And so when asked if he is worried about the rise of authoritarian China and Russia, Peterson responds with: “I’m also worried about the West! If we got our act together, we could be a light to” those countries.
“China and Russia are capitalising on our corruption at the moment. It’s bolstering the Russian regime in particular, and the Chinese regime to some degree.”
Western corruption, in this context, is “our foolish demolition of our own traditions. There are many people in Russia, Hungary, Poland who are looking at what’s happening in the more liberal West and saying ‘no, we’re not doing that here’, and they might be erring too much in the opposite direction. These things are always subject to debate, which is the whole purpose of freedom of speech, by the way. But again, we look to ourselves first”.
Looking to oneself, whether as a nation or as individuals, forms a significant part of Peterson’s philosophy: “If we are better at being what we could be, then the alternative would look less attractive. That’s a good doctrine for life, isn’t it?”
This self-reflection and self-criticism also plays a crucial role towards building bridges and crossing divides. That, and judicious praise of one’s opponent where it’s due, as he likes to make a point of doing, whether lauding US President’s Joe Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law on Twitter and braving vitriol, or travelling to Washington DC to “bring together” politicians across the aisle, as he is scheduled to do in January.
“The proper idea,” he says, drawing again on his background as a psychologist, “is to look at the benevolence and the capacity for atrocity that characterises you. Because if you don’t see that within you, as the responsibility you have in relation to ethical struggle and in relation to conducting an ethical life, then you will absolutely see it in someone else, because it absolutely exists and has to find its place.”
Can this self-awareness, or even guilt – which “the Left has been extremely good at weaponising” – be channelled to achieve something positive? It must, says Peterson: “Anyone with any sense who has any privilege has guilt about it. We know perfectly well that we are the undeserving beneficiaries in some sense of what our culture and our parents have arbitrarily bestowed upon us”, where arbitrary means “not through our own efforts.”
One must then “try to live a life that justifies those advantages. You take the burden of the catastrophe of history on to yourself and you take that seriously. And so then you try to act like a noble and outstanding person, moving forward. If you don’t do that you’ll suffer for it. Because we have a conscience and it will take us to task”.
