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My Dutch publisher made arrangements for me to be publicly interviewed at the University of Amsterdam in front of an estimated audience of 300 students. I am somewhat loath to appear at such events, having developed the same feelings about them as comedians such as Jerry Seinfeld, Chris Rock and Carlos Mencia. They have all decided that it's not worth it: the risk to reward ratio is just too high.

I've had highly stressful experiences at the University of Toronto, McMaster and Queen's in the recent past, when I was confronted by mobs of misbehaving activists, agitated by their idiot professors, blaring air horns at distances close enough to cause damage, chanting slogans which were the opposite of well-crafted and poetic, and parading their ill-informed virtue on full display despite knowledge about the issues at hand that bordered on non-existent. At Queen's, most infamously, about 150 protestors surrounded the building in which I was speaking - a rather church-like edifice. Dozens of them climbed onto the sills of the ten-foot stained glass windows that lined the outer walls and pounded continuously on them for the full 90 minutes of the talk. One protestor, later arrested with a garrotte, performed her services with enough force to break a window and smear it with blood. Outside, the self-styled heroes of the new revolution barricaded the exterior doors - a crime, by the way - and humorously suggested that burning the building down, with all the attendees and speakers inside, might constitute an acceptable way to proceed.

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© Elliot Ferguson/The Whig-Standard/Postmedia NetworkStudents gather outside Grant Hall at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ont. to protest a lecture by University of Toronto professor Jordan Peterson on Monday, March 5, 2018.
It was like The Night of the Living Dead inside - a zombie apocalypse. All we could see through the opaque glass were the outlines of shadowy figures, scratching and crawling, as it were, to broach the building and feast on the minds of those entrenched within. None of the 900 attendees at that talk will ever forget it.

So let's say I considered the speaking engagement at Amsterdam with some apprehension. After all, I'm in a fortunate position at the moment. I've booked almost 100 private theatres since my book, 12 Rules for Life, came out in January - most seating 2,000 or more people - and sold almost all of them out. The people who come are friendly, welcoming and dead-set on a serious discussion aimed at outlining the conditions necessary to improve existence both psychologically and practically. The events are positive in every sense, and free of all unnecessary stress. I have enough mental space to prepare a compelling lecture, and I try to say something different every night. It's been great.


So when invited to a university, despite my still-intact academic position, I can't help but think, by what possible measure could it be worth it? But I had a talk scheduled at the University of Amsterdam. My publisher requested it, and I am trying to do everything I can to make those who put time and effort into the foreign editions of my book (now numbering some four dozen) as pleased and as likely to be successful as possible.

A couple of days prior to the talk, I received this email. It was a missive from University of Amsterdam employees and students demanding (as such battalions of petitioners always demand) that those who invited me "put an extra guest next to Jordan Peterson."

Here's a taste of the text, which has been translated from the Dutch (with some accompanying commentary from me):
"Some 80 UvA employees and a number of student organizations want Room for Discussion to invite an extra guest for her episode with the Canadian psychologist Jordan Peterson next Wednesday. An extra guest can counteract Peterson's conservative, patriarchal, anti-feminist, anti-climate-scientific, politically incorrect 'worldview.' "
I might first point out that a guest whose attendance is demanded is not precisely a guest at all and, second, that anyone who objects to anything I say for any reason is perfectly welcome to arrange a room and invite an audience and discuss anything they want to discuss - assuming they want to put in the time and effort, and could in fact attract an audience.
"We, students and staff of the University of Amsterdam, appeal to Room for Discussion (RfD) to adjust the design of their upcoming interview with the Canadian psychologist Jordan B. Peterson. Peterson's invitation is unbelievable and clashes with RfD's self-proclaimed mission, namely: bridging the gap between the academic world and the general public by using a 'journalistic, scientifically sound approach.' If Peterson already has a platform at our university, he must at least be accompanied by an expert discussion partner. We are happy to help RfD in finding a suitable candidate."
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© Room for Discussion/FacebookJordan Peterson speaks at the University of Amsterdam on October 31, 2018.
Note the "must." The missive continues:
"RfD simply invited Peterson because he is popular and "controversial," not because of his expertise. It is worrying that Peterson can derive academic legitimacy from his status as an internet personality. Peterson spreads countless opinions that are both shocking examples of pseudoscience and outright harmful. Peterson consistently shows that he has no idea of ​​issues that lie outside his own field. But even within his own expertise, that of clinical psychology, the professor cannot be taken seriously."
Well, I have published more than a hundred peer-reviewed scientific papers, as author or co-author (most often with my students, whom I typically encourage to take first authorship), with some ten thousand citations. This places me well above the 95th percentile for documented influence among social scientists. I was a professor at Harvard, both Assistant and Associate, and tenured as a full professor at the University of Toronto, an institution whose psychology department is regularly ranked in the top five in the world. I'll happily stack up my academic reputation and "expertise" against any of my erstwhile opponents at the University of Amsterdam, comments about "pseudoscience" notwithstanding. Of course, they regard such metrics as mere indicators of the patriarchal, tyrannical, male-dominated, racist, neocolonial academic hegemony, but benefit from precisely the same hypothetically corrupt system. So I don't think that this objection needs to be taken too seriously.
"An extra guest can counteract Peterson's conservative, patriarchal, anti-feminist, anti-climate-scientific,' politically incorrect 'worldview.' "
Well, I seriously doubt it, given my experience with the proponents of such views, but anyone is free to make the effort. That does not mean, however, that this so-called "guest" has any right to speak to an audience that has made the good-faith effort to come and listen to me, not to someone foisted upon them involuntarily by a self-styled and self-righteous network of activists.
"The open letter is an initiative of the network Worried Amsterdammers who are concerned about the emergence of the extreme right and normalization of his ideas."

To the self-proclaimed "Worried Amsterdammers" - really, a tiny minority proclaiming themselves, per usual, representatives of an entire community - we'll see you at the university, despite my misgivings and the undoubtedly painful experience it will no doubt become. I would avoid it completely, if I was primarily concerned with ease of life, but there is no damned way I am going to allow your ill-informed, faux-virtuous, pathological compassion and careless indications of your purported moral, intellectual, scientific and academic superiority to stop me from talking to 300 of your students.

And if you find someone who wants to oppose me, fine. If you had any ability and any courage you would host your own event. You can have it your way. But you'd better be prepared. Unless, of course, the plan is merely to screech and yell and behave as dreadfully as your compatriots at other universities have behaved where I have been "invited to speak" so that you can sidestep the necessity of directly confronting my ideas and me in the most convenient, self-righteous and effortless manner.

See you there, you cowards, denouncers and totalitarian wannabes.

P.S. Room for Discussion, who invited me, agreed to an additional 20 minute post-talk Q & A, but rejected the request for an "extra guest."

P.P.S. Seven hundred students showed up, plus an extra crowd watching the livestream from a secondary auditorium. On a comical note: a group of protestors also gathered, but arrived fifteen minutes late (so I was informed later). By that time, the room where I spoke was already filled to capacity, and they did not have the opportunity to enter. Thus it was a very pleasant, even high-spirited evening, as you can view for yourself on YouTube here.
Jordan B. Peterson is a professor of psychology at the University of Toronto, a clinical psychologist and the author of the multi-million copy bestseller 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos. His blog and podcasts can be found at jordanbpeterson.com