Why we love, and hate, Jordan Peterson

The Canadian psychologist’s appeal is that he is every one of us who couldn’t resist that pointless Facebook argument, who felt the sugar rush of the self-righteous Twitter dunk or who exulted in the defeat of an opposing political tribe.

For Jordan Peterson, the price of celebrity and wealth was living in a maelstrom of other people’s opinions. Daniel Hambury/Evening Standard/eyevine/australscope

Helen Lewis

Apr 1, 2021 – 12.00am

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One day in early 2020, Jordan B. Peterson rose from the dead. The Canadian academic, then 57, had been placed in a nine-day coma by doctors in a Russian clinic, after becoming addicted to benzodiazepines, a class of drug that includes Xanax and Valium. The coma kept him unconscious as his body went through the terrible effects of withdrawal; he awoke strapped to the bed, having tried to rip out the catheters in his arms and leave the intensive-care unit.

When the story of his detox became public, in February 2020, it provided an answer to a mystery: Whatever happened to Jordan Peterson? In the three years before he disappeared from view in the summer of 2019, this formerly obscure psychology professor’s name had been a constant presence in op-ed columns, internet forums and culture-war arguments.

Atlantic