The Root Cause of Jordan Peterson’s Horrific Character Arc

Arguably the most disturbing component of the Terrifier horror movie trilogy — which is an extremely disturbing franchise — is the character arc of Victoria. 

After attempting to rescue her stranded little sister, Victoria finds herself fighting off the demonic mass murderer Art the Clown. The encounter leaves her so viciously disfigured that she goes crazy and ultimately joins Art on a killing spree, becoming a psychopathic maniac herself. Victoria goes from being a would-be savior victim to a demon-possessed serial killer who, forgive me, pleasures herself with a razor blade at the sight of torture. 

These extremes obviously aren’t a direct analogy, but some similar character arc has seized Dr. Jordan Peterson, transforming him from a celebrated figurehead of personal responsibility to someone who has abdicated all accountability. 

The comparison is stark, but cultural commentators have evoked spiritually-charged language to describe Peterson’s descent. 

“This man is working for the demons. That cannot be doubted,” Mike Cernovich said in a Tuesday post referencing Peterson’s appearance on Hannity in which the clinical psychologist broadly condemned “psychopathic, narcissistic types [on the right] … who cloak themselves in political guise.” 

“Jordan Peterson is accusing people who disagree with him on foreign wars of being mentally ill,” Cernovich added. “This is Stasi level stuff. He also wants to tie the phrase 'Christ is King' to sociopathy and terrorism.” 

Peterson’s interview on Hannity follows the release of a new appearance on The Joe Rogan Experience where he expands on his concerns regarding regarding so-called “psychopathic types” on the right. 

“I’ve been watching these right wing — they’re not right wing — these psychopathic types manipulate the edge of the conservative movement for their own gain,” he said. “And a lot of that is cloaked in antisemitic guise.” 

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“You’ve let your … curiosity and your desire for knowledge, this quest, you’ve let that guide you as a podcaster,” Peterson told Rogan, noting that he’s trying to work through a similar situation.

“How do you know, given your radical increase in stature in the last ten years, how do you know when your curiosity, and even your skepticism about the facts that things aren’t the way they say they are … how should anyone decide what guardrails to put up? Like, what do you look for?”

He added: “Once you gain in reach and authority … how do you take great care that the people you’re talking to aren’t … eliciting or feeding a subculture … that hasn’t got the proper aims?” 

Though Peterson doesn’t criticize anyone specifically, yesterday’s back-to-back appearances look like an attempt to address the viral David Smith-Douglas Murray debate Rogan hosted earlier this month. That podcast, which reinvigorated the public discourse regarding Israel’s ongoing response to the Oct. 7 Hamas attack, has been used as a springboard by pundits like James Lindsay to legitimize the term “Woke Right.” 

But instead of engaging in the conversation, Peterson opts to slander good-faith commentators as psychopathic, a “mass diagnosis” that Smith referred to as surprising and “sloppy.” 

One could argue this isn’t surprising behavior from Peterson, who never recovered from the series of personal traumas that reached a climax in 2020. 

During the first few months of 2019, Peterson’s daughter had to have an artificial ankle replaced and his wife had to undergo several surgeries to address “an extremely rare malignancy, which had a one-year fatality rate close to 100 percent,” he wrote in his book Beyond Order. 

The anxiety caused by his wife’s medical battle prompted Peterson to .increase the dosage of benzodiazepines he had been taking since 2017. His attempt to stop taking the medication and replace it with ketamine resulted in “two ninety minute trips to hell [where] I felt to my bones as if I had everything to feel guilty and ashamed about, with nothing gained by my positive experiences.” 

Peterson’s benzodiazepine withdrawal was unsuccessfully treated in the United States and Canada, where he developed an undiagnosed case of double pneumonia that was only discovered when he sought help at an ICU in Moscow. Desperate for relief from his benzodiazepine addiction, Peterson underwent “a procedure either unknown or regarded as too dangerous in North America” in Russia where he was placed in a medically induced coma for nine days. 

Within a month, Peterson had to relearn many basics of life, including climbing stairs, buttoning clothes, and typing.. By the time he became reasonably reacquainted with daily life, the COVID-19 pandemic struck. Peterson’s attempts to wean himself off of medication prescribed in Russia caused numbness and trembling in his left hand and foot, seizures, and “crippling anxiety,” he said. 

When Peterson went to Serbia for additional treatment, he contracted COVID-19. 

Peterson has never been the same since. In fact, it’s become a meme that he frequently cries during media appearances. Earlier this month, during an appearance on Piers Morgan Uncensored, he collapsed into another crying fit. 

Rather than prioritizing his fragile mental health, Peterson has become the ideologically captivated person he once criticized. The professor who refused to use preferred gender pronouns is now sounding the alarm over people he disagrees with. The man who lectured incessantly about the dangers of totalitarianism resoundingly cheered for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to “give ‘em hell.” 

The man who instilled a sense of responsibility in an untold number of young men has thrown all accountability to the wind as he claims beliefs and convictions expressed by certain people are merely “the sheep’s clothing of the eternal wolves.”

Peterson, famous for formulating vital Rules for Life, and his family were put through a crucible comparable to Job. Everything he cherished, including his life and sanity, was put to the test. But whereas Job emerged from the crucible with wisdom, Peterson’s mind and spirit have been scrambled into something defiant, misguided, and deeply offensive. 

Like Victoria in Terrifier, one genuinely dreads to see what will become of this broken character in the next installment.