Looking at Life Through Wound-colored Glasses
The Ironic Example of Jordan Peterson
“My point of view is logical; it’s definitely the truth and the way I know that’s so is because it makes perfect sense to me and just feels right. Other people’s perspectives must be wrong, even if they have a lot of data or other “evidence” because that just doesn’t line up with what feels most right to me!”
If you’ve ever been in a contentious conversation or a debate with someone else, you’ve no doubt run across this dynamic. Your point of view makes sense to you and theirs makes sense to them. Most things in life are pretty subjective; our understanding of them comes through the filter of our own experiences. We assign our own meaning to the events that take place in our sphere, and a good bit of that comes out of the places where we’ve been hurt in the past.
We tend to look at life through wound-colored glasses, and if we are not conscious that is what’s going on, we may find ourselves doing things or saying things for no other reason than because they seem right to us in the moment. The wounded places are running the show. The more disconnected you are from your emotions, the more likely it is that they are what’s actually in control in your life.
It’s like that scene from the Wizard of Oz where you realize that the “Great and Powerful Oz” is really just a projection created by a little man behind a curtain. But a lot of people, maybe most people, don’t realize that in their own lives. They like to see themselves as logical, rational, purposeful, and intelligent. Emotions are scary; they are for people who are out of control. Emotions may put you right back in the experience of being wounded, and who wants to relive that? If you are someone who believes this, even if it’s not a conscious belief, it becomes necessary to create a veneer of intellectualism to justify your emotion driven impulses so that you can come across as rational -both to yourself and to others.
Western societies are enamored of the logical, the rational and the scientific, but emotional and rational aren’t necessarily the antithesis of each other. In fact, our emotions actually give us a lot of information that can be analyzed and used to make decisions from a place of choice rather than knee jerk reaction, but you have to be able to meet and understand your emotions before you can use them in that way. That takes effort and it takes vulnerability. Some people would just assume construct a framework to justify their wound-based beliefs instead. That takes effort also, but it doesn’t require the deep personal excavation of places that feel uncomfortable and so it may be easier to choose that. Even easier when someone else constructs the framework for you and all you have to do is to jump on the bandwagon.
We see this in everything from political parties to religions and it’s what I think Jordan Peterson does. He’s created a whole cottage industry around it and it’s why he is so wildly popular in some quarters. His wounds and fears about a changing world are the mirrors of the ones shared by others, primarily younger, white males. His thin veneer of intellectualism makes it all seem perfectly “true” and valid. Those who defend him, often vehemently and rabidly, do so because what he says just feels so right to them. When shortcomings in analysis are pointed out, they do not demonstrate how the analysis is actually solid; they resort to name calling and insinuations of latent neo-Marxism (whatever that is) and that the other person “just misunderstands.” “Have you watched all of his videos?”
Peterson’s acolytes defend, with a variety of flimsy excuses, the fact that he often contradicts himself or that he routinely leaves inconvenient facts out of the equation. “He himself admits that he makes mistakes. He’s only recently come down out of the Ivory Tower of academia.” One guy I talked to even conceded that Peterson has a blind spot when it comes to what women still deal with on a societal level. He conceded that Peterson often contradicts himself, although he assured me that this doesn’t make him a hypocrite. He conceded to most of my assertions, but when I asked him, why in the face of all that he still supported him, he did not answer. I think it’s because Peterson gives voice to his fears and makes them seem not like a perceived weakness (which feels bad), but rather like a holy crusade (which feels good).
How is this any different than the #MeToo and #TimesUp movements? Aren’t these women (and men) just acting from their own wounded places? While it’s certainly true that they are speaking about their wounded places, naming specific dynamics or actual instances that have caused trauma and distress is not the same as alluding to broad, sweeping, non-specific assertions of harm, like “Feminists are destroying our society” or “Most Mexicans are rapists.” So while it’s certainly possible for someone who has been raped or stereotyped to project their wounds out into the culture, it’s also a necessary part of change for those who have been systemically abused to have a chance to speak. This doesn’t mean that everything they feel or want to see occur should go unexamined, but it definitely should be considered an important part of a larger conversation about how we go about crafting a safer, more equitable society.
And the same goes for the types of wounds that Peterson followers (or Trump followers) have. The viewpoints informed by their wounds or insecurities should also be heard and taken into account. Conversations need to happen rather than diatribes. Real listening and real discussions will take us further than ideological grandstanding, but there has to be vulnerability in order to have real conversations, and not everyone is ready to do that. People who perceive that they are losing something because other people are gaining rights or greater equality aren’t typically anxious to sit down and really examine their fears.
I have to admit that my own wounds around having my needs and concerns overshadowed and my voice shut down in the past means I don’t have a lot of patience with someone else who is coming to the table unwilling to truly listen to my point of view as well as to assert theirs. It’s a place I could potentially do better, but on the other hand, as I once said to someone who was encouraging me to figure out how to make myself OK with a hurtful and intolerable situation, “I’ve spent my life doing that. I think my growth edge is actually in the other direction.”
But if you were willing to be self-responsible enough, how would you evaluate whether or not your wounds were in play in any given situation? The first place to look is at conflicts or upsets of any kind. If something doesn’t seem to be going smoothly, take some quiet time alone and ask yourself:
- What’s really going on in this situation. Why did I become angry or upset?
- Who does the other person involved remind me of and am I reliving another older conflict or wound through them?
- Am I feeling unheard or otherwise undermined and is that truly taking place right now, or is that an old dynamic raising it’s head that is getting projected onto the present situation?
- What am I afraid of right now that is causing me to lash out?
- Where can I take responsibility for myself in this situation? Do I need to make an apology or give an explanation to someone?
Learning to do this is like building any kind of a muscle. It takes repetition and a willingness to dig a bit deeper the next time as you begin to get the hang of it. You have to make friends with your fears and your hurts. You have to be able to be vulnerable enough and emotionally healthy enough to acknowledge that you make mistakes or aren’t in complete control all of the time. But the pay off is that then you tend to then be involved in fewer “drama” situations. You begin to be able to communicate better and that leads to better relationships of all types.
I won’t pretend that I always know in the moment why I’m feeling triggered or upset by something. Fatigue and other distractions or stressors can lead to temporary blindness, but at this juncture, I pretty reliably know within 24 hours what happened and why I got upset. And what that means is that I’m less likely to act or speak out of reflex and more likely to speak or act with intention the next time, even if a wounded place is in play. I am able to take responsibility for myself or to make a necessary apology in a timely manner. I get to know myself more deeply. I can say to my partner, “I’m sorry that I got so bent out of shape about that. It made me feel like I used to when my mom would send me into some situation with incomplete information. I shouldn’t have taken that out on you.”
Interestingly, from a Jungian perspective, all of this is known as taking a look at your shadow. It’s something that Jordan Peterson advocates, although in my opinion, I don’t think he’s actually done very much of that kind of work. His beliefs are too unnuanced, too tone-deaf to the realities of so many people’s experiences that they can’t possibly have undergone much in-depth scrutiny. They just feel right to him and then he’s built a framework to support those feelings. He’s even said that it’s nearly impossible to understand why we do what we do — That we can’t help but be run by our darker places. Au contraire, Dr. Peterson. Meeting and understanding our shadow and our wounds is imminently knowable. You just have to be willing to actually go there.
© Copyright Elle Beau 2020 Elle Beau writes on Medium about sex, life, relationships, society, anthropology, spirituality, and love. If this story is appearing anywhere other than Medium.com, it appears without my consent and has been stolen.
