On the Re-education of Jordan Peterson

We Are Not The People's Republic of Canada...

The Supreme Court of Canada has rejected psychologist and public intellectual Jordan Peterson’s appeal to forgo “social media training.” This “re-education” was mandated by the College of Psychologists of Ontario after receiving complaints about Peterson’s views expressed on social media. The College found his tweets “degrading, demeaning, and unprofessional.” They “posed a moderate risk of harm to the public,” and “undermined trust in the profession of psychology.” Peterson, who has not practised since 2017, has to pay for this “training” at his own expense for an indefinite time period. He says he has already spent 1M fighting this, and is determined to see it through.It should be noted that none of the complainants were actually clients of Peterson, and no one has explained how holding disparate views online harms the public. In a scathing article in the National Post, he says: “ Having failed to persuade the Supreme Court, I am going to see what constraints are put on my speech, and I am going to make it as public as possible.” Ever the provocateur, he concludes: “ We are going to perform that dance on the international stage, with all the lights shining on your machinations, and you may rue the day you attempted to take possession of my tongue.” This is not an idle threat. Peterson has millions of followers and deep pockets. Despite the charge that he undermines his profession, he is in fact the most well know psychologist in the world, his books are bestsellers, and his lectures are sold-out wherever he is on the planet. He is professor emeritus at the University of Toronto and has taught at Harvard. The idea that some self-appointed expert is going to tell him how to use social media is quite laughable. He has mastered the use of media in a way few academics have. So what is really going on ?

What is really going on is that Jordan Peterson has crossed the heresy line of modern secular orthodoxy. He first came to prominence for challenging Bill C-16, which he calls “legislation for ideologically addled three year olds.” Simply put, he refused to obey the pronoun police in public, the video went viral, and he has been in the middle of the cultural war maelstrom ever since. Never one to suffer fools gladly or mince words, he says: “Bill C-16 made it illegal to discriminate on the basis of made-up, Neo-Marxist/postmodern/queer theory categories of gender identity, which does not exist, and gender expression, which is nothing other than fashion.” Just in case you are wondering where he stands, he continues: “ I believe the ‘transing’ of minors is: first, a crime against humanity, and second, the worst crime that the medical community has ever committed.” No one for a moment believes that they are going to change Peterson’s mind about this through some psychological struggle session. This is purely about punishment for having an opposing position, and making an example of him so that others will hesitate to express views that are gender critical.

Did he break the basic Canadian rule of niceness ? Absolutely. He had some unkind things to say about the Prime Minister, dead-named a trans actor, called a plus-sized model “not beautiful,” and criticized Covid policy on Joe Rogan. Given the current uncivil and chaotic state of everything, where both sides in the culture war regularly call each other Hitler, I’m not sure that qualifies as grounds for threatening to suspend his license. The reality is that he is too famous and his platform is too big for him to ever have a private practice again. But he worked hard to earn a license and it should not be taken away by some ideologically weaponized regulatory body. The real job of any governing body is to be there to catch and curb any abuse within the practice, not police the political and cultural opinions of its members. Unless we have decided to become The People’s Republic of Canada, there is no place for struggle sessions and forcing everyone to follow the party line. This would obviously have a chilling effect on anyone with disparate views. Freedom of speech is the front line of freedom period. Once a populace becomes loathe to say what they really think, the slope gets slippery and steep very fast. To quote The Canadian Civil Liberties Union: “ When government actors are allowed to decide which opinions can be expressed and which cannot, an open, vibrant, and diverse society quickly breaks down.” Unlike the USA, which has its First Amendment, Canadians only have the Canadian Charter of Rights, which promises freedom of speech “only to such reasonable limits prescribed by law.” This is as squishy and subjective as it sounds. One person’s reasonable is another person’s extreme. And laws are as malleable as the politicians who make them.

Jordan Peterson has been very sympathetic to Christian values, but stops short of calling himself a Christian in any evangelical sense. This case does have implications for Christian leaders in Canada, however. We are called to “speak the truth in love” (Eph 4:15), but the definitions of what is truth and what is misinformation, and what is love and hate speech, are greatly influenced by one’s worldview. We live in a country obsessed with being nice, but less concerned about being good. It is more about virtue signalling than actual virtue. People have been arrested in Great Britain because their social media posts contained misinformation. The term “Orwellian” has been overused in recent years, but there is a reason for that. Fact sometimes imitate fiction. And nature does abhor a vacuum. Once we kick the concept of a Heavenly Father out of the public square, it does not take long for Big Brother to show up. Ironically, Big Brother is usually an amalgam of petty bureaucrats who take themselves way too seriously and do not take the larger picture seriously enough. When there is a dearth of real leadership, the ideologically captured managerial class poke their head out of their cubicles and rush to power. I think that is what is happening here. For we who call ourselves Christians, there is a gospel to proclaim, and we should try to proclaim it in the most winsome way possible. But we must also realize our faith may trip the wire of secular orthodoxy at times and place us in the heretics category with the likes of Jordan Peterson. When it does, I hope we have as much courage and conviction as he has shown, and stand up for what we believe, no matter the cost. Truth must never be sacrificed on the altars of convenience or expedience. Love may be greater than faith and hope (1 Cor 13:13), but it is truth that sets us free (Jn 8:32) The early Church followed the laws of the land unless they contradicted the law of God. At that point they said: “ We must obey God rather than men.” (Acts 5:29) We all like to be liked, and it is the Canadian temperament to go along to get along. But we can’t go along with what are ultimately false gospels. We must judge by the word of Christ, not the whim of culture. (Jn 12:48) Accommodation and appeasement are not options. When it comes to that point, “ It is for freedom that Christ has set us free.” (Gal 5:1) We have to say with the apostle Paul: “ I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes…” (Ro 1:16)