Western and other cultures.