Ezerwoman's Blog

Young people at universities today are told: Crush yourself down. You are a cancer on the planet. We’re headed for an environmental disaster. Patriarchy is bad. The entire historical structure is nothing but atrocity.

Believing this, the student despairs of pursuing his or her ambition.

With this in mind, Peter Robinson asked Jordan Peterson, “What is the restorative, redemptive sentence for young people at the university?”

Peterson answered, “Don’t be thinking your ambition is corrupt.

Peterson goes on to tell of a professor who trumpeted the environmentally fine house he built. Fair enough. It was a nice house. It was great that he could afford to build it. But then the professor told his students that he and his wife decided to have only one child. This, he said, is the most ethical thing we can do. “I would strongly encourage you to do the same.”

Many students in the audience were first generation children of immigrants from China. They were well aware of what it means to “struggle in the mud under Mao.” The professor dared to tell these students that everything is so corrupt that the best thing to do is limit having children. He! A scholar and educator! Demoralizing young people [by way of utilitarian ethics]! Purposefully dashing the hopeful ideas and aspirations of young men and women.

After explaining this, Peterson paused to maintain his composure. “I am passionate about this. You have no idea how many people that is killing! I see people all over the world, so demoralized, especially young people with a conscience. They’ve been told since they were little that there’s nothing to them except corruption and power. How the hell do we expect them to react? They think, ‘Well, I shouldn’t do anything then.’”

Here, then, is the challenge. As “social” justice destroys the joy and optimism of human life, we are needed to engage young people with restorative hope. God gave to man the noble ambition to work in ways that bring order out of chaos. He gave to woman the ability to bear new life and build homes, not empty houses. We don’t need to be demoralized and defeated by our corruptive sins. Repentant men and women are set free by the mercy of Christ to pursue what is good, right, and true.

~ Written with appreciation to Jordan Peterson using excerpts from his response to Peter Robinson in “The Importance of Being Ethical” for Uncommon Knowledge, the web series for thinkers sponsored by the Hoover Institution ~ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DcA5TotAkhs