I’m a sociology professor…..help
I teach sociology at a community college and they—the radical left—recently gained power (Covid helped) and a super star of gender studies is at the helm. I saw it coming, knew about Evergreen, and now the diversity and equity trainings have begun; training on microaggressions taught us intent doesn’t matter. At convocation via Zoom, the faculty were directed to follow a “wolf pledge.” After reciting a series of idiotic lines we were told to call each other out and literally asked us to say “woof,” “woof” to show our commitment. It was embarrassing, humiliating and just downright unacceptable in all ways. Most of us are silent—I call us “the whisperers.” We can’t afford to lose our jobs and—since I teach sociology—they think I am one of them. I pretend to adhere to their ideology and remain silent. Your lectures inspire me to be courageous but I cannot fathom a life without doing what I love and that is teaching. If I challenge “them” I’m afraid I’ll lose. I’m quite certain I will. Any advice?
Are you a Christian?
I am very familiar with your amazing work and have heard you talk about your own personal “walk” with faith. At times you said you “act as though God exists”, and that you believe in Jesus. But your stance on whether you are or are not a Christian has been vague. You are astoundingly biblically astute and seem to “get” the deeper things of the Spirit but it seems you struggle with commitment to Christianity. Would this be an accurate assessment of your position?
I am nothing compared to my friends
I am 17 and in high school i am a decently attractive male in shape and am very extroverted but i am completely outshined by my friends, They are better than me in every aspect they are the hyper successful attractive guys that all the women go for. They’re better than me at school, sports and romance not because they’re more able to talk to them, they’re just so much more attractive than i am. We party regularly and almost every time they all hookup with some majorly popular and attractive girl while i fail every time women just aren’t interested in me. Now i don't agree with hookup culture but at my age it’s impossible to avoid and a bit of female validation would be nice. I feel invisible to women around them I cant compete with them I have to keep a smile and congratulate them and support them because thats what a good friend would do. But i am so jealous and resentful of them and how successful they are compared to me what can i do?
Orderly-open people at odds with themselves.
Dear Dr. Peterson, I discovered your work a few months ago, and immediately took the Understand Myself Personality Test. If I was not surprised to discover exceptionally high levels of openness, I was quite astonished about my orderliness, which is very high. Thus "taking responsibility" means two things: sacrificing intuitive creative exploration to material security ; but it also means taking the responsibilities that come with my age and settling. I want to dive into chaos and map it ; but wanting a quite stable life is part of my nature. Do you have any piece of advice to negotiate between these two salient traits? How have you approached contradictions in your personality ? PS : it might be relevant to say that I am high in orderliness, but moderately low in industriousness. Thank you for everything
Vaccine Mandates
From my understanding, you’ve pushed back hard against mandating vaccines due to your studies of totalitarian governments. How do we define what vaccines to mandate and which ones will lead to what you think goes towards totalitarianism? I believe Nicholas Kristakis would be a fantastic podcast guest for you to setup.