Jordan Peterson of Toronto

Salvete, qui legantes sint - 

My sons have been talking of this "new feller", Professor Jordan Peterson, and the HUGE splash he has been making in the cyber-world.  From what I have gaathered so far, he's made of equal parts Joseph Campbell, Karl Jung, and Dr. Laura Schlesinger.  I have yet to read his materials.

But the online response to his teaching and exhortations has been, as I said, HUGE.  He's become an overnight Absurdity cure, apparently.  So tonight I will begin his book, "12 Rules: an Antidote to Chaos".  If indeed it's aimed at the problem of life in the modern world, it is ipso facto of interest.

Controversy surrounds him - so I make no pronouncements yet.  Would it matter if I did so, prematurely?  Not to the world, but to me - yes!  Defective as I am, I still need to try to be fair and accurate.

I have read a critique of him published recently by another author I need to read - one Pankaj Mishra, author of "Age of Anger", his book about the general return to authoritarianism and violent nationalism and so on world-wide.  Mishra's topic seems critical to me, watching from the sidelines as the world's bedbugs - Neo-Nazis, Tea Party-ists, and others of dubious intent - have come to the fore over the last decade or so.

More to come.  Valete.