The New Neo

There’s been a lot of delighted buzz on the right about a new video of Jordan Peterson being interviewed by a British journalist named Cathy Newman. The gist of that buzz is that he demolished her in spectacular fashion—in the rhetorical and ideological sense, that is.

I’m a pretty good arguer myself. But I sure wouldn’t want to be on the other side of a Peterson debate (or maybe I would like it—just to get close, because I admit to a bit of a crush on the guy). But I think that most people are simplifying what happened in the Newman interview. I believe that what Peterson did vis a vis Newman was much more than just win the argument or make his points or embarrass or “crush” or demolish her, or whatever destructive verb you want to use to describe it.

If you’d like to watch the interview now, here it is. But you might want to read the rest of what I say about it first, and then watch it:

What Peterson does in that interview isn’t just on the order of what someone like Thomas Sowell (whom I also admire greatly) habitually does in argument, which is to counter the adversary on the cognitive and logical points, and to apply the results of research to the discussion. Peterson certainly does do that, and that’s what most people see when they watch that interview. But he adds certain techniques of the therapist and particularly of the family therapist (although I really don’t know if he’s done any family therapy; Peterson’s a psychologist and used to have a private practice as a therapist, however).

If you’re mostly familiar with the supportive touchy-feely type of therapy, that’s not what I’m talking about here. I can’t give you a crash course in therapeutic techniques or in particular in the way family therapists work, but I can tell you that it’s complicated, thoughtful, and strategic.

At least, that’s the way it’s supposed to be. Whether most therapists live up to that description is a very different question, and I suspect the answer is “no.” But we’re talking about an ideal here.

Note that quite early on Peterson says to Newman, “I’m very very very careful with my words.” During training to be a family therapist (or an individual therapist, for that matter), students learn to be ultra-careful with words—so careful that it can lead to a headache every session, which is what I often experienced when I was in training and worked in a clinical program. Every word has meaning and every word can affect clients, because therapists often have a great deal of power over clients whether they (therapists or clients) want it or not.

In the Newman interview, Peterson is highly aware that each word shapes the argument and that a misstep on his part can and will give grist to the mill of his opponents. He’s also interested in communicating clearly so that his thoughts can be more easily understood. So you can feel the intensity of his effort to be 100% careful with his words, and I think he succeeds in that endeavor to an extraordinary extent.

He also listens hyper-intently, another hallmark of a good therapist. His interviewer Newman is not only inferior to him in that regard, she barely listens at all but just barrels ahead with questions that for the most part are hostile (and perhaps prepared in advance rather than made up on the spot). So this ability to listen gives him an enormous advantage—one that the best therapists generally have, as well.

Peterson is highly aware of the problem Newman has with listening. In fact, it would be hard for him not to be aware, because her failure to listen is so blatant. He must correct her again and again and again on her misinterpretation of what he’s said. But another thing he does in response to her is very therapist-like (although it may not sound that way to most people)—he calls her on it by saying at one point, “That’s because you’re actually not listening.” This is a case of going from content to process, another favorite technique of the therapist. And it’s done in an observational manner rather than a purely combative one.

The interview also reveals Peterson’s extreme patience. He must be annoyed with Newman—wouldn’t anyone in his position be? But he remains polite and explains himself to her time and again.

I’m not familiar with Newman’s previous work, but she’s a very experienced journalist, so we’re not talking about a tyro here. My guess is that, until now, Newman has displayed the trappings of being articulate and hard-hitting and relentless despite the fact that she’s approaching the topic (this one, anyway) with an appeal to emotion. That doesn’t mean she’s dumb (even if she may seem so here); it means that the appeal to emotion usually works. It’s probably usually rattled her subjects, if she’s trying to rattle them.

She’s certainly trying to rattle Peterson. But she’s chosen the wrong guy, because Peterson is not a person who gets rattled (in public, anyway, which is all we see of him). He can get firm, assertive, and/or almost angry, but only when he decides for strategic reasons to display those particular emotions. And yet he also seems—and I believe actually is—sincere even in anger. It’s an interesting and unusual juggling act. Like Peterson or hate him (and I like him very much), there’s no mistaking the fact that he comes across as speaking from the heart and the mind combined, and weighing his words about as carefully as words can be weighed.

Peterson has the ability to do two highly unusual things simultaneously: continue mostly unruffled in the face of a verbal onslaught, while intently tracking the conversation and hacking through the weeds of the back-and-forth exchange in order to remember and to clearly restate what he actually said (and what the other person said) rather than what the other person claims either of them said. These two things are exactly what therapists are trained to do, and something good therapists are able to do. Peterson is astoundingly good at both.

But that’s not all. Yes, Peterson is trying to state the factual and cognitive case in a clear manner. Yes, he’s also trying to remain calm and yet show appropriate assertiveness. Yes, he’s trying to track the conversation and not get caught in the interviewer’s misstatements about his statements. But he’s also trying (I believe) to encourage a transformation within his interviewer, and not just a cognitive transformation, either.

Again, that’s what good therapists do. And I believe a lot of people missed that part of it when watching this interview.

Peterson does this in a number of ways, but one of them is by surprising Newman and behaving in a way that runs counter to her expectations, not just about what he’s saying and what he stands for (basically, liberty and responsible adulthood are what he stands for), but about who he is as a human being. Peterson’s sincerity and brilliance are part of this—no ideology-spouting boilerplate demagogue is he—and so is his calmness. But he just might be at his most effective when he disarms Newman with statements such as, “I suspect you’re not very agreeable”—which on paper might look like an angry insult, but in person is said not in hostile criticism but as amiable praise for her assertiveness in her climb to the top and for her tenaciousness in the interview.

These are traits about which Peterson is pretty sure Newman takes pride: her assertiveness and tenaciousness as a reporter and interviewer. These are also traits some of her interviewees (and other people) might have found off-putting, or even unfeminine. So Peterson has accomplished a kind of verbal jujutsu. He has turned what starts out sounding like criticism into praise for qualities in herself that Newman values. And it’s a type of criticism she is likely to have heard before and thinks is a sexist sort of criticism. But here, Peterson (someone she’s thought might be an anti-woman troglodyte) is saying she’s to be praised for it!

That accomplishes two things. The first is that it probably creates a bit of doubt in her mind about the idea that Peterson has a disempowering attitude towards women. The second is that praising her for something she values is an example of something that has a name in the therapy business: it’s called joining. Joining helps to get a previously hostile person on your side, if only for a moment and hopefully even longer.

But the more striking turning point is Peterson’s response when Newman asks him what gives him the right to be offensive to a transgender person (I’m doing this from memory and my original notes on first listening, because the video is so long I haven’t taken the time to listen to it again). He turns the tables on her and observes that she has been offending him during the interview—but with the goal of getting at the truth. Again we have the same method of saying something that initially sounds like it will be an insult, but then praising and joining her for it. Both exchanges are also examples of something known in therapy as a reframe, in this case reframing “offensive speech” as “truth-seeking speech.”

It’s another powerful moment. Peterson’s observation is completely unexpected and takes Newman by surprise. Newman is so taken aback that she becomes virtually speechless for a while. She now knows (on both the cognitive and the emotional level) several things she didn’t know before—about herself and about liberty and about Peterson. It’s a lot for her to take in. In response, at one point I thought I could see a fleeting little smile of respect and enjoyment on her face.

And then to top it all off, Paterson says “Ha! Gotcha!” in the most playful way. It’s another table-turning moment, because it’s done with good humor and charm rather than nastiness. “Gotcha” can be said in a hostile and nasty tone, but here Peterson’s tone is anything but. This in effect becomes another process observation on Peterson’s part, drawing attention to the game-playing aspect of the entire interview. It’s an element of interviews that’s usually ignored and not talked about during the interview itself, in which both people usually stick to content rather than process.

Peterson’s also correct with that playful “Gotcha!”—he has stumped her, and she knows it. And although she must feel somewhat humiliated, I think Newman also perceives the spirit in which Peterson said it. We’re in this game together, he seems to be saying. We’re sometimes willing to offend and not always be greeable, but we’re truth-seekers, playing for high stakes in the world of ideas but bobbing and weaving in a gamelike fashion as we spar about them.

I don’t know for sure whether that’s what she sees, but that’s what I see happening there.

It’s a tour de force on Peterson’s part. I don’t know whether I’m interpreting Newman’s reaction correctly, and I’m certainly not saying that even if she had that reaction that it would last very long. But man, he’s impressive—as thinker, debater, therapist, and human being. Newman got to experience all four of those things during that interview.