Why I Admire Dr. Jordan Peterson

I admire Dr. Jordan Peterson for his courage, faith, humility, and intelligence. With a combination of virtue and mental horsepower, he has demonstrated a winning strategy for illuminating truth in a chaotic world.

Dr. Peterson’s work began as an effort to understand and apply the lesson of the atrocities of the 20th century (which he summarizes as “Never Again”) to forestall such disasters in the future. It takes courage to seriously undertake such a daunting task, and decades of meaningful progress indicate that Dr. Peterson’s fortitude may actually match his audacity.

I believe the source of Dr. Peterson’s courage is his faith in the fundamental goodness of reality. He staked his life on the proposition that truth alone will guide each of us to the best possible outcome, and so his life has become the dramatic expression of that proposition. As a result, the world has witnessed the awesome power of precisely articulated truth wielded against the forces of unreason and falsehood.

Dr. Peterson’s faith in truth manifests not only as courage and power but also as humility. He believes that the whole Truth lies beyond his conceptions and thus holds his conceptions loosely and open to correction. In this way, Dr. Peterson models how to learn. He is more committed to growth than hiding his insufficiency.

In summary, Dr. Peterson demonstrates the necessary partnership of intellect and virtue in clearly perceiving and precisely articulating truth to combat the forces of darkness. In our circumstances, he is a timely role model.