Jordan Peterson landed on the cultural scene at precisely the right time, when the left was engaged in a full reenactment of The Emperor's New Clothes, right down to the policing of language and encouragement of personal delusion above objective truth. Peterson brought with him a life's work in psychology which he's used to effectively communicate to us why we, as men and women, do what we do. Why we like what we like. Despite what the cultural engineers on the left have been telling us what we should do and should like.

Which is why The New York Times ran an assassination hit piece on Jordan Peterson this morning. It's a clear attempt to usurp Peterson's growing cultural presence, and to paint all who admire his work, his wisdom, and his uncanny ability to expose cultural marxists as cheap charlatans, as primitive sexists.

Thou shalt not disrupt the leftist agenda.

Courtesy FYI: I can't run through the dribbling piece point by point. There are far too many points to rebut, and I'd need to write ten pages minimum, single spaced, to hit the piece in full. I will, however, draw out the most egregious examples of the writer's complete stupidity which double as hits on Peterson. Starting with this one:

Most of his ideas stem from a gnawing anxiety around gender. “The masculine spirit is under assault,” he told me. “It’s obvious.”

Hardly "gnawing anxiety" when it's true. We don't have hashtags or articles about "toxic femininity" just "toxic masculinity." We don't have HuffPo complaining about women who oppress others in tight quarters with their overbearing perfume. But we do have essays about the dangers of "manspreading." There isn't a war on women. But there seems to be a war on men. I say this as a woman.

Let's move on.

In Mr. Peterson’s world, order is masculine. Chaos is feminine. And if an overdose of femininity is our new poison, Mr. Peterson knows the cure. Hence his new book’s subtitle: “An Antidote to Chaos.”

This isn't in Mr. Peterson's world. Order being "masculine" and chaos being "feminine" has mythical and natural roots. Peterson isn't saying "men are orderly and women are chaotic." Nor is he saying "Men are better and women should make sandwiches." Why do we call "nature" mother nature? Because nature creates life. Women create life. The feminine figure is the one who brings life. Ergo nature is feminine. But nature is also chaotic.

That's a very simplistic way of explaining it, but "mother nature" and "feminine is chaos and masculine is order" isn't a sexist screed. Anyone who's read or watched Peterson in depth would know that.

The messages he delivers range from hoary self-help empowerment talk (clean your room, stand up straight) to the more retrograde and political (a society run as a patriarchy makes sense and stems mostly from men’s competence; the notion of white privilege is a farce). He is the stately looking, pedigreed voice for a group of culture warriors who are working diligently to undermine mainstream and liberal efforts to promote equality.

Notice she didn't link to a video in which Peterson says a society run as a patriarchy makes sense and stems from men's competence. Because he's not said that. He has said women caring for babies, and men taking leadership roles, historically, lead to this language. Check out this video.

What Peterson has said is certain traits are more prone to leadership roles: assertiveness being just one, and men tend to be more assertive than women on average. Which isn't the same as saying "Men are better at leadership than women." Women who rank higher in assertiveness tend to be better leaders than men who rank lower in assertiveness. It's about traits, not sex.

But read what Nellie Bowles said, and you'd think Peterson was suggesting women should be submissive wives locked in the kitchen and perpetually pregnant. Made worse by the following:

“It makes sense that a witch lives in a swamp. Yeah,” he says. “Why?” It’s a hard one. “Right. That’s right. You don’t know. It’s because those things hang together at a very deep level. Right. Yeah. And it makes sense that an old king lives in a desiccated tower.”

"Deep level" here is a hint to our psyche. Hang tight.

But witches don’t exist, and they don’t live in swamps, I say. “Yeah, they do. They do exist. They just don’t exist the way you think they exist. They certainly exist. You may say well dragons don’t exist. It’s, like, yes they do — the category predator and the category dragon are the same category. It absolutely exists. It’s a superordinate category. It exists absolutely more than anything else. In fact, it really exists. What exists is not obvious. You say, ‘Well, there’s no such thing as witches.’ Yeah, I know what you mean, but that isn’t what you think when you go see a movie about them. You can’t help but fall into these categories. There’s no escape from them.”

This is where understanding nuance and Peterson's background in studying myth is important. Peterson isn't referring to literal witches. It's an archetype which we've seen in various cultures. I'd refer Nellie Bowles to The Hero with a Thousand Faces, which discusses how all human cultures have the same story of the hero's journey, despite those cultures never interacting with each other. Joseph Campbell, the author, asserted the hero's journey being played out in myths by different cultures around the world suggests the hero's journey wasn't an external one, but an internal one, speaking to the human condition.

Pop-trivia: George Lucas credited the original Star Wars trilogy on Joseph Campbell's influence. It's one reason Star Wars is so universally popular.

So the figure of "the witch" or "the dragon" are real in that those archetypes take forms in our real lives. They're symbolic of something literal.

Nuance. Nellie Bowles needs to go back to basic English class. I remember discussing myths in my freshman year.

Instead, Bowles honed in on "Peterson thinks women are witches." Which isn't what Peterson said at all.

Point of contention as a woman: witches are powerful beings who trick men. I'm sorry, but how is that far from reality? It's one thing I don't understand about feminists: they want to be powerful, but deny the power women naturally have over men by just being women. The figure of the witch may have even come about from a man who was stupefied by a woman's feminine wiles. So he branded her a negative figure for the crime of fooling him. That's simply my theory on the origin of the witch. But I'm not sure how "woman tricks man with feminine wiles" is a bad thing for modern feminists, a group of women who so desperately hate "the patriarchy" for having fictional power over them.

A brief digression.

Bowles then diverts to the Toronto man who killed people with his van. We wrote about it here.

Violent attacks are what happens when men do not have partners, Mr. Peterson says, and society needs to work to make sure those men are married.

I have a feeling this was taken out of context. I've watched many a Jordan Peterson lecture on the differences between the sexes, and never have I heard "we need to prevent violence in men by forcing women to marry them." But that's what the above statement boils down to.

“He was angry at God because women were rejecting him,” Mr. Peterson says of the Toronto killer. “The cure for that is enforced monogamy. That’s actually why monogamy emerges.”

The first part of this is true. The killer was mad because women rejected him. But the next Peterson "quote" seems off to me. But Bowles also misunderstands what "enforced monogamy" actually means.

Mr. Peterson does not pause when he says this. Enforced monogamy is, to him, simply a rational solution. Otherwise women will all only go for the most high-status men, he explains, and that couldn’t make either gender happy in the end.

Okay, that provides a bit more context, but still not enough.

If Bowles had paid any attention to Peterson, she'd know Peterson usually says "Women control who gets to pass on their genes." He's absolutely right. He talks about it, again, in the same video as "men are usually in hierarchies of power" cited at the start of this article. Women have the power to reject. A power we use often without considering the kind of power we've just wielded. Which, by the way, is a common theme of women. Goes to my theory from where the figure of "witch" derives. Digression again. Women being the ones who determine the genetic makeup of the next generation naturally means women are drawn to the men with the strongest genes: good looks, strength, proven ability (career). That's only the upper crust of men, though.

So if men and women want to get married, women competing for the top percentage of men means both sexes fail. Women don't get the partner, the upper men don't ever settle down, and most men go without the possibility of procreation at all.

"Enforced monogamy" isn't federally mandated marriage. Despite what it seems Bowles assumes or wants people to assume. "Enforced monogamy" is one woman with one man, no messing about after the commitment. What this would mean is, a woman chooses the best man available to her instead of being part of a figurative harem for the top men. In which more people, men and women, would benefit long term. Once someone is off the market, they're off the market. If every woman goes for the same men, nobody ultimately wins. It's kind of like this principle from John Nash, as seen in A Beautiful Mind:

Now, I still think the Peterson "quote" about this particular incel is out of context. It's out of character for Peterson to dismiss personal responsibility when it comes to the mating game. In fact I've heard him say in one of his many lectures "If you're constantly rejected by the opposite sex, you're the problem."

If men want to be accepted and not rejected by women, they need to make themselves more attractive to women. Who Peterson has repeatedly said are the controllers of who procreates. A point lost by any feminist determined to hate him.

“Half the men fail,” he says, meaning that they don’t procreate. “And no one cares about the men who fail.” I laugh, because it is absurd. “You’re laughing about them,” he says, giving me a disappointed look. “That’s because you’re female.”

Another female side note: the above is what I'd consider "female privilege." Women have the power of rejection. Which, again, Peterson has reiterated numerous times. Peterson's comment "You're laughing about these [rejected] men because you're a woman" isn't one of sexism. It's one of privilege. And he's checking her for it.

The female privilege is one our writer at the New York Times never addresses. Why would she, since it runs counter to her confirmation bias that Jordan Peterson is a sexist. Despite all the evidence she's ignoring to the contrary.

But Bowles tries passing him off as sexist nonetheless. The rest of her article is the same: out of context remarks, painting Peterson as a menacing figure loved by the patriarchy, who somehow has it out for women.

Bowles never addresses the numerous occasions Peterson has addressed the struggles women face, or the truth that a lot of women do want to get married and who do not see marriage as an oppressive system of the patriarchy. For reference, check out this video, it's flattering of women, no?

Here's another one. Differences between men and women isn't sexism. It just is.

Jordan Peterson has made sense of the human condition. He doesn't excuse it. He doesn't doll it up. He explains it in ways which are easy to understand, using both psychology and myth -- which better illustrates our psychology -- to bolster his explanations.

And for exposing real truth he must be stopped. To the leaders and drone masters on the left, there is nothing worse than an intelligent man who dissents from cultural group think. To the left, there is nothing more dangerous than a cultural figure who amasses his following by objecting to the propaganda they've been pushing in despotic fashion for generations.

~ Written by Courtney Kirchoff