Quote:
Originally Posted by CliffFletcher
To try to bring this back on topic, it's funny how the American right has tried to claim Peterson as one of their own (and the Canadian left vilify him), even though he's come out in support of Canada's universal health care system, and other mainstream Canadian social policies that are far beyond the pale in American conservative circles.
|
It's because a straight division between left and right on an axis is one of the worst ways to quantify human social behaviors and political constructs. Even a more nuanced political compass is still overly simplistic.
Peterson supports certain liberal social policies and values. He considers himself a classic British liberal. At the same time, he places a lot of value on tradition, custom, establishment, and is wholly against legislation that he views weakens the people's rights and mollycoddles the population. Ultimately, he views the world as a hard and threatening place and legislating too many protections infringes upon other rights and weakens society. That said, I believe he genuinely wants to help and I've seen him break down in tears many times when describing some of the hardships that his clinical patients have gone through.
I find that I agree with him on some things, but in some other instances, I have totally seen him "sell-out" when appearing on Fox News etc. to carefully control his message so that it fits more into the American right-wing audience in order to promote his book.