Peterson in Summary, Again:

Peterson has what one might call “intellectual tendencies”. His lectures on psychology are very cursory, his lectures on politics even more so. While I learned a bit of Jung from him, despite my having studied Jung for years in private, much of his machismo is appalling and ought not to be regarded as true “Jungian” psychology; conversely, to call Peterson supporters “Jungians” is awful and disgraceful. Jung, the model introvert, the champion of Artists and the Feminine Ideals, would probably have found the Peterson approach appalling: pandering to popular emotions, biases, and instincts in professing a one-sided ideology of manhood.

All that being said, however, I do not deny he tries. His trade is clinical psychology, and though his methods, in my own experience, have failed, (despite him overstepping guidelines by prescribing them TO EVERYONE in ALMOST EVERY HUMAN SITUATION, as a set of “Rules”, which Jung and others of his heroes systematically deplored on principle) he seems SINCERE in his convictions and his methods. Where I lost all faith in him was in the drudgery of watching his “debate” with modern anti-capital philosopher Slavoj Zizek. I was recovering from my own traumatizing, self-inflicted stabs at Peterson’s “exposure therapy”, and what I found was bleakness, dogma, and a man who read the Manifesto twice in forty years and found the nerve to challenge Marx and Hegel’s finest (read: most well-known) modern champion. I fell into depression for a while, then, and only the privilege of Quarantine enabled me to get back on my feet.

Peterson is not an “intellectual’s intellectual”, but an “intellectual’s shrink”. He gives some good advice for breaking habits in the realm of “hyper-intellectual” behaviour, but he’s not quite credible enough to get down to the Heart of the Problem, either in extreme cases or political matters.

Why do people like him? He is Jung Lite, for the Extraverted Masses. Neocons idealize him for speaking “truth to power”, but the powers he enshrines in place are no more than the roots of which his enemies are fruits.

 

I hope that helps. For reference, see Peter Joseph’s SCATHING deconstruction of the Zizek/Peterson “debate”, one I can verify from reading parts of Marx’s LENGTHY Kapital. Take all that Peterson presents with LOTS of salt.

 

[({R.G.)}]