Jordan Peterson, the Canadian psychologist and anti-woke crusader who has stirred controversy and garnered praise, opprobrium, and ridicule for his pronouncements on postmodernism, neo-Marxism, gender, morality, and the rules of successful living, has donned a new pundit hat to opine on Russia, Ukraine, the war, and the West. The maverick professor lays out his thoughts on the subject in a 50-minute video that garnered over 1.4 million views in the week since it was posted; the transcript can be found on the Daily Wire, where Peterson is now a regular contributor. Unfortunately, the main conclusion one can derive from the video is that creeping pro-Kremlin sentiment is a real problem in certain social conservative quartersand its an ugly thing.
Peterson starts with the obligatory I think what Putin has done is unconscionable disclaimer, and he even throws in a denunciation of the collusion of the leadership of the Russian Orthodox Church. But it doesnt take long to reach the inevitable but: Theres a need, Peterson says, to deeply understand the motive forces for this war in order to end it and prevent similar future conflicts.
Fair enough. Peterson mentions his March 4 interview with foreign policy scholar Frederick Kagan, who put forward the thesis that Vladimir Putin is a prototypical authoritarianor even a thug in the Hitlerian moldand that Russias invasion of Ukraine is the result of Putins personal desire for empire and power as well as an expression of the imperial expansionism that typified the Soviet Union. But that explanation apparently isnt good enough for Peterson, so he turns to University of Chicago realist John Mearsheimers 2015 lecture, Why Ukraine is the Wests Fault, for an alternative perspective more sympathetic to Russias concerns.
Peterson gravely notes that he was concerned that Mearsheimer might be a Russian apologist, but thankfully that does not seem to be the case. Then he moves on to the apologetics: NATO and EU expansionism into Ukraine . . . has already and will continue to pose an intolerable threat to the Russians, who view Ukraine both as an integral part of the broader Russian sphere of interest and as a necessary buffer between the Europe that has invaded Russia to terrible effect in 1812 and 1941. (By the way: It wasnt Europe that invaded Russia on either of those occasions; it was Napoleon and Hitler, who also invaded numerous countries in Western Europe. If every country that repeatedly got invaded over the course of its history is entitled to an obedient buffer country on its borders, its going to be buffers all around.)
The blame NATO defense of Russias actions is, as Ive written before, bogus. But one part of Petersons elaboration on this argument is so striking that it deserves to be quoted in full:
Mearsheimer states, starkly (and this explains a fair bit of Putins potential motivation) that Russia would rather see Ukraine destroyed, razed to the ground, than comfortably ensconced in the Western sphere of influence.
If true, I would say that this doesnt exactly contradict the authoritarian with a bent for imperial expansionism (or even thug in the Hitlerian mold) take on Putins actions. Neither does a third point Peterson then brings up: that Russia sees Ukraine as a threat to its primarily petro-funded economy, particularly in relation to the European market. Sorry, but if you invade another country and slaughter people to protect your oil and gas trade, it might not make you Hitlerian, but it definitely makes you the baddies.
But even these explanations dont suffice for Peterson, who wants to find the wokeness angle in order to tie all this to his hobbyhorse. Here, according to Peterson, is the real story:
Putin regards the current West as decadent to the point of absolute untrustworthiness, particularly on the cultural and religious front. . . . And whether he believes this or notand I believe he doeshe is certainly able and willing to use the story of our degeneration to make his people wary of us and to convince them of the necessity of his leadership and to unite them in supporting his actions in Ukraine. . . .
And are we degenerate, in a profoundly threatening manner? I think the answer to that may well be yes. The idea that we are ensconced in a culture war has become a rhetorical commonplace. How serious is that war? Is it serious enough to increase the probability that Russia, say, will be motivated to invade and potentially incapacitate Ukraine merely to keep the pathological West out of that country, which is a key part of the historically Russian sphere of influence?
Petersons example of Western degeneracy is Ketanji Brown Jacksons elevation to the Supreme Courtnot only because she was picked on the basis of her race and sex (since Biden had explicitly narrowed the pool to black women), but because, during her confirmation hearings, she punted on the question What is a woman? by answering, Im not a biologist. Peterson concedes that it was a gotcha question, but then concludes that it doesnt matter: The fact that woke ideology simultaneously makes being a woman one of two key criteria for a Supreme Court seat and muddies the meaning of woman means that it violates the principle of non-contradiction and makes our culture irredeemably irrational.
What does this have to do with Russia and Ukraine? In Petersons view, the Russians see woke ideology as a new version of the Communist quest to remake human nature and tell themselves something like this:
Those Westerners are so out of their mindpossessed by the very same ideas that destroyed us for a century (and didnt they?)that we simply cannot trust them. Those Westerners are so out of their mind that a devastated but neutral Ukraine is preferable to a functional bordering state aligned with the US and Europe. Those Westerners are so out of their mind that well push the world to the brink of a nuclear war and potentially beyond to keep them off our doorstep. Because weve been there before and were not going back.
Peterson does stress once again that Putin himself may or may not believe this and that, regardless of his sincerity, he is weaponizing the War on Wokeness to promote his imperial and self-aggrandizing goals. However, he still maintains that the real key to solving the Russia/Ukraine problem lies in winning the civil war in the West by defeating the radical ideas of Marxist inheritance that are currently destabilizing our societiesand that, as long as those ideas dominate, American and Western support for freedom in Ukraine is nothing but shallow moral posturing.
Where to begin?
The notion that the Wests moral standing vis--vis Russia in 2022 is undercut by some uniquely terrible moral degeneracy and irrationality does not pass the laugh test. For instance, as David Frenchpoints out,for a good part of the Cold War the United States tolerated not only racial segregation but the often-violent oppression and disenfranchisement of black Americans in the Southern states. I daresay this was in drastic contradiction with the principles of freedom and democracy we were upholding in opposition to Soviet Communism. Does Peterson really think that putting Justice Jackson on the Supreme Court after a selection process limited to black women is more reprehensible than excluding blacks (and, in many cases, women) from a wide range of high-level public positions?
(Incidentally, Putin has also invoked the history of racial injustice in the United States as proof of American hypocrisy on human rights, continuing the Soviet-era tradition of such whataboutism. Authoritarians will weaponize whatever they can!)
One could also point out that Putins obsession with keeping Ukraine out the Wests clutches goes back to circa 2004which is to say, it started about a decade before what liberal pundit Matt Yglesias dubbed the Great Awokening: the shift to the new progressive focus and framework on race, gender, and other identities.
Whats more, if we want to talk about contradiction and non-contradiction, Petersons own plea for Western civilizational renewaland his claim that such a renewal will ensure a more friendly disposition from the Russian political establishmentis profoundly incoherent. He asserts, for instance, that the radical ideas he finds so corrosive must be defeated not only by adherents of traditional religious values but by classic liberals [and] small-c conservatives defending the heritage of the Enlightenment. But he also argues that Russia sees itself as championing a religiously ordered society built on Russian Orthodox values; he even cites Dostoyevskys A Writers Diary, a collection of political newsletters, as an expression of this philosophy. Leaving aside the repellent passages on the Jewish Question in that work, there is no doubt whatsoever that Dostoyevsky loathed and feared degenerate Western influence at a time when Western liberalism was about 150 years away from going woke.
As the cherry on top, Peterson mentions the neofascist crank Aleksandr Dugin as a genuine philosopher whose influence on Putin supposedly shows the Russian leaders authentic interest in philosophical and theological matters. (Peterson had previously discussed Dugins alleged status as Putins adviser, and his hostility to Western liberalism as a driver of materialistic hyper-individuality, in a 2015 lecture.) Im not even sure whats more important to point out here: that Dugins philosophy is virulently hostile to even to the least woke varieties of Western liberalism, or that Dugin is either a kooky, occultism-obsessed prophet of Russian imperialism or a mega-troll whose public persona is a kind of performance art. (Of course, in truly postmodern fashion, it is possible that he is some combination of both.) The bottom line is that if you take Dugin seriously as a philosopher, youve well and truly jumped the shark.
Whether or not Western liberalism should return to its more classical roots is a topic for another day. In any case, such a pivot cannot be the answer to the current crisis in Ukraine if only because of how long it would take to happen. But Peterson has some short-term proposals, too:
Perhaps the declaration of Ukraine as a neutral state for a minimum period of twenty years.
Perhaps a new election in Ukraine subject to ratification by joint Russian-Western observers.
Perhaps a pledge on the part of the West to not offer to Ukraine any membership in NATO or the EU that is either not simultaneously offered to Russia or moving forward on terms acceptable to Russia.
Peterson concedes that his suggestions might be wrong and even dreadfully nave, which is probably the most accurate thing he says in this entire piece. Consider their substance: His first proposal would directly reward Russia for its naked aggression.
The second is an arrangement Russia would only accept if it were facing imminent, ignominious defeat and desperately needed a deal to save face. (Any election in Ukraine today would hand a resounding victory to pro-NATO, anti-Russia candidates even in those parts of the country where pro-Russia sentiment and skepticism toward NATO were widespread before the war.)
As for the third proposal, it too amounts to a reward for Russias invasion, granting the country a veto on Ukrainian membership not only in NATO but in the European Union. Whats more, by Petersons logic, an offer of NATO or EU membership to Russia should be seen as a menace to the country, not a friendly overture: Didnt he just tell us that Russia is going to war in Ukraine partly to keep the scourge of Western liberal decadence from its door?
The reality is that, for all the Wests culture-war problems, the defense of Ukraine is both the most genuinely liberal cause (in the classic sense of the word) and the most genuinely moral cause that exists in our public and political space right now. And, be it reflexive contrarianism, pandering to his fan base, or genuine conviction, Peterson now finds himself on the wrong side of that causewhich arguably reduces all his talk of defending of Western civilization and upholding strict moral standards of good and evil to, yes, shallow posturing. The worrying question, given his large fan base and his status as a conservative celebrity, is how many people will follow him there.
See the rest here:
Jordan Petersons Pro-Putin Punditry - The Bulwark