1/22/2018 Jordan B Peterson, Critical Theory, and the New Bourgeoisie - Quillette

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Published on January 17, 2018 — comments 147

Jordan B Peterson, Critical Theory, and the New Bourgeoisie

written by Uri Harris

Earlier this week, clinical psychologist Jordan B. Peterson appeared on Britain’s Channel
4 in an interview with TV journalist Cathy Newman. It didn’t go well. Journalist Douglas
Murray described it as “catastrophic for the interviewer”, while author Sam Harris called it
a “nearly terminal case of close-mindedness”. Sociologist Nicholas Christakis perhaps
described it best:

Nicholas A. Christakis
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@NAChristakis

This man @jordanbpeterson is preternaturally calm and composed

in the face of a hostile interviewer who also had simply not thought
adequately about her ideas and approach. Facts and reason are
powerful allies. blogs.spectator.co.uk/2018/01/watch-…
4:24 PM - Jan 18, 2018

Watch: Cathy Newman’s catastrophic interview with Jordan Peter…

In the magazine this week (out tomorrow) I have written a piece about
the Canadian Professor Jordan Peterson. He has been in the UK over
blogs.spectator.co.uk

118 815 2,929

Christakis mentions two important things about Newman. First, she seemed hostile
towards Peterson, clearly going into the interview with a moral prejudice towards him.
Second, she seemed unable to engage with his arguments, instead misrepresenting them
(“You’re saying women aren’t intelligent enough to run top companies?”) or taking issue
with them (during a conversation about unhealthy relationships, Newman asked: “What
gives you the right to say that?” Answer: “I’m a clinical psychologist.”) At one point, she was
rendered speechless.

It was as though she had never heard arguments like Peterson’s before, and was taken
aback to discover they existed. As a presumably well-read person, why had she not been
exposed to arguments like this before? The answer, I think, is that these arguments have
largely been banished from contemporary mainstream news media and entertainment.
Only because of Peterson’s immense grassroots success has he forced his way into the
conversation, which makes it all the more awkward when an interviewer looking to put
him in place ends up bewildered.

But why have these arguments been banished? The immediate answer is social pressure. As
social justice advocates have come to dominate Western culture, they’ve created a situation

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where interlocutors are more intent on burnishing their adherence to the correct

opinions than they are about discovering something new, learning the truth, or even
engaging in open and reciprocal dialogue. Hollywood actors wear political slogans to
awards ceremonies, comedians lecture their audiences rather than entertain them, and
television hosts go into battle with their guests rather than interview them. Naturally, this
has pushed out opposing voices.

But where did the social justice advocates, and their associated attitude, come from? The
answer to that, I think, is academia. A recent episode, also involving Peterson,
demonstrates this.

*   *   *

When Lindsay Shepherd was reprimanded last year by three Wilfrid Laurier faculty

members for showing her class a video clip from a televised debate on gender
pronouns, Shepherd’s professor Nathan Rambukkana wrote an apology drawing attention
to his teaching style. He wrote: “[T]here is the question of teaching from a social justice
perspective, which my course does attempt to do.”

When I contacted Lindsay Shepherd earlier this month, she told me that she didn’t know
Rambukkana taught from an explicitly “social justice” perspective. However, a er going
through the syllabus, she realised he had talked about it in his Week 2 lecture, and that the
reading material that week also mentioned it. Yet even then, she said, she was unaware how
loaded the term “social justice” is and how it o en aligns with censorship and one-
sidedness. Her response when I asked her whether she recognised various social justice
terms was:

My undergraduate degree is in Communication from Simon Fraser University, and

the gist of my program was learning about power; mostly power as it manifests in
media and media industries. I was very accustomed to talking about feminism,
racism, and oppression. Less so the other terms you mention, which I only became
more acquainted with in my graduate degree program, and many of them as a
result of the Laurier incident — i.e. I was unaware of any substantial critique of
intersectionality, gender theory, and critical theory, as we were only taught them
from the “social justice perspective.”

Shepherd had lots of exposure to a social justice perspective, but only from within the
perspective itself. She was taught social justice beliefs but had never been taught to critique
those beliefs. When she came across a professor who did just that—Jordan Peterson—she
found it interesting and new, even while disagreeing with him. (She later came to realise he
may have been right about the legislation he was criticising.) So she shared a clip of the

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debate with her students, and only a erwards did she discover that not only are critiques
of social justice not taught, they aren’t even to be acknowledged.

The methodology underpinning much of the social justice perspective is known as critical
theory. What’s notable about critical theory is that it speci cally distinguishes itself from
‘traditional’ theories through its emphasis on criticism. This makes the apparent
unwillingness of its adherents to engage with criticism themselves especially noteworthy.
When you explicitly emphasise your criticality and base your theory on a commitment to
look beneath appearances and see things as they really are, you don’t get to be selectively
critical. So why does this phenomenon exist?

*   *   *

Critical Theory draws heavily on Karl Marx’s notion of ideology. Because the bourgeoisie
controlled the means of production, Marx suggested, they controlled the culture.
Consequently, the laws, beliefs, and morality of society re ected the interests of the
bourgeoisie. And importantly, people were unaware that this was the case. In other words,
capitalism created a situation where the interests of a particular group of people—those
who controlled society—were made to appear to be universal truths and values, when in
fact they were not.

The founders of critical theory developed this notion. By

identifying the distorting e ects power had on society’s
beliefs and values, they believed they could achieve a
more accurate picture of the world. And when people
saw things as they really were, they would liberate
themselves. “Theory,” they suggested, always serves the
interests of certain people; traditional theory, because it is
uncritical towards power, automatically serves the
powerful, while critical theory, because it unmasks these
interests, serves the powerless.

All theory is political, they said, and by choosing critical

theory over traditional theory one chooses to challenge
‘The Power of Critical Theory’ by
Stephen D Brook eld the status quo, in accordance with Marx’s famous
statement: “Philosophers have hitherto only interpreted
the world in various ways; the point is to change it.”

There’s no question critical theory can be useful, and that viewing societal elements—
beliefs, values, norms, institutions—through a lens of power and examining whose
interests they serve can provide highly valuable insights. But as it becomes more

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widespread and its adherents more powerful a challenging situation emerges, because then
critical theory must then be turned on itself.

And so, the question becomes: are the values and beliefs of critical theory itself universal,
or are they also partial to particular interests? Super cially, it seems they’re universal. A er
all, the stated purpose is to use critical theory to liberate people, and how can liberation
not be universal? But, of course, the whole point of critical theory, by its own admission, is
to look beneath the appearance of universality and identify the power and interests that lie
below.

Let’s return to Peterson, whose views Newman presumably

wanted to discredit on air and Rambukkana was so intent
on keeping out of the classroom. Peterson has been broadly
critical of the social justice movement. For example, he’s
criticised it for being authoritarian—including in the
aforementioned instance of compelled speech for gender
pronouns—and has warned about similarities to
authoritarian communist regimes. But it’s more than that.
Peterson has argued that it disenfranchises many people,
especially men. In his view, most people nd meaning in
life through their participation in social structures and
Jordan B Peterson
hierarchies. This is more than just a casual opinion;
Peterson is a clinical psychologist who has also researched
and published extensively on psychometrics.

Which brings us back to the question of whether critical theory and the social justice
movement it has inspired, is truly promoting universal values. From a psychological
perspective, illuminated through psychometrics, people di er with respect to a variety of
personality traits, and therefore also with respect to the type of society they want to live in.
If we’re going to talk about values, this is a good starting point. But from this perspective,
it’s di cult to imagine truly universal values; some societal arrangements are inevitably
going to appeal to some people more than others.

One might interpret Peterson as shedding light on this problem by pointing out that the
morality of contemporary Western society, with its emphasis on equality and liberation, is
acting in the service of particular psychological interests while acting against others. In
other words, a similar situation to that which Marx and the original critical theorists
criticised the classical liberal bourgeoisie for: presenting their own interests as universal
values or truths.

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Consider the concept of liberation. It’s held in society to be an unquestioned moral good,
one that no reasonable person could possibly disagree with, in large part due to a variety of
positive connotations. Yet, in practice, its implementation invariably involves dismantling
societal structures in accord with some people’s psychological interests and in con ict with
other people’s. Hence, we see conservative people feel increasingly alienated from
mainstream culture, as cultural leaders systematically attack everything from sexual norms
to familial structures to national identity to cultural history, ostensibly in the pursuit of
liberation.

The same applies to the concept of equality. This, also, is held in contemporary society as
an unquestioned moral good that no reasonable person could disagree with. In practice,
though, its implementation involves removing aspects of society that involve
competitiveness and status-seeking, which for some people may provide signi cant
meaning to their lives. Or take the associated concept of gender equality. This, too, might
appear unquestionable and universal. But it’s not, because its implementation
disincentivises risk-taking and status-seeking, and these are especially meaningful to men.

The tensions within the concept of equality were apparent in Peterson’s interview with
Newman. At 11:27 in the Channel 4 interview, she asks:

Cathy Newman: A simple question, is gender equality a myth, in your view? Is that
something that’s just never going to happen?
Jordan B Peterson: It depends on what you mean by equality
CN: Being treated fairly, getting the same opportunities
JBP: Fairly, we could get to a point where people are treated fairly, or more fairly. I
mean, people are treated pretty fairly in Western culture already but we can improve
that
CN: But they’re really not though are they, otherwise why would there only be
seven women running FTSE 100 companies in the UK? Why would there still be a
paygap which we’ve discussed at length?
JBP: Oh, that’s easy
CN: Why do we have women at the BBC who are getting illegally paid, less than
men? That’s not fair is it?
JBP: Well, let’s go back to the rst question, they’re both complicated questions, how
many women run FTSE companies?
CN: Seven women
JBP: The rst question might be, why would you want to do that?
CN: Why would a man want to do that? Because there is a lot of money?
JBP: There’s a certain number of men, although not that many, who are perfectly
willing to sacri ce virtually all of their life to the pursuit of a high end career. These
are men that are very intelligent, they’re usually very very conscientious, they’re

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very driven, they’re very high energy, they’re very healthy, and they’re willing to
work 70 or 80 hours a week non-stop, specialised, one-thing, to get to the top
CN: So you’re saying that women are just more sensible, they don’t want that
because they want a nice life?
JBP: I’m saying that’s part of it, de nitely
CN: So you don’t think there are barriers in their way to getting to the top?JBP: Oh
there are some barriers, like men, for example, I mean to get to the top of any
organisation is an incredibly competitive enterprise and the men that you’re
competing with are simply not going to roll over and say “please take the position,”
it’s absolute all-out warfare
CN: Let me come back to my question: is gender equality a myth?
JBP: I don’t know what you mean by the question, men and women aren’t the same
and they won’t be the same, that doesn’t mean that they can’t be treated fairly

The simple point being made is that gender equality isn’t a neutral concept because
equality isn’t gender-neutral.

This confusion, more broadly, may explain why boys and young men are now becoming
increasingly alienated from the educational system. Supposedly universal values being
implemented in the system are in fact not universal, but favour attributes that are more
prevalent in women than in men.

The identity of the group providing the

intellectual foundation for both critical theory
and the social justice movement are mostly
white middle-and-upper-class intellectuals
from the political le in advanced Western
economies. It may be more illuminating to see
this group’s interests as the driving force of
societal change, rather than those of the ever-
Judith Butler, pioneer of Critical Theory
changing group of the powerless. In e ect, the
intellectuals of the political le are creating
the type of society they personally want to live in. ‘The powerless’ are temporary allies on
this journey.

Over the past few decades, this group has become increasingly powerful, essentially
becoming a bourgeoisie much like the one Marx and the early critical theorists were
criticising, and using many of the same mechanisms: suppressing criticism through
control of the news media and now social media, enforcing rigid etiquette in speech and
behaviour, using the education system to teach its values, and most importantly,
representing its own interests as universal values and beliefs.

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Peterson represents a growing group of people who are now waking up and starting to look
more closely at contemporary morals, beliefs, and institutions that they had previously
held beyond reproach and are now asking: “Are these things really universal or interest-
neutral, and if not, whose interests are they serving and whose values do they represent?”
This is a process, I think, that is inevitable.

Uri Harris is a freelance writer with a MSc in Business and Economics. He can be
followed on Twitter @safeortrue

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147 Comments

yandoodan
January 19, 2018

Very good.

This highlights the problem of the self-exemption, the philosophy or whatnot that works only if the people
propounding it exempt themselves.

For instance, do you want to claim that all knowledge ultimately consists of simple observations (“atomic
facts”), and anything else is literally nonsense? Okay, but you’ve just made a statement that can’t possibly
be reduced to a string of atomic facts; you’ve made a statement about all knowledge everywhere,
including knowledge that does not yet exist but will someday. By your own philosophy, your system is
nonsense. You have to either abandon it or exempt yourself.

Or maybe you want to claim that free will doesn’t exist, so that all arguments are merely physical
reactions, not linked to an imaginary “truth”. Nothing wrong with that — but, by your own admission,
you’ve just made an argument that is merely a string of physical reactions unlinked to an imaginary
“truth”. You have to either abandon it or exempt yourself.

So you want to claim that all arguments are merely attempts to assert power for your group over other
groups and so have no meaningful truth content (that is, truth content is accidental and beside the point).

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This, too, is an argument. By your own philosophy, you too are merely attempting to assert power, and
any truth value it may have is accidental and beside the point. It’s just another power grab. So you must
either admit that you are as big a cynical propagandist as your enemy — or exempt yourself.

Reply

objection!
January 19, 2018

you’ve just made an argument that is merely a string of physical reactions unlinked to an
imaginary “truth”. You have to either abandon it or exempt yourself.

What. Unlike the previous example, “free will” has nothing to do with epistemology/”truth.” That’s a non
sequitur. That’s like saying a computer can’t print out something that’s true because it lacks free will
(whatever that vacuous concept means).

Reply

Bob Alex
January 19, 2018

Making the sounds “free will doesn’t exist” is a physical reaction, not a truth statement, in a world where
humans are incapable of discerning truth by observing and freely reacting to the reality around them. A
computer reciting from a physics textbook may sound like it is speaking things that are true – but the
computer itself has no way of knowing that.

Reply

Intersectional Playboi
January 20, 2018

Whatever the computer’s output is – that is, whatever its representation is – is either an accurate
representation of reality or not. Whether it has ‘free will’ or can even understand what its output is has
no bearing on the epistemic question of accuracy in representation (issues of free will and understanding
are orthogonal to the epistemic issue I’m highlighting here).

For example, we don’t possess free will in the sense that many people presume we do. Yet, we have
developed a reliable epistemology (or set of related reliable epistemologies) in the sciences that enable us
to generate explanations of the natural world that are accurate or that generate progressively more
accurate explanations of it (and, if you’re a certain kind of realist like me, you even think the case is
strong that we gain progressively more accurate representations of unobservable entities, as well).
Further, because of the cognitive makeup that evolution has bequeathed us, many of us can even
understand why this epistemology is reliable as a means for generating and corroborating truthful
representations, and many of us can even understand many of the scienti c explanations and
descriptions that the epistemology yields.

Reply

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