I'm probably a bit late to the discussion on this man (as I wrongly categorised him as a right wing antagonist when I was going through a bit of an ideologist phase and tended to avoid his content). However, I read his book a couple of months ago and have listened to a lot of his interviews (particularly the Joe Rogan ones) and I must confess that I find the man to be fascinating and enlightening. As someone who sometimes struggle to find meaning in my life, I found that Peterson really speaks to me. He tackles complex issues of life in an intellectual manner, though because he doesn't only give palatable answers, he rubs a lot of people up the wrong way. His criticism of identity politics made me think and change my perception on something I hadn't even realised that I had been drawn into. His explanation about the need to carry a burden through life has helped me to look at my depression/mental health in a different way and see it as character building. It lays down the challenge for me. Learning how to carry that load through life without it derailing me is what success looks like, not in ridding myself of it altogether. Anyway, it seems like he's in a bad way at the moment and hopefully he has a speedy recovery and can get back to having discussions that society really needs to have right now. Some of his interviews are over 3 hours long so I won't post them here, but this one is very good and quite humourous as well. The presenter tries to take him down and fails miserably:
The guy is an absolute straight talking genius. He's not without his own problems though - and has been struggling to deal with them recently. His vulnerability is part of his appeal. His book is superb. His videos are brilliant. Probably defines in a single person the term "doesn't suffer fools gladly!" He has definitely made me *properly* think about "things" on many, many occasions.
He's a mentally disturbed man. I find the fact that so many people have bought into his concept of masculinity, despite the obvious and sustained mental trauma it is causing him over many years, to be one of the most baffling things I have ever seen. Here is a man who demonstrably has made his own health worse in the name of pursuing riches and success via his own methods and principles. It's like buying 'Robert Maxwell's Pension Security and Safe Yachting Guide' or something. Sure he scores points against specious reasoning or easy targets like in that C4 interview, but the gender pay gap is obviously a stupid touchpoint that he knows he can win and the other person will always look unreasonavble. He's very much not as sure of himself when he discusses the impact of his quasi-religious messiah lifestyle, or when the fundamental science behind some of his claims (Lobsters have serotonin, we have serotonin, therefore we need to be like lobsters...) is questioned by his peers. So in a nutshell, not a fan. Apart from making the bed, I do that anyway though.
