Con’s Score: 2.5 /5 Clean bedrooms
I’ve always thought we should expose ourselves to ideas we may not agree with, and listen to the other side. It helps give a perspective and an informed opinion, even if it’s one you disagree with. It’s why I gritted my teeth and agreed to watch The Rise of Jordan Peterson.
It starts with Peterson saying there are two Jordan Petersons; the one we see (and then he puts on a witch doctor’s mask) and the one people see as the witch doctor.
Patricia Marococcia’s documentary is one of those close-up, unobtrusive camera documentaries that lets her subjects, the people around them and the images do the talking. It takes us right back to his internet outburst as a university professor against C16, which made not referring to transgender people as “they” or “them” a criminal offence in Canada. There must have been a schism in the universe, because Peterson’s rise to notoriety happened in October 2016, a month before Trump was elected. It’s amazing how a man, now worshipped by millions, started his career with an angry diatribe in front of a few hundred students on a campus. This documentary assiduously follows his path between these two points.
It has lots of access to Peterson, who seems a reasonable fellow. He admits he’s suffered depression all of his life. His 12 Rules are pretty common sense and are hard to argue with. He’s a man of contradictions, as he also has large Stalinist paintings of Lenin and Marx in his home. He wants to understand dictators and why man has turned on his fellows through history, which ironically he can’t see in himself. He’s a free speech warrior, who laughs when a fan tells him how he’s helped him rediscover his religious faith and how he and his friends keep tabs on their “Neo-Marxist history teacher” who’s too scared to speak out of line. (Did I say irony? Maybe I should have said hypocrisy.)
Marcoccia also talks to his friends. Bernie, who hired him at the campus and put his family up in his home, was once a friend. He now considers Peterson “dangerous”. He says he has become nastier and angrier since the debate began. Another friend, Ewan, who still visits Jordan admits to being angry at what he says, as they contradict his beliefs.
It’s then that the hypocrisy of Jordan is subtly highlighted. Some of his online comments are highlighted – he questions why feminists don’t criticise Islam and wonders if they secretly long for masculine dominance. He is cornered in an interview about the points he’s made about women wearing high heels in the workplace, as being sexually provocative. I’ve noticed in how in almost every interview Peterson manufactures conflict, even when there isn’t any. It’s his shtick, which is at odds with his message of community.
It’s also at the hour mark where his fan base of incels and the alt-right – which he prefaces with the term “hypothetical existence” (tell that to the relatives of the 50 dead in Christchurch, Jordie) – is addressed. In a video broadcast he makes it clear he doesn’t stand by their beliefs, and they should learn to be better people, and apologises. So, there you have it everybody. He’s sorry. Feel better now?
The fact is, Peterson is a psychology lecturer, who maybe deep down is a genuinely nice person, and wants people to be happy. He’s done that for many. He’s at his best when he talks about that and his 12 Rules for living happily. He whines about not wanting to make his message political, despite making millions by entering a debate that is political. The documentary shows how his notoriety has come by attacking a marginalised group of people – the transgender community – but he hasn’t really looked hard at the people who surround him now, because fame has backed him into a corner that he can’t back out of.
It’s a fairly balanced documentary that presents both sides of the debate. Maybe Petersen is no charlatan, but if he’s what people want to call a philosopher, then modern day society is intellectually bankrupt. He is no Socrates, and nothing profound has come from him that hasn’t been thought of before. This aspect of his mythology isn’t delved into. It’s stuck to the title – it’s about his unlikely rise.
I will not ever be as famous or as rich as Jordan Peterson. But if there’s one thing I’m grateful for, that this documentary has proven to me, is: I’m glad that I am not Jordan Peterson.
Con Nats, On The Screen
Screening nationally across October and November. You can check where here:
https://fan-force.com/films/the-rise-of-jordan-peterson/
