Jordan Peterson, who has followed Ben Shapiro and Milo Yiannopoulos to right-wing internet glory, is attracting a loyal fanbase on Chinese social media.
Of all the conservative commentators to rise to prominence after Trump’s election, few are more polarizing than Jordan B. Peterson, a Canadian psychologist and author with a large following on YouTube. Economist Tyler Cowen named him one of the five most influential public intellectuals in the West today. New York Times columnist David Brooks devoted a full column to him (paywall). In a video, Vice described him as “Canada’s most infamous” academic. Noted Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek called his work “ridiculous.”
Peterson, a professor at the University of Toronto, rose to prominence in late 2016 via a viral video of him voicing his opposition to Bill C-16, an amendment to the Canadian Human Rights Act that added “gender identity or expression” to its list of forbidden grounds for discrimination. Facing a crowd of students, Peterson argued that the bill would compel him to use gender-neutral pronouns to refer to transgender individuals, violating his right to free speech. Some legal scholars have argued Peterson misinterpreted the bill.
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