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Jordan Peterson knows what he believes, and he’s not afraid to tell you. What does he think about gender-neutral pronouns, such as “ze” or “zhe”, preferred by many transgender people? Those are the “vanguard of a post-modern, radical leftist ideology.” How about Bill C-16, the federal legislation that proposes to amend “the Canadian Human Rights Act to add gender identity and gender expression to the list of prohibited grounds of discrimination”? It’s an “assault on biology and an implicit assault on the idea of the objective world.” And what about the Ontario Human Rights Commission? According to Peterson, it’s the “most dangerous organization in Canada.”For some, Jordan Peterson is a brave defender of the traditional values and moral certitude of Western civilization, standing up to those who would sacrifice them on the altar of political correctness and hurt feelings. For others, he is a villain, whose opposition to further government protection of transgender people threatens one of society’s most marginalized groups. Whatever the case, Peterson, the University of Toronto psychology professor who shot to fame this fall after giving public notice via YouTube of his refusal to use gender neutral pronouns for transgender students, is now at the heart of a revived Canadian culture war.The great debates over abortion, divorce, gay rights, aboriginal entitlement and the environment that erupted in the mid-20th century have waxed and waned ever since, but rarely have they burned with the intensity evident today. And Jordan Peterson is doing a singularly impressive job of stoking the fire. His vocal resistance to the progression of transgender recognition and rights in Canadian society is, according to him, rooted in a firm belief in the importance of freedom of speech to democracy. He passionately opposes the idea that gender is a social construct unrelated to biological sex, arguing that the connection between the two is clear and universal, and that the widespread acceptance of transgender and gender fluid people is simply ignorant kowtowing to political correctness and bogus relativism. The endorsement of gender neutral pronouns by Canadian governments and the idea that refusing to use those pronouns constitutes discrimination against transgender people that is punishable under the law is something that Peterson vehemently rejects as a left-wing attack on free speech. When Bill C-16 was introduced in Parliament, therefore, he decided to publicize his opposition to the proposed legislation as widely as possible.It’s safe to say he succeeded. In the two months since posting the first of a series of controversial videos attacking Bill C-16 and the Ontario Human Rights Code, Peterson has given dozens of interviews, been the subject of hundreds of news stories, and collected millions of views on his YouTube channel. In the process, he sparked a furious debate on the University of Toronto campus and across the country about the role of government in restricting and compelling speech. ...His fight against Bill C-16 and his refusal to use gender neutral pronouns matches the mood of millions of people unhappy with much of the socio-economic agenda currently favoured by the so-called political and intellectual “elites” in Western society. 2016 has been a banner year for this discontent. The United Kingdom’s vote to leave the European Union this spring, the rise of anti-establishment political parties in virtually every European country, and the election of Donald Trump as the next President of the United States: all these seemingly represent a backlash against the march of progressivism, feminism, environmentalism, and globalism, which for so long seemed inevitable and unstoppable. In the midst of the British Brexit debate this spring, Michael Gove, one of the leaders of the campaign to leave the European Union, famously said that “people in this country have had enough of experts.” This is happening around the world: a rejection of experts and their opinions on topics as diverse as trade, immigration, and climate change. The ivory towers are out; the common sense of the people is in.Until Peterson, Canada has seemed largely immune to these reactionary populist forces. They briefly erupted in Toronto during the chaotic reign of former mayor Rob Ford, but seemed discredited by his drug-addled fall from grace. Over the last year, even as Donald Trump was gaining steam in the Republican primaries, Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was consolidating power in an avowedly progressive government that explicitly put feminism, environmentalism, and aboriginal rights at the top of its agenda. As Britain prepares to leave the EU and as President-elect Trump gives notice of his intention to remove the United States from international trade agreements and withdraw from the Paris climate accord, the government of Canada is welcoming refugees, liberalizing international trade, and introducing a national carbon tax. ...As the drama at the University of Toronto continues to unfold in the coming weeks and months, the balance of human rights and free speech in Canada will be tested. Peterson – who fears losing both his license to practice clinical psychology and his clearance to teach classes at the university – may become a martyr for his cause. If that happens, the backlash against transgender rights and the related tenets of progressivism will only be further inflamed. “Canada’s back,” proclaims the most progressive prime minister the country has ever had. So too, apparently, are the culture wars.
How do you see the future of public discourse in this country if we don’t reverse course on things like C-16?I have no idea. I think that we’re in a time of chaos and anything can happen in a time of chaos. I don’t know what will happen at the university in the next week. There is a debate on Saturday at 9:30 in the morning. It’ll be live-cast on my YouTube channel. I have no idea what the consequences of the debate will be, I have no idea whether I’ll be teaching in January. The university has told me that that every time I insist that I won’t use those [gender neutral] pronouns, the probability that I’ll be teaching in January decreases.Do you believe that you or others could be imprisoned for refusing to comply with these laws?There’s no doubt about that. The human rights tribunals have been given the right to hold people in contempt. Well, you’re going to be in contempt if you don’t pay the fine. My opponents say ‘you’re just scare-mongering. We don’t really have that much power.’ Then why change the criminal code? Why put the hate speech amendments in there? The final word in law is incarceration. There is no question about this. When I made the video on September 27th, and I said, ‘probably making this video itself is illegal’. Not only that, the university is as responsible as I am for making it, because that’s in the human rights code. The university read the damned policies and had their lawyers scour it, and concluded exactly what I concluded. That’s why they sent me two warning letters. They’re on the hook for everything their employees say, whether or not the consequences of what they say were intentional or unintentional, regardless of whether or not there was a complaint.
