Meghan Daum
Guilt by Adjacency
As Jordan Peterson’s T-shirt-gate proves, it’s not just your political stand that matters, but who you stand with
I swore I wasn’t going to write about Jordan Peterson, the controversial Canadian psychologist, self-help guru, anti–political correctness crusader, YouTube star, and bestselling author of 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos. From what I’ve observed, there is little good — other than the garnering of foaming-at-the-mouth clicks — that can come of it. If you defend Peterson, let alone praise him, the wokescenti mobs will descend upon you, accusing you of propping up a pseudo-intellectual alt-right grifter (“grifter” being the word du jour for anyone who says things you don’t happen to agree with but is somehow gaining in popularity anyway). If you criticize him, his acolytes will rush to his defense, saying you’re either too stupid or too brainwashed by the edicts of the aforementioned wokescenti to appreciate his deep and not-at-all-pseudo intellect.
Both reactions will be extreme and, in most cases, entirely beside the point of whatever point one was originally trying to make. If that doesn’t sum up the current state of public discourse, I don’t know what does.
