Jordan Peterson on being labeled a 'harm' to public: 'Dreadful mistake'
Dr. Jordan Peterson joins 'Jesse Watters Primetime' to discuss an Ontario court upholding having him undergo 'social media training' for his posts.
Canadian psychologist and author Dr. Jordan Peterson said he plans to broadcast all aspects of the "social media training" he was ordered to undergo following a series of controversial posts he shared online.
An Ontario court upheld a decision last week ordering Peterson, a media personality and professor emeritus of the University of Toronto psychology department, to complete a social media training course on professionalism in public statements or risk potentially losing his license to practice.
In an interview on "Jesse Watters Primetime" Wednesday, Peterson said he will comply with the order, but will publicize his entire experience so the public can "decide for themselves" how to interpret the order.
Part of the order read: "The order is not disciplinary and does not prevent Dr. Peterson from expressing himself on controversial topics… " according to CBC.
Dr. Peterson has been ordered to take social media training for his social media posts or potentially lose his psychology license in Ontario, Canada. (Carlos Osorio/Toronto Star via Getty Images)
"I'm going to do everything I can to make all of this as public as I possibly can," he told Fox News' Jesse Watters. "I have done that from the beginning. I released all the documents that included the charges, so to speak, that the college has levied against me. I want to make this 100% transparent and let the public decide for themselves who exactly is acting, let’s say, in an unprofessional capacity."
Depending on the legalities involved, Peterson said he will either use film, audio recordings or "extensive notes and commentary afterward" to ensure his experience is well-documented and widely shared.
"My plan is to make everything that's done to me public and if I can do that by filming, well, then, I'll do that… Somehow, everything that happens is going to be made public. It is absolutely necessary," he added.
The College of Psychologists of Ontario previously claimed that several of Peterson’s social media posts could be viewed as professional misconduct and required him to take a social media training course, stating that if he refused, he could lose his psychology license in Ontario.
Peterson filed a judicial review of the order, but the Ontario court, which came to a unanimous decision among the three judges, dismissed his request.
At the center of the academic body's complaint were a number of Peterson's social media posts calling out transgender ideology, politicians and other topics. He was suspended in 2022 from Twitter, the platform now known as X, after rebuking transgender actor Elliot Page for having her "breasts removed by a criminal physician."
Peterson maintained that his posts were his "opinions" and that he felt an obligation in his professional capacity as a psychologist to call out "sadistic" treatments and surgeries, among other things, that he considers "absolutely not acceptable."
"I’m perfectly willing to state that I am stating my opinions on Twitter and social media in my professional capacity," Peterson said. "So, for example, the comments I made about Ellen Page, you know, I’m not the least bit happy about what the sadistic surgeon butchers are doing to minors, and I’m also not very happy about narcissistic, let’s say, celebrities parading off their new, surgically enhanced body and enticing young women, for example, into becoming sterilized and butchered, so I think I have a professional obligation like all therapists and all physicians to say very clearly that this is 100% absolutely not acceptable."
The court's decision, Peterson has said, is an attack on his free speech, adding that it represents the "unraveling of all the principles upon which my country and yours are predicated."
"And that's part of the ideological possession that has swept over Canada in particular," he told host Jesse Watters.
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Peterson offered his personal assessment of the enticement among the left to challenge the fundamental freedoms and principles in place in the West.
"People have been motivated by spite and resentment forever," he added. "It's a story as old as mankind. It's as old as the story of Kane and Abel to tear down what's successful and useful in spite because your own sacrifices, let’s say, have apparently gone unrewarded, and that is just the same old endless, archetypal story playing out in political guise."
"There is no shortage of people as well, especially on the more psychopathic side of the continuum, who will adopt the camouflage of compassion… to tear everything down and dance around in the ruins."
"Everybody is in a position in their lives to feel alienated from existence itself from time to time," he said. "Life is pretty difficult and things don’t often always turn out the way we want them to, and we can all doubt the meaning of our own lives and the purpose and we're all subject to a certain amount of torture, and one of the temptations there is to get bitter and resentful and to lash out, to look for enemies and to tear down tradition, merely to shake your fist at destiny itself and to express their dismay."
"It's a constant temptation for everyone, in some ways — to be tempted, to be enticed down that pathway, but it's a very dreadful state. The freedoms that we put in place in the West, especially the freedom of speech, is predicated on the viewpoint that human existence is worthwhile and so is being itself and that we should orient ourselves properly upward and, well, some people think that is a good idea and some people take the opposite tack."
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Fox News' Gabriel Hayes contributed to this report.