Five Minutes to Midnight

Jordan Peterson and The Rosy Crucifixion

Come down off the cross, we can use the wood
— Tom Waits

Dear Dr. Peterson. Apologies for this bit of unsolicited advice, but you’ve asked for it — being a public figure and all. What I want to say is this: recently, I get the feeling that you’ve been stretched a little too thin.

Believe me, I know you’ve done immeasurable good — and the nearly impossible task of raising the conversation level of the culture — and I’m more than grateful for your many interventions. So please forgive me for expressing my concern.

What I am about to say — you have said it all yourself: Too big is bound to fail — and perhaps the wave is getting too big — whatever rises must fall, as the cliché has it. Like Bilbo Baggins and his ring, I get the feeling that you risk losing your powers (or disappearing in a cloud of magic smoke) — if you keep going on like this. Power must be be a terrible weight.

The thing is: we do not want you to lose your ring, your fiery anger, your deeply felt concern — we do not want you to burn out. The danger of burnout—or loss of soul—magnifies with fame and power, as you know better than anybody.

You have spoken about the imitation of Christ, which can only lead to one place: crucifixion. We don’t wish this on you prematurely. The media has been trying to drive in the nails every day, but you are not Jesus H, and we don’t want to see you up there on that lonely hill, on top of the world, nailed to that good old cross. As your friend Tom Waits once sang: Come down off the cross, we can use the wood.

The responsibility you carry must be a terrible burden. You handle it well. However, in Chinese medicine charisma is considered a sickness — and you have that sickness in spades. That is the power of the magic ring. It is power which stretches one thin, which makes one weak, peevish, reactive.

Perhaps it may be time to ‘re-source’. Go to a deep and silent place for a few days. Taking too much can kill a person!

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not one of those morally uptight people who would like to tell you how to ‘behave’ — that has been the function of the devouring- mother-cult of the castrating-mainstream media who are after your member. The thing is: you just don’t say things that they can digest — and who cares! They are just trying to protect their children of ideology; they will pull out any kind of desperate underhanded trick.

Certainly, there is an angry young lady working for the New York Times, but you shouldn’t have invited her into your home! Her bad faith creative prose had as much to do with describing your style of interior decorating as your ideas. If I were your media advisor, I’d tell you to turn your back to the press for awhile and get back to your deeper works.

The thing is — and I hate to say this — lately you’ve been making smoke, but not always fire. And I’m a big fan of your fire: I welcome real anger or sadness or whatever authentic emotion arises in this disembodied media landscape. You’ve been great relief in a world of ‘talking heads’. But I get the sense — and correct me if I am wrong — that you are pulling off the same riffs, night after night.

Sure, you improvise here and there, but please don’t become a legacy act like The Rolling Stones — repeating the same 12 Rules for Life riffs every night. It would be better to be like a good jazz musician, keeping it fresh and alive. You have a hard job, a big responsibility — a hellhound on your tail. I get that.

But if you don’t mind me saying: Please, please, please (as James Brown sang) — don’t flog the politics to death. The clear and marked beauty of your work is too see through the smog of polarities, to go beyond (your words) ‘ideological possession’. Sometimes I feel that you are all-too-possessed yourself. It seems to me that if you keep attacking the ‘post-modern-neo-marxist’ scarecrow ad nauseum, you may just contribute to whole nasty game of dividing the world up into warring factions. (I’m not saying you are right or wrong. That’s not my point here.)

Underground world

But Dear ‘Doctor-Professor-Doctor-Professor’ as Russell Brand called you: Give the grand inquisitor of media a kiss and go out the back door for awhile, that is my advice. Do the deep work, the biblical lectures, the on-line university. Whatever. Stay away from ‘The News’ at all costs — keep yourself in the lo-fi YouTube underground world where you are most effective. Don’t become a circus act for mainstream media.

The Jordan Peterson universe should be a school and not a personality cult: your ‘popularity’ matters much less than the depth of your expression. And there is some cultish behaviour that surrounds you, which is only natural for a superstar. But look what happened to Elvis!

Let’s just be honest about this. Every cult has a dark side. I know your aim is to strengthen the individual. But at the same time: you risk being eaten by bloodhounds, devoured by lepers, bewitched by harpies — or worse even worse: just going through the rituals.

Dr. Peterson: you are a reasonable man, unlike Wilhelm Reich — who had a bit of a Christ complex. I’m not saying you do as well, but you do tango with the Christ archetype. You and Reich both understood the bloodlust of the mob, the cult of personality — you both seemed attracted to martyrdom in some sense. Unlike Reich, however, you probably won’t go mad or get dragged off by the C.I.A, but you risk losing something in the spectacle. Please keep that underground, lo-fi flavour. It’s more alive and creative here.

It’s interesting to me that your fame came at least in part as result of your discussion with comedians and transgender types — and some of your best conversations have been with the likes of Russell Brand and Joe Rogan. Maybe you could resource them for levity.

Perhaps humour is what is needed (even though, I do agree: it is indeed five minutes to midnight). Maybe you could do stand-up comedy for a while, like Timothy Leary (who had the same position at Harvard as you I believe). It seems to me that there needs to me some more hard core fun injected in the game. And play is what matters, as you have often said.

Again. Don’t get me wrong. I recognised the seriousness of your mission. But are you still having fun? I certainly hope so. If not, all is lost.

You have proved that people are hungry for meaning — dying for it in fact — you have proved that existentialism, phenomenology, myth and religion still matter in this world. You have brought a conversation of meaning down into the twilight wasteland of modernity. You have only my applause for that.

The armies of Sauron (aka Lord of the Rings) are gathering. It is ‘five minutes to midnight’. But the real apocalypse would for you to lose your levity and gravity both. Your popularity doesn’t matter a bit, next to that. (I know I’m just telling you what you already know to be true).

I hate to be the one to saying this believe me. But I think it is time to say: Lighten up a bit Dr. Peterson — you don’t need to soften your message. But put a bit more dance into your fight.

This piece accompanies Rebel Wisdom founder David Fuller’s “The Peterson paradox, it doesn’t matter if you’re right, if people stop listening”

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