As Townhall reported last week, free speech suffered a major blow in Canada when a court ruled against noted psychologist and best-selling author Jordan Peterson, upholding an order from the College of Psychologists of Ontario that he undergo social media reeducation. The disciplinary action from the regulatory body came in response to Peterson’s controversial public comments, including on transgenderism and political figures.
I have been accused of harming people (although none of the complainants involved in the current action were clients of mone, past or present, or en were even acquainted with any of my clients.
— Dr Jordan B Peterson (@jordanbpeterson) January 3, 2023
The three Ontario Divisional Court judges claimed that the CPO order to take the training course on professionalism in public statements "is not disciplinary and does not prevent Dr. Peterson from expressing himself on controversial topics."
In responding to the ruling, Peterson vowed to shine a light on the process going forward. On Wednesday, the psychologist explained what that means to Fox News’s Jesse Watters.
"I'm going to do everything I can to make all of this as public as I possibly can," he said. "I've done that from the beginning. I released all the documents that included the charges, so to speak, that the college has levied against me. I want to make this 100 percent transparent and let the public decide for themselves who exactly is acting, let’s say, in an unprofessional capacity."
Dr. Jordan Peterson has been forced into reprogramming camp by the Canadian courts for having a voice of his own. He tells Primetime the left is launching an attack on western civilization and if you want to see the collapse of a democratic country, just look to the north. pic.twitter.com/s4OIzECWuQ
— Jesse Watters (@JesseBWatters) August 31, 2023
To do so, he said using film, audio recordings, or "extensive notes and commentary afterward" are on the table, depending on what is within his legal right to share.
"My plan is to make everything that's done to me public and if I can do that by filming, well, then, I'll do that,” he continued. “Somehow, everything that happens is going to be made public. It's absolutely necessary.”
He also said he's happy to state his opinions on social media in his "professional capacity" because he has an "obligation" to speak up about issues currently affecting society.
"So, for example, the comments I made about Ellen Page, you know, I’m not the least bit happy about what the sadistic surgeon butchers are doing to minors, and I’m also not very happy about narcissistic, let’s say, celebrities parading off their new, surgically enhanced body and enticing young women, for example, into becoming, being sterilized and butchered, so I think I have a professional obligation like all therapists and all physicians to say very clearly that this is 100 percent absolutely not acceptable."
When asked what's motivating these efforts against him, Peterson said the world is witnessing an "unraveling of all the principles upon which my country and yours are predicated and that's part of the ideological possession that's swept over Canada in particular."
Why would leftists try to tear down Western civilization in this way, even though it has provided such "amazing results," Watters wondered.
"People have been motivated by spite and resentment forever," Peterson explained. "I mean, it's a story as old as mankind. It's a story as old as the story of Cain and Abel is, to tear down what's successful and useful in spite because your own sacrifices, let's say, have apparently gone unrewarded and that's just the same old endless archetypal story playing out in political guise."
The author continued, "There are no shortage of people as well, especially on the more psychopathic side of the continuum, who will adopt the camouflage of compassion...to tear everything down and dance around in the ruins. There's actually a fairly extensive psychological literature now detailing the relationship between narcissism and psychopathy, manipulativeness and left-wing authoritarian political viewpoints. And so this is just an extension of that."
Dr. Jordan Peterson has been forced into reprogramming camp by the Canadian courts for having a voice of his own. He tells Primetime the left is launching an attack on western civilization and if you want to see the collapse of a democratic country, just look to the north. pic.twitter.com/s4OIzECWuQ
— Jesse Watters (@JesseBWatters) August 31, 2023
"Everybody is in a position in their lives to feel alienated from existence itself from time to time," Peterson noted. "Life is pretty difficult and things don’t often always turn out the way we want them to, you know, and we can all doubt the meaning of our own lives and the purpose and we're all subject to a certain amount of torture, and one of the temptations there is to get bitter and resentful and to lash out, to look for enemies and to tear down tradition, partly, merely to shake your fist at destiny itself and to express their dismay."
"It's a constant temptation for everyone, in some ways — to be tempted, to be enticed down that pathway, but it's a very dreadful mistake. The freedoms that we put in place in the West, especially the freedom of speech, is predicated on the viewpoint that human existence is worthwhile and so is being itself and that we should orient ourselves properly upward and, well, you know, some people think that is a good idea and some people take the opposite tack."
