Jordan Peterson has become a new kind of iconic rapper. If you don’t believe me check out the YouTube channel of the musician/DJ named Akira the Don, who makes what he calls ‘JBP wave lo-fi hip-hop’. There you will find artful remixes of Peterson’s lectures, fused with surprising sonic intelligence and mantra-like samples of Peterson’s maxims and epiphanies.

Dr. Peterson’s rise to fame has always had something to do with his appeal to young men, and especially those who are artists, comedians, and marginal weirdos. You could say that Peterson is a ‘lo-fi’ artist himself: he has used minimal effects (low production YouTube videos) for the maximum result (world superstardom). And like a good gangster rapper, he has shown people the power of the word, or logos. The rappers and Peterson might agree: there is nothing more powerful than the naked human voice to break through the spiritual numbness of the times.

Actually, the young men who follow Peterson are not the deplorable ‘fan boys’ or ‘alt-right nazi scumbags’ that Peterson haters say they are. Young fans of Peterson are clued-in to the cultural zeitgeist in a way that the ‘champagne socialists’—who have snidely called Peterson ‘the stupid man’s smart person’ — are not. These academics and journalists have reacted hysterically to Peterson—calling him a ‘fascist mystic’ and other less pretty names—and they have also attacked his fans. This is reminiscent of the way that Hilary Clinton called working people ‘deplorables’— ‘fanboy’ is just another word for deplorable here. The implication is that Peterson fans are a lesser species of mongoloid, or at best lower class. But actually Peterson fans are diverse and intelligent and they span the the political spectrum.

Why do Peterson critics exhibit paroxysms of condescending envy? Perhaps because Peterson is popular—and he is causing a revolution. Furthermore, he is bringing back the archetypes to the people, getting them to read serious books, and rescuing them from what he has called ‘ideological possession’. And young men are eating his message up, even here in France. His so-called fanboys are already drenched in mythology, comic books, music, film, and all manner of creativity: they are hungry for ‘maps of meaning’ and spiritual adventure. And Peterson delivers a hardcore message that is rarely sentimental.

What is there to love about these deplorable young men? Personally, teaching engineer students has taught me to appreciate the eros of young guys—their passion—and I’m someone who was brought up in a feminist progressive milieu. (Of course, there are great women engineers in my classes too — but most engineers happen to be men.) I’m pretty sure young men do not crave safe spaces but adventure and knowledge—they need to go out in the wilderness and meet wild beasts, fundamentally. Young men are possessed of an almost bottomless desire—that is their beauty. If we don’t provide adventure for them, they grow sullen and depressed, and there is nothing more wretched and unappealing—or even dangerous—than a sullen and depressed young man.

Peterson is lifting these young men up. He has recognised them as worthwhile, in a culture that can’t stop talking about ‘toxic masculinity’, ‘the evil patriarchy’, how men are ‘potential rapists’ and generally deplorable. But shouldn’t the virile creativity of such young men be something we should celebrate?