Okay Boomer, What Did You Do to Jordan Peterson?
The time between the rule of the Middle Eastern gods of Gilgamesh and ten commandments given to Moses is measured in centuries. It was more than a millennia afterwards, in the height of Roman imperial expansion, that Jesus appeared. Yet another couple of centuries passed before Luther hammered his thesis, unveiling a capitalist friendly version of Christianity, onto church doors. Religious stories, myths and legends that inform culture have been around a while. They have staying power for sure. And they adapt, albeit slowly, very slowly. Can it be our next big dogmatic adaptation is now emerging from leftist politics?
Yup!
Here on Medium, writer Jordan Hall writes about dogmatism in academia, progressive politics and broadcast media calling the collective complex “The Blue Church”. Jordan theorizes that new digital media’s challenge to the dominance of broadcast media is causing a reformation-verse-Pope-like reaction from within the Blue Church.
In “The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature” prolific author and Harvard Psychology Professor Steven Pinker shows data strongly supporting the conclusion that human behavior is is often biologically pre-disposed. Pinker coined the phrase “academic social dogma” to describe often vitriolic defense of a tabula rasa (blank slate) model espoused by academics in the social sciences.
Russian born author, columnist and media personality Michael Malice — a pseudonym inspired by Johnny Rotten — describes himself as an anarchist without adjectives. The media upon which Michael’s personality is most prominent, apart from his books, is the Blue Church disrupting digital type. Like a good anarchist, Michael tries to be equally critical of all governmental political philosophy, conservative or liberal. Although my take on Michael, now a New York City literati type of guy, is he tends to have a softer heart around liberal issues. But still, Michael describes progressive politics as the evangelical left.
My parents were part of “The Greatest Generation”. The greatest? Arguable, but they did do good stuff: defeated Nazis, built the Interstate Highways and Disney Land, you know, stuff like that.
Me and my peers? We get “Okay Boomer”. Sigh. Self awareness is necessary for positive change I suppose.
On July 20, 1969 The Greatest Generation presented the world with a culmination of science, engineering and forward thinking governance. Combined with individual and collective acts of courage and creativity, Apollo 11 Commander Neil Armstrong, representing this collective achievement, dazzled and enthralled the world taking “one small step for man; one giant leap for mankind” onto the surface of The Moon.
Less than a month later on August 15th, we Boomers had a gigantic coming out party at The Woodstock Music and Arts Fair in Bethel, NY. We couldn’t even get the title correct. The town of Woodstock kicked us out. But the posters had already been printed. Whatever, we got to declare our world view, something like: live fast, die young, leave a good looking corpse. Some Woodstock icons did just that.
Legacy religion, along with archaic and dogmatic beliefs, have been under pressure since The Enlightenment. Logic and reason were ascendant when we Boomers came of age. Creepy, religious pedophile sex scandals did not help either. And while rejecting the aggressive war whoops of our warrior parent’s generation — who earned the moniker Greatest Generation primarily from kicking ass militarily — we also left behind much of the ancient myths, legends and belief systems of our forebears as well. Many not so stellar intellectuals avoided military conscription by going to college where administrators were happy to design courses of study devoid of hard stuff. Those who survived the sex, drugs and rock and roll ethos of the time took their journalism degrees, with nary a statistics course on the transcripts, and attacked the likes of Richard Nixon.
By the eighties, hippie types had haircuts, straight jobs, kids and mortgages. Revolutionary ideals faded away for many, morphing into more traditional values about families and how to raise kids. But there was a void for sure. Gone were weekly trips to church. Boomers sent their kids to universities in numbers never before seen. Academics were presented the mission of instilling good values along with good information. Academics are not conservative, give me that old time religion, types. I have a professor friend who tells me she virtually never encounters a conservative social/political thinker amongst her peers at Columbia University in New York.
Canadian Psychology Professor Jordan Peterson recently achieved impressive media popularity while teaching Jungian psychology of archetypes on YouTube. I am intrigued by Carl Jung’s scholarship about the value of myths, legends and religious beliefs. But Jung’s writing is difficult to understand. A very pleasant professor of Comparative Mythology, Joseph Campbell, was a popular author of “The Power of Myth” and an educator featured on American PBS TV in the eighties. Campbell made Jungian ideas a little easier to understand. But it was Professor Peterson’s life work “Maps of Meaning” that made Jungian theories more understandable for me. Peterson also loaded videos of his psychology course of the same name “Maps of Meaning’ onto YouTube.
Peterson’s YouTube presence was catapulted into pop stardom after social justice warriors created global publicity for the professor by attacking Jordan’s criticism of a Canadian law requiring the use of gender pronouns that were created by trans gender activists. Peterson’s resistance to what he defined as mandated speech put him in the crosshairs of evangelical left.
Blue Church media attack dogs set out after Peterson calling him a right wing, racist, misogynist, homophobic privileged white lout. That is pretty much what the evangelical left calls anybody who disagrees with their academic social dogma. But Peterson turned out to be a formidable foe.
Jordan is an accomplished debater and an excellent public speaker able to quickly recall well established data on cue during interviews and debates. As is prone to happen these days, vitriolic attacks by lefty wing-nuts created rock star prominence for Peterson. Such popularity is available for those who can successfully troll the left and endure the spotlight. It is a stressful spotlight. The Blue Church is in Kamikaze mode.
Prior to Peterson’s rise to fame I concluded two things about Jordan. He is a glass-half-full type of guy, generally depressive. He looks forlornly to the past, fretting about the loss of the guiding wisdom contained in what Jordan calls stories, the myths, legends and religious beliefs of times past. The good professor sees the absolute worst possible outcomes of unmanaged social beliefs.
Are we to obsessively fret over a Canadian law about gender pronouns? I mean, who cares? I’ll call them whatever they want. What’s the big deal? There are a lot of stupid laws on the books that have not brought down civilization. Chill, will ya.
Is it possible that the social justice warriors of the Blue Church represent an adapting milieu slowly forming to replace the fading “stories” poor Jordan so staunchly defended? Jordan may have been attacking his own solution. Leftie ideals are basically rooted in things like helping the poor, housing the homeless, fundamentally Christian values.
Dogma? See the above paragraph on Peterson verses Blue Church.
Vegan? Naw, I’m Kosher:)
The point is values once the purview of outdated religious beliefs will most likely emerge somewhere, no? Having a faux religious movement intertwined with politics is annoying. But I am hopeful a bifurcation will occur and new patterns will emerge from that chaos.
The stressful spotlight of social combat has a cost, especially on one prone to anxiety, as Jordan describes himself. Professor Peterson recently posted a YouTube video where he told his followers he was checking himself into rehab because of an addiction to anti-anxiety medication. Jordie was kicking his benzo jones. He disappeared for about three months. Then his daughter, a proponent of a bizarre all meat diet, put up a video saying Dad went to Russia to get addiction treatment not available in the West.
Professor Jordan Peterson has provided me with valuable educational guidance for free. I am grateful. He seems like a good man too. I hope he recovers. But two things struck me. Jordan’s deep knowledge and understanding of the value of archetypes, religions, myths, legends and stories failed keep him out of rehab. And during his popular run, Jordan was highly critical of communism, citing it as a powerful force of evil seeking to enact government control over our behavior with draconian bureaucracies. Jordan went to Russia because the medical treatment he desired was not available in Canada due to bureaucratic regulations. If there was a Pulitzer Prize for irony Jordan would get it.
