Jordan Peterson on the challenges within the battle in opposition to cancel tradition

Peterson speaks with zeal and presents as anti-establishment.”The continual clamour around issues of free speech, easily derided as unnecessary ‘song and dance’, is in fact vital, as a freedom so profound and troublesome must be constantly defended,” he tells me. Yet his concepts are, at their root, unradical. The first of his 12 guidelines for all times is to “stand up straight with your shoulders straight”. During our chat, the concept he appears most enthusiastic about is the worth of “child-centred, long-term, monogamous relationships”. If we take into account Peterson to be testing the boundaries of free speech, we must always pause and ask ourselves whether or not it’s he pushing the envelope, or us reappraising what beliefs we discover acceptable. Peterson is un-radical: as society progresses, un-radical views fall out of favour. But society, Peterson cautions, hasn’t progressed so far as the liberal orthodoxy would have us consider. His views, within the West, stay broadly held.