These young people say Jordan Peterson should not be allowed to speak on their campus. Peterson’s a psychology professor at the University of Toronto. When Canada proposed a law declaring it illegal not to call someone by their “preferred pronoun”, in other words illegal not to address those who don’t want to be called ‘he’ or ‘she’ as say ‘ze’ or 'zim’, Peterson said he would not obey that law.
It’s not just students who object, hundreds of his colleagues signed a petition demanding the Peterson be fired. They say his behavior is a “danger.” Now when he tries to speak protesters often surround him blowing air horns or screaming to make sure others cannot hear him. At this school, he and students who wanted to hear him moved outside to escape the noise, but the protesters just followed him and drowned him out again.
Somebody wants to be called ‘ze’ or 'zer’, why not? “I don’t care what people want to be called. That’s fine, but that doesn’t mean I should be compelled by law to call them that. The government has absolutely no business whatsoever ever governing the content of your voluntary speech,” says Peterson. But if I personally said I’d like you to call me 'ze’ or 'zim’? “We could have a conversation about that. Just like I would if you asked me to use a nickname for example. But there’s a big difference between privately negotiated modes of address and legislatively demanded compelled speech.”
Protesters call Peterson all sorts of names. “They’ve called me lots of things. ‘Hitler’. That was one. The fact that it has to do with transgender people is virtually irrelevant. The issue is compelled speech.” Peterson handles the protesters well. And he looks pretty calm while they’re screaming at him. “Yeah, well, you know it’s better to be calm.”
You can also see it in this Channel 4 News video, viewed millions of times. Maybe because Peterson stays calm while the TV host keeps twisting his words. He simply says that natural differences explain most of the gender wage gap. Like many on the left, she insists that difference proves discrimination. If it weren’t for our sexist society we’d be much more alike. “That’s actually not the case. The science on that is absolutely clear. They’ve studied tens of thousands of people in dozens of countries, and the papers have been cited thousands of times.”
For years, many leftists denied there were any differences. Feminist icon Gloria Steinem even objected to researching differences. “It’s really the remnant of anti-american crazy thinking to do this kind of research,” she said. But more research has been done, and it shows that on average men and women excel at different things. "That runs contrary to the desires of the research used to generated the data, because no one wanted that. It came as a shock to everyone, but that’s how it is,” Peterson explains. And yet when you say this, it infuriates some people. "It should infuriate them, because I’m going right after the heart of the radical leftist doctrine.”
The heart of that doctrine is that all groups should have equal outcomes. There should be just as many female CEOs, scientists, computer programmers, because men and women are the same. If outcomes differ, it must be sexism. Or as actress Ashley Judd puts it: “The problem is the patriarchy.” The patriarchy. Professors teach exactly that. "First of all, I think the idea that like men tyrannically dominated everything is a pretty damn weak argument. The year 2002 to the year 2012, the rate of absolute poverty in the world fell by 50%. It’s like that’s pretty good for a patriarchal tyranny. That was the fastest economic development in the history of the world,” says Peterson.
But on campus the message is “inequality,” “oppression.” Students major now in social justice. “Disciplines like women’s and ethnic studies, which which are corrupt right to the core,” says Peterson. "They’re out to produce radical leftist activists by their own admission. All you have to do is go to the websites of these disciplines and look at how they advertise.” Social justice is different from justice. Social justice generally means justice for groups of people. It assumes every group – women, blacks, whites – should have the same income, job preference, everything. Peterson says this is an idea that comes from Marxist professors. It’s a little discredited now to say “I’m a Marxist.” “Yeah, you’d think so, wouldn’t you? Except I think it’s one in five social scientists identify as Marxists. So, yeah, it’s a little discredited, but it’s nowhere near discredited enough. It should be as discreditable to say that you’re a Marxist as it is to say that you’re a Nazi.”
It isn’t. On campus, socialism is cherished, says Peterson. Although it’s murderous. “We’ve got a hundred million corpses stacked up to demonstrate that,” he says. Murderous then, but they say those like Stalin are just bad individuals. It doesn’t mean all socialism. “Yeah, so was Mao, so was Pol Pot. The thing is it was tried everywhere. And the end consequence was always the same. I’ve heard this all many many times: 'That wasn’t real communism.’ Do you know what that means? That means that if I would have been the benevolent dictator in in the place of Stalin, then I would have brought in the Utopia. There isn’t a more narcissistic and toxic and inexcusable statement that you can possibly make.”
Peterson offers an alternative in videos that suddenly are being viewed by millions. Peterson calls for the opposite of Marxism: individual sovereignty. “The free-market principles, the idea of individual sovereignty above all else is distributed itself across the world quite effectively. And everyone is doing better here than anybody has ever done on the on the face of the planet throughout recorded history, and the whole West is like that. And to call that all a 'tyrannical patriarchy’ is indicative of a very deep resentment and a historical ignorance that’s so profound that it’s indistinguishable from willful blindness.
Peterson says the best thing people can do to fight back against that blindness is to speak the truth, even when it’s unpopular. Peterson follows his own advice, he says unpopular truths. And people like that. Almost a million have bought his book.
