Review of Jordan Peterson, 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos (2018) – by Ron Dart

From now on, everybody stands on his own feet 

“Marxism and Monastic Perspectives”             

Thomas Merton   

I may assert Eternal Providence,

And justify the ways of God to men.

Paradise Lost: Book 1  

John Milton 

I remember with much clarity and chagrin the publishing in 1987 (more than 30 years ago when I was doing my PHD Studies) of Allen Bloom’s The Closing of the American Mind. The reactions from the liberal and progressive left to the well-written tome were swift, pointed and sheer attack. Bloom had merely highlighted in his layered beauty how the western canon of literature had become dim and caricatured in higher education and, as a result, the American mind was closing in on itself within trendy texts and a narrow ideology. The liberal left pilloried Bloom and castigated him as an apologist for the reactionary right (which, of course, he was not). Those who only think within the dualistic categories of liberal left and conservative right know not how to engage those who transcend such simplistic tribes. It is also significant that Emmanuel Goldstein and the Brotherhood (whether he or they actually existed) were seen as the enemies of Big Brother in Orwell’s 1984. Sadly so, there tends to be often an Orthodoxy (whether religious or secular or some combination thereof) that defines who is in the establishment Orthodox clan and who are the heterodox and heretics. Those who are attentive and alert to some of the larger issues these days of political correctness in the culture wars cannot but be acutely aware of the presence of Jordan Peterson.

The recent front stage reality of Peterson’s significance (Bill C-15, Lindsay Shepherd incident and his interview with Cathy Newman are but three in a long list of public incidences) has clarified Peterson’s heterodox or heretical positions before the Orthodox liberal clan. The reactions to Peterson are virtually identical to the way Bloom and Goldstein were treated—many are the déjà vu moments in the history of cultural clashes. But, for those who only think in a dualistic rather than more nuanced and dialectical way, Peterson is either the pre-eminent saint or sinner—it’s either hagiography or demonization—it’s either boosters or knockers. Are there more nuanced and subtle ways of reading and approaching Peterson’s all too human role in this cultural drama of sorts without slipping into a sheer and unhelpful and unhealthy intellectual melodrama?