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Life is full of tragedy and malevolence but humans can only thrive by facing it head on.

That’s the key message that University of Toronto Professor and psychologist Jordan B. Peterson delivered to an enthusiastic Toronto audience Monday night.

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“That’s a call to personal responsibility,” Peterson said of his bestseller, 12 Rules For Life: An Antidote to Chaos. “You can sort out your relationship with your father and you can apologize to your mother for the all the appalling things you did to her when you were a teenager and you can figure out how to deal a little bit more intelligently and less resentfully with your tyrannical boss.”

It was in support of his book that Peterson conducted his recent half-hour interview with British Channel 4 News presenter Cathy Newman.

Newman’s increasing frustration as she failed to score politically-correct points off Peterson went viral, drawing over 6.1 million views on YouTube with 194,000 likes and 5,000 dislikes.

Peterson drew international attention for criticizing legally-enforced use of genderless pronouns, and for what he saw as a hard left political takeover stifling free speech and science in the country’s universities.

Several appearances by the professor have attracted protests, including one where he was covered with glitter, and Toronto police officers were present for the invitation-only speech at the Toronto Reference Library on Yonge St.

Peterson’s exhorts parents to make their children strong, rather than helicopter over them.

He also talked about the need to forgive yourself and to take care of yourself.