Hi Gardner,

Thank you for taking the time to write such a thoughtful response.

I’ll start with my parents and then get to Peterson.

Personally I see my parents as the result of their conditioning. While that conditioning hurt me it still makes a type of sense to me. Both dealt with traumas and neglect when growing up and I know the ways this often shapes behavior and neurology.

When one takes this into account with the ways they were raised, where they grew up, what they felt helped and empowered them and the choices they made based on their beliefs and conditioning their choices make sense.

Growing up I tried to argue with their inconsistencies and what I saw as injustices. Now I try to illustrate to them that I understand why they’ve done what they’ve done. I hope that some patterns begin to shift and change and when I can I try to share constructive ways to shift those patterns. Sometimes it’s peaceful, sometimes I lose my cool though the latter is happening less and less.

Meanwhile, I live the life I feel called to live. I know they don’t approve but I feel the essence of who they are beneath the conditioning would approve and be proud if it had a different context with which to see me. They have spent their whole lives in service to others because they wanted to help people. I have dedicated my own life to helping people, simply in different ways.

They certainly did their best.

Letting go versus holding on to traditions.

As for letting go and creating I see continuing older traditions that serve us as part of the act of creation. I currently live in Bali. There are temples here that are thousands of years old but they don’t look like ruins because every generation puts the work into creating them anew whenever it is required. As such I agree with you that there are parts of society that we should keep.

Similarly, I have thanked my parents for the values that they have taught me that I have seen positively impact my own life such as faith and service to others.

When we see something that works we bring it into the future with us. I don’t think anyone is arguing against this. Critical Theory doesn’t suggest we ignore the past, it suggests that we better understand it in order to create a better society.

I know I’m not shooting for a Utopia. I don’t believe many of us are but we can clearly do much better than the current system.

When it comes to Jordan Peterson he has packed himself as a man sticking up for Western civilization against a revengeful onslaught but for the most part I feel he’s created a scarecrow crusade he gets to starlight in as an apologist for the status quo.

Jordan Peterson Rant.

Honestly, I don’t have much respect for him as a person or an intellectual. He was investigated for abandoning his clinical clients when his political theatrics landed him in the public eye. Clients and close friends have all shared that his disposition while always that of a maverick quickly shifted into a lust for the spotlight.

From here he has managed to say enough to stay provocative and engaged as a point of controversy while being vague enough not to be regulated to the trash bin of society.

What I’ve seen of his theories on neurology seem to miss the complexity of the brain such as his oversimplification of dopamine and serotonin in the role of happiness, motivation, and social hierarchy.

He creates hypotheses on data that simply doesn’t support what he is saying (such as his lobster/hierarchy theory) while skipping studies that actually support more of what he says.

His interpretations on Jung throw me off as it seems rather unbalanced. He often speaks to the chaos and destruction of the feminine while only paying lip service to its creative property.

Jung himself found that his own psychological process deconstructed his heavy reliance on masculine traits while empowering his feminine, hence the anima of the Red Book and his attempt to overthrow the old god and his disposition to “thinking.”

Meanwhile, Peterson is doing the reverse. He continues to praise a heroic masculine archetype while demonizing the feminine. He then pits this dragon-slaying image against a larger narrative of social justice, LGBTQ rights, women’s rights, social security nets.

He enjoys the narrative of hero when it applies to males from established backgrounds achieving social success. He then says this is what others are trying to take away but fails to see how the dominance of white males in the social-political arena makes them the dragons in the stories of the oppressed who are themselves now fighting their own hero narrative.

Personally I don’t feel he has gotten to the bottom of his own psyche. Jung had to go mad before he found his answers. Jordan Peterson keeps that from happening with the use of antidepressants. Don’t get me wrong, I think medication is an important tool for certain neurological dispositions. I know people who benefit from it greatly. They are also people with limited resources and great demands on their time, single mothers trying to work and raise children.

Peterson is currently a multimillionaire who professes to follow the teachings of a man who said we have to undergo our own crucifixion if we are to understand our psyches. He could be working with the greatest healers around the world, taking all the time he needs to dive in deep and heal what's eating at his psyche. Instead, he uses a pill to feel better about his life while telling other people to stand up and take responsibility for their psychological states and roles in society.

He feels artificially manic to me. Chasing down the symbol of his own lack, his serotonin and dopamine, which he has projected into a framework of “success” amongst the cultural status quo. Another man trying to save the world as he soaks up the spotlight in a crusade that doesn’t need fighting.

Critical Theory doesn’t have the power to destroy Western culture and civilization. It is in itself a product of the West and will only help us better understand what has constructed our own culture. An important piece in the puzzle if we are looking to avoid this tyrannical wave of reflexive politics, our endless wars, and environmental collapse.