(Warning: This Is an Angry Irish Rant)
In a Substack article published July 2022, “What happened to Jordan Peterson? A Turning Point For His Audience,” David Fuller of Rebel Wisdom publicly accuses Dr. Peterson of not living up to his philosophy of personal responsibility. This is a very serious accusation, based on Fuller’s concerns around Dr. Peterson’s life-threatening illness and benzodiazepine withdrawal. Dr. Peterson is beyond words and past all expression precious to me. I do not permit anyone to talk smack about people I love, and so in this article, I will attempt to address the concerns raised by Fuller. I cannot, however, refrain from sarcasm, my native tongue.
Fuller wrote that he “tried to tell the truth as best I can.” Upon close examination of the article, I came to the conclusion that Fuller would not know truth if it bit him on the ass.
I am not the pillar of journalistic integrity and rebellious wisdom that David Fuller assures his audience that he is. I am only a humble English B. A. I’ve spent my university years in such frivolous pursuits as critically analyzing texts of literature and literary criticism through various lenses, and writing academic papers on my findings. I am also an as-yet-unpublished novelist with nearly three books completed, which means I more or less know my way around poor human nature. My credentials are not so impressive as Fuller’s, nor am I as impressed by them as Fuller seems to be, but I came by them honestly.
Nor have I been privileged to sit down with Dr. Peterson and have multiple conversations with him as David Fuller has. I have, however, watched through almost all of Dr. Peterson’s interviews, podcasts on his own channel and on others’ like Rogan and Fridman, lectures both at the university and on tour or as a guest, seminars, conversations with friends, and videos in which he reads aloud pieces he has written. Because I came to his work in late 2021 as introduced by my best friend, I have no “recency bias” toward his body of work, and I have evaluated it as a whole, rather than looking back nostalgically at “first wave Peterson” as Fuller does.
So that’s my claim to journalistic integrity. Now for the investigation.
It is instructive to me, in considering Fuller’s claims, that Rebel Wisdom built its platform on “the Peterson phenomenon.” Language like “the Peterson story” and “the Peterson phenomenon” indicate to me that Fuller never saw Dr. Peterson as a human being. Later, when Fuller expresses disappointment in Peterson, he describes him as “a caricature of himself.” When we see someone as a caricature, we are not seeing them as a human being but rather an image generated in our minds. When Fuller writes that he lost his employment at Channel 4 as a result of criticizing the coverage of the Cathy Newman interview, and explained that he put all his eggs in the one basket of the Peterson documentary, it was my first indication that Fuller saw Dr. Peterson as a means to an end.
And when Fuller went on to say that “Peterson’s current incarnation is unrecognizable to me,” it seemed that my intuition was correct. If Fuller did not recognize the man who jump-started his new career as a documentary film-maker, is it possible he never knew the man at all? That he only knew the phenomenon and not the man, fragile flesh and indomitable spirit?
The “current incarnation” that Fuller found so objectionable was a response to Dr. Peterson’s Twitter banning. Dr. Peterson was speaking out about “gender affirming care” (what George Carlin calls “soft language” that masks the true atrocity and horror). Did it not occur to Fuller that what he calls “the Peterson phenomenon” began as a result of the stand Dr. Peterson took against Bill C-16, which he testified before the Senate would produce a social epidemic of gender confusion in young people resulting in untold suffering and tragedy? Did it not occur to Fuller that perhaps, after suffering up to and beyond human endurance, Dr. Peterson might be just a little bit angry to come back from the dead, as it were, only to find that the epidemic he had warned against was happening, and was even worse than he had feared? Did it not occur to Fuller that he was seeing his former hero standing strong in his convictions that free speech, as a means to protect the innocent and vulnerable, was a hill worth dying on? Did it not occur to Fuller that perhaps, Dr. Peterson wasn’t the one who changed? Did it not occur to Fuller that when historians examine the records of this troubled era of culture wars, it will be those who stood up and said No in the face of great evil who will be remembered as heroes, while those like Fuller who stood on the sidelines clutching their pearls will be seen as the sniveling cowards who couldn’t be bothered to even research what was happening?
It would seem that David Fuller’s idea of journalism is not digging into the hard truths. He seems to prefer dumpster-diving on the Reddit and Twitter comment sections to see which way the wind is blowing with regard to Dr. Peterson’s popularity or lack thereof, and to trim his sails accordingly. For all of Fuller’s bellyaching about Dr. Peterson’s use of Twitter, how did it escape his attention that Ethan Klein, of H3H3, also “canceled” Dr. Peterson early in 2021 as a result of his perceived decline in popularity? Dr. Peterson responded with a solemn warning that Fuller might have learned from and apparently didn’t: the cancel culture will devour those who participate in it.
Fuller goes on to say, “Peterson no longer questions the mainstream narrative.” Now David, you cannot have your cake and eat it too. You cannot bellyache that you do not like the way Dr. Peterson is speaking out against the mainstream narrative that promotes fat pride and transgenderism for children and climate catastrophe, and then turn around twice and assert that he is not questioning the mainstream media. Dr. Peterson has concerns that the current moral decline in the West, pushed by that mainstream narrative, may result in the catastrophic nuclear war he has been trying to warn us about from his very first “Maps of Meaning” lectures. One has only to look at the most recent season reality television show, “I am Jazz,” to see that the mainstream narrative, that transitioning children leads to healthy happy outcomes, is crumbling like a sand castle in the incoming tide. Dr. Peterson was speaking out against that narrative before it was “cool.” When the generation of detransitioners come in tears and screams of agony to us adults and ask us “where were you when unscrupulous doctors were sterilizing and butchering us in the name of compassion?” What are you going to tell them?
Fuller goes on to state that he was troubled that Dr. Peterson was “increasingly losing any desire for nuance or even mutual understanding of the other side.” Yes, absolutely. That’s why he has been working with his great Leftist friend, the NYT bestselling novelist Greg Hurwitz, to build bridges with moderate Democrats. That’s why he agreed to a contentious interview with Kyle Kulinski, a Leftist commentator, last spring. That’s why he invited John McWhorter, a moderate Leftist, onto the podcast. If you can watch Dr. Peterson’s podcasts from the first interview after his return to the present day and honestly say that he “lacks nuance,” then perhaps you have a different definition of “nuance” than I do. Dr. Peterson is not, as Fuller appears to be, “wishy-washy.” A man who became famous by taking a stand and not backing down doesn’t tend to be wishy-washy.
Fuller asserts that Dr. Peterson “stopped listening and stopped growing.” Dr. Peterson certainly did go through a period of dormancy and winterschlaf, so to speak, when he was ill. So do all living things in the wintertime. Growth begins again in the spring; and what Fuller deemed as Peterson’s “tragic downfall” was instead the spring equinox storms in his life, stirring all that was dead and dormant to grow and bloom again. One need only glance at Dr. Peterson’s latest content to see that he is at the height of his health and his intellectual and spiritual powers. The biggest lobster did indeed go through his “shedder” season of soft-shelled vulnerability and fragility. But the big lobster has crawled out from under the rock and he’s fighting again.
Perhaps he might say with the prophet Micah, “Do not rejoice over me, my enemy; When I fall, I will arise; When I sit in darkness, The LORD will be a light to me.”
Fuller goes on to comment that Dr. Peterson “was always unapologetic about his comfort with financial reward.” Oh that is rich coming from Fuller, whose own financial reward was a direct result of Dr. Peterson’s. And did it not occur to Fuller that Dr. Peterson lost everything when he took a stand against Bill C-16? He lost his clinical practice and his professorship at the U of T, both of which were forms of livelihood, both of which were jobs that he loved and that were foundational to his work. Can you really blame him that in a capitalistic society, he found a way to rebuild financially?
Fuller writes that “One of the most tragic arcs has been what looks from the outside like an increasing and painful isolation.”
David. Get your damn eyes examined. Dr. Peterson travels with his wife; he is part of her and she of him. He has incredibly close relationships with his adult kids. He has more friends, true, close, loyal friends, than anyone. Perhaps if you had behaved in a more gentleman-like manner you, too, might have called him friend.
Fuller perceived Dr. Peterson’s 2022 interview on Rogan as “a desperate attempt at pleasing Joe Rogan”. It seems to have escaped Fuller’s attention that Rogan and Dr. Peterson have been friends for years, have been talking for years, have been connected for years. Dr. Peterson was visibly ill during that interview, but he talked openly to Joe about what he had gone through.
Next, Fuller is irritated with Dr. Peterson for… repeating himself? Dear David, I don’t know how to tell you this. But repeating oneself is something that happens to people as they age. You yourself are going to age and repeat yourself and you can bet your mother’s silk underwear you won’t have anything anywhere near as well worth repeating as Dr. Peterson does. It looks to me that Dr. Peterson isn’t the problem; the problem is that Fuller has grown tired of his former favorite and has moved on to another person of interest.
“A lack of curiosity about what he didn’t know…” are we talking about the same man?! The man who prepares for podcasts with lists of questions? Who reads more books in a month than I can in a year?
Fuller here cherry-picks one example from one tour lecture which an audience member felt was “flat.” Here’s a hint: if you are at a Jordan Peterson lecture and you’re bored, the problem isn’t Dr. Peterson. This anecdote chosen to prove Fuller’s point ends up reflecting very badly on his critical thinking skills, sadly in doubt.
So far, Fuller’s shoddy excuse for journalism has not inspired me with great confidence in his judgment. But here we have reached the piece de resistance of the article: Fuller’s claim that Dr. Peterson is not living up to his ideal and his philosophy of personal responsibility. His evidence? “He and the family have been very careful to frame his experience as a ‘drug dependency’ and not an ‘addiction.’”
Fuller, I know what drug addiction looks like. I am intimate with it. I lost someone I love to it. And I can tell you, there is a WORLD of difference between someone who, following the advice of a trusted family physician in the midst of a health crisis so severe he nearly could not return to work, took a prescription drug according to directions, amd ended up having life-threatening reactions to them, and an addict who makes all sorts of underground connections to get his drug of choice, lies to his family about his activities, and ends up in the hospital with seizures which the doctors cannot explain because they don’t know about the illegal drug. Fuller has deliberately equated Dr. Peterson, whom he claims to know and admire, a man who took a prescription drug in order that he might be able to be there for his family during health, professional, and personal crises, (you know, personal responsibility) with the husband who walked out on his pregnant wife and six-month-old son to chase that high.
The facts of Dr. Peterson’s experiences are readily available. They are not shrouded in mystery, as Fuller seems to believe. In interview after interview, from the family update with his daughter to the disastrous interview with the times, from the 2022 interview with Rogan that Fuller found so distasteful to the foreword of Beyond Order, Dr. Peterson laid out as much as he could of his situation, in the hopes that it might help others.
There is no excuse for Fuller’s ignorance. There are videos on YouTube containing the testimony of the medical professionals who cared for him. There are countless personal accounts from others who went through what Dr. Peterson did. Mikhaila has detailed on her blog exactly what happened and what steps she took to save her father from the belly of the beast. A basic, simple Google search can yield an answer to the pressing question: is there a difference between physical dependence and addiction? And finally, if all of this is not enough evidence to satisfy Fuller’s skepticism, I encourage him to look up a YouTube clip in which Lex Fridman interviews Jim Keller, a world-renowned software engineer who is also Dr. Peterson’s brother-in-law. The clip is entitled “Jordan Peterson and the Hell of Benzodiazepine Withdrawal.” Jim Keller is without doubt the most disagreeable man I have ever seen. He is brutally honest. And he was with Dr. Peterson through the worst of the anguish. He is not a sentimental man, but when he said of his brother-in-law, “I’ve never seen anyone suffer so much— my heart goes out to anyone who experiences this,” you can be damn sure he does not say that lightly.
Fuller goes on to say that Dr. Peterson’s “refusal to admit he was addicted to drugs” is “pathological.” Fuller, being the stellar journalist he claims to be, no doubt missed the interview Dr. Peterson gave to the New York Post in which he tore himself to pieces interrogating what he might have done to contribute to his illness. He responded in a heartbreaking way in that interview and in many others that if one is looking for advice from someone who never gets ill and will never die, one will not receive advice from anyone. Instead of showing the “compassion” that many of his readers charitably ascribe to Fuller’s critique, Fuller instead takes the role of a Job’s comforter, insisting that because Dr. Peterson is suffering so unendurably, it must be because he has committed some error he is unwilling to admit and atone for. I need not remind my readers that God was not impressed by Job’s three friends.
Fuller, you may find someday, as Dr. Peterson did, as Gerald Manly Hopkins did, as countless of us have, that
“the mind has mountains, cliffs of fall, Frightful, sheer, no-man-fathomed. Hold them cheap, may who never hung there! Nor long does our small durance deal with that deep or steep.”
Dr. Peterson has hung there, on those cliffs of fall. If you had as well, you would not hold them cheap.
Fuller concludes that Dr. Peterson’s response “seems to have torpedoed his legacy, and makes it hard for those of us who found value in his work.” This statement did not age particularly well. Since this article was published, Dr. Peterson has come back, strong and healthy, clear-eyed and rosy-cheeked again, and he is building upon the foundation of his earlier work a new legacy. His Exodus seminar has garnered more views on the Daily Wire + platform than any other piece of work on that platform. Just a couple months ago, he felt strong enough to resume lecturing again and with his wife at his side and his hands in his pockets, he once again paces the stage for sold-out audiences working out the new ideas for his upcoming book, We Who Wrestle With God. On the podcast and on the tour, he is making new friends and strengthening connections with old ones. He has founded an international consortium known as the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship. With the help of his daughter, he is founding Peterson Academy, an online university that will make a high-quality education accessible to those who might not otherwise been able to enjoy the benefits of a higher education. He is working on a series of documentaries with the Daily Wire and without Fuller.
Fuller wrote this article objecting to Dr. Peterson’s response to his Twitter banning. Since this article was written, the Twitter files have shocked the world with the depth of corruption at the company. The executives who banned him and so many other conservative voices are no longer in charge and are facing criminal investigation. We have indeed seen who canceled whom.
Fuller concludes that Dr. Peterson’s response “seems to have torpedoed his legacy, and makes it hard for those of us who found value in his work.” Is Fuller’s the spirit of a heartbroken fellow traveler, honestly sorrowing at the downfall of his ideal? Is Fuller’s the spirit of a petulant child, who throws away a broken and worn-out toy to eagerly grasp a shiny new one? Or is Fuller’s the Spirit of Cain, jealous of Dr. Peterson’s success, intent upon reputation-savaging and thus destroying the very ideal that got him his start?
If Fuller had waited another couple of months before hitting “publish,” it would have been manifest that Dr. Peterson is doing the most important work of his life. And David Fuller is missing out on invitations to all of it because publishing his hit piece disguised as concern porn was more important than doing a piece of honest journalism.
David Fuller, perhaps you should have set your house in order before you criticized Dr. Peterson. I would advise you to turn in your press card before you hurt someone with it because it is evident from your inability to gather the facts that you are just too stupid to be a journalist. As you have revealed yourself as a journalist and as a person in this article, you merit no respect, nor have you mine.