By David Futrelle
People often joke about the whole Jordan Peterson thing being a cult, but the thing is that it really is pretty damn culty. Consider, for example, this tale of one young acolyte’s meeting with the Holy Man after a recent public debate between J-Peet and top atheist skeezeball Sam Harris.
The lucky fella, calling himself mushroomyakuza, posted his story to the Jordan Peterson subreddit earlier this week. He was thrilled to meet his guru, he wrote, because “he really has had a pretty profound impact on my life. It was humbling.”
Contemplating one’s tininess in the universe is humbling. Meeting some fussbudgety Canadian professor with a popular self-help book and an oversized sense of self-importance shouldn’t be.
He was so courteous and polite to everyone he saw, including my girlfriend. Met her with a big “how are you?” and a sweet grin.
She was probably the only woman in the entire audience.
It was a surreal moment for me, having been a fan for nearly two years when the first video of him at UoT regarding gender pronouns emerged.
Transphobia, the gateway drug to Jordan Petersonism.
Then it was my turn.
We shook hands. Good firm grip.
I looked at him and said “Thank you, man.” I said “I’m sorting it all out.”
It is just me or is it getting awfully culty in here? J-Peet tells his young fans to “sort yourself out” and “clean your room” before taking on the world’s problems. So mushroomyakuza is repeating Peterson’s own catchphrase back at him. That’s a little culty, my dude. It’s also not terribly original. It’s like meeting Right Said Fred and telling them that they really are too sexy for their shirts.
Oh but it gets cultier:
Our eyes locked and we held each others gaze. He saw into my soul, basically. There was a moment of understanding that only men have when your eyes lock in a certain way (sorry girls it’s true).
Jesus Effing Christ. It was just a little eye contact! My cats “lock eyes” with me all the time and they’re not “seeing into my soul.” They just want food!
(Though admittedly when I first got my cats at the cat shelter I chose one of them because she looked me straight in the eye and there was a moment of understanding that only people and cats have when their eyes lock in a certain way (sorry dog people it’s true), and I knew I had to pick her and she and I are very happy but then again my other cat is equally great and I picked her because she was a complete goofball, and magical eye bonding had nothing to do with it. But I digress.)
He signed the book with a smile and nod. I said” Thank you” again and he said “You’re welcome. Thank you for coming.” and gave me another firm handshake with another eye lock.
WOW WHAT WISDOM. Embroider that and put it in a little frame.
I wish I’d had time to take a picture, but there was a very long line and people were being pushed along.
People say not to meet your idols, and even though this was only for roughly ten seconds, I was not disappointed.
Thank you for everything you do Dr Peterson.
My body just did a little involuntary shudder.
I mean, it’s one thing to fanboy or fangirl a bit when you meet someone you admire or idolize. But what the hell. HE SAW INTO YOUR FUCKING SOUL!?
You’re in a cult, dude. WAKE UP!
I can top that, mainly because my negative thoughts about former Conservative leader Michael Howard stretch considerably further than “a bit of a git”.
But I once attended the same social event that he did (a wedding, possibly, or a birthday party), and we ended up chatting (which in itself is bizarre), and although I was fully aware at the time that this was the most counterintuitive reaction imaginable, I genuinely liked him. Some people are much more charismatic in person than they are in front of TV cameras, and Howard had notoriously poor chemistry with them.
This does not mean that I was brought round to his political views in any way whatsoever – I cannot emphasise this enough – but it did give me a real insight into why he was much more popular within the Tory Party than an outsider’s perspective suggested was the tiniest bit plausible.
Off topic, but did anyone see this?
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2018/jul/19/denis-ten-killed-figure-skater-kazakhstan-olympics
Denis Ten, Kazak figure skater and Olympic medalist, was just murdered by car thieves. He was only 25 years old.
Very sad.
@Z&T:
I’m Irish, yes, and living there. Which is to say, IRELAND I AM IN YOU, or something.
Re Clinton, et al:
Some rare few people have that charisma, and that almost supernatural speaking ability. Bill Clinton’s got it. After his big DNC speech when Obama was running, my husband, who is not political at all, turned to me and said “Can we have THAT guy back?”
Reagan had it too. Horrible politics, but charisma out the wazoo.
Then again, apparently you don’t need to be a great charismatic political speaker to inspire a cult. Trump can barely say a coherent sentence.
Another link that may be of interest to people here: a story of how the creator of one of GamerGate’s cesspools, the KotakuInAction subreddit, had a Damascene conversion and shut it down, only for Reddit’s admins to step in and resurrect it. Because free speech, you guys, not ad revenue, nope nuh-uh ?
Charisma is a funny thing: the Ancient Greeks believed it was a genuine gift from the gods because they couldn’t explain it otherwise. Some people just seem to have it. People seem genuinely wowed when politicians, even the “nasty” ones, display it, but how do you think they ever got anyone to vote for them in the first place? I suspect that just as some people are better public speakers than others, naturally charismatic people have an unconscious knack for picking up and manipulating the cues that pass between us as social animals: note how many descriptions of people like Clinton are along the lines of, “he makes you feel like you’re the only person in the room”.
There is a famous (some might say infamous) book called Influence: Science and Practice by a guy called Robert Cialdini that dissects the ideas of charisma, influence, persuasion, etc., especially as they’re used to make us do or buy crap we don’t want particularly want. It’s a fun read.
Speaking of weird cultish self-help stuff, this thing came up on my Facebook feed yesterday for a program called Wake Up Warrior. I did some investigating, and it turns out that it’s a bunch of upper middle-class and rich dudes who want to pay to go to boot camp led by a failed real estate mogul rather than actually join the National Guard or reserves so they can feel more like men. Can’t make this stuff up. *lol*
https://nypost.com/2017/06/03/this-intensive-boot-camp-is-designed-to-revive-a-mans-primal-nature/
I have a friend who met Bill Clinton a few years ago and he felt her up. I guess that’s not surprising though, knowing his history.
I know someone who met Hillary Clinton when she was First Lady. He said she was fairly short, maybe 5’2″ or 5 ‘3″ , and looked prettier in person, than she looked in videos and photographs.
He was with a special interest group, and attended a meeting where she gave a speech. Surprisingly to me, he said she was 45 minutes late to the meeting. I thought heavy hitters like her would have a very tightly controlled schedule.
@ cat mara
Ooh, I’ll have to buy that.
Hey. Wait a minute….
@Alan:
Damn, I missed a chance to stick an affiliate link in there, didn’t I? ?
Liquidmidnight:
That whole Warrior Weekend cult thing sound fucking creepy. For the life of me I don’t get the appeal.
It seems like anything that Warrior week does, consistent exercise, real self reflection or renting a dominatrix would do much better.
It’s like they took the very wrong lessons from fight club.
And closer to my heart, these idiots represent the kind of fucking toxic masculinity that terrorized me as a kid and I got from my father. I don’t see the appeal of any of that.
Glad I’m not the only one thinking that the OP’s girlfriend should find herself a new boyfriend if he thinks JP being nice to her is anything but to be expected. That was my first thought upon reading that statement, too.
Re: Clinton. I find your reports of his charisma in person fascinating because through the TV he always seemed kind of ordinary to me. Now I wish I could witness someone like that myself, because I don’t think I ever have.
Well, now we know more about how Justice Kennedy was corrupted:
http://www.businessinsider.com/anthony-kennedy-son-loaned-president-trump-over-a-billion-dollars-2018-6
I don’t know why, but this sentence made me laugh:
If transphobia is a gateway drug to something, that thing is probably not a good thing.
Oh yes, and @Viscaria was spot-on:
Regarding charisma:
The most charismatic person I’ve ever seen was the CEO of a small publishing company I used to work for. There was a lot going on there: he was intelligent, tall (6’4″), handsome, in wicked good shape, had a truly beautiful voice, and was a former Navy SEAL (he had started as a frogman in Vietnam and got grandfathered into the program); he looked like a Norman Rockwell father figure. Whenever he would speak, he had literally everyone straining to hear what he had to say, even if it was just about last quarter’s profits. It was surreal.
Now I’m not a big fan of authority or blind obedience, but I honestly felt that if he’d told me that we were going to march to the gates of hell, I’d have gladly fallen in line behind him. That realization was more than a little disconcerting.
And he also provided a glimpse of how terrifying charisma can be when used to project rage. One time, he was interviewing someone for a job, and the guy had claimed to be a SEAL on his resume. Apparently, when the poor bastard went in to the office, the first thing the CEO asked was “where’s your ring?” Once it became clear that the guy didn’t know what my boss was talking about, he told the applicant to leave in no uncertain terms. Now, I didn’t witness any of that; what I saw was this guy basically running out of the office, with my boss walking behind him telling him to get the hell out of his building and pray that they never met in public.
And he was absolutely terrifying.
Mind you, even though his words were harsh, he never once raised his voice above a normal speaking tone, and although he was moving fast, he was still just basically walking…but it was like the air was crackling around him, and everyone in the office instantly knew some serious shit had just gone down, even people who hadn’t heard any of the confrontation. It was like he could project his mood into people, just by feeling it intensely.
I can completely understand why the ancient Greeks considered it a divine gift; it really did seem supernatural.
…and, as I said, completely terrifying.
I mean, I get being a little dazzled when meeting someone you admire, but this seems like a really low bar to clear.
Regardless of who the person is, how impressive can “eye contact/handshake/generic pleasantries” be?
Sounds like my conversation with the AAA guy who came and jumped my car yesterday. It was a pleasant experience, but I’m pretty sure neither of us saw into the other’s soul.
@ Cat Mara,
Yes, I haven’t got the greatest command of the English language 😀
Hey, I’m an American. And Chicagoan. No Ingles 😀
Sorry, I can top that AND that with a story about one of Thatchers henchmen: Norman Tebbit!
Norman and Margaret Tebbit survived an attack in 1984 during the Conservative Party conference at the Grand Brighton Hotel in which five people were killed. A friend of mine was in the same hospital as Margaret Tebbit, and met Norman on several occasions. She hated everything he stood for politically, but had to admit he was ‘a very nice man’!
Well he may have been capable of being civil, but he did do this:
In 2004, he opposed the British Government’s Civil Partnership Act 2004. In May 2013, Lord Tebbit said that the coalition government’s determination to pass the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill had alienated grassroots Tories. He also warned it might mean a lesbian queen could give birth to a future monarch by artificial insemination and said that the legislation could allow him to marry his son to escape inheritance tax.
In 2018, Tebbit said that he would not attend services at St Edmundsbury Cathedral conducted by new dean Joe Hawes, because of Hawes’ civil partnership with another clergyman. Tebbit described Hawes as a “sodomite”.
On the charisma thing. Yes, it’s pretty terrifying. I’ve met a bunch of people who have it, and for a while was dating one – and that’s not an experience I’d care to repeat. Having a partner with that spotlight gaze leaves you waaaaaay vulnerable to emotional abuse; I’d rather be with someone who was dorky and awkward and gentle.
At this point I’m cautious about even being vague friends with really charismatic people. It can def be a form of privilege IMO, and an extremely easy one to abuse.
Moggie said
That would be awesome!
Personally, I’m hoping for another Kids in the Hall reunion just so I can see Kevin McDonald play JP in a skit. He would be so perfect! I can also see Bruce McCulloch and Mark McKinney as the perfect JPeet fanbois, too, while Scott Thompson and Dave Foley would be the gay and trans protesters. And then there has to be a Buddy monologue about JP, too.
That’s how it goes in my head, anyway.
Huh, I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone who screamed “charisma” before. I’ve met people I admire, and people I like, but those are because of WHAT the person does, not how they do it (I think).
I wonder if it’s because I just haven’t personally encountered someone with high charisma or if it’s because I’m on the autism spectrum and therefore have a hard enough time just understanding body language and nonverbal communication, let alone being able to parse it well enough to be blown over. (I suppose a third possibility exists in that I have been charmed by a charismatic person and just haven’t realized it. That one is a bit disquieting.)
How is that a problem? Elizabeth I didn’t produce any heirs at all and the monarchy survived.
@Catalpa, re: charisma and autism
That’s a good question; I’m also on the spectrum, but there are a lot of very different expressions of autism so my experience means little in terms of generalization.
I’d actually be very curious to run that experiment. It seems like it would be fairly easy to set up….
Sometime in 2000s I heard the UK had just ditched a law from 1699 that specifically forbade the royals from marrying Catholics. I presume that’d have been forbidden only if they wanted to produce a legitimate heir.
I understand the law still requires that the heir must be born within marriage, even if the throne is inherited from mother rather than father. Why shouldn’t that change, anyway?
Or we could just do the sensible thing and abolish the monarchy.