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Jordan Peterson
Peterson at the University of Toronto, 2017
Born	Jordan Bernt Peterson (1962-06-12) June 12, 1962 (age 62) Fairview, Alberta, Canada
Nationality	Canadian
Alma mater	University of Alberta (B.A., 1982) McGill University (Ph.D, 1991)
Scientific career
Fields	Psychology
Institutions	Harvard University (1993–97) University of Toronto (1997–)
Website	jordanbpeterson.com

Jordan Bernt Peterson (born June 12, 1962) is a Canadian clinical psychologist and professor of psychology at the University of Toronto. His main areas of study are the psychology of religious and ideological belief, and the assessment and improvement of personality and performance. He authored Maps of Meaning: The Architecture of Belief in 1999.

Born in Fairview, Alberta, Peterson earned his undergraduate degree from the University of Alberta in 1982, and his Ph.D in clinical psychology from McGill University in 1991. He remained at McGill University as a post-doctoral fellow for two years before moving to Massachusetts, where he worked as an assistant and associate professor in the psychology department at Harvard University. In 1997, he moved to the University of Toronto as a full professor.

Early life and education

Jordan Peterson was born on June 12, 1962 and grew up in Fairview, Alberta, a small town northwest of Edmonton. He was the eldest of 3 children born to Beverley, a librarian at the Fairview campus of Grande Prairie Regional College, and Walter Peterson, a schoolteacher. His middle name is Bernt, after his Norwegian great-grandfather.

His childhood was bookish and he was instilled with a Protestant work ethic; he learned to read at the age of 3 and attended the United Church of Canada with his mother. When he was 13, he was introduced to George Orwell, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and Ayn Rand by his school librarian Sandy Notley—Rachel Notley's mother. He also worked for the New Democratic Party (NDP) throughout his teenage years, but grew disenchanted with the party due to what he saw as a preponderance of "the intellectual, tweed-wearing middle-class socialist" who "didn’t like the poor; they just hated the rich." He left the NDP at the age of 18.

At age 17, Peterson entered the Grande Prairie Regional College to study political science. After he left the NDP, he transferred to the University of Alberta, where he graduated in 1982. Afterwards, he took a year off to visit Europe. There he developed an interest in the psychological origins of the Cold War and was plagued by apocalyptic nightmares about the escalation of the nuclear arms race. As a result, he became depressed about mankind's capacity for evil and destruction, and dove into the works of Jung, Nietzsche and Solzhenitsyn in an attempt to rationalise his emotions.

In 1985, he moved to Montreal. He earned his Ph.D. in clinical psychology at McGill University under the supervision of Robert O. Pihl and Maurice Dongier in 1991, and remained as a post-doctoral fellow at McGill's Douglas Hospital until 1993.

Career

From 1993 to 1997 Peterson lived in Arlington, Massachusetts, while teaching and conducting research at Harvard University as an assistant and an associate professor in the psychology department. There he studied aggression arising from drug and alcohol abuse. During his time at Harvard, he entertained and supervised a number of unusual thesis proposals. After Harvard, he returned to Canada and took a position at the University of Toronto.

In 2004, a 13-part TV series based on his book Maps of Meaning: The Architecture of Belief aired on TVOntario. He has also appeared on TVO on shows such as Big Ideas, and has been a frequent guest and essayist on TVO's The Agenda with Steve Paikin since 2008.

In January 2017, he hired a professional production team to film the lectures he gives to his psychology class at the University of Toronto using funds he received from the crowd-sourcing/subscription website Patreon (he had reached $14,000 per month in support as of January 2017, and over $30,000 per month as of May 2017).

In March 2017, Peterson was nominated for the position of Rector of the University of Glasgow. He came fifth in the election; lawyer Aamer Anwar came first.

Controversy

On 27 September 2016, Peterson released the first installment of a three-part lecture video series entitled "Freedom Of Speech/Political Correctness", where he said he would not use the preferred gender pronouns of students and faculty. In the video, he announced his objection to the Canadian government's Bill C-16, which proposes to add "gender identity or expression" to the list of identifiable groups against whom it is illegal under the Criminal Code to publicly incite hatred against. He stated that his objection to the bill was based on potential free speech implications if the criminal code is amended; he argued that the new amendments paired with section 46.3 of the Ontario Human Rights Code would make it possible for employers and organizations to be subject to punishment under the code if any employee or associate says anything that can be construed "directly or indirectly" as offensive, "whether intentionally or unintentionally."

The series of videos drew the ire of trans activists, and critics accused Peterson of helping to create a climate for hate to thrive. Protests, occasionally violent, broke out on the University of Toronto campus, and the story attracted international media attention. In November, the National Post published an op-ed by Peterson in which he elaborated on his opposition to the bill and explained why he publicly made a stand against it. He stated:

I will never use words I hate, like the trendy and artificially constructed words "zhe" and "zher." These words are at the vanguard of a post-modern, radical leftist ideology that I detest, and which is, in my professional opinion, frighteningly similar to the Marxist doctrines that killed at least 100 million people in the 20th century. I have been studying authoritarianism on the right and the left for 35 years. I wrote a book, Maps of Meaning: The Architecture of Belief, on the topic, which explores how ideologies hijack language and belief. As a result of my studies, I have come to believe that Marxism is a murderous ideology. I believe its practitioners in modern universities should be ashamed of themselves for continuing to promote such vicious, untenable and anti-human ideas, and for indoctrinating their students with these beliefs. I am therefore not going to mouth Marxist words. That would make me a puppet of the radical left, and that is not going to happen. Period.

In response to the controversy, the HR department of the University of Toronto sent Peterson two letters of warning, one noting that free speech had to be made in accordance with human rights legislation and the other adding that his refusal to use the preferred personal pronouns of students and faculty upon request could constitute discrimination. Peterson feared these warnings letters were leading up to formal disciplinary action him, but in December the university assured him that he would retain his professorship, and in January 2017 he returned to teach his psychology class at the University of Toronto.

Works

The connection between psychology, mythology and literature is as important as the connection between psychology and biology and the hard sciences.

— Jordan Peterson

Peterson published Maps of Meaning: The Architecture of Belief in 1999. The book describes a comprehensive theory for how we construct meaning, represented by the mythical process of the exploratory hero, and also provides a way of interpreting religious and mythical models of reality presented in a way that fits in with modern scientific understanding of how the brain works. It synthesizes ideas drawn from narratives in mythology, religion, literature and philosophy, as well as research from modern neuropsychology.

Peterson’s primary goal was to figure out the reasons why individuals, not simply groups, engage in social conflict, and try to model the path individuals take that results in atrocities like the Holocaust or the Soviet Gulag. Peterson considers himself a pragmatist, and uses science and neuropsychology to examine and learn from the belief systems of the past and vice versa, but his theory is primarily phenomenological. Peterson explores the origins of evil, and also posits that an analysis of the world’s religious ideas might allow us to describe our essential morality and eventually develop a universal system of morality.

Harvey Shepard, writing in the Religion column in the Montreal Gazette in 2003, states "To me, the book reflects its author's profound moral sense and vast erudition in areas ranging from clinical psychology to scripture and a good deal of personal soul searching..." He goes on to note that "Peterson's vision is both fully informed by current scientific and pragmatic methods, and in important ways deeply conservative and traditional."

Online projects

Peterson has produced a series of online writing exercises including: the Past Authoring Program, a guided autobiography; two Present Authoring Programs, which allow the user to analyze his or her personality faults and virtues in accordance with the Big Five personality model; and the Future Authoring program, which steps users through the process of envisioning and then planning their desired futures, three to five years down the road. The latter program was used with McGill University undergraduates on academic probation to improve their grades.

The Self Authoring programs were developed in partial consequence of research conducted by James Pennebaker at the University of Texas and Gary Latham at the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto. Pennebaker demonstrated that writing about traumatic or uncertain events and situations improved mental and physical health, while Latham has demonstrated that planning exercises that are personal help make people more productive.

Peterson records his lectures and uploads them to YouTube. His YouTube channel has amassed more than 200,000 subscribers and his videos have received more than 10 million views as of May 2017. He has also appeared on the The Joe Rogan Experience, the The Gavin McInnes Show, Sam Harris's Waking Up podcast, Steven Crowder's Louder with Crowder, Dave Rubin's Rubin Report, Stefan Molyneux's Freedomain Radio and many other online shows about the free speech/gender pronouns controversy as well as his general work as a psychologist.

Peterson also started recording his own podcast, The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast, which has 16 episodes as of May 1, 2017.

References

1. ^ The Pronoun Warrior
2. "Bernt. Pronounced Bear-ent. It's Norwegian, after my great grandfather."
3. ^ Anne C. Krendl, 'Jordan Peterson: Linking Mythology to Psychology'. 26 April 1995
4. Jordan Peterson
5. ^ Where we live...; Fairview Post, 27 January 2004
6. ^ Toronto Star. "He says freedom, they say hate. The pronoun fight is back".
7. Ferreira, Victor (March 3, 2017). "Jordan Peterson, Milo Yiannopoulos backed to become University of Glasgow rector despite clashing with gender policy". National Post. Retrieved March 20, 2017.
8. "New words trigger an abstract clash". Toronto Star, November 20, 2016, pageA2. by Rosie DiManno.
9. Craig, Sean (September 28, 2016). "U of T professor attacks political correctness, says he refuses to use genderless pronouns". National Post. Retrieved October 5, 2016.
10. "University of Toronto professor defends right to use gender-specific pronouns". Simona Chiose, The Globe and Mail, Nov. 19, 2016
11. Professor Ignites Protests By Refusing To Use Transgender Pronouns
12. Jordan Peterson: The right to be politically incorrect
13. Peterson, Jordan B. "Maps of Meaning: The Architecture of Belief" Routledge, 1999, p. 12.
14. Shepherd, Harvey (November 11, 2003). "Meaning from Myths". Montreal Gazette.
15. ^ Kamenetz, Anya (July 10, 2015). "The Writing Assignment That Changes Lives". NPR.
16. McInnes, Gavin. "The Gavin McInnes Show". www.compoundmedia.com. Compound Media. Retrieved February 8, 2017.
17. "The Jordan B Peterson Podcast". Retrieved April 16, 2017. {{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |dead-url= (help)

External links

• Official website
• Jordan B. Peterson's Youtube page
• Jordan B. Peterson's Twitter page

• 1962 births
• Living people
• Canadian non-fiction writers
• Canadian people of Norwegian descent
• Canadian psychologists
• Canadian self-help writers
• Critics of atheism
• Critics of Marxism
• Critics of postmodernism
• Free speech activists
• Male critics of feminism
• McGill University alumni
• University of Alberta alumni
• University of Toronto faculty