Jordan Peterson does not need re-education

The illiberal witch hunt of a Canadian icon

PHOTO BY CRAIG ROBERTSON/POSTMEDIA/FILE

The people on the receiving end of the most vicious opprobrium are oftentimes those who have the most important things to say. The exception of course being the genuinely terrible or stupid, of which there are many. However, what is most often present in the high-profile targets of cancel culture, is the importance they place on liberal principles. This is absolutely intolerable to the woke radicals. That Jordan Peterson successfully writes, lectures on, and lives a life guided by liberal tenets, like speech, conscience, and academic freedom, has made him the ultimate pariah and target of many illiberal witch-hunts of the political left. The most recent being particularly egregious.

A protest action, with the rallying cry “we stand with Jordan Peterson” has been organized for tomorrow, Wednesday, Jan 11, at the College of Psychologists, 110 Eglinton Ave W.

Chanel Pfahl, the high school teacher put under investigation for wrong-think on social media, will be speaking at the event. 

Alright, let’s get into it.

Jordan Peterson is being subject to a coercive and defamatory campaign attempting to force him to undergo social media re-education by a vindictive and politically motivated College of Psychologists (the regulatory body for psychologists in Ontario). In an Op-Ed for the National Post on January 4th, Peterson explained the nature of the situation:

“For my crimes, I have been sentenced to a course of mandatory social-media communication training with the college’s so-called experts (although social media communication training is not a scientific and certainly not a clinical specialty of any standing). I am to do this at my own expense (some hundreds of dollars per hour) and for a length of time that is to be determined only by those retraining me and profiting from doing so. How will this be determined? When those very re-educators — those experts — have convinced themselves that I have learned my lesson, and will behave properly in the future.”

Author, employment and labour lawyer Howard Levitt, inquiring about Peterson’s thought-crimes in an Op-Ed for the Financial Post wrote, “what psychological principles was he (Peterson) allegedly breaching?” - and offered the following comment on the frivolous and vexatious nature of the charges:

“...the complaints against him have nothing to do with his practice of psychology but were exclusively political complaints from the left about his conservative political pronouncements. What were these complaints? They included his retweeting our federal Opposition Leader’s statement that the COVID lockdown was too severe and his criticisms of our PM and of Gerald Butts, Trudeau’s former principal secretary. One complainant also objected to Peterson’s rather humorous Twitter response to a critic worried about overpopulation: ‘You’re free to leave at any point’.”

Peterson has not practiced as a psychologist in five years, and the complaints brought against him were not by former patients (even though some of them falsely claimed they were). All of the complaints are related to “insufficiently leftist” comments Peterson has made outside of his capacity as a psychologist. This is a real concern for Canadians regarding freedoms of belief and speech for professionals subject to the whims of regulatory bodies. As Peterson asked rhetorically in a front page story in last Thursday's National Post:

“What makes you think that something similar won’t happen to you or someone you know and respect or love?...What makes you think you are going to continue to be able to communicate honestly with your physicians, lawyers and psychologists or representatives of other regulated professions if they are so terrified of regulatory boards that they can no longer tell you the truth?”

Conrad Black, referring to this “latest of a dismal sequence of outrages and oppressive acts officiously imposed upon the very distinguished and widely admired academic,” wrote in the National Post:

“This is a stupefying insolence from a professional body intent on pettifogging and harassing an extraordinarily successful colleague. Jordan Peterson has had an impeccable professional reputation throughout his 20 years as a research psychologist at Harvard University and the University of Toronto.” 

Some readers may wonder why an internationally recognized intellectual would not be the leading representative of Ontario’s puny little College of Psychologists. In a sane world, where academics and professionals do not pearl-clutch at every little thought-dissent or insignificant mis-step their colleagues make, where it is obvious to everyone that such behaviour would damage a healthy intellectual culture built on the free exchange of ideas, Jordan Peterson, would be the Ontario College of Psychologists most esteemed member.

How many other international superstars does the Ontario College of Psychologists have? I can’t imagine any of its members being able to generate a tenth of the audience that Jordan Peterson does.  As Conrad Black proclaimed, “(Peterson) has immense clinical experience and his pioneering work in bringing psychology to a vast worldwide internet audience, including 15-million people all over the world who follow him on three different social media platforms, has made serious psychology much more accessible.”

But the leftist revolutionaries don’t want serious psychology made more accessible, not by Jordan Peterson, a thinker who preaches self-discipline and personal responsibility. Could it have something to do with the fact that, though his message resonates broadly with both men and women, it is perhaps most appreciated by men of all ages who have for too long felt their existence problematized by misandrist radical feminism and its grafting onto the social justice ideologies now indoctrinating anyone associated with Canada’s education system?

From K-12, to Universities & Colleges, to all forms of teacher training - woke ideology is central to this demoralizing critical social justice paradigm. Jordan Peterson offers hope, and the woke won’t have it. However, re-educating, shutting down, or controlling Jordan Peterson, does not seem like something within the means of the Ontario College of Psychologists. He has committed to fighting back by making everything public and by filing an application for judicial review against the Ontario College of Psychologists. As Tyler Dawson reported for the National Post:

“The application for judicial review was submitted on Dec. 30…Lawyers for the controversial Canadian psychologist…argue that the college’s decision to insist Peterson enter remedial training on social media conduct is contrary to the charter. They have asked the court to quash the disciplinary decision and prohibit psychologists from regulating ‘otherwise lawful public expression on matters unrelated to the practice of psychology’.”

Canadian columnist Barbara Kay who today published an Op-Ed on the matter in the Epoch Times, doesn’t have much faith in Peterson’s appeal to his charter rights, in an email exchange she offered the following:

“His ‘complainants’ are not known to him and they are not only not former patients, they do not know any of his former patients. If this is not proof of it being a political ploy, what is? I think he should not overstate the injustice; it is bad enough that they want him canceled as a psychologist and that they are insisting on re-education at his expense.”

 Below, Peterson explains his determination that the charges were politically motivated:

“Every single accusation is not only independent of my clinical practice, but explicitly political — and not only that: unidirectionally explicitly political. Every single thing I have been sentenced to correction for saying is insufficiently leftist, politically. I’m simply too classically liberal — or, even more unforgivably — conservative.” 

I asked former Manitoba judge and columnist, Brian Giesbrecht, what he thought of Peterson’s ordeal:

“To me, this is a political case, and harassment and cancellation are the goals. There is nothing wrong with a psychologist, or any professional, expressing opinions that might be considered political.

The fact is that Peterson’s views are not shared by the College members, so they will try to shut him up. If Peterson had been expressing views they were comfortable with they would probably have honoured him in some way, instead of trying to shut him down.They chose the wrong guy to go after.”

In an email exchange, I received this comment from professor Frances Widdowson, who cuts through all confusion and offers the following clarity:

“I think it is another example of professional bodies not being concerned about competence anymore (what they used to spend their time regulating), but in controlling speech so that ‘woke-ism’ can be imposed.”

Chilling.

As Howard Levitt mused in his Financial Post piece - “one can only imagine how many psychologists with the wrong political opinions (the Ontario College of Psychologists)...has previously cowed into submission. Peterson’s is an important fight.”

Indeed it is. For what it’s worth, Woke Watch Canada, stands with Jordan Peterson.

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Thanks for reading. For more from this author on the scourge of wokeism and the importance of liberal principles, read Subversion of Meaning - by James Pew & Mr. M