Cowardice, unkindness, and comfort zones at cambridge | thearticle

Last week, Cambridge University’s Divinity Faculty rescinded an offer made to Jordan Peterson – by tweet. A spokesperson said “[Cambridge] is an inclusive environment and we expect all our

staff and visitors to uphold our principles. There is no place here for anyone who cannot”. This was directed at Peterson and is a chilling public statement to make about someone without any

further context or explanation. To say “there is no place here” for a person is to firmly shove them into an “out” group. There was no immediate follow up with Peterson to explain the

decision. Could anyone disagree that this is a cold, discourteous, and unkind way to treat a person? Just as bad was the reek of cowardice. Despite interest in this matter from newspapers in

the UK and the USA no-one from the University seemed available for comment. But then the Vice-Chancellor of the University, Professor Stephen J Toope, issued a statement saying that the

Divinity Faculty rescinded the offer became it became aware of a photograph of Professor Peterson posing with his arm around a man wearing an obnoxious T-shirt that bore the slogan “I’m a

proud Islamophobe”. Nobody disputes that this is a photograph of Peterson posing with “a fan from New Zealand”. In other words, this is not someone Peterson knows, or associates with – or

has even properly met. But that one picture was reason enough to rescind an offer? It barely stacks up. Peterson was going to join Cambridge University’s Faculty of Divinity for two months

to study Exodus stories from the Old Testament. I am delighted that he says he will proceed with the study anyway. His thoughts on Genesis are illuminating. More than a million people have

watched this one two-hour lecture alone. I took Women’s Studies at University in the 1980s. We explored how the great mythologies and stories of the past were misogynist in their treatment

of women. We explored how women were usually betrayed as passive victims or aggressive harpies. We focused in on what we were looking for. It took Jordan Peterson to open my eyes. I will use

the example of the story of Adam and Eve, which Peterson talks about in his book, Twelve Rules for Life. For all these years I had bought into the notion that it portrays “Woman” as

responsible for Man’s downfall. But Peterson looks at it differently. Let’s start where God has created Adam and Eve and they are naked and unashamed. God has planted the tree of knowledge

of good and evil, but He has instructed Adam and Eve not to eat of it. Are they not, at this stage, little more than the most hairless of the great apes? Looking like humans, but not fully

human? A serpent comes into the garden and tempts Eve to eat the fruit. She does so and she wakes up. “She’s conscious, or perhaps self-conscious for the first time”. “Now, no clear-seeing,

conscious woman is going to tolerate an unawakened man”. Eve shares the fruit with Adam – and he wakes up too. He becomes self-conscious. What would you rather? To still be sitting around in

a plentiful garden as the most hairless of the great apes? Or to be a fully conscious human in all its pain and glory? Adam was happy sunning himself. It took the courage and curiosity of

Eve to wake us all up. I like what Eve did. I like Peterson’s version. Peterson also talks about the role of the snake in this story. No walls could shut it out. We can’t shut it out –

partly because it is in all of us. But also: “even if it were possible to permanently banish everything threatening – everything dangerous (and therefore everything challenging and

interesting) that would mean only that another danger would emerge: that of permanent human infantilism and absolute uselessness”. By shutting discussion and exploration out, isn’t Cambridge

in danger of infantilising its students? By excluding someone on the basis of a t-shirt that someone else was wearing, isn’t it letting in the serpent of closed minds and coddled comfort

zones? Another thing I like about Peterson’s Twelve Rules for Life is that he talks a lot about the great European fairy stories. But he doesn’t go back to the Grimm or the Hans Christian

Andersen versions. He talks about the Disney versions. This is absolutely wonderful for all of us mothers who have spent too many hours in front of them and know too many of their songs and

their homilies by heart. Peterson is brilliant at reaching out in this way – by treating ordinary human experience as relevant and important. Cambridge is endlessly challenged to reach out

more – and they could learn from Peterson. Anyway, my favourite line from a Disney movie comes from Kenneth Branagh’s live action re-telling of Cinderella. Just before she dies, Cinderella’s

mother tells her always to be kind and and to be brave. I find this very useful for day to day living. I wish that the relevant folks at Cambridge University would be a bit kinder in how

they treat people – and be a bit braver as well. Jordan Peterson has also enriched the lives of millions of people. He has shared learning with millions of people. Students and staff at

Cambridge should be curious to find out how. Like Eve, they should be eager to escape their comfort zones.