Being Jordan Peterson: A quasi-cult leader out to save the West must learn the art of humility

Jordan B Peterson’s story is a classic case of unexamined turbidity. Common sense and history demonstrate that overnight explosions of celebrity invite scepticism. Sudden celebritydom, except in the realms of cinema and sports, must be treated with caution before it consumes its consumer. Especially when it concerns the West and its post-Renaissance pretensions to philosophy and intellectualism. This is a one-line guide to understand this: Remember that the West (chiefly, Europe), after destroying all Classical civilisations, has been unable to birth a single personality who can be called a Rishi. This is exactly what DV Gundappa meant when he memorably described what is generally known as the Western intellectual tradition:

“In Chapter six of the Bhagavad Gita, two types of civilization viz., Daivi or divine and Asuri or material, are described. The civilization of the West is…of the latter type… SOCRATES AND PLATO, WORDSWORTH AND CARLYLE, GOETHE AND EMERSON…ARE NOT ITS EXPONENTS. It has grown in spite of them. Their teachings have mostly been cries in the wilderness. BIGOTRY, INTOLERANCE, JEALOUSY, COMPETITION, AGGRESSION, AND SELFISHNESS ARE AMONG THE MOST SALIENT FEATURES OF THE CIVILIZATION OF THE WEST. Therefore, while assimilating it, we should beware of its evils… WE HAVE UNLEARNT THAT LOVE FOR EVERYTHING OUR OWN WHICH FORMED SUCH AN IMPORTANT CHARACTER OF OUR ANCESTORS as to make them liable to be accused of conservatism.”

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The meteoric ascent of the Canadian (former) academic, Jordan Peterson to international celebrity as a public intellectual is a phenomenon that was waiting to happen. The definitive moment that catapulted him to overnight fame arose when he took a highly vocal and unapologetic stand against the forced imposition of bizarre gender pronouns like Zhe, Xir, etc.

But the phenomenon is as old as the history of humankind. From that moment onwards, in public imagination, Peterson became that courageous, lone voice of dissent against oppression. Thus, a hero and saviour and role model, and hence, celebrity.

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The oppression in this case is the Wacky Wing of the Far Left which has overwhelmed public institutions in the West and is ruthlessly crushing all opposition. The opposition such as it exists, is disorganised, powerless and clueless because it is bereft of competent guidance. However, the Wacky Left’s insanity is backed by brute political power.

From this perspective, Jordan Peterson’s war against this cult of insanity is simply the newest form of an internal politico-ideological war that has always existed within the post-agrarian Western society.

Hindus getting into this war do so at their own peril.

Let it be said loudly and clearly and again and again and again: The West is no friend of Hindus and has never been and will never be. If a powerful savant and a modern Rishi like Swami Vivekananda  could not civilise the West by teaching it Dharma, nobody can.

And Jordan Peterson has himself given us some contours of the fact that he’s no friend of Hindus. Unqualified emotional empathy is the first ingredient to be someone’s friend. But identifying with the friend on the plane that transcends both the emotion and the intellect is far superior. It is the true Hindu way, something that cannot and should not be intellectualised. It was how our society had always lived, in spite of superficial differences in food habits and income and language. This way of life was possible because this philosophy was transmuted as a way of life.

Jordan Peterson clearly and miserably fails this fundamental test.

The Slur against Kali 

The latest proof is his derogatory tweet thread that appallingly mischaracterises Kali or Kalika Devi as a narcissist and a “devouring mother” arising from “the underworld,” and equates her with the purveyors of wokeism in Western academia and claims that “Her worship is now mandatory in all institutions of higher education.”

Jordan Peterson’s tweets demonstrate two things simultaneously.

One, his unbridled arrogance of pronouncing crass verdicts about an entire philosophical system and culture he is incapable of understanding.

Two, his indirect confession of the contempt that he holds the followers of Kali in. Those followers, the Hindus, belong to the third largest religion in the world.

To put it bluntly, it takes serious gumption on the part of Jordan Peterson whose declared influences include an impossibly eclectic mix of Carl Jung, Eric Neumann, Dostoevsky, George Orwell, Nietzsche, Solzhenitsyn, and Biblical stories, to spout arrant nonsense about Kali.

The Profound Tradition of Kali 

Kali or Kalika Devi occupies a central place in the Sanatana pantheon with an entire Purana devoted to Her glory. She manifests on all planes: Adhibhautika (the physical), Adhidaivika (the divine or supernatural) and Adhyatmika (the philosophical). She signifies the Para-Brahman, She is the Destroyer of the Ego (represented as the Asuras she slaughters), and She is also the compassionate Mother who protects her children.

An illiterate shepherd eponymously became Kalidasa — the servant or son of Kali — one of the greatest poets and dramatists of the world. He was a Rishi-Kavi whose indelible imprint still informs our culture and values.

Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa pined for Her divine vision, offering to cut off his neck if She did not appear. She did. And Hindus cutting across beliefs and education and social status, intuitively believe that the Paramahamsa indeed “saw” her. But he didn’t “see” Her, it was Her Sākṣātkāra, a term that cannot be accurately translated. Sākṣātkāra was the Paramahamsa’s Realisation of the Ultimate Reality whose earthly manifestation was that Kalika-Murti which he worshipped daily in the temple at Dakṣiṇēśvar. Dakṣiṇēśvar, a befitting name to give to that place. Shiva as Dakṣiṇēśvara or Dakṣiṇāmūrti who taught the secret of Vedanta to Rishis through the language of Silence. Shiva, the husband of Kali. Kali, residing in Dakṣiṇēśvar… śivaḥ-śaktyā-yukto…see how it all perfectly fits in?

Then there is the sanctified name of Rani Rasmani, a truly saintly woman who built the Kali Temple at Dakṣiṇēśvar. A measure of her devotion to Kali can be seen in how her official seal was inscribed with the words, “Sri Rasmani Dasi, longing for the Feet of Kali.” She was the widow of a wealthy Zamindar but called herself the Dasi or servant-maid of Kali. In a way, Rani Rasmani was the mother responsible for the bud of Kali-devotion within Ramakrishna to flower into full divine bloom.

Neither is this limited only to Dakṣiṇēśvar. Almost every village in Bharatavarsha has a Grāmadēvata — a village deity, essentially a form of Kali, or more fundamentally, Devi. A Sthaḷapurāṇa (misleadingly called “local legend”) is invariably associated with each such deity. Kali has also manifested for example, as “plague” Māramma, Kabbāḷamma, Aṇṇamma, etc., and each of these deities have a reason to manifest. After all, who doesn’t want the protection and nourishment of a mother?

On a fundamental level, there is a reason for all this: it is the deep sense of spiritual yearning within us, which longs for and seeks expression in some tangible form. In poetry, in prose, in drama, in sculpture, and above all, in nature. 

Reducing this to pseudo-psychological explanations has caused immense damage, primarily to the Sanatana notion and generational experience of sanctity and piety. We should be seriously credulous to believe the Western “explanation” that Hindus worship female deities because they have a “mother-complex” or that Kali is an “underworld mother” and variants of such blather.

Conclusions from Ignorance

Jordan Peterson clearly has no inkling of even this infinitesimal fraction of the Kali tradition in Bharatavarsha in light of the foregoing treatise. Legions of stalwarts and scholars including Dr. S.K. Ramachandra Rao have devoted multiple volumes expounding on the Devi or Kali-Tattva (philosophy). And we are supposed to believe Jordan Peterson when he declares that Kali is a “mother of the underworld”.

Which brings us to investigate Peterson’s highly-public and substantial record as a public intellectual. As someone who commands global influence and is seen as an emancipator of sorts, the record should stand on firm ground.

By his own admission, Jordan Peterson’s worldview is significantly shaped by the Biblical corpus including the Book of Genesis, Book of Exodus and Book of Proverbs. As his lectures and podcasts show, he has married these with modern psychology — for example, in the five-part lecture series titled The Psychological Significance of the Biblical Stories. Apart from being a religious book, the Bible is fundamentally an imperialist — i.e., political treatise. Ram Swarup’s magnificent The Word as God is a classic exposition on the subject.

The problem begins right here. In the Hindu tradition, Rajya-sastra (or statecraft) was studiously kept separate from Tattva-sastra (generally speaking, Vedanta, Bhagavad Gita, etc). Thus, it would be ridiculous to use an episode of war as a premise in an argument (Vakyartha) about the nature of Brahman.

However, the whole of Christian tradition rests on the edifice that the world was created on a specific date and that there is an invisible jealous Male God and that Jesus was his son who was conceived by a virgin. Thus, a true believer — a Christian — becomes a permanent prisoner of this suffocating ideology, which by design, cannot transcend space and time. And people whose psyches are generationally conditioned in this mould can escape this prison only at the risk of death. But those who did leave — especially from the Renaissance onwards — found themselves rootless, which is what made their lives essentially meaningless.

This can be a possible explanation for why Jordan Peterson has tried to marry modern psychology with the Biblical tradition. He is a product, participant and a respondent of a Western milieu reeling under continuous assaults of materialist forces dating back to the so-called Industrial Revolution: atheism, anti-Christianism, anti-Semitism, colonialism (remember, this was considered an “achievement” just 80 years ago), world wars, capitalism, existentialism, positivism, objectivism, communism and its most brutal incarnation, wokeism.

The West has lost its Christianity but has supplanted it with forces that are equally, if not more, injurious. The only difference is that these forces are scattered. Unlike Christianity in the medieval era, there is no single force that has absolute power.

In the West, the greatest casualty of this loss has been the contentment and happiness of the individual human. About half a century ago, Lee Kuan Yew remarked that American prosperity has come at the expense of unenforceable social decencies. The growth of the Far Left ideology in the same period has also created at least three generations of rootless wonders in Western societies. This is roughly how the American social landscape looks today: vast tracts inhabited by the children of unwed mothers, state-funded drug addicts and humans who “identify” as acronyms, all of which are fuelled by unemployable ideologues working as academics.

Then there is another category to which Jordan Peterson appears irresistible. Its inhabitants can be defined in just one word: desperate. This has a subliminal connection with Thoreau’s immortal line, “The mass of men leads lives of quiet desperation.” Desperate for guidance. Desperate that Peterson’s guidance will give them the elusive happiness they crave after. He is their hero, saviour, elder brother, father figure and all of the above. Their alternative is a fatal embrace of Wokery.

Jordanian Banalities 

Nobody denies that Joran Peterson is erudite and learned and articulate. But what does he really say? In an encapsulated form, this is how it pretty much goes.

Jordan Peterson mostly speaks about topics that were commonplace even sixty years ago in the West. These weren’t merely topics but lived social realities — how to study, how to “be decent,” what was a good work ethic, and overall, how to conduct yourself in life. But because the Western society has been so thoroughly decimated over these decades, today, when Peterson speaks about these, they seem like profound philosophical insights to a generation that has no idea that such things actually existed even in their parents’ generation. Here is a small list of things that Jordan Peterson typically says:

1. You should do what other people do, unless you have a very good reason not to.
2. Get up in the morning and make your bed.
3. Stand Up Straight with Your Shoulders Back.
4. I am not going to be a mouthpiece for language that I detest.
5. You can only find out what you actually believe (rather than what you think you believe) by watching how you act.
6. Don’t underestimate the power of vision and direction.
7. There’s some real utility in gratitude.
8. Strengthen the individual. Start with yourself. Take care with yourself. Define who you are. Refine your personality.
9. We deserve some respect. You deserve some respect.
10. You are, therefore, morally obliged to take care of yourself.
11. You are too complex to understand yourself.

A basic Google search will yield a vast repository of such feel-good, motivational one-liners. Nothing really wrong in that. But they sound like banalities to someone who has been introduced to philosophy in the truest sense.

The fact that these Jordanian banalities have garnered countless fans and devotees across the world only proves just how pervasive and irreparable the Western society has become. Nobody grudges Jordan Peterson his fame and material success but as the maxim goes, he should have developed Svasthāna parijñāna — a sense of propriety about his own limitations.

A simple illustration will suffice to show exactly how hollow these Jordanian banalities are. Even a school-going kid who has memorised say, Bhartrhari’s Niti and Vairagya Shatakams or the Sumati-Shatakam or Sarvajna’s verses will laugh out loud at these one-liners. 

A Plea for Caution 

Regrettably, Jordan Peterson has exerted a powerful appeal on certain sections of sincere and well-meaning people who identify as various “wings” in the larger Hindu firmament. For understandable reasons. His oratory and articulation and his successful takedowns resonate with their own angst and anger against the global Far Left.

But their disillusionment occurs at the precise moment when Peterson reveals his true colours as the typical westerner who is intrinsically hostile to the Hindu spiritual civilisation and its philosophical tradition. His derogatory tweet thread about Kali is just the latest proof of this fact. Which brings us back to DVG’s aforementioned warning:

“The civilization of the West is…of the Asuri type… Our Rama and Bhishma fall flat on our own ears. WE HAVE UNLEARNT THAT LOVE FOR EVERYTHING OUR OWN WHICH FORMED SUCH AN IMPORTANT CHARACTER OF OUR ANCESTORS AS TO MAKE THEM LIABLE TO BE ACCUSED OF CONSERVATISM.”

Swami Vivekananda also gave us a timeless and workable formula: by default, Hindus must first blindly accept everything that arises from Sanatana Dharma and then examine it. Likewise, Hindus must first critically examine everything that has come from outside Bharata. If they find that there are acceptable elements in these foreign cultures, they must accept those. This formula is the surest safeguard for Hindus against trusting half-baked and ignorant western celebrities like Jordan Peterson. Characterising Kali as the “mother of the underworld” is not only half-baked and ignorant but haughty.

As someone who has closely followed Jordan Peterson’s record ever since he shot to fame, his slur against Kali was not only unsurprising but was entirely characteristic of him.

Over the last few years, Jordan Peterson has increasingly turned messianic. This is a toxic but an inevitable outcome of untreated pathologies and the frenzied, nonstop lecturing that leaves little or no time for quiet and sustained contemplation.

However, that may be, Jordan Peterson as a quasi-cult leader out to save the Western world, must at least develop a basic trait of decency: humility. Humility to realise that he is not omniscient. Humility to realise that it is neither decent nor intellectually honest to issue pompous verdicts on deities and cultures and societies he has no clue about.

The author is the founder and chief editor, The Dharma Dispatch. Views expressed are personal.

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