You may have heard. Dr. Jordan B. Peterson is the messiah of the alt-right. Apparently, the collection of various white supremacists and neo-Nazis just love his work. Or so the misleading, dishonest media would like for you to believe.

As with all of their dishonest misrepresentations of him. Quite the opposite is true. This article will be simply based on my own anecdotes and personal experiences. But if you need more, there are plenty of sources and empirical evidence for this too(not that those opposed to him had any evidence that the alt-right loves his work to begin with!).

Here is how Dr. Jordan B. Peterson saved me from the alt-right:

Like many of Peterson’s young male audience, I was in a deep dark place. Being unlucky enough to finish high school in 2008, I graduated right into the Great Recession. A time which should have been my prime working years was instead marred with record levels of unemployment and economic turmoil. Like many my age I was unable to find any consistent work and my life quickly spiraled out of control. I spent a whole month living on $1 a day food budget and at one point nearly went homeless.

During this turbulent phase, I subtly picked up on an observation that would shape my worldviews for years to come. Men who struggled to find work in that economy suffered far greater consequences than women. If I wasn’t able to find a job, society and even my own family judged me far harsher, and was far more merciless than they were towards say, my sister for instance. And I don’t need to rely on anecdotes for this either. This is reflected in the statistics as well, given that men make up 71% of the homeless population(Which then begs the question, if the wage gap is real and women actually make less than men, what does that say about our society that men are still more likely to be homeless despite working longer hours and making more money?). Many men were going through this same situation as me and yet, no one cared about our struggles. Everywhere you looked, all you ever heard from politicians and the media were how women were oppressed and men were privileged.

This all changed a few years ago with the rise of the alt-right, the manosphere and various other pro-male groups. I found myself quickly getting sucked into these group identities as finally, someone, somewhere was willing to acknowledge the very real struggles that men have. The more I read, the more I went into confirmation bias. Men are treated as more expendable. Check. Men kill themselves more. Check. Men are more likely to die on the job. Check. Men are more likely to lose everything in a divorce. Check. Not only had I personally experienced many of these talking points. I had seen how they all deeply affected many of my male friends as well. One of my male friends got into an argument with a crazy ex-girlfriend who sliced his arm wide open with a piece of broken glass. He came to my place after and explained that he wouldn’t call the cops because he knew they would always believe the woman in that situation. One of my favorite professors in my local university at the time told me a heart-breaking story where he was paying child support for his son for 17 years and never even got to see him.

I had been fed up with the feminist, gynocentric world for a long time. But before the alt-right rose to prominence, it was too politically incorrect to espouse those views. But now that there was a group identity that thought exactly like me, that had my back, It was time to go all in.

I was right. And that made me angry. Then that made me even more right. Which made me even more angry. And this chaotic spiral would have never ended if not for Dr. Peterson. I became an expert complainer and took this negative energy everywhere I went. Before long all my friends, family, classmates, and even some strangers in public places knew how right I was. They all knew about how men got screwed over so horribly in divorce court, how men die more in wars and work, etc etc. It even got to a point where my friends and family conceded I was right just because they were sick of hearing about it. Even after changing their minds it still wasn’t enough, I was still on the red pill rage of constant anger and resentment.

I want to quickly clarify, that I still agree with many of the political views of the various pro-male groups. And in no way am I trying to denounce any of these groups. They played an important role in shaping my world views and woke me up to a harsh reality. That being said, there was no step two. There was nothing beyond the anger and bitterness that fuels every ideology, including the ones on the far left as well. They’re great at telling you what’s wrong with the world, but not so much in terms of telling you what to do about it.

And this is the part where Peterson saved me from the alt-right. Contrary to the misrepresentations of him fueling alt-right ideologies, he is in fact vehemently opposed to all ideologies(something he’s stated on record on multiple occasions). Instead he encourages people to place individuality and personal responsibility ahead of mindless, tribalistic group think. And this is exactly what I did.

This was the turning point for me

Constantly spouting manosphere talking points, true as they may be, was not getting me anywhere. All it was doing was alienating me from others and plunging me further into the deep, dark abyss Peterson constantly speaks of. I listened to one podcast, did his self-authoring program, and I was hooked. Almost immediately positive changes ensued.

It began with cleaning my room

Rule #6 in his book is “Set your house in perfect order before you criticize the world”. I had it backwards. I had spent the better part of several years relentlessly criticizing the world to no avail. I had to start by changing myself first. I cleaned my room, organized my belongings, and then I realized I could finally breathe and relax. A huge problem I used to have was always misplacing important belongings like my wallet, keys, etc. Before I had to leave for work or for an important event, I’d always scramble around endlessly searching for them, wasting valuable minutes and likely devaluing people’s perceptions of me as I consistently arrived a hurried mess. Now, at least I could show up on time, professional, and ready to be taken serious. While this is no monumental task, it’s the little things that snowball into more impactful things. By being more clean, orderly, and organized, I was able to gain the respect of others. This then gave me the confidence I needed to pursue my dreams and goals. For a long time, I had wanted to start a YouTube channel. But I was incredibly indecisive about it. What if no one watches? What if it’s just a waste of time? Isn’t it hard to make it on YouTube in 2018? But now by cleaning my house, and cleaning myself(the Bible says the body is a temple, perhaps your own house), not only did I have the confidence but I also had the time management skills to start my channel. To date I have amassed nearly 200k views and 1.6k subscribers. Not the most impressive numbers but not bad for just a few months either. I still have a lot more cleaning and learning to do to really grow.

After I had sufficiently taken care of myself. I could now take care of as Peterson says, my family, my relationships, my community and then later if I can really manage, the world. The YouTube channel provided some decent revenue which allowed me to shoulder more responsibility for my family and my relationships. It also gave me a voice and a way to engage with the community. Like every YouTuber I dream of having a bigger voice and a bigger following. But perhaps I’m not ready for that yet. I have just begun on this self-cleansing and recovery journey and I know that before I go out criticizing the world, I still have a lot of learning to do.

Another profound insight from Peterson that really saved me was the idea of doing the best for every time frame. The cliche advice of “Do what’s best for you” is far too simple. Peterson takes it an eon further with his advice of doing what’s best now, and tomorrow, and next week, next year, next decade. What’s best for you now? Maybe to eat that extra dessert, roll back to sleep in bed, procrastinate on that important assignment. That would sure give you the most gratification in the short term. But what would that do for you tomorrow? A year from now? 10 years from now? Likely something you want you avoid at all costs. The same thing applied to my influence of alt-right ideologies. Sure for the time being it feels good to rant, to be right, to have a rational to justify all your shortcomings. But where would all the complaining, anger and resentment take me in a year? Nowhere but alienation from society and potentially even stress-related health issues later in life as well.

There are countless other examples I could give about how Dr. Peterson’s work has saved me not only from the alt-right but from myself as well. In fact I could dedicate a whole section to each one of his 12 rules for life, which I may just do in future articles in fact. Anyways the point here is that the media depiction of him being an alt-right messiah is not only false, it’s dangerous, misleading and pretty harmful in fact. These inaccurate portrayals will only drive many more young men like myself towards the alt-right. He has in fact saved many men from the alt-right, and I’m sure I’m not the only one who could testify to this. To disagree with some of his opinions is perfectly fine and fair. But this outright disingenuous misrepresentation of him will only reinforce people’s skepticism of the mainstream media and in the end will drive even more traffic to the alt-right. It will be completely counterproductive and achieve the exact opposite effect of what they want.

So to those of you in the media who keep misrepresenting him: Get your act together. Clean your room. And find some actual arguments with facts behind them.