The Process of Leaving Jordan Peterson Behind (w/ Benjamin Howard)

Benjamin Howard is a Current Affairs reader who was once a huge fan of Canadian psychologist, pundit, and self-help guru Jordan Peterson. But Howard eventually became a harsh critic of Peterson's work, to the point where he is putting together a website called JordanPetersonIsWrong.com. Today he joins us to explain how and why he changed his mind. We talk about the sources of Peterson's appeal and how Benjamin found that by getting to a different place in his life and learning critical thinking skills he became more able to see through some of Peterson's sophistry.

An article about this conversation by Nathan can be found here. Peterson himself has reacted to this interview by insisting that he does not care at all. The clip about religion is from the Matt Dillahunty vs. Jordan Peterson Debate. The "clean your room" video is here.

"He’s also able to weave in a lot of different topics together, where he’s got the self-help, he’s got religion, he’s got psychology, and then the politics…If you listen to one of his lectures where he’s in this lecture hall talking for  an hour, two hours, he’ll go across all these different topics and weave them, like he’s trying to give the impression that they’re all unified together. But it’s this hodgepodge of different things that maybe aren’t related. It gives this feeling of “Wow, this guy knows about everything, and he’s just so knowledgeable, and he’s giving this profound insight that other people just don’t have. I think there is definitely an impression that you’re getting genius insights from this person. I think that’s what leads to over-trusting of his information, because if he’s a genius, then why look into anything he says? He must just be correct." — Benjamin Howard