He starts off at the 1:32 mark by telling CBC’s Wendy Mesley
MESLEY: What are the forces that have made you so popular?
PETERSON: I tell archetypal stories. Being fed a diet of rights and impulsive freedoms for 50 years, but rights aren’t as useful for establishing what’s meaningful in your life as responsibility. The responsibility you take on for your career, the responsibility you take on for your education, the responsibility you take on for your family and the broader community . . . .
From the 7:23 mark forward Peterson is at his best . . . .
Don’t stay in the Underworld! That’s who I am talking to.
That’s what I am trying to do. I am trying to call them forth as individuals out of the chaos that they are ensconced in.
What do you think should happen in this polarized world? If you’re dealing with people you think are attracted by a pathological ideology? What do you think you should do with them? What I do with them is say, “Look, why don’t you make yourself into an individual and get the hell away from the ideology? And so a lot of these kids are lost in the underworld, let’s say, in nihilism and they turned to these ideological solutions because they don’t know what else to do and they’re angry. It’s like I have something better for them to do—Grow the hell up! and sort yourself out as an individual, and that’s exactly why I made this particular tweet. And I get letters from people all the time who say, “Look, you know I was moving toward the fringes and I am not doing that any more. I see why it’s wrong.”
So you’ve become this huge sensation? Are you a prophet?
Well, I don’t know where I go. We’re in a new world really because of the reach of social media. And so I have this immense multimedia platform.
San Gabriel Tutor 