Controversial academic Jordan Peterson to give Glasgow lecture

A controversial academic who has been accused of using social media to spread abusive misogyny is coming to Scotland to deliver a lecture on his latest book.

Toronto University psychology professor Jordan Peterson will be at the King’s Theatre in Glasgow to discuss “overcoming life’s biggest obstacles, how to improve oneself” and his best-selling book 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos.
The audience is invited to take part in a question and answer session after the lecture and “leave feeling better about the world”.

Read More
Bill Jamieson: I've found two antidotes to our cult of unhappiness

Peterson has been described as “the most influential public intellectual in the Western world right now” by David Brooks of the New York Times.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

But he has also been described as a right-wing reactionary. He reportedly claimed that feminists have “an unconscious wish for brutal male domination” and referred to developing nations as “pits of catastrophe”.

Earlier this year Channel 4 journalist Cathy Newman challenged Peterson’s arguments over male and female behaviour.

Following the interview, Newman was subjected to such a barrage of online abuse - including death threats - from his followers that police were called in.

Peterson insisted he tried to stop the abuse.

Newman later told the Guardian: “I wasn’t prepared for the torrent of abuse after [the Peterson interview]. People say: ‘Why don’t you just block them?’ But there were literally thousands of abusive tweets – it was a semi-organised campaign.”

She added: “I’ve thought of coming off social media because why should I have to deal with all this crap? It’s too time-consuming, but why should I or any woman be silenced? It gives the trolls exactly what they want.”

Peterson has 790,000 followers on Twitter and nearly a million YouTube subscribers.

He will be at the King’s Theatre in Glasgow on Saturday 27 October.