My fellow students were achingly sincere. But what, exactly, were we learning?
Jordan Peterson has long maintained that Western universities have grown coddled, soft, and resistant to heterodox thinking, so recently he set out to create a college of his own. The Peterson Academy is unaccredited, and exists entirely in cyberspace. The sign-up fee is $499, renewed annually, and anyone who applies is automatically enrolled.In the flagship class, “Intro to Nietzsche,” Peterson stands in the middle of a white, CGI-rendered void reminiscent of Catholic purgatory. Several rows of students, notebooks in hand, sit in silence on his left and right, while a red digitized banner hangs overhead.For the uninitiated, Jordan Peterson is a former clinical psychologist turned manosphere influencer who, in recent years, has become a leading voice in the masculinity-obsessed Podcast Right. He has over 8 million subscribers on YouTube, is friendly with Elon Musk, and has recently been appearing alongside Robert F.In a sizzle reel on his YouTube channel, where Peterson outlines his motivation for starting the academy, he chronicles a familiar blend of broadly popular gripes with other, more mainstream forms of higher education—the tuition prices are too high—alloyed with Fox News–style whinging about the State Of The Youth.