I hope you've been having a fantastic month. Today, I'd like to briefly discuss a man named Jordan Peterson and my experiences using his advice to help me in life. He offers a lot of self-help guidance, as well as a few online courses to help you find yourself. I did them, and I'd like to share my findings.
Who is Jordan B. Peterson?
Jordan Bruce Peterson was born in 1962 in Alberta, Canada. He has two younger siblings, and from a young age, Jordan was extremely curious. It was obvious to those around him that he was deeply intelligent and observant, and that he would go far in life.
In his late teens, he took on socialism and joined socialist groups. He also drank heavily, but put that away in his late twenties to pursue a life of meaning. At first, he hoped to be a politician but found his calling in education. He became a professor and he has taught at several prestigious schools including Harvard. Quite quickly, he gained a reputation for himself thanks to his impactful lectures that blended mythology with psychoanalysis.
Don't take him lightly as an academic. He has authored or co-authored over a hundred academic papers. I have a measly two published papers. That's why he is a world-renowned academic, and I am a university dropout. This is partially why I was drawn to him.
He has also managed a clinical practice. During his time as a psychologist, he has drawn controversy to himself. Peterson admits that he has been accused of sexual misconduct at least 3 times, with one coming from one of his clients. Nevertheless, he remains convicted of no such deeds.
Peterson rose to fame (or infamy) in 2016 when he publicly opposed Canada's Bill C-16. The Canadian Parliament summarizes it as such:
The bill is intended to protect individuals from discrimination within the sphere of federal jurisdiction and from being the targets of hate propaganda, as a consequence of their gender identity or their gender expression. The bill adds "gender identity or expression" to the list of prohibited grounds of discrimination in the Canadian Human Rights Act and the list of characteristics of identifiable groups protected from hate propaganda in the Criminal Code. It also adds that evidence that an offence was motivated by bias, prejudice, or hate based on a person's gender identity or expression constitutes an aggravating circumstance for a court to consider when imposing a criminal sentence.
Jordan claimed it would result in compelled speech, which he is against. He claimed that he would not call a transgender by their preferred pronouns and if he was arrested he would go on a hunger strike. Fortunately, he was not arrested, and nobody has been.
So what's JP up to today? Well, he still does his circuit of talks and interviews. He currently works for The Daily Wire alongside Ben Shapiro. Furthermore, he has a podcast where he shares his views.
Mikhaila Peterson
Completely unrelated but holy lolcow. Mikhaila Peterson was born in 1992, and it's pretty funny to read 12 rules for life knowing he has two kids because he fully advocates for hitting your kids so you know Mikhaila got btfod by her dad.
And what about the idea that hitting a child merely teaches them to hit? First: No. Wrong. Too simple. For starters, โhittingโ is a very unsophisticated word to describe the disciplinary act of an effective parent.
To unthinkingly parrot the magic line โThere is no excuse for physical punishmentโ is also to foster the delusion that teenage devils magically emerge from once-innocent little child-angels. You're not doing your child any favors by overlooking any misbehavior (particularly if he or she is temperamentally more aggressive). To hold the no excuse for physical punishment theory is also (fifth) to assume that the word no can be effectively uttered to another person in the absence of the threat of punishment.
How the frick is this guy a licensed clinical psychologist? What the frick is going on in Canada? He writes a lot about Mikhaila in 12 rules and I think you also see the early seeds of modern day morose Peterson. You see, his daughter has a debilitating illness, and that rocked his world.
The physio told us, โYour daughter has juvenile rheumatoid arthritis.โ This was not what we wanted to hear. We did not like that physiotherapist. We went back to the medical clinic. Another physician there told us to take Mikhaila to the Hospital for Sick Children. The doctor said, โTake her to the emergency room. That way, you will be able to see a rheumatologist quickly.โ Mikhaila had arthritis, all right. The physio, bearer of unwelcome news, was correct. Thirty-seven affected joints. Severe polyarticular juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA). Cause? Unknown. Prognosis? Multiple early joint replacements.
What sort of God would make a world where such a thing could happen, at all?โmuch less to an innocent and happy little girl?
As her disease progressed, I began to piggy-back her around (not on my shoulders) when we went for walks. She started taking oral naproxen and methotrexate, the latter a powerful chemotherapy agent. She had a number of cortisol injections (wrists, shoulders, ankles, elbows, knees, hips, fingers, toes and tendons), all under general anaesthetic. This helped temporarily, but her decline continued. One day Tammy took Mikhaila to the zoo. She pushed her around in a wheelchair. That was not a good day.
After all that suffering, did Mikhaila become a virtuous woman who understood the full value of life and the glory of God's creations? Frick no. Much like her father she has had intense plastic surgery to the point of becoming partially bogpilled.
She dated and married a Russian man who claimed he had a demon inside him named Igor (very based of Igor btw). They had a child but divorced. She then dated ANDREW TATE. She then married a man named JORDAN.
She promotes an all-meat diet which likely sickened her father. Don't do this.
Understand Myself
The first place to start with Jordan Peterson's path of self-improvement is to understand yourself. He has a quiz you can take online to discover your core personality traits. It costs $9.95 which isn't too high a barrier of entry. I completed the test my results were as such.
Okay, so I'm neurotic and also a fricking confirmed brainlet. Though this was vaguely interesting, it hasn't helped me. If anything, it's just made me more neurotic and depressed.
Self Authoring Suite
The self-authoring was a little more pricey, coming in at $29.95. It asks you to imagine your past and write about all the trauma and pain you've endured. It then asks you to imagine the worst possible future and the best possible one. Through this writing process, you're supposed to have a clearer understanding of yourself and what your best path forward should be. You can see most of it below. The paid version is almost identical.
Once again, I'm left feeling hollow. All I've done is flesh out my inner thoughts, which I was always aware of. I don't know what to do with this information.
Conclusion
Don't buy Jordan Peterson crap. It will not help you. He is a grifter. He is literally selling nothing but silly personality quizzes, and desperate people like me are buying it in droves. Any good to be found from the man, you can acquire for free on YouTube.
Next week, I will post my longest post ever, and it details me revealing my feelings to my friend. I hope you like it. Very difficult to live through and write. Do you think it ends well or not?
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Let it be known to all the posers, you aren't an effortposter unless you've knowingly spent money on scams for research like sneedman.
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