Jordan Peterson & the Alt-Right: The Real Connection
You’ve heard that Jordan Peterson is a beacon of the alt-right, lauded by white supremacists who find support for their ideals in his books and lectures?
Here’s a story. An incredible story.
Jay, not his real name, spent some years affiliated with the alt-right, ensconced in the white supremacy ideology. By his account, his brush with the ideas of Jordan Peterson shook that affiliation, catapulted him into a painful self-inquiry and led him to where he is today: doing a graduate degree in mental health counseling.
He’s no longer identified with the alt-right. He may very well go on to help troubled young people leave that ideology, for all we know. It’s a story worth sharing.
In his younger years, Jay’s family life was characterized by conflict. His mom was aggressive and sometimes violent, his dad, defeated. Dad endured . . . until he couldn’t. He left the home when Jay was 18. When dad left, things got worse. Jay was now the sole target of mom’s temper.
In college, he found a home in the radical left, aligning with anarchism, communism and other ideologies that meshed with a stance characterized by nihilism. But his living conditions felt unbearable. A year or so after his father had moved out, Jay chose homelessness.
Initially, Jay reached out to a community of hippies, attracted to obscure subcultures premised on sustainability and natural living. A family let him crash on the couch for a couple of weeks. Next, he hitchhiked to a regional gathering of this hippie culture, then lived in a bar for a while and ultimately hooked up with a hobo, a senior who taught Jay how to ‘train hop’. Jay would live in freight trains, sneaking on, maintaining a transient lifestyle.
Occasionally he would get work as a day laborer or do odd jobs. Other times he would panhandle. He became good at “dumpster diving.” At close up time, restaurants dispose of food that sits on a warmer all day. Jay would pick through the dumpster to score a meal.
Jay met a woman suffering with Borderline Personality Disorder. She became his girlfriend, a relationship which replicated the dynamic he had lived with his mother. He moved in with her for short periods of time, initially after knowing her for all of two weeks. Drama ensued. She accused him of being threatening to her children. At one point he was slashed with a kitchen knife. Chaos, chaos and more chaos.
He had left home in 2005. A few years later he netted a job packing groceries, lived in upstate New York and found a girlfriend, healthier than the first. He was getting an inkling: he wanted a normal life. His mother invited him home to “fix ” their relationship and he could finish school. In 2010, he moved back. Now in his early 30s, he lived with his dad when it didn’t work out with his mom. He found work in a grocery store.
Jay was now affiliated with the radical right. Hating women, he was antifeminist. He dabbled in “racial realism” which traces biological differences between different groups in the population, a launchpad into white supremacy. And it’s at that particular time that he heard about Jordan Peterson and got the impression that Jordan Peterson was “one of our guys.” He was excited: somebody ‘alt-right’, like himself, was a professor at a university!
Jay checked out Peterson’s YouTube channel. He didn’t find what he expected. In fact, there were many lectures that he, frankly, did not understand. Regardless, he felt compelled to listen. He would play these lectures as background noise while playing video games or doing other things.
Peterson asserted that people should be treated decently regardless of their IQ level, their skin color, or other characteristics. Jay was disappointed. Peterson was not advancing the idea that intrinsic characteristics justified a superior status for some. This guy was confusing. Was he friend or foe?
Jay reflected, “he had good swordplay with the feminists.” That made Jay think that Peterson was “with us.” But Peterson spoke against the radical left and the alt right.
Jay continued to listen. One day, he decided: he wanted to stop being ‘lazy’ in his learning. He wanted to commit. He wanted to invest.
He began listening to Peterson’s University of Toronto course on YouTube in a focused way. In Maps of Meaning, Peterson picks apart cultural works and analyzes them, unpacking archetypal themes. Jay watched Peterson deconstruct Disney’s Lion King. Then, it happened: a moment of self-recognition. That movie has a sinister character, the evil uncle, Scar.
“I was Scar”
“I realized I was Scar.” Said Jay, “It shattered me from the ground up.”
Imagine: you thought that you had all these lofty ideas and “intellectual pretenses” (as he says) and now see yourself as conniving, weaseling, resentful and a loser. Said Jay, “I had always known, but chose to look away. Now I had nowhere to avert my gaze.”
It was clear: his resentment was because of him, not because of the world, his mother or the liberals. His family dynamics had shaped this response but at the end of the day it was his responsibility to rearchitect himself into a different way of being. For a while, he began using marijuana as a way to self-medicate. These realizations left him moody and depressed.
He could see that he needed to be an adult, that he needed to be self-sufficient. He was in his mid-30s. His parents were aging. He recognized: he will ultimately be alone. He thought,
“I have nothing. I sleep on a couch. I’m a giant child.”
But how was he going to cope with this uncomfortable disorientation he experienced? And who should he be? What could he do to feel better? He felt like a shipwrecked sailor. Said Jay, “I needed to grab onto something.”
Jay took Peterson at his word: the antidote is to form an identity. Jay would have to figure out what would give him meaning. He took Peterson’s Five Factor Personality Test and learned more about himself. Then he did Peterson’s Self-Authoring program, and learned more.
During this phase of time, memories would resurface, memories that were happy. Dead relatives would appear in dreams. There were changes going on in his consciousness. He could feel it.
Now he was looking at himself differently. Instead of seeing himself as a reactor to the trauma in the past, suddenly he looked at his relatives with fresh eyes.
I started to recognize parts of my grandfather in me, my grandfather who was more of an ideal in terms of relationships between men and women. I also saw my father in me. And I found my mother in me.
What to do next?
The Peterson approach advocates taking a leap of faith: approach life as if it were worth living and see what happens. Pursue opportunities when they present themselves. Along those lines, a friend of his needed to rake his yard. Jay offered to help. Fast-forward: Jay lives with this friend! The friendship is strong.
Jay now takes better care of himself. He brushes his teeth every day and showers regularly. Lo and behold, with better self-care people respond to him better. There are more social opportunities.
In the past, Jay was compelled by anxiety. There was nothing positive in the future pulling him forward. Now what could pull him forward? What should he do with his life? As per Peterson, he should do what he’s interested in. But what is that?
He started taking courses through Udemy, Coursera, and other platforms. He studied philosophy, psychology, computer science. He needed to see what would spark his interest. He had abandoned his former ideologies. Certain topics he was learning were speaking to him: neuroscience, philosophy, psychology.
It had been a year since he encountered Peterson’s materials. One day, during the holiday season, he was walking on the street. Among many lights and decorations, one lighting effect caught his attention: a light facing skyward, swirling around. His eyes traced the path of the light. He flashed in recognition: “That’s what I have to do. I have to spiral up.” Time to climb the hierarchy. Time to set his sights high. He knew he had to make a move. He had to do it now.
His father did not want him to go back to school. Jay was in his later 30's. Dad said, “you’re too old. The time for school has passed. You need to make a living.” Jay turned to his father: “Dad. I am going to school. I am going to pursue a career in psychology.” Dad said. “Well, okay then.” Jay tells me, “he’s been supportive ever since.”
Where are things now?
His relationship with his dad has strengthened. He bought his father a $100 gift card as a Christmas gift. His dad was stunned. Jay’s card was emotional and touching. Full of gratitude. Dad was speechless.
Jay enrolled in college, making the Dean’s list in his first semester, finding volunteer work which would give him a taste of the field he was entering, trying electives, doing practicums, figuring out his major. As he says: “being all in.”
Peterson asks: “what could you accomplish if you threw yourself all in?” Jay is answering that question. Now in graduate school, his marks are great. He goes to the gym regularly. He eats a Paleo diet. He no longer smokes pot. He doesn’t feel a need for it anymore. He rarely drinks. He’s 38. His room is neat. He adopted a cat. He’s excited about his career.
Now here’s the kicker. He feels “post-Peterson.” He did the Peterson thing. He’s ordered the next Peterson book because he’s curious what’s in it, tracks Peterson’s progress and listens to the occasional podcast, but Jay is reading many theorists now. Peterson was the diving board and Jay keeps in the loop but is his own person, on his own trajectory. Having said that, Jay urged me to express his deepest gratitude to Peterson, also blessings for good health and progress. If Jay was Jewish, he would probably say that Peterson, on some level, is mishpacha, family. Many people feel that way about Peterson.
Those who name Peterson as a dog whistle for the alt-right don’t understand this work and the effect that it is having on listeners. Peterson’s followers take a good, hard look in the mirror and see what is wrong, specifically, with themselves. They re-orient, there is often lifestyle change and then, frequently, they move on. Some explore religion. Some follow up with more reading, some leave Peterson behind, always, though, moving forward with gratitude, quick to pay homage to the one who seeded important personal changes.
What is Peterson’s connection to the alt-right? If Jay’s story is any indicator, Peterson’s work can help people who are locked in ideologically bankrupt systems to recognize the error of their ways, forcing them to question the validity of their premises. If this work is a dog whistle for the alt-right, there is more there than meets the eye. Peterson pulls off a ‘bait and switch’. A young man thinks he has found a kindred spirit, then finds the opposite, then goes for the ride of his life!
Who knew Jay, a former nomad, would find his way into graduate school! Who knew white supremacy would give way to a rule with opposite sensibilities: “Compare yourself with who you were yesterday, not with who someone else is today.”
Who knew?? Or, in an era where people have access to materials generously shared by Dr. Peterson, the question really is ‘who new?’ In the community of Peterson followers, there are remarkable stories of people who have dramatically (and against all odds) changed their stripes. Do you have a story to tell about how Jordan Peterson’s teachings changed your life? Let’s tell it together.
Annette Poizner, MSW, Ed.D., is registered as a social worker, working in private practice, who is compiling stories for her book: Lobster Tales: ‘How Jordan Peterson Changed My Life’, a living document which is regularly updated with new tales of transformation. Her books, published by Lobster University Press, explore and unpack the teachings of Dr. Jordan Peterson as they relate to psycho-spiritual development and mental health.
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