jordan peterson doctoral thesis

The Impressive Jordan Peterson Credentials: Unraveling the Intellectual Phenomenon

Jordan Peterson is a name that has gained widespread recognition in the past few years. His credentials, educational background, and life experiences have contributed to the emergence of this public intellectual. But what exactly are the Jordan Peterson credentials, and how have they propelled him to fame? In this article, we will unravel the story of this Canadian psychologist and examine the foundation of his meteoric rise in the intellectual arena.

Educational Background and Academic Credentials

Dr. Jordan B. Peterson is a clinical psychologist and professor of psychology with a PhD in the field. Let’s take a closer look at his educational journey and the credentials he has earned throughout his career.

• Bachelor’s Degrees

Peterson earned a B.A. in political science from the University of Alberta in 1982. He continued his education at the same institution, obtaining a second B.A., this time in psychology, in 1984.

• Doctoral Degree

In 1991, Jordan Peterson earned his Ph.D. in clinical psychology from McGill University in Montreal, Canada. His doctoral thesis, titled “Potential psychological markers for the predisposition to alcoholism,” explored the psychological factors associated with the development of alcohol dependence. This research laid the groundwork for his future work in understanding human behavior and the underlying psychological mechanisms.

• Postdoctoral Fellowship

After completing his Ph.D., Peterson pursued a postdoctoral fellowship at the Douglas Hospital Research Centre, affiliated with McGill University. During this time, he expanded his research into personality theory, social and abnormal psychology, and neuropsychology.

Academic Career and Professional Experience

Jordan Peterson’s credentials extend beyond his educational background. He has an impressive academic career, having taught and conducted research at various universities. His professional experience also includes clinical practice, which has informed much of his work.

• Teaching and Research

Peterson’s academic career began as an assistant professor of psychology at Harvard University, where he taught and conducted research from 1993 to 1998. During his time at Harvard, Peterson focused on the study of personality, social, and abnormal psychology.

In 1998, he returned to Canada and joined the faculty at the University of Toronto as a full professor. He continued his research on personality theory and the psychology of religious and ideological beliefs, which would later form the basis of his best-selling book, “Maps of Meaning: The Architecture of Belief.”

• Clinical Practice

In addition to his academic career, Jordan Peterson has more than two decades of experience as a clinical psychologist. He has worked with a diverse clientele, including individuals struggling with anxiety, depression, personality disorders, and substance abuse  issues. His clinical practice has also encompassed family and relationship counseling. This wealth of experience has provided Peterson with real-world insights into human behavior, which he has integrated into his lectures, writings, and public appearances.

• Public Intellectual and Best-selling Author

Peterson’s credentials as a public intellectual were solidified with the publication of his best-selling books. His first book, “Maps of Meaning: The Architecture of Belief,” was published in 1999 and explored the relationship between belief systems, mythology, and human behavior. However, it was his second book, “12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos,” published in 2018, that catapulted him to international fame. This self-help book synthesizes his psychological insights and offers practical advice for navigating life’s challenges.

In addition to his books, Peterson has given countless lectures and interviews on various topics, including political correctness, free speech, and the role of personal responsibility in society. His thought-provoking ideas and unique perspective have resonated with millions of people worldwide, solidifying his status as an influential intellectual.

The Impact of Jordan Peterson's Credentials on His Public Influence

Peterson’s extensive credentials and diverse experiences have played a significant role in shaping his public persona and influence. Here are a few ways in which his credentials have contributed to his success:

• Credibility

Jordan Peterson’s educational background and academic achievements lend credibility to his ideas and opinions. As a clinical psychologist and professor, he has spent years studying and researching human behavior, making him an authoritative figure in his field. This credibility has undoubtedly played a role in his widespread appeal, as audiences are more likely to listen to and trust someone with a strong academic foundation.

• Expertise in Various Fields

Peterson’s credentials span multiple disciplines, including psychology, political science, and philosophy. This interdisciplinary expertise allows him to approach issues from various angles, offering a unique and comprehensive perspective on complex topics. His ability to synthesize information from different fields has enabled him to engage with a wide range of audiences, further expanding his influence.

• Real-world Experience

In addition to his academic pursuits, Peterson’s extensive clinical practice has provided him with valuable real-world experience. His work with clients facing various challenges has given him a profound understanding of human nature and the complexities of the human condition. This experience has informed his writings and public appearances, making his insights relatable and practical for his audience.

The Jordan Peterson credentials, spanning from his educational background to his professional experience, have played a pivotal role in shaping his public influence. As a clinical psychologist, professor, and author, Peterson has cultivated a reputation as an intellectual heavyweight, tackling complex issues with nuance and depth. His expertise in various fields, combined with his real-world experience, has resonated with millions, making him one of the most influential public intellectuals of our time.

As Jordan Peterson continues to share his insights with the world, his credentials will undoubtedly remain an essential factor in his ongoing success and impact on society.

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Jordan Peterson

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Fields of Study

• Social and Personality

Dr. Jordan B. Peterson is a professor emeritus 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 , #1 for nonfiction in 2018 in the US, Canada, the UK, Australia, New Zealand, Sweden, the Netherlands, Brazil and Norway, and now slated for translation into 50 languages.

Raised and toughened in the frigid wastelands of Northern Alberta, Dr. Peterson has flown a hammer-head roll in a carbon-fiber stuntplane, piloted a mahogany racing sailboat around Alcatraz Island, explored an Arizona meteorite crater with a group of astronauts, built a Native American Long-House on the upper floor of his Toronto home, and been inducted into a Pacific Kwakwaka’wakw family (see  charlesjoseph.ca ). He’s been a dishwasher, gas jockey, bartender, short-order cook, beekeeper, oil derrick bit re-tipper, plywood mill laborer and railway line worker. He’s taught mythology to physicians, lawyers, and businessmen; worked with Jim Balsillie, former CEO of Blackberry’s Research in Motion, on  Resilient People, Resilient Planet , the report of the UN Secretary General’s High Level Panel on Global Sustainability; helped his clinical clients manage the triumphs and catastrophes of life; served as an advisor to senior partners of major Canadian law firms; penned the forward for the  50th anniversary edition of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s The Gulag Archipelago ; lectured to more than 250,000 people across North America, Europe and Australia in one of the most-well attended  book tours  ever mounted; and, for  The Founder Institute , identified thousands of promising entrepreneurs, in 60 different countries.

With his students and colleagues, Dr. Peterson has published more than a hundred  scientific papers , advancing the modern understanding of creativity, competence and personality, while his now-classic book,  Maps of Meaning: The Architecture of Belief  (released in June 2018 as a now bestselling author-read  audiobook ) transformed the psychology of religion. He was nominated for five consecutive years as one of Ontario’s Best University Lecturers, and is one of only three profs rated as “life changing” in the U of T’s underground student handbook of course ratings.

In 2016, shortly before the publication of 12 Rules, several of Dr. Peterson’s online lectures, videos and interviews went viral, launching him into unprecedented international prominence as a public intellectual and educator. His work, public postings and discussions are featured at:

• Jordan Peterson Videos , on YouTube, features Dr. Peterson’s university and public lectures (including a highly-viewed  15-part biblical series on Genesis , slated to continue with the Exodus stories in 2019), responses to the polarizing political crises of today, and interviews with people such as  Camille Paglia ,  Jonathan Haidt  and  Ayaan Hirsi Ali , has 1.8 million subscribers, with 90 million views; videos derived from his online content by others have been viewed more than half a billion times.
• The Jordan B Peterson Podcast , with some 60 episodes, has attracted close to a million listeners per episode, with 55,000,000 downloads (plans to expand this dramatically with professional development are underway). It is reliably #1 in the Higher Education category on iTunes (often occupying all ten of the top ten episode slots), and consistently in the top five in the general Education category;
• jordanbpeterson.com , his home website, contains his  blog  and influential  recommended reading list , attracts 25,000 views a day, for a total of more than 14,000,000 page hits to date;
• selfauthoring.com  and  understandmyself.com , his online self-improvement and self-understanding systems, respectively, attract 25000 users per month and were the focus of two Dr. Oz TV episodes ( here  and  here ) and three podcasts (one  here )
• His public lecture tour,  The 12 Rules for Life Tour , has now covered more than 125 cities, drawing 250,000 ticketed attendees, with another 100,000 tickets purchased in 40 more cities in Australia, NZ and throughout Europe;
• jordan.b.peterson  on Instagram, has 500,000 followers (growing 24,000/month);
• Dr. Jordan B. Peterson , on Facebook, has 450,000 followers and an equivalent number of likes (growing 20,000/month);
• @jordanbpeterson  on Twitter, has 1.2 million followers (growing 30,000/month);
• r/JordanPeterson  on Reddit has 115,000 followers;
• Jordan B Peterson  on Quora has 25,000 followers and 6.6 million answer views;
• When active, originally, on the crowdfunding site Patreon, Dr. Peterson had 10000 active subscribers, and was the 2nd mostly highly funded creator on the site, the 6th most-subscribed for video providers, and the 10th most-widely-subscribed of all Patreon accounts. He left Patreon in January of 2019, citing emerging censorship on the platform (see  Goodbye to Patreon ) and has now established subscription and donation services which can be accessed  here  and which have attracted more than 5000 supporters.

Dr. Peterson’s classroom lectures on mythology and the psychology of religion, based on Maps of Meaning (2016 version  here ), were turned into a popular  13-part TV series  on Canadian public television’s  TVO .  Malcolm Gladwell  discussed psychology with him while researching his books; Norman Doidge, author of  The Brain that Changes Itself , wrote the forward to 12 Rules; and bestselling thriller writer  Gregg Hurwitz  employed several of his “valuable things” as a plot feature in his #1 international bestseller,  Orphan X.

With his colleagues, Dr. Daniel M. Higgins and Dr. Robert O. Pihl, Dr. Peterson has also produced two online programs to help people understand themselves better and to improve their psychological and practical functioning. The newest of these,  UnderstandMyself , provides its users with detailed information about their personalities, based on work he published with his students  here . Tens of thousands of people now know themselves better, as a consequence of completing this 15-minute program. His original self-analysis program, the  Self Authoring Suite , (featured in  O: The Oprah Magazine , CBC radio, and  NPR’s national website) , has helped over 200,000 people resolve the problems of their past, rectify their personality faults and enhance their virtues, and radically improve their future. Research documenting the program’s effectiveness can be found  here  and  here .

Dr. Peterson has appeared on many popular podcasts and shows, including the Joe Rogan Experience ( #877 ,  #958 ,  #1006 ), The Rubin Report ( 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos ,  Free Speech, Psychology, Gender Pronouns ), H3H3  (#37) , and many more. He is currently working on a new book, tentatively titled  12 More Rules for Life: Beyond Mere Order , slated for publication in early 2020, and starting a company devoted to producing a universal online adaptive education system.

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Assessing Jordan B. Peterson’s contribution to the psychology of wellbeing: A book review of 12 Rules for Life

• Paul T P Wong

This article first critically examines the Jordan B. Peterson phenomenon and the popular appeal of his book, 12 Rules for Life . It then evaluates this book’s contribution to the psychology of wellbeing in four areas: (a) the psychology of religious values, (b) the importance of personal responsibility, (c) accepting suffering as the foundation for wellbeing, and (d) the process of finding one’s meaning based on personal sacrifice and negotiating a balance between chaos and order. Finally, it examines empirical support for his ideas, as well as his contribution to the emerging domain of existential positive psychology. Finally, implications for the future of positive psychology research and interventions are discussed.

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McLuhan's New Sciences

When we push our paradigms back, we get "history"; when we push them forward, we get "science". (take today, 15), jordan peterson on the hero.

However, in scientific endeavour, as elsewhere, the willingness to risk Is everything. 1

Passages on the hero are given below from two of Jordan Peterson’s papers. Of course, a great many more could  be culled from his many other papers and from his books, but the passages cited here may be taken as representative of his position.

The epigraph above is the last line of his 1991 PhD thesis and sums up not only his take on the hero but also his own credo . Indeed, Peterson plainly identifies with the hero-savior which is an excellent thing in terms of his deeply felt need to answer the cries of the contemporary world in its manifold individual and social dangers; but it is also limiting as an effective remedy. Commentary in the footnotes attempts to show how and why this is so. 2 The great point to be kept in mind was put in short form by one of Peterson’s great heroes, Nietzsche:

instead of the deification of man, his un-deification, the digging of the deepest chasm, which only a miracle, only prostration in deepest self-contempt can bridge… 3

No man believes now in this absurd self-inflation: and we have sifted our wisdom through a sieve of contempt. 4

Maps Of Meaning: The Architecture Of Belief (Precis), 1999 5

• It is not clear that either the categories “given” to us by our senses, or those  abstracted out for us by the processes of scientific investigation, constitute the most “real” or even the most “useful” modes of apprehending the fundamental nature of being or experience. 6   It appears, instead, that the categories offered by traditional myths and religious systems might play that role, despite the initial unpalatability of such a suggestion. 7 Such systems of apprehension present the world as a place of constant moral striving, conducted against a background of interplay between the “divine forces” of order and chaos. 8 “Order” constitutes the natural category of all those phenomena whose manifestations and transformations are currently predictable. “Chaos” constitutes the natural category of “potential” -– the potential that emerges whenever an error in prediction occurs. The capacity for creative exploration –- embodied in mythology in the form of the “ever-resurrecting hero” -– serves as the eternal mediator between these fundamental constituent elements of experience.
• the hero/king who establishes, embodies and updates the social world is also the same force that establishes, embodies and updates the intrapsychic world, the personality — and the one act of update cannot (…) be distinguished from the other. In “improving” the world, the hero improves himself; in improving himself, he sets an example for the world. 9
• The Sumerians, ancient Egyptians and Old Testament Hebrews settled by all accounts on a world-story that made of existence and experience the eternal battleground of order and chaos, mediated by the heroic aspect of consciousness –- the Logos, the Word, truth, light, enlightenment, illumination. 10
• Human beings, “made in the image of God” 11 , construct their familiar territory, their cosmos, out of chaos -– the unknown -– and then strive to maintain the dynamic equilibrium of what they have constructed and now inhabit. 12 The capacity to engage in such activity is “incarnation of the divine Logos”, embodiment of the creative, exploratory “Word”, whose activity finds eternal dramatic representation in the figure of the hero, the dragon-slaying savior. 13

Religion, sovereignty, natural rights, and the constituent elements of experience, 2006 14

• What the hero actually encounters, at the most inclusive level of analysis, are the constituent elements of experience. 15  
• the hero also restructures what is known, widening the purview of culture or challenging and reconceptualizing its most fundamental axioms. Finally, no hero remains unchanged, as a consequence of such activity. He necessarily meets himself as an individual (…) broadened and extended as a consequence of the information so garnered and conceptualized. 
• The story of the hero is the most basic of plots, therefore, because it deals with the most basic of encounters. 16  
• The hero states, “What we are all doing right now, thinking right now, presuming right now, is no longer working!” 17
• Out of the unknown, through exploration, springs reality: it is in this manner, through “incestuous” union with the hero, that the dragon of chaos gives birth to the world. (…) Thus the exploratory hero makes the world as a consequence of his encounter with the generative unknown. 18
• It is necessary to remain unconfused by the interchangeability of the Great Father and the Hero, with regards to the Mother of All Things, or the Dragon of Chaos. All three elements of experience are regarded by the mythological imagination as primary, in some sense, and any (…) pair of them can engender being. So the original creation might be the impregnation of nature by culture, or by the hero. The two element creation, however, remains partial and incomplete. 19
• This is the final sentence of Peterson’s 1991 PhD thesis , Potential Psychological Markers for the Predisposition to Alcoholism . There is little connection between it and the rest of Peterson’s thesis. It functions as if to say, ‘OK, all that above was what I had to do for my degree, but here is what I’m really interested in….’ ↩
• Since some of the commentary is long and sometimes rather complicated, it may be best to read through Peterson’s texts before looking at the footnotes to them. ↩
• Will to Power , Book 2. ↩
• Psycoloquy 10, 1999. ↩
• Peterson speaks here of  “being or experience” and later in this same paper of “existence and experience”. Now the equation of being/existence with human experience eventuates in nihilism and is the cul-de-sac in which the contemporary world is fixed and lost. See Peterson and the fabled ‘thing in itself’ .  But that Peterson is serious about this equation is baldly stipulated in his note on ‘ Awareness may be existence as well as (higher-order) thought’ in  Behavioral and Brain Sciences , 23:2,  2000: “ Consciousness plays a fundamental unrecognized ontological role (…) conferring the status of ‘discriminable object’ on select aspects of otherwise indeterminate ‘being’. (…)  Only functionally relevant objects ‘exist’ at any given moment — constituting figure, so to speak, instead of ground . So the very fact of discriminable things appears as something dependent upon consciousness.” Since “only functionally relevant objects ‘exist’ at any given moment”, and since heroic identity and its consciousness are such existing things, these two exist merely through the medium of self-stipulation — which collapses as soon as the ground of that stipulation is questioned. Here identity and its consciousness stipulate themselves — like Münchhausen  extricating himself and his horse from a bog by pulling up on his own pigtail. The two great figures to be encountered at this critical juncture are Nietzsche and Beckett. Peterson’s hero needs to ‘under-go’ the utter dissolution of itself which would result if it followed them into the maelstrom — where the first thing to be lost is the stipulator. It, the maelstrom, is the great power, not the hero who is thrown about in it and utterly subject to its overwhelming might. ↩
• The “unpalatability” of this suggestion derives not only from its ‘primitive’ source; it derives as well from the overwhelming plurality and complexity of the worlds of myth. Now Peterson argues, or at least stipulates, that this plurality may be reduced to a single story, that of the hero: “The story of the hero is the most basic of plots”, he claims. But this is a ‘risky’ and ‘heroic’ stipulation in regard to which Peterson’s words in his ‘Religion, Sovereignty, Natural Rights’ essay are entirely fitting: “it is impossible to make justifiable claim to a set of beliefs unless there is a rock-solid foundation under those beliefs”.  But Peterson makes little attempt to provide the necessary foundation for this heroic stipulation, especially given his lack of engagement with those great thinkers, foremost among them Lévi-Strauss, who have grappled with the question of how mythology is to be approached in the first place. ↩
• It is imperative to note the two times at work in Peterson’s passage here: on the one hand, “moral striving” which is goal-oriented and operates chronologically; on the other, “a background of interplay” which Peterson terms “the eternal  battleground of order and chaos” and which may be dynamic but is not goal-oriented or chronological — it is always at work as “eternal”. Indeed even the hero’s “moral striving” is said to be “constant”. Hence the hero is described in this same place as “the eternal  mediator between these fundamental constituent elements of experience” of order and chaos. It may be concluded that Peterson’s work implicates a knot of times and that this plurality and interplay of times is the great question posed to his work — by his work! See Peterson: time or times? ↩
• The great problem exposed by Peterson here is that the nature and direction of “improving” is dependent on “the intrapsychic world, the personality” of the hero.  It’s representations “cannot (…) be distinguished” from the the world at large — and vice versa . In this way, “the hero/king” is trapped in a flybottle of his own making, which is exactly the ‘story’ of Eliot’s Waste Land , the central topic of Wittgenstein’s Investigations  and the plot of Nietzsche’s “ History of an Error “. ↩
• A fundamental confusion may be seen here between (a) “existence” and “being” <=> “consciousness” — as something we accomplish in historical time, especially in the work of the hero, and (b) something that is done before us, apriori , in a “world-story” that is “eternal”. Now that “world-story” may well implicate an “heroic aspect” that mediates between its other “eternal” archetypes. Peterson would sometimes like to think that these two sorts of heroic actions and their respective space-times can be identified, but he is equally clear at other times that they cannot. In fact, the relationship is a knotted figure/ground riddle and is nothing less than the little door Peterson’s work needs to go through to reach his goals. ↩
• “Made in the image of God” is another way of putting the figure/ground riddle: how are image and original fundamentally different? How ‘at the same time’ are they related? ↩
• There is, of course, no human being who is not born into an existing  family and society of some sort. No one ever “construct(ed) their familiar territory” on their own — as the word ‘familiar’ itself says. Indeed, the human infant cannot survive on its own, let alone go about heroic world-building “out of chaos”. What Peterson describes here, perhaps unconsciously, is not some action in historical time, but a synchronic activity that characterizes humans at every moment, always and everywhere. We are ‘always’ at work on world-building — that is what the human animal is — but not in diachronic time.  For the phenomenology of human being, it is therefore imperative to keep its times of world-building (ground) and and world-maintenance (figure) separate but related. ↩
• The fundamental communication bridging the principles of human being, like order and chaos, cannot be constructed or even found by individual action, even when this action is undertaken by a divine actor — and especially not when it is undertaken by an historical one. No such hero can understand its task or carry it out absent the possibility of doing so . This possibility necessarily precedes and predates heroic activity and it is this preceding communication which is “the divine Logos” or “Word” — or “the medium (that) is the message”. ↩
• Archive for the Psychology of Religion , v28, 2006. ↩
• No, t his is not the case and cannot be the case for reasons that Peterson himself sets out. The hero’s  “c onsciousness plays a fundamental unrecognized (…) role (…) conferring the status of ‘discriminable object’ on select aspects of otherwise indeterminate ‘being’ (…) constituting figure  (…) instead of ground .” (Full passage from  ‘ Awareness may be existence’ in note 3 above.) The experience of the hero qua hero remains at the level of figure and  cannot penetrate to ground exactly because the objects of his experience are his . They are “ functionally relevant ” — to him! They are what they are as a result of him “conferring the status of ‘discriminable object’ on (them as)  select aspects of otherwise indeterminate ‘being’ (…) constituting figure , so to speak, instead of ground .” Now it is all important to note here — against what might seem to be our solipsistic prison — that humans do come to recognize “constituent elements” (although our recognition is never definitive). All of the sciences testify to this (both to the finding and to its never-ending need for refinement). But elements are exactly not purely constructed, they are found to be before us (in different senses of ‘before’). It is therefore exactly not “heroic” action that successfully isolates “constituent elements”, but a kind of ‘giving way’ before them. Letting them be. Just how this action of ‘giving way’ and ‘letting be’ might be exercised in regard to the “constituent elements of experience ” is exactly THE great question of psychology and THE only answer to the world’s plight. ↩
• This “most basic of encounters” is that of the infant with its new environment. But its most salient feature is not that the infant heroically reaches out to probe that environment, but that this reaching out succeeds . Communicative ground is what enables this success — a ground that is qualitatively beyond what the figure of the infant-hero can ever achieve on its own. ↩
• This statement cannot be made, of course, in reference to an eternal background; it must be made in regard to historical time which alone has a “no longer”. This is an indication of Peterson’s repeated elision between figure and ground, between diachrony and synchrony, which is not necessarily wrong — but which cannot feature the same hero in both and cannot lead to coherent theory in this form. ↩
• No, the world is always already there via the “eternal battleground of order and chaos”. What the historical hero has to do, somehow, is locate this eternality through a process that necessarily implicates his utter dissolution. The archetypal hero, on the other hand, while qualitatively different from the historical one, may indeed be said to be active in the “birth of the world” — but not through interaction with “the unknown” in the usual sense. Instead, in the eternal time of the dynamic interactions of first principles, the hero knows the “dragon of chaos” forever and “makes the world” in union with it, not as we make a hot dog, but as a generativity that precedes everything. ↩
• Peterson puts his finger here on a central law of ontology. Namely, at the level of the most real, ‘two’ must always give way before ‘one’ or before ‘three or more’. Where there are ‘two’ first principles, either they must collapse into ‘one’ over the eternity of time; or, if they ‘hold out’ as two, there must be at least one another principle, a ‘third’, through which their eternal co-existence is possible. This is the medium that is the message. The explanatory power of this law is massive, but goes unacknowledged in the night of the world’s sleep of doom. ↩

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An analysis of Dr Jordan Peterson's Quest for Greater Meaning

2021, The Light Magazine

This paper analyses Dr. Jordan Peterson's quest for Greater meaning, especially as expressed through the lenses of psychology, philosophy and religion. Why has Dr. Peterson appealed so greatly to millions of young adults in this current nihilistic culture? How is Christianity functioning in the ecology of his family system? Where may this potentially be leading?

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American Studies Journal

David Dennen

One person’s prophet has always been another’s crackpot. Nowhere is this more obvious currently than with psychology professor turned public intellectual Jordan B. Peterson. Peterson has attained a large following online and is esteemed by centrist members of the American media. Yet few intellectuals are currently so reviled by younger leftists. This article argues for some conceptual and cultural-historical clarification of Peterson’s work. I suggest that Peterson and some (not all) of his leftist critics are actually on the same side of an effort to preserve the open-access order (the basic political-economic organization of the Western democracies). However, they focus on different problems endemic to such orders. While his critics focus on power imbalances and material inequalities, Peterson is a manifestation of the need to manage spiritual crisis while at the same time maintaining relative openness of access to political and economic institutions. Recurrent spiritual crisis, I argue, inheres in open-access orders. Because these orders depend on impersonality and value relativism, they provide no spiritual grounding for individuals. In open-access societies, spiritual crises get temporarily resolved by the development of ‘secular theodicies,’ modes of making sense of suffering in a world in which God is dead. Peterson is a purveyor of a secular theodicy, the contours and context of which are shown through consideration of Peterson’s writings and online videos.

Matthew McManus

SSRN Electronic Journal

Jonathan Rowson

Stephen Turner

Christian Smith is an insider of sorts—a product of Harvard with a past at North Carolina, a member of the exclusive Sociological Research Association, who publishes in conventional journals, does survey research, and runs a research center at Notre Dame. He also, however, writes books, some of which articulate his vision of the good life, which go far beyond conventional sociology, including his genre-busting What is a Person? (2010),the most wide-ranging and compelling book in “sociological theory” of recent years. He has now written a reflection on sociology that brings to mind the books of the early 1990s, such as Horowitz (1993), Cole (2001), and articles like Joel Smith’s attack on the influence of postmodernism (1995). But Christian Smith has new material to deal with, and a sociological thesis: that sociology is understandable in terms of the sociology of religion as a sacred enterprise, with strong ideological commitments, and that this accounts for its present as well as p...

Beth Snodderly

Los Angeles Review of Books

Guy Stevenson

This article discusses the fascinating rise of Canadian psychologist cum self-help guru Jordan Peterson: first in relation to the problems with identity politics that have helped facilitate it; second as an improbable Nietzschean and Jungian revival sixty years after the hippies made these two figures fashionable; and third, as a reductive and dangerously evangelical response to serious, pressing cultural problems. If the culture wars are back on - as Peterson keeps saying and his enormous popularity at least partly suggests - and the youth are turning en masse against the discourse of equal rights begun in the sixties, then it's vital he be called out for harnessing that rebellion in reductive, aggressive and quasi-religious terms. Rather than Peterson's charismatic and proselytising brand of PC-bashing, I suggest, curious and disillusioned young people need exposure to calm thinkers on this subject – people like the English philosopher John Gray, who for twenty years has been critiquing liberal humanist complacency but through careful application of Arthur Schopenhauer's saner reflections and sensible caution about the myth-intoxicated visions in Nietzsche and Jung.

Mohammad Danesh

Studia Gilsoniana

Mirela Oliva

Mats Winther

Peterson’s philosophy, as expounded in “Maps of Meaning: The Architecture of Belief”, departs radically from views held in depth psychology and theology but has much in common with Hegel. The world of consciousness is greatly overestimated. His exaggerated intellectualism leads to deep symbols being over-rationalized, producing meager and sterile interpretations. The article contributes to the understanding of myth and religion. Keywords: identification, psychic integration, symbolic meaning, transcendence, evil, heroism, Magna Mater, Osiris, resurrection, alchemy, Hegel, Carl Jung, M-L von Franz, Nietzsche, St Augustine.

Philip J Rossi

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