Watch the first five minute of this classic Jordan Peterson interview and pay attention to his stance on relationship dynamics.
He's very careful not to say outright what he means—"I didn't say that" will probably be engraved on his tombstone—but the inference is clear. Women have been given too much power and it's bad. It's a misogynistic, anti-feminist rant.
And next you'll tell me he's not saying anything remotely misogynistic.
Yes exactly, that's the point. Everything he's doing here is designed to imply, while never being explicit. Get your message across, but leave yourself room to backtrack.
He suggests that almost all women are suffering under this new power dynamic that feminism has created by weakening masculinity. Then, when pushed on it, he backtracks and suggests it's just a small minority.
Then he emphasises how miserable it's making that minority and how bad it is. Then when pressed on it, he backtracks, and completely reframes the argument as one about mutual support in relationships.
He never says it's good for men to dominate women, but of course that's the implication. It's quite a clear implication that he's advocating a traditional style of relationship where the men wears the pants. But by reframing it as a debate about mutual support, he can later point at that and say "I didn't say that, I said it should be equal, neither should dominate." It doesn't matter, his core audience has already got the message and now he can focus on denial to mask his true message.
Cathy: What gives you the right to say that? Maybe that's how women want their relationships. Those women. You're making these vast generalisations.
Jordan: I'm a clinical psychologist.
So here, she's calling him out on his BS. That what he's saying makes no sense, you can't just generalise everyone like that. His response? He's a clinical psychologist. The implication being that he knows better than she does. And he's right. He doesn't refute anything she just said, he's literally saying this to say "Yes, I'm saying exactly that, and I'm right about it.
Cathy: You've done your research and women are unhappy dominating men?
Jordan: I didn't say they were unhappy dominating men, I said it was a bad long-term solution.
Cathy: You said it was making them miserable.
Jordan: Yes, yes. Depends on the timeframe.
So she presses him further and he now can't continue supporting his position without exposing what he's really saying, so he backtracks. "I didn't say that." Except he did, to anyone with even a vague sense of subtext.
Then she pushes further and doesn't let him get away with it. "You said it was making them miserable!"
Obviously that
is a bit too explicit, and he probably shouldn't have said it, because that's a pretty hard one to backtrack on. But no need! He quickly changes the debate entirely. "Depends on the timeframe." Why does he take such a random tangent there? Because he needs to to cover his own ass.
She foolishly drops it here because she's simply not capable of handling an interview with someone being dishonest like this. She seems to expect that she can call him out on saying clearly insane things and he'll look like a fool. He won't because his entire career is about dog whistling and then covering his own back. He's a pro.
I'm disturbed I've even spent so much time analysing this for a goddamn forum post, but here we are.
I hope you'll read all this with an open mind and actually consider it instead of writing it off as so many would. I'm definitely interested to hear your thoughts, and glad to expand further if you would like me to.
