If Professor Jordan B. Peterson said he believed in God, would you?
For months now, I have been watching Professor Peterson’s followers ask themselves on social media whether they think Jordan believes in God, and I have been struggling to figure out why. If Milo Yiannopoulos said he believed in God ( he has ), would you? If I said I believed in God ( I have ), would you? I’m thinking not—but why exactly? Milo is easily as famous as Jordan, so it can’t be fame as such. I am easily as well-educated (Ph.D., Columbia University, 1994) as Jordan (Ph.D., McGill University, 1991), so it can’t be education as such. Jordan and I both talk about the importance of the Western tradition and the role of mythology in giving us scripts for how to behave (he says archetypes, I say patterns or models ), so it can’t be the arguments he is making as such. It could be that he is a man, and I am not...but I don’t think that that is quite it either. I think it is because he insists that—whatever mode he is speaking in—he is a scientist. And what people want...
(click to enlarge)
Frighteningly, I think sometimes it works *just that way*...
ReplyDeleteNice, but is the polemic really inevitable? I can't help but think of the difference between A. G. Dickens, Euan Cameron, and Eamon Duffy, on the one hand, and Diarmaid MacCulloch on the other. The former are engaged in the polemic (on different sides), while MacCulloch, I think, is beyond it. But then, his position as a gay, ex-Anglican, agnostic is unusual and, as he admits, contributes to his historiographical position. (Well, to be precise, it's the ex-Anglican and agnostic aspects that he admits as influences.)
ReplyDelete@Brian: Perhaps we don't always perceive it as polemic, but surely writing as a ex-anything suggests a particular interpretative position. I've tried to articulate a bit more clearly what's bothering me in today's post. Maybe it's that I don't buy anybody else's position but can't yet articulate mine.
ReplyDelete