Dr. Peterson's rise to fame has always had something to do with his appeal to young men, and especially those who are artists, comedians, and marginal weirdos. You could say that Peterson is a 'lo-fi' artist himself: he has used minimal effects (low production YouTube videos) for the maximum result (world superstardom). And like a good gangster rapper, he has shown people the power of the word, or logos. The rappers and Peterson might agree: there is nothing more powerful than the naked human voice to break through the spiritual numbness of the times.
Actually, the young men who follow Peterson are not the deplorable 'fan boys' or 'alt-right nazi scumbags' that Peterson haters say they are. Young fans of Peterson are clued-in to the cultural zeitgeist in a way that the 'champagne socialists'-who have snidely called Peterson 'the stupid man's smart person' - are not. These academics and journalists have reacted hysterically to Peterson-calling him a 'fascist mystic' and other less pretty names-and they have also attacked his fans. This is reminiscent of the way that Hilary Clinton called working people 'deplorables'- 'fanboy' is just another word for deplorable here. The implication is that Peterson fans are a lesser species of mongoloid, or at best lower class. But actually Peterson fans are diverse and intelligent and they span the the political spectrum.
Why do Peterson critics exhibit paroxysms of condescending envy? Perhaps because Peterson is popular-and he is causing a revolution. Furthermore, he is bringing back the archetypes to the people, getting them to read serious books, and rescuing them from what he has called 'ideological possession'. And young men are eating his message up, even here in France. His so-called fanboys are already drenched in mythology, comic books, music, film, and all manner of creativity: they are hungry for 'maps of meaning' and spiritual adventure. And Peterson delivers a hardcore message that is rarely sentimental.
What is there to love about these deplorable young men? Personally, teaching engineer students has taught me to appreciate the eros of young guys-their passion-and I'm someone who was brought up in a feminist progressive milieu. (Of course, there are great women engineers in my classes too - but most engineers happen to be men.) I'm pretty sure young men do not crave safe spaces but adventure and knowledge-they need to go out in the wilderness and meet wild beasts, fundamentally. Young men are possessed of an almost bottomless desire-that is their beauty. If we don't provide adventure for them, they grow sullen and depressed, and there is nothing more wretched and unappealing-or even dangerous-than a sullen and depressed young man.
Peterson is lifting these young men up. He has recognised them as worthwhile, in a culture that can't stop talking about 'toxic masculinity', 'the evil patriarchy', how men are 'potential rapists' and generally deplorable. But shouldn't the virile creativity of such young men be something we should celebrate?
Comment: Jordan Peterson is helping disillusioned boys become men - Here's why liberals hate that
Dr. Jordan B. Peterson's work and influence has, by any objective standard, been enormously beneficial. Thousands of young men are getting themselves figured out, and hundreds of thousands more are spending hours listening to complex academic lectures on how to become better people. Peterson is single-handedly robbing the alt-right of angry young white men by presenting them with the option of becoming better people rather than succumbing to identity politics. And he is championing loving, respectful relationships between men and women.
Akira The Don has made lo-fi hip-hop mixes sampling artists such as Tom Waits, Charles Bukowski, Alan Watts, Morrissey and others. He is creating a sonic dialogue with the cutting-edge rebel types, those who have transformed their freakish nature into something extraordinary. These are the pop culture heroes who have learned to use the glorious-and sometimes bestial-nature of masculinity in the service of art and illumination. What does Peterson have in common with them? And why does he belong in their pantheon of cool?
Simply put, Peterson is a badass. He is a bit of a geek too - which just adds to the odd appeal. As a geek he is truly serious and willing to get to the bottom of things, as a badass he is not afraid to enter the ring with his enemies. To many young men, this skinny white professor with a goofy Canadian accent, is fighting a real cosmic battle for them, to restore their dignity. They cheer him on each time he enters the ring and gracefully takes down his opponents. He is a kind of comic book superhero to these young guys: the mild-mannered professor who can go to 'next level beast mode' if necessary - to use a YouTube idiom.
Young men need to aspire to heroic tasks and to fight evil. They are likely to end up delinquents, get hooked on all manner of drugs, porn, video games, and all manner of bad behaviour if they are not called to a great adventure. That's the nature of maleness, as unfashionable as this is to say in the age of the gender unicorn. And today women are outperforming men in a lot of areas as Peterson has pointed out - and a lot of young men are listless and lost.
If young men are anything like I was, they also need spiritual transmission from a good father figure: they need to learn to be men-as old-fashioned as all that sounds. Our postmodern culture, with its social network policing and the endless feminist shaming, is prone to put these young guys down. But we need to honour and not over-civilise their great masculine potency.
Haters of Peterson turn their venom towards his 'fanboys'. The implication is that they don't have a mind of their own, that they are losers. But actually, these losers are now reading Dostoevsky, Carl Jung, and George Orwell - thanks to Peterson. They are not just cleaning up their rooms, they are educating themselves and learning some street smarts; they are not snowflakes, and they never will be. Peterson fanboys-like all intelligent young men-have too much virile energy, too much eros, too much scepticism and intelligence to be losers. On top of that, they are spiritual beings, and Peterson is giving them a new toolkit to explore religion, with his lectures on Jung, existentialism, and the Bible.
Today the feminine principal is idolised and the masculine reviled, but we need a balance. Generation Xers like myself could have used a good male role model like Peterson. There were very few in the 90's: we worshipped types like Kurt Cobain, with his seductive narcissism and world-hating nihilism and gloom. But even Kurt Cobain did provide some of the real drama and danger that young men long for - just as gangster rap did before it became 'safe' and gentrified, as most popular art forms generally do.
When the popular culture gets plastic, the real lo-fi heavyweight rappers come back to rescue the father from the bottom of the ocean. How strange that this new rapper is named Jordan B Peterson.
This article was inspired by this: Full 50 Minute interview between Akira the Don and David Fuller:
Andrew Sweeny: Compressed scraps of angel melody, stories, essays, rants against reductionism, commands from the deep. Follow me: Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/andrewsweeny Twitter: https://twitter.com/andrewpgsweeny
Yawn. Not more artless, talentless, un-musical, unlistenable postmodernist rubbish.