Jim Proser - Savage Messiah: How Dr. Jordan Peterson Is Saving Western Civilization

There is a famous Jewish legend that holds that, at any given time, there are thirty-six righteous people in the world. Thanks to these people the world continues to exist; were it not for them, humanity would collapse into such evil that it would consume itself and essentially cease to exist.

Neither we nor they know who these individuals are.

I do not take this legend literallyI assume there are more than thirty-six righteous people in the world. But I do take it seriously. Its point is entirely accurate. We all know the power of the truly evil to wreak havoc on Earth. Therefore, some truly good people have to counterbalance them.

The deck is stacked against the good. It is far easier for one individual to do great evil than for one individual to do great good. Any pathetic soul can murder dozens of people; but other than some physicians, how many people can save dozens of lives?

Jordan Peterson is one of those rare people.

Needless to say, if you know anything about the man, you know that he would scoff at this idea. Once, when I asked him at a public dialogue if he believed in God, he answered that he didnt think he was good enough to be able to say he did. In his view, to believe in God is so morally demanding, he cannot imagine who can truly say they believe in God.

I can only say, as one who does believe in God, that while Jordan may not be certain he believes in God, I am certain God believes in Jordan. At the end of each day in the Genesis creation story, it says And God saw it was good. Only after creating the human being does the text say, And God saw it was very good.

Jordan Peterson is one of those rare people who wants to be very good. I think he is. Not just a very good psychologist, husband, and father, but a very good human being.

But what distinguishes Jordan most is the rarest of the good traits: courage. Many people are ethical, have integrity, and regularly show kindness, but few good people have courage. Jordan does.

It was his courage that brought him to the publics attention. He refused to be cowed by the Orwellian bullies of Political Correctness, who in the province of Ontario have passed laws governing what pronouns a person must use when speaking or addressing people.

Decent man that he is, Jordan Peterson would never intentionally insult a person. As he has repeatedly made clear, if someone looks and dresses as a female, and has a female name, he will refer to this person as she, whether the person is transgender or not. Likewise, if a person looks and dresses as male, and has a male name, he will refer to this person as he. But if a bearded person wearing a skirt demands to be referred to as she, Jordan might not acquiesce, and will not allow Ontario to tell him he must.

Such a stance takes courage todayespecially in the least open and most intolerant institution of our time, the university.

As a result of his remarkable ability to intellectually, rationally, and coolly respond to hostile interviewers the world over, Jordan became an international sensation, particularly among young people.

And why is that?

There is no definitive answer to that question but allow me to suggest a few.

No generation in modern history has been deceived by their elders as much as the past two generations have, especially in the English-speaking countries. Most young people do not realize this. How could they? If the people who present reality to youmost particularly your teachers and the news and entertainment mediatell you the Earth is flat, why would you assume it is round?

But many young people suspect they havent heard the whole truth. At the very least, many of them realize that they have not been exposed to any other view of the world, of good and evil, or of Western civilization. So when an obviously decent, honest, erudite, intellectual came along and spoke to them about good and evil, about meaning in life, and how to be a more fulfilled and ultimately happier person, millions of them responded with enthusiasm.

Young people need adults to provide a model and to provide wisdom. Jordan Peterson has become that adult for millions of them. And he has especially touched young men, because too many adult men since as far back as the 1970s have chosen not to become men but to remain boys. Combined with the deliberate emasculating of a generation of men by feminists (of both sexes), countless boys and men are lost.

The subtitle of this biography is How Dr. Jordan Peterson Is Saving Western Civilization.

It is not overstated. That is how important Jordan Petersons life and work are.

Dennis Prager

Dennis Prager is cofounder of Prager University, which garners more than a billion views a year, a nationally syndicated radio talk show host, syndicated columnist, and author of nine bestselling books, including the first two volumes of The Rational Bible, a projected five-volume commentary on the Torah.