Whenever you open a thread here that contains 1000+ words, your knee-jerk reaction might be to close the tab and move on. I'm guilty of that myself. In this case, however, if you've been on the cusp of falling victim to this rather insidious strategy, I recommend you keep on reading. If you've been paying close attention, you've probably registered the nature of attacks on Jordan Peterson. They come in waves. First, they tried the transphobe strategy. It didn't work. Then, they tried the sexist strategy. That didn't work either. Last month's trend was the racist strategy. It's becoming increasingly apparent that the flavor of the month is the claim that Jordan Peterson is a cult leader. This, one has to admit, is incredibly clever, because it's supposed to function as a deep psychological assault. It sows a seed of self-doubt. Once the seed has been sown, the payload should go something like,
(a) "Oh, I do suppose I like him quite a bit. Oh yeah, he is earning quite a bit of money. Yes, my life has changed since I started listening ..."
(b) "Have I just been brainwashed? Am I just a blindly following cult member?"
Credit is due where credit is due. This is rather ingenius. Nobody wants to be a part of a cult. Nobody wants to feel manipulated and deindividualized. If the seed of doubt is sown, the payload should elicit a fear response. Even if the payload does not fully succeed, it might lead a fan to, at the very least, take a large step back, in fear of the possibility that they might be in the brainwashing process.So, let's take a good hard look at what a cult actually is, and do some comparisons.
Because there is little consensus regarding the term itself, I had to search quite a bit to find something which wasn't impossibly abstract. I found this one, which I believe to be quite accurate:A typical cult has a charismatic, unaccountable leader, persuades by coercion and exploits its members, economically, sexually or in some other way.
[Charismatic] Well-spoken, highly-educated. Let's play devil's advocate and check this one off.
[Unaccountable] Complete miss. Peterson argues for his points very openly and tells everyone who listens to hack at it if they find anything wrong. He is also very open about his own faults.
[Persuades by coercion] No point in spending time on this one, as it simply does not apply.
[Exploit: Economically] Peterson has never asked for money. He opened his Patreon, and people flocked to it in support. It was never solicited.
[Exploit: Sexually] :D
[Exploit: Other] I'm trying my best, but I really can't think of anything. Can you?
Now let's take a more holistic approach.