Re:Why Is Jordan Peterson So Popular?
by MiddleEndian on Friday August 10, 2018 @01:24PM
(#17735184)
I don't particularly find it controversial, he's advocating mostly mild, deliberately ambiguous stuff, similar to that of any other self-help guru, but he happens to be targeting younger crowd that likes to debate on the internet rather than yell at their TV.
For comparison, Dr. Oz was a skilled surgeon, but he chose to make more money selling fad diets or whatever it is that made him famous. So while his surgical abilities are objectively impressive, he is judged by how he presents himself.
I'm sure he has some real lectures, just like Dr. Phil actually has a psychology degree. But their public personas are what they're known for now, and they probably don't care that much because it makes them a ton of cash.
Edited: Fixed a word.
Years before the current controversy, Peterson has been publishing his university lectures on YouTube. They are quite fascinating, if you are interested in mythology or Jungian archetypes. Nothing political in the narrow sense of the word, just in general how people navigate between the "Chaos and Order", or less poetically, the eternal ambivalence of systems we create, which are both supportive and suppressive at the same time.
Among people whom I know which are impressed by Peterson, most of them found him through the controversy, but most of them stayed because of those lectures. That is his life-long work. The self-help is just a simplified extract.