I have not read or watched nearly what this author has, but I will say that this long and devastating piece on Jordan Peterson is consistent with my impressions of what I have. Here's some snippets, but you should take the time to read the whole thing. TL;DR: there is no there, there.
"But, having examined Peterson’s work closely, I think the “misinterpretation” of Peterson is only partially a result of leftists reading him through an ideological prism. A more important reason why Peterson is “misinterpreted” is that he is so consistently vague and vacillating that it’s impossible to tell what he is “actually saying.” People can have such angry arguments about Peterson, seeing him as everything from a fascist apologist to an Enlightenment liberal, because his vacuous words are a kind of Rorschach test onto which countless interpretations can be projected....
Peterson is at his murkiest when he is talking about nature. Half the time he seems to be committing the naturalistic fallacy: he’ll describe tendencies that exist, and imply that these things are therefore good. So he’ll talk about dominance hierarchies among lobsters, and exhort young men to “Look for your inspiration to the victorious lobster.” Of course, the animal kingdom is also a place of mutual aid, and for a man to emulate a lobster is like a woman treating the existence of the praying mantis as a license to eat her husband. But Peterson will vacillate between seeming to claim that nature implies a clear and virtuous hierarchical order of things and insisting that he is not precluding criticism of the existing order of things. When he seems to be saying something fallacious (e.g. hierarchies are okay because natural) he will qualify it with a caveat that means he is saying nothing at all (e.g. natural things are sometimes okay but not always). ...
There’s no good reason for turning to evolution and the animal kingdom for moral advice, yet this is what Peterson recommends. Or doesn’t. I am dreading the inevitable emails insisting that I just don’t understand Peterson, containing copious quotes in which he insists he is saying the opposite of things he seems to be saying elsewhere...
But here the left and academia actually bear a decent share of blame. Why is Jordan Peterson’s combination of drivel and cliché attracting millions of followers? Some of it is probably because alt-right guys like that he gives a seemingly scientific justification for their dislike of “social justice warriors.” Some of it is just that self-help always sells. Another part of it, though, is that academics have been cloistered and unhelpful, and the left has failed to offer people a coherent political alternative. Jordan Peterson is right that people are adrift and in need of meaning. Many of them lap up his lectures because he offers something resembling insight, and promises the secrets to a good life. It’s not actually insight, of course; it’s stuff everybody already knows, dressed up in gobbledegook. But it feels like something. Tabatha Southey was cruel to call Jordan Peterson “the stupid man’s smart person.” He is the desperate man’s smart person, he feeds on angst and confusion. Who else has a serious alternative? Where are the other professors with accessible and compelling YouTube channels, with books of helpful advice and long Q&A sessions with the public? No wonder Peterson is so popular: he comes along and offers rules and guidance in a world of, well, chaos. Just leave it to Dad, everything will be alright."
