Jordan Peterson
Jordan Peterson
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|---|---|
Peterson in Dallas, Texas, US, in June 2018
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| Born |
Jordan Bernt Peterson
June 12, 1962 |
| Residence | Toronto, Ontario, Canada |
| Nationality | Canadian |
| Alma mater | |
| Spouse(s) |
Tammy Roberts (m. 1989)
|
| Children | 2 |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Psychology |
| Institutions |
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| Thesis | Potential psychological markers for the predisposition to alcoholism (1991) |
| Doctoral advisor | Robert O. Pihl |
| Notable students | Colin G. DeYoung |
| Influences | Carl Jung |
| Website | jordanbpeterson |
Peterson has bachelor's degrees in political science and psychology from the University of Alberta and a Ph.D. in clinical psychology from McGill University. He was a post-doctoral fellow at McGill from 1991 to 1993 before moving to Harvard University, where he was an assistant and then an associate professor in the psychology department.[4][5] In 1998, he moved back to Canada as a faculty member in the psychology department at the University of Toronto, where, as of 2019, he is a full professor.
Peterson's first book, Maps of Meaning: The Architecture of Belief (1999), examined several academic fields to describe the structure of systems of beliefs and myths, their role in the regulation of emotion, creation of meaning, and several other topics such as motivation for genocide.[6][7][8] His second book, 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos, was published in January 2018.[4][9][10]
In 2016, Peterson released a series[11] of YouTube videos criticizing political correctness and the Canadian government's Bill C-16, "An Act to amend the Canadian Human Rights Act and the Criminal Code". The act added "gender identity and expression" as a prohibited ground of discrimination,[a][12] which Peterson characterised as an introduction of compelled speech into law,[13][14][15] although legal experts have disagreed.[16] He subsequently received significant media coverage, attracting both support and criticism.[4][9][10] Several writers have associated Peterson with an "Intellectual Dark Web".[17][18][19][20][21]
Contents
Early life
Peterson was born on June 12, 1962.[22] He grew up in Fairview, Alberta, a small town northwest of his birthplace (Edmonton).[23] He was the eldest of three children born to Walter and Beverley Peterson. Beverley was a librarian at the Fairview campus of Grande Prairie Regional College, and Walter was a schoolteacher.[24][25] His middle name is Bernt (/ˈbɛərənt/ BAIR-ənt),[26] after his Norwegian great-grandfather.[27]When Peterson was 13, he was introduced to the writings of George Orwell, Aldous Huxley, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, and Ayn Rand by his school librarian Sandy Notley (the mother of Rachel Notley, leader of the Alberta New Democratic Party and 17th Premier of Alberta).[28] He worked for the New Democratic Party (NDP) throughout his teenage years, but grew disenchanted with the party. He saw his experience of disillusionment resonating with Orwell's diagnosis, in The Road to Wigan Pier, of "the intellectual, tweed-wearing middle-class socialist" who "didn't like the poor; they just hated the rich".[24][29] He left the NDP at age 18.[30]
Education
After graduating from Fairview High School in 1979, Peterson entered the Grande Prairie Regional College to study political science and English literature.[2] He later transferred to the University of Alberta, where he completed his B.A. in political science in 1982.[30] Afterwards, he took a year off to visit Europe. There he began studying the psychological origins of the Cold War, 20th-century European totalitarianism,[2][31] and the works of Carl Jung, Friedrich Nietzsche, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn,[24] and Fyodor Dostoyevsky.[31] He then returned to the University of Alberta and received a B.A. in psychology in 1984.[32] In 1985, he moved to Montreal to attend McGill University. He earned his Ph.D. in clinical psychology under the supervision of Robert O. Pihl in 1991, and remained as a post-doctoral fellow at McGill's Douglas Hospital until June 1993, working with Pihl and Maurice Dongier.[2][33]Career
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Peterson at the University of Toronto in March 2017
Peterson's areas of study and research are in the fields of psychopharmacology, abnormal, neuro, clinical, personality, social, industrial and organizational,[1] religious, ideological,[2] political, and creativity psychology.[3] Peterson has authored or co-authored more than a hundred academic papers[34] and has been cited almost 8,000 times as of mid-2017.[35]
For most of his career, Peterson had an active clinical practice, seeing about 20 people a week. He had been active on social media, and in September 2016 he released a series of videos in which he criticized Bill C-16.[11][28][36] As a result of new projects, he decided to put the clinical practice on hold in 2017[9] and temporarily stopped teaching as of 2018.[25][37]
In June 2018, Peterson debated with Sam Harris at the Orpheum Theatre in Vancouver while moderated by Bret Weinstein, and again in July at the 3Arena in Dublin and The O2 Arena in London while moderated by Douglas Murray, over the topic of religion and God.[38][39] In April 2019, Peterson debated professor Slavoj Žižek at the Sony Centre in Toronto over happiness under capitalism versus Marxism.[40][41]
Works
Books
Maps of Meaning: The Architecture of Belief (1999)
In 1999 Routledge published Maps of Meaning: The Architecture of Belief. The book, which took Peterson 13 years to complete, describes a comprehensive theory about how people construct meaning, form beliefs and make narratives using ideas from various fields including mythology, religion, literature, philosophy and psychology in accordance to the modern scientific understanding of how the brain functions.[30][5][42]According to Peterson, his main goal was to examine why both individuals and groups participate in social conflict, explore the reasoning and motivation individuals take to support their belief systems (i.e. ideological identification[30]) that eventually results in killing and pathological atrocities like the Gulag, the Auschwitz concentration camp and the Rwandan genocide.[30][5][42] He considers that an "analysis of the world's religious ideas might allow us to describe our essential morality and eventually develop a universal system of morality".[42] Jungian archetypes play an important role in the book.[4]
In 2004, a 13-part TV series based on Peterson's book Maps of Meaning: The Architecture of Belief aired on TVOntario.[24][32][43]
12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos (2018)
In January 2018, Penguin Random House published Peterson's second book, 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos. The work contains abstract ethical principles about life, in a more accessible style than Maps of Meaning.[9][4][10] To promote the book, Peterson went on a world tour.[44][45][46] As part of the tour, Peterson was interviewed in the UK by Cathy Newman on Channel 4 News which generated considerable attention, as well as popularity for the book.[47][48][49][50] The book topped bestselling lists in Canada, the US, and the United Kingdom.[51][52] As of January 2019, Peterson is working on a sequel to 12 Rules for Life.[53]YouTube channel and podcasts
Peterson (right) speaking to Dave Rubin in September 2018
Peterson has appeared on many podcasts, conversational series, as well other online shows.[55][59] In December 2016, Peterson started his own podcast, The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast, which has included academic guests such as Camille Paglia, Martin Daly, and James W. Pennebaker.[60] On his YouTube channel he has interviewed Stephen Hicks, Richard J. Haier, and Jonathan Haidt among others.[60] In March 2019, the podcast joined the Westwood One network with Peterson's daughter as a co-host on some episodes.[61] Peterson supported engineer James Damore in his action against Google.[10]
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