Jordan Peterson; The Man, the myth, the mirth.

If you haven't seen Jordan Peterson's work then I recommend the recent GQ 'interview' to get the full beefy flavour of the man.

Perhaps the wittiest show I've seen all year.

Peterson is a master at the glacial staring angry white moralist persona he has perfected to perfection.

Some people don't 'get' Jordan Peterson.   My girlfriend even believed he is actually a Canadian psychologist who seriously believes the nonsense he spouts until I explained that he's a famous postmodern stand up comedian who does this whole skit as ironic performance art. That says a lot about the brilliant comic persona Peterson has acquired, the hilarious po-faced permanently constipated expression as he squits out this stream of consciousness drivel. 

Peterson's 12 Rules for Life, obviously indebted to Monty Python's The Meaning of Life: "Try and be nice to people, avoid eating fat, read a good book every now and then, get some walking in, and try and live together in peace and harmony with people of all creeds and nations. And, finally, here are some completely gratuitous pictures of penises to annoy the censors and to hopefully spark some sort of controversy, which, it seems, is the only way, these days, to get the jaded, video-sated public off their fucking arses..."

He's probably the wittiest ironic comedian this side of the British stand up, Stewart Lee (obviously Peterson's faux ironic interview with a respected journalist is indebted to Lee's ironic interviews on his Comedy Vehicle).   My favourite lines were the meritocracy sketch, where he hilariously argues "it's why we don't live in a patriarchal tyranny, because hierarchies are hierarchies of competence."   Hilarious stuff from the master, I mean who could seriously ignore capital (cultural, social, economic) in one's status?  You would have to be a moron to not see the joke in this (I mean, are the vast majority of African Americans just not very competent?) 

Obviously everyone's favourite is the 'lobster sketch' with the hilarious fallacy that argues lobsters are animals, humans are animals so ergo...in which Helen Lewis is given a good one liner too: "my big problem with the lobsters is that it's scientifically bollocks...these are creatures who urinate out of their faces."   I was pissing myself.   From my face.  I love how Peterson pretends to get really angry when questioned with a rational line.    Brilliant.  Obviously, the sketch is indebted to Monty Python's parrot. and of course, Peterson is indebted to the absurdist humour of Python generally, they also loved to invoke Nietzsche for absurd comic effect.

Peterson daring to show the surreal wit beneath the faux serious thinker exterior "Maybe you are a loser; and maybe you’re not but if you are, you don’t have to continue in that mode. Circumstances change. If you slump around with the same bearing that characterizes a defeated lobster, people will assign you a lower status and the old counter that you share with crustaceans sitting at the very base of your brain will assign you a low dominance number.”  Your potential is down to you, Peterson jokes, stand tall and you'll make it big.   Hee hee.

Perhaps the wittiest joke is when Helen Lewis says that she's read alt right people supporting Peterson, Peterson, as fast as a whippet on speed comes back with "Read more!"   Ha ha, the absurdity of his ironic humour writ large, because, of course, if she read more pieces about Peterson then that would magically negate those pieces she's read from the alt right, ridiculous and nonsensical.   It's why Peterson is such a brilliantly incisive humourist, coming out with whipsmart gibberish.

Or the brilliant "I put science over religion" then two seconds later denying man made climate change.   As an ironic comedy act this outTrumps Trump to the nth degree.  Hilarious.

So many brilliantly absurdly ironic jokes to choose from but how about: Helen Lewis is a woman, she's in a good job, so how can patriarchy exist?   Such a wittily inane farcical joke.   I'm in awe of his timing and deadpan delivery.

 You'd have to have a heart of stone and a brain of cement not to find this stupidly hilarious.   Kudos for Helen Lewis for keeping a straight face too.   I bet they were laughing their heads off after.

Peterson's the best stand up comedian doing this ironic and sometimes grotesque wit since the heyday of the British comedy store, with the aforementioned Stewart Lee or Simon Munnery or Al Murray's pub landlord (the parallels are very similar).

Al Murray used his persona 'the pub landlord' as an ironic vehicle to show the absurdity of bigotry

Peterson uses his psychologist persona to show the absurdity of everything he says

I could watch Peterson all day spouting this risible drivel, pretending to be acquainted with the work of Nietzsche, Derrida, Foucault and Dostoyevsky and his bully persona that would just be utterly detestable if you hadn't realized that it was a comedy act.    Though he's obviously well up on Jung because he is good at repeating Jung's archetype nonsense so well, so straightfaced, as if anyone ever took it seriously. 

How about the eating only beef diet sketch where he even claims the beef has made his daughter walk again, clearly indebted to Python again and the Life of Brian (most notably the juniper bush sketch).  You have to love Peterson's deadpan expression, "I eat only beef and water as god intended."    But here he takes this routine into new directions by having his 'straight man', Lewis ask about his beef diet then follow up with the question "Do you ever lie?"   Brilliantly ironic wit.

I would say though, that the problem with such humour  is the question of purpose.   Ironic humour can, in the end, just be about itself (I think Peterson often nods towards Seinfeld, both in the ironic humour and having a persona with the same name as his actual self, muddling reality up to dizzying degree).   In the end I think Peterson's humour could be considered cruel as we're encouraged to laugh at idiots who don't get the joke, who think he's being serious when he shits out one liners like "I know my neurochemistry, so if you're going to play neurochemistry let's go and do it."   He's like the bastard comic offspring of the absurdist rhetoric of Dubya and Trump crossed with the brilliance of Bill Hicks.   Amazing stuff. 

Though, of course, one has to be aware that ironic humour can have its downside if the intended irony is missed by a bovinely stupid audience.   Take the case of Australian faux lifestyle blogger, Kate Wimple, whose postmodern skit was that she had successfully cured her cancer by gazing at cows.   Astonishingly some people took it seriously and there was the tragic death of Malcolm Barnowl who tragically died from hypothermia, having spent four consecutive days and nights gazing at cows in a field in Lincolnshire.   Perhaps the biggest tragedy being that Barnowl didn't even have cancer.   I include Wimple's blogpost below as a warning that sometimes this risky humour can have dangers.*

Even mainstream media outlets like the Times don't get the joke reporting that Peterson and his daughter (obviously not his real daughter but fellow comedian, Stephanie Pork) eat only beef and that it has cured their depression, helped them slim and feel healthier and cured her autism!

Most of all, I loved his faux reminiscence of childhood where his brilliance was recognized...by himself, he was so smart and he knew that one day he would be a star on the same network as Pewdiepie and Zoe Sugg.   I love this guy.  If there's just one drawback to his comedy it's that sometimes you get the sense that he's crossing over from comedy into a kind of Brechtian avant garde theatre where the audience struggle to orientate themselves, as with my girlfriend who was baffled by my love of Peterson because she really thought the verbose pariphrastic diarrhoea he vomits forth with such inscrutable irony was actually his real beliefs.   Obviously no one beyond the most mentally deranged could ever see this as serious.  Could they?


*  The Wimple blogpost:

Could Thinking about Cows be a Cure For Cancer?

Well known nutritionist blogger Kate Wimple has made startling claims that thinking about cows has cured her cancer.   But could this be true?   And if so, what is the science behind this therapy?

We spoke to Dr* Wimple via satellite skype in her home in Perth, Western Australia in the west of Australia.

I began by asking her about her current status re: the cancer.

"It's all gone?" said Wimple.   "Amazing?   It's like it was there and now it isn't?"

And it was all because of gazing at cows?

"Yeah?   Or just thinking about them.  It's like someone suggested to me that I should try to relax, you know, try to stay calm and think about calming things?"

Like cows?

"Exactly?   A few months ago I was in terrible pain and I feared for the end?   You know.   And then I just went down to the beach, sat on the sand, the waves rolling in and the birds above calling awooah awooah?   And just from nowhere I began to think about cows?   I thought about cows standing around a field?"

And what are the cows doing?

"Chewing the cud?"

Chewing the cud?

"Yeah, masticating grass?   You know.   They have four stomachs?    Crazy huh.   Anyhow, I thought about cows chewing grass, eating grass, looking around for more grass and the thought calmed me?   I began to truly relax for the first time in my life?"

So, hot beach, cool sea, waves rolling in, ocean as far as you can see, salt spray, gulls, but in your mind it was all cows?

"Yeah?   Cows everywhere?   You know.   Like great rolling green fields of cows?   Brown ones?   White and black?  All kinds?"

Ha, I was going to ask you what the cows looked like.

"Well, they're all different but kind of the same?   You know."

And thinking of cows chewing the cud relaxed you so much that it cured your cancer?

"Put like that it sounds kind of crazy?   But yeah, it's kind of like a mindfulness thing?    A Buddhist thing?   You know.   Being in the moment."

With the cows?

"Yeah?   Myum myum myum? (Wimple mimicks a cow chewing grass)."

And the doctors have cleared you of cancer?

"Yeah?    Well, I mean, not actual doctors but yeah?   I mean, I didn't go to a doctor in the first place.   I don't have anything to do with, you know, "the medical model," you know."

So...you diagnosed yourself?

"God no?   No?   No a friend of mine diagnosed the tumour?"

And they were a doctor?

"Absolutely?   100%?"

But now you're clear?

"Yeah?  Absolutely?   100%?"

And all thanks to the cows?

"Ha, yeah?   All thanks to the cows?   You might have thought here in Australia it would be sheep?   I mean, I'm not saying it wouldn't work with sheep too?   They chew grass?"

They do.

"Yep?"

And you have a book out.

"Absolutely?   I'm so excited?"

And for listeners, what's it called?

"Chewing the Cud: How I Cured my Cancer by Thinking about Cows?"

So it's all in the title?

"Yeah?   But there's loads of advice on how exactly to think about cows, nutritional advice to keep you focused on the herd and so on.   There are some drawngs too and blank pages for the reader to draw the cows they imagine too."

Some have said, I'm thinking of quite a few doctors here, surgeons too, other medical specialists, nurses, paramedics, friends, that your advice might be harmful, that those suffering from tumours should seek specialist medical advice.

"Absolutely?   I can see that view?   But where's the harm in trying to think about cows first?   Think about them, lazily chewing, the grass regurgitating in their many tummies, cute cows, I named a few of them, they were like recurring cows in my imagination?   They helped me get through the bad times."

Dr* Kate Wimple (*whom legally we have to point out is not a medical doctor**) talking about her new book and the miraculous recovery from debilitating cancer eating away at her bronzed Australian body.

** or any kind of doctor.***


*** which is not illegal.****

**** unless for fraudulent purposes.