Dr. Jordan Peterson, the internationally-acclaimed author of the massive best-selling book “12 Rules for Life: An Antidote for Chaos,” slammed woke activist Ta-Nehisi Coates after it was revealed that in a Captain America comic Coates penned, the arch-nemesis of Captain America, the Red Skull, who is a Nazi, espoused “Ten Rules for Life” and articulated sentiments quite similar to Peterson’s own philosophy.
On Sunday, Peterson opined that The Atlantic, where Coates had worked as a national correspondent, had contributed to the rise of a culture where a conservative openly stating his/her opinions could get them fired. He wrote, “Would it be picayune to point out just how much the once-admirable Atlantic Magazine has helped develop this insanely bullying and self-righteous culture?”
Would it be picayune to point out just how much the once-admirable Atlantic Magazine has helped develop this insanely bullying and self-righteous culture? https://t.co/8zDcPAPmaz
— Dr Jordan B Peterson (@jordanbpeterson) April 5, 2021
Peterson was then apprised of the fact that Coates had possibly mocked him in the Captain America comic by using the “Ten Rules for Life” image, prompting him to reply, “What the hell?”
What the hell? https://t.co/CGkuztpEjq
— Dr Jordan B Peterson (@jordanbpeterson) April 6, 2021
That was followed by the recognition that Captain America, as written by Coates, said of the Red Skull that he tells young men “What they’ve always longed to hear. That they are secretly great. That the whole world is against them. That if they’re truly men, they’ll fight back. And bingo —that’s what they’ll live for. That’s what they’ll die for.”
Peterson was informed that the two incidents described came from the same issue.
Same page even. Captain America (2018) #28 pic.twitter.com/Ku3kXeUBan
— PSA Sitch🚸 (@PSA_Sitch) April 6, 2021
Peterson stated, “Do I really live in a universe where Ta-Nehisi Coates has written a Captain America comic featuring a parody of my ideas as part of the philosophy of the arch villain Red Skull?”
Do I really live in a universe where Ta-Nehisi Coates has written a Captain America comic featuring a parody of my ideas as part of the philosophy of the arch villain Red Skull? https://t.co/waFsAvWlfd
— Dr Jordan B Peterson (@jordanbpeterson) April 6, 2021
Peterson’s emphasis on self-reliance brought him millions of readers, emboldening them to take responsibility for their lives and actions.
When rap superstar Kanye West took the highly-controversial step of having the audacity to say complimentary things about former President Donald Trump, Coates bitterly attacked him, writing in an article titled, “I’m Not Black, I’m Kanye”:
Kanye West, a god in this time, awakened, recently, from a long public slumber to embrace Donald Trump. He hailed Trump, as a “brother,” a fellow bearer of “dragon energy,” and impugned those who objected as suppressors of “unpopular questions,” “thought police” whose tactics were “based on fear.” It was Trump, West argued, not Obama, who gave him hope that a black boy from the South Side of Chicago could be president. …like Trump, West is shockingly ignorant. …
West calls his struggle the right to be a “free thinker,” and he is, indeed, championing a kind of freedom—a white freedom, freedom without consequence, freedom without criticism, freedom to be proud and ignorant; freedom to profit off a people in one moment and abandon them in the next; a Stand Your Ground freedom, freedom without responsibility, without hard memory; a Monticello without slavery, a Confederate freedom, the freedom of John C. Calhoun, not the freedom of Harriet Tubman, which calls you to risk your own; not the freedom of Nat Turner, which calls you to give even more, but a conqueror’s freedom, freedom of the strong built on antipathy or indifference to the weak, the freedom of rape buttons, pu**y grabbers, and f*** you anyway, b****; freedom of oil and invisible wars, the freedom of suburbs drawn with red lines, the white freedom of Calabasas.