Jordan Peterson recently made an attempt to equate philosopher Karl Marx (1818-1883) to the devil, but this was nothing but an insult to the devil –and a definite end to Peterson’s contributions as a free thinker.
Two of Jordan Peterson’s recent podcasts are entitled ‘The Devil and Karl Marx, Luciferian Intellect’ and ‘Was Karl Marx a Satanist?’ Two evil spirits embodied in a single dead philosopher. With this perspective Peterson has joined the growing group of people suffering from ideophobia, the fear of ideas.
By attacking the philosopher rather than the people abusing his ideas as a cover for crimes, Peterson is making a big mistake. Attacking the persona Karl Marx is easy, he’s been dead almost 150 years, he can’t clarify himself and very few people have properly understood his writings. But even if Peterson would merely focus on the contents of Marx’ ideas he would already be biting off more than he can chew, because most of the historiography on Karl Marx is heavily misguided.
Sometimes the topic is Karl Marx the person, sometimes Karl Marx the thinker, and sometimes it is ‘Marxism’. Karl Marx and Marxism are two different things, and they have never met each other. Shortly after Marx died, a handful of people could not resist the urge to pour his ideas into concrete by coining them an objective ‘science’. In the words of historian Christina Morina, “It turned Marx’ theses into Marxism, and an intellectual worldview into a political truth.”(1) Marx would never have approved of it.
In 1946, biophysicist and inventor Wilhelm Reich (1897-1957) defended Marx against opportunists: “He had died in the meantime and could no longer do anything against you. You did not understand that he had found, in your work, the living power which creates values. You did not understand that his sociology wanted to protect your society against your state.”(2) Reich argued that Marx foresaw an unnatural, bureaucratic and commercial ponzi-like system in which the average man would gradually lose his power in many respects, and so his interests required protection.
After almost two centuries of distortions, it is easy to overlook the fact that Marx never once blamed anyone, not even the ‘capitalist’. People have interpreted his words only to the extent of their own capability to understand, and subsequently, his ideas became twisted to play political blame games. Since identity politics, or what is called ‘woke’, is centered around blame, Marx would never have approved of it.
Throughout history people have had the tendency to introduce the static and the absolute into philosophy. But philosophy is never static and absolute. What Peterson is doing has historically been wrong yet popular. Few things in the world are more static and absolute than Lucifer and Satan. Peterson is removing nuance, promoting tribalism and in so doing, he is betraying free speech. He is exchanging his long-held defense of the free mind for a moralistic politicized stance, a decisive move from which there is no turning back.
Peterson’s difficulties distinguishing the philosophical from the practical became clear earlier this year, when he, a clinical psychologist, interviewed cognitive psychologist Donald Hoffman. Hoffman delivered groundbreaking mathematical evidence that reality as we perceive it has zero percent chance of being real, and that reality depends on the observer. So, we better be humble in our judgements. Peterson, despite his brilliant mind, could not grasp this. The interview ended with Peterson in a state of confusion, promising to invite Hoffman again soon.
Free thinkers know that ideas and words are merely affiliations with reality, not reality itself. Linguist and philosopher Alfred Korzybski (1879-1950) described this as “the map is not the territory”, poet T.S. Eliot (1888-1965) as “between the idea and the reality falls the shadow”. The intellectual realm is unrestricted and limitless, otherwise progress in the form of inventions, discoveries and expansion of consciousness –transcendence– would be impossible. Moral framing remains exclusively reserved for actions, not thoughts. One day soon Peterson could be discussing a famous philosopher he thinks closely resembles an angel, in which case he may just pick himself.
(1) The Invention of Marxism: How An Idea Changed Everything, Christina Morina, Oxford University Press, 2023
(2) Listen, Little Man!, Wilhelm Reich, Orgone Institute Press, 1946
