Offering a rare and intimate peak into one of the most interesting men of our age, Patricia Marcia’s The Rise of Jordan Peterson is a behind the scenes look at his sudden and meteoritic rise. Given its subject matter this is going to delight and repulse in equal measure and – writing as someone who is, for the most past, a Peterson fan – this is a fascinating portrait into a notoriously illusive man.
Since 2016 this once obscure professor ascended to a worldwide phenomenon. Few had even heard of him until his well documented line-in-the-sand stand against Bill C-16, a Canadian human rights amendment on the issue of gendered language. Since then he’s become a worldwide best selling author, with his 12 Rules for Life selling over three million copies, a rockstar academic able to sell out auditoriums and a strange new figurehead of the anti-Left.
To his fans (mostly young men) he’s an intellectual giant passing on the mental tools to the next generation so they may craft meaningful, fulfilling lives. To his detractors he’s nothing more than a snake-oil salesman, counterfeiting his esoteric brand of grave sounding nonsense. If it wasn’t for the unique circumstances he’d still probably be teaching psychology. His hatred for Marxism, political correctness and what he terms ‘radical leftist ideologues’ coincided with the rise of Trump. Even though he strongly denies it, he’s often considered a figurehead of the Alt-Right; one of the arch-demons of your average #woke twenty-something with a Twitter account and a messiah complex.
We start in Peterson’s home, a small townhouse decked out with Soviet propaganda paintings that he bought for pennies on the pound when communism collapsed – a reminder to a lifelong student of totalitarianism and the human capacity for atrocity that millions were murdered for a vision of utopia (plus the delicious irony of buying discounted Marxist art on the free market). From here it’s a behind the scenes look at the key moments of his recent career; the journey from his office to address a counter-protest, a phone call in a hotel room as he loses his temper upon hearing a university debate was cancelled because of claims it would be offensive, and the little moments between him and Tammy, his wife of over thirty years.
Living with the man himself seems, like many of his ideas, fascinating yet difficult. In a conversation with his daughter he describes depression as one of the family’s curses. Struggles with the demon drink have happened throughout his life. Watching interviews and reading him, it seems his is a mind that spends more than most in the darker corners of the world.
Marcia doesn’t damn or deify. Both his fans and detractors will watch this and find what they’re looking for. Many of his ideas are simply self-help – though his opinions on feminism, transgenderism and the politically correct left are harder to process. As we see the centre failing and more people being pushed to extremes, some see him as genuinely dangerous, as he often falls into the same behaviour as those he rails against. His former friend Bernard Schiff is interviewed, following a publication entitled “I was Jordan Peterson’s strongest supporter. Now I think he’s dangerous”.
In this age where the political has infiltrated the philosophical it’s easy to see why he’s such a controversial figure. His ideas don’t break down into simple soundbites and Tweet length sentences. They’re dense and often hard to comprehend. As a consumer of many of his interviews and lectures the best bit of advice I can give is to take a look for yourself. What he says and what he is reported to have said are usually different, and in amongst many of his rather strange ideas are some inspired pieces of advice.
The message he heralds is one of personal responsibility and growth. If you want to make society better you have to start with the only things in this world you can control: your thoughts and your actions. While those that don’t like him probably won’t find anything that will change their minds apart from a closer look at the man behind the controversy, his fans will find more than enough to satisfy.
The Rise of Jordan Peterson will screen from 10th October through Fan-Force.
