Myth and Meaning in Jordan Peterson

Description

Popular philosopher Jordan Peterson has captured the imagination of Western world.For some, Peterson represents all that is wrong with patriarchal culture; for others, he is the Canadian academic prophet who has come to save civilization from dizzying confusion. Regardless of how one feels about him, his influence in North America--and beyond--is difficult to deny. While the "Peterson phenomenon" has motivated numerous articles and responses, much of what has been written is either excessively fawning or overly critical. Little has been produced that explores Peterson's thought--especially his immensely popular 12 Rules for Life--within the context of his overall context and scholarly output. How is one to understand the ascendency of Jordan Peterson and why he's become so popular? Does his earlier Maps of Meaning shed light on how one might understand his worldwide bestseller, 12 Rules for Life? In Myth and Meaning in Jordan Peterson, scholars across various disciplines explore various aspects of Jordan Peterson's thought from a Christian perspective. Both critical and charitable, sober-minded and generous, this collection of ten essays is a key resource for those looking to faithfully engage with Jordan Peterson's thought.

Sujets

• Philosophie et théologie
• Philosophy of religion

Informations

• Publié par: Lexham Press
• Date de parution: 25 mars 2020
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781683593638
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

MYTH AND MEANING IN
JORDAN PETERSON
A Christian Perspective
RON DART
Editor

LEXHAM PRESS
Myth and Meaning in Jordan Peterson: A Christian Perspective
Copyright 2020 Ron Dart
Lexham Press, 1313 Commercial St., Bellingham, WA 98225
LexhamPress.com
All rights reserved. You may use brief quotations from this resource in presentations, articles, and books. For all other uses, please write Lexham Press for permission. Email us at [e-mail] .
Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations are from the King James Version. Public domain.
Print ISBN 9781683593621
Digital ISBN 9781683593638
Library of Congress Control Number: 2019953123
Lexham Editorial: Jesse Myers, Elliot Ritzema, Jeff Reimer, Erin Mangum
Cover Design: Jim LePage
Contents
Introduction
Ron Dart
1. Jordan Peterson and the Chaos of Our Secular Age
Bruce Riley Ashford
2. Jordan Peterson the Counter-Revolutionary: Marxism, Postmodern Neo-Marxism, and Suffering
Hunter Baker
3. Language and Freedom: Peterson as Champion of Free Speech (and Freedom from Compelled Speech)
Alastair Roberts
4. Myth, Memoricide, and Jordan Peterson
Ron Dart
5. Archetypes, Symbols, and Allegorical Exegesis: Jordan Peterson’s Turn to the Bible in Context
T. S. Wilson
6. Jordan Peterson’s Genesis Lectures: Interpreting the Bible between Rationalism and Nihilism
Laurence Brown
7. The Image of Christ: Jordan Peterson as Humanist
Esther O’Reilly
8. Professor Peterson, Professor Peterson: What Is Your View on … Science and Religion?
Esgrid Sikahall
9. A Kierkegaardian Reading of Jordan Peterson
Stephen M. Dunning
10. Being and Meaning: Jordan Peterson’s Antidote to Evil
Matthew Steem and Joy Steem
List of Contributors
Subject and Author Index
Introduction
T he autumn of 2016 ushered Jordan Peterson from his research-lecturing-publishing job at the University of Toronto onto the public stage, with gender-neutral pronouns and compelled speech the occasion of the initial performance. Peterson’s position on Bill C-16, regarding the use of personal pronouns for transgender people, generated substantive reactions from both ideological progressives and the alt-right. A year later, the treatment of Lindsay Shepherd, a graduate student at Wilfrid Laurier University who dared to show a clip of Peterson in class, which some felt should not be done, further accelerated the brittle polarization in the culture wars. In January 2018 , following the publication of Peterson’s book 12 Rules for Life , the highly animated and much-discussed debate of sorts between him and TV journalist Cathy Newman generated many more clashing interpretations, whereas the more measured, balanced, and insightful reflections by Catholic bishop Robert Barron in February made for a finer and more nuanced read. 1 An anti-Peterson attitude in the liberal establishment was consolidated by the Munk Debate in Toronto between Peterson and Stephen Fry in May of 2018, 2 the critical article in the Toronto Star by Peterson’s former colleague Bernard Schiff that same month, 3 and his follow-up interview on CBC with Wendy Mesley in June. 4
I first came across Peterson when my students began wanting to do papers, presentations, and guided studies on him. As I learned more about him, I found that he was obviously contributing something, speaking into a vacuum that a lot of people were timid about. I found that he was challenging liberalism primarily by drawing attention to two things: first, the fragmentary nature of postmodern thought, which says you can’t say anything substantive; everything is perspective. The second is the politically correct aspect of liberalism, which insists there are some things you just can’t say. The response to these two things is often a reactionary conservatism, which is equally problematic. Those who feel caught between these pathways are not satisfied with them, and they find in Peterson a nimble thinker who can’t be pigeonholed.
In addition to finding an audience among people who are dissatisfied with the current ideological options, Peterson has also gained an audience among those who know that science is unable to answer the deeper longings of the human heart for meaning and purpose. This plays out in particular in his lectures on biblical themes. In the right wing of the Enlightenment (those who followed biblical criticism), the biblical text was dismissed as irrelevant. In the Reformed tradition, the way to approach the Bible was in a literal, historical, grammatical way that lost the contemplative, mystical elements that were used by patristic exegetes. Peterson, by contrast, recognizes the limits of science and understands how myth can speak to people. He takes biblical stories in a mythical sense, not getting hung up on the historicity of them, and will ask almost what a spiritual director would ask: “What does this story mean for you on your journey?” All of a sudden, people realize that the text can speak to them.
Peterson’s approach to Scripture is in some ways a recovery of something that has been lost. For the fathers and mothers of the church, there were six levels of interpretation. The lowest was the grammatical-historical, but there are also more nuanced and layered ways of interpreting the text. The appeal of Peterson is that he’s pointing out the perennial relevance of the stories of the Bible to today’s context, saying the genius of the Bible is that it transcends time and history and speaks to the human soul. The stories told in the Bible are as relevant to us today as they were back then. For him, whether things literally happened is not the point. It’s an approach to exegeting the text that speaks to people on their all-too-human journey. In that sense, he’s drawing a lot of people, in his honest and doubting way, to consider how the text might speak to the questions they are asking on their journey.
This book is an attempt to understand from a Christian perspective what has caused so many people to resonate with Peterson. Central to that resonance has been people’s perception of Peterson as a person of integrity. He initially came to prominence through his insistence that there are standards higher than the three standard tribes of postmodernism, political correctness, or a reactionary conservatism, and you need not buy into one of the three. None of these positions are intellectually coherent, and he came along and said so. He came across as a person with integrity who paid the price for speaking with integrity, and people are drawn to that kind of honesty. He was clear that simply because he critiqued the Left, that didn’t mean he was part of the alt-right. The initial attraction was that he was willing to come on the public stage and face opposition for saying the emperor had no clothes. Then, as people began to trust him as a person with integrity, people gave credence to his reading of the Bible as relevant to people’s life journeys. He catches people at different places in their questioning and directs them to the Bible.
In this collection of essays, contributors are exploring three aspects to the Jordan Peterson phenomenon, trying to find a middle way between hagiography and demonization. They are asking three sorts of questions:
1. Why is he so prominent on the public stage? What is the gap that he’s filling that a lot of people are not speaking into, and doing in a way that’s creating diverse reactions?
2. What is the good he’s contributing to the public discussion?
3. What critical questions are there to ask of Peterson? What are some of his blind spots, his Achilles’ heels, his overreactions?
As they address these kinds of questions, the authors are also asking, Where will Peterson go from here, and where should he go? Peterson has shown that he is good at getting people into first gear. But inevitably you have to translate the personal into the communal, the ecclesial, the corporate. You can’t read the Bible and not transition from the personal to the nation and the church. This is where you run into people who are different from yourself. Peterson excels at getting people out of a personal morass, but what does this look like when you shift into second, third, and fourth gear? People are asking bigger questions. The degree to which he makes the transition to addressing more than the individual will determine whether he becomes a more significant public person with a longer-lasting impact.
The task of any mature person is how they bring together theory and practice in the personal, communal, and public. It’ll be interesting to see where Peterson goes—whether he makes this transition, and how, or whether he has his moment in the sun and fades from view.
1
Jordan Peterson and the Chaos of Our Secular Age
BRUCE RILEY ASHFORD
J ordan Peterson has been described as “one of the most important thinkers to emerge on the world stage for many years,” and the author has a point. 1 Peterson attracted very little public attention until 2016, when he publicly opposed Canada’s Bill C-16, a proposal to compel citizens to use the preferred gender pronouns of transgendered persons. Peterson’s opposition to this bill thrust him into the international spotlight, going from being virtually unknown to being perhaps the most famous public intellectual in the world in 2018.
As of March 2019, Peterson’s YouTube channel had more than 350 videos, nearly 2 million subscribers, and upwards of 70 million views. Since 2016, his Twitter account has gained nearly 1 million followers, and his book tour in support of his international bestseller 12 Rules for Life has reached over 300,000 people. Not only has 12 Rules for Life sold upwards of 3 million copies in its first year, but its success has caused Peterson’s previous book, Maps of Meaning —a massive tome on psychotherapy—to suddenly become a bestseller two decades after it was published. 2
Many reasons can be given for Peterson’s rapid ascent and