My Time as a Lobster: The Troubling Work of Jordan Peterson

Sometime in 2017 I transformed into a lobster. I lived as one for well over a year. It wasn’t a sudden waking-up-different Kafkaesque change, it came on slow, so by the time I reached full lobster form I hardly noticed. I knew something was different but couldn’t articulate what — but, writing now in 2020, I’m not a lobster anymore.

For the confused: I’m talking about Jordan Peterson. His fans are sometimes called Lobsters (mostly by others). We’ll get to why. During my fandom I binged on Peterson’s videos and books and subscribed totally to the Petersonian worldview. If there’s an ideal reader for this article it’s a younger version of me, still wrapped up in Peterson-mania. But it’s also for people who remain wholly unaware who Peterson is.

One axiom of Good Writing says the essayist should get straight to it. But the danger of misunderstanding and bad-faith scrutinization mean a disclaimer is sometimes best. This essay is long and somewhat dry: I ignored the temptation to write a polemic about Peterson. I had writers like Chomsky and Orwell on mind in my intention to go through Peterson’s work bit-by-bit, explain it as clearly as possible, and respond to it. Peterson and his fans tend to claim his critics misrepresent him, or don’t understand him at all. Many of the arguments that follow have been made before by…