The Globe and Mail, predictably, has just posted an opinion piece that's nothing more than a lengthy ad hominen.
The Jordan Peterson paradox: high intellect, or just another angry white guy?
The resentment fairly crackles off the page. At some point, a Canadian journalist or academic is actually going to engage with Peterson intellectually, aren't they? Step up and take Peterson's arguments at face value, and dispassionately critique them? In a country of 36 million people, there has to be someone, surely.
The only people stepping up so far are hostile partisans (the clue in the column above is when the author derides 'classical liberals' as conservatives). They desperately want to believe that the only people watching or reading Peterson are young alt-right misogynists. But by dismissing Peterson and his popularity so contemptuously, they're leaving the field wide open to him.
Which is not a good thing. I want a strong and intellectually engaged left contesting our public dialog with honesty and reason, instead of relying on ad hominens, poisoning the well, and appeals to emotion. One wonders if, on some level, the people writing these hatchet jobs are not all that confident that their beliefs can withstand the hammer and tong battering of a genuine debate.