What on earth has happened to Jordan Peterson’s interviewing style? His latest video, which features Elon Musk, lasts for two hours. It makes for painful viewing. As during many of his recent podcasts, Peterson interrupts his guest’s train of thought with long-winded asides. Peterson’s flashy outfit only added to the feeling that it is hard to take him seriously.
I started following the professor a few years ago while researching my book on modern masculinity. Back then, his arguments were fascinating. At the height of his fame, I interviewed him for this magazine and was impressed by his considered responses. Peterson seemed genuinely interested in ideas and in other people’s opinions. He was a breath of fresh air.
“I was tricked into doing this… the people promoting this should go to prison.” @ElonMusk opens up to @JordanBPeterson about gender ideology’s impact on his son, Xavier. pic.twitter.com/1bdILGNdJE
— Daily Wire (@realDailyWire) July 22, 2024
His no nonsense, ‘pull your socks up’ approach to the vagaries of living seemed oddly radical back when his book 12 Rules for Life first burst onto the scene in 2018. There’s no doubt that Peterson has had a radical impact; inspiring a generation of lost souls to bear their crosses with magnanimity is one hell of an achievement. But I miss the wily old fox who could pick apart a poorly reasoned argument with a few devastating quips. He did this splendidly during that interview on Channel 4 News with Cathy Newman. It was an exchange from which Newman never really recovered; and which led to Peterson winning over legions of fans. His YouTube videos felt like mini events as he bravely argued against establishment thinking. Thousands of avid followers would take to the comments section to discuss his latest theory about Christian worship or the importance of telling the truth.
We saw a different Peterson in his exchange with Musk
We saw a different Peterson in his exchange with Musk. His diminished status as just another shock-jock YouTuber is concerning. Although I didn’t always agree with his views, it felt good to know he was out there on the cutting edge, pushing back against the forces of lunacy. Those days are, sadly, long gone.
His tendency to hector guests rather than engage with them means he has lost that vital ability to simply listen and respond. During much of the Musk interview, Peterson talks over his guest, drowning out anything interesting the billionaire might have to say. That famously enquiring mind now appears closed off to new ideas; he knows what he knows and that’s the end of it.
When Musk speaks movingly about his son’s struggle with the gender identity ‘mind virus’, Peterson comes across as hysterical and intolerant, chucking words like ‘pathetic’ into the mix. It’s hardly the stuff of intellectual rigour. Why didn’t he let Musk speak?
The trouble is, we already know what Peterson thinks on a wide range of topics from his disdain of the radical left and post modernism to understanding the human condition through religious worship, so why keep bringing them up? We get that human beings are prone to certain ‘proclivities’ so isn’t it time to move on?
Judging by some of the comments under the Musk video, fans are losing patience with their fallen idol. Yes, they remain hungry for new ideas – especially from a man like Musk who spends his time building space rockets. But Peterson seems more interested in ploughing the same old shibboleths. We know the world’s gone to hell, but what do clever blokes like Peterson and Musk intend to do about it other than endlessly pontificate about the need for purpose?
Somehow Peterson manages to bring every argument back to his own set of well-worn beliefs, which, I’m afraid, are sounding increasingly hackneyed. I worry that the ‘prophet of our times’ is becoming a sad parody of our times.
Perched on the edge of his seat throughout much of the interview, Peterson comes across as one of Musk’s fan-boys. Instead of probing analysis, we get backslapping indulgences without much fresh insight. The two of them waffle on about the future of AI and of man’s search for meaning, but as a listener it’s hard to stay focused when we’ve heard so much of this stuff before. Tackling such monumental subjects ought to be thrilling, yet it felt more like being trapped in a student union bar with a pair of pretentious undergraduates high on not very good weed. I hate to admit it, but I became bored after 40 minutes and gave up.
In fact I gained more insight into the human condition from the ‘watch next’ video on my YouTube feed which featured a corgi playing the piano and singing along with his owner. I learnt that we human beings are a weird, unknowable bunch, which I think is what Musk and Peterson were hinting at in their very roundabout pseudo intellectual way.
