Who is Number One | On Jordan Peterson and the Political

This is a talk I gave at conference is Boise University that aimed at exploring the work and world of popular speaker Jordan Peterson. In contrast to the growing body of work that shows how Peterson misunderstands and misreads many of the theorists he references, I want to concentrate on one of the people he reads well: Carl Jung. I aim to show that Jungian theory lies at the very heart of Peterson's understanding of subjectivity, his views on religion and his political orientation. In this seminar I'll be showing how Jung's fundamentally religious orientation differs from the central insights of psychoanalysis, and how it leads to Peterson's conservative understanding of Christianity and reactionary political vision. A vision that ultimately sustains the very progressive politics he fights against.