Jordan Peterson, and How Refusing to Notice Things Tugs Leftward On Your Soul

Now he's hanging out with David French? It started with an illogical defense of Israel. Now he's gone hard left and hasn't turned back since.

There’s a growing irony buried in Jordan Peterson’s public evolution—and it's one he probably won’t allow himself to face. The man who once made a career by telling young men to confront the dragon, to stare unblinking into chaos, and to clean their metaphorical rooms, now finds himself nervously dusting around the furniture rather than questioning the structural rot in the house. In recent months, Peterson’s rhetoric has become increasingly erratic when discussing the so-called “woke right”—his label for post-liberal conservatives, Christian nationalists, and those guilty of noticing too many patterns when it comes to Israel. And now, in what seems to be the natural next step, he’s teamed up with David French—an evangelical soft-shell crab whose political instincts never advanced beyond a 2004 National Review op-ed.

The fact that Peterson, once a symbol of intellectual rebellion against progressive totalitarianism, now sees French as a reliable voice on masculinity should tell you everything you need to know. But if it doesn’t, let’s spell it out: Peterson is realigning himself with the Left, not because he wants to, but because he’s too afraid not to.

THE RED LINE HE WON’T CROSS

There’s a specific issue that underlies Peterson’s recent alienation from the dissident right—and that issue is Israel. More specifically, it’s the refusal by Peterson and others like him to even entertain the idea that Western foreign policy, media discourse, and post-WWII institutions might be overly skewed in favor of a particular ethno-religious narrative. He’s not just unwilling to critique the Israeli state; he lashes out at those who dare to. Increasingly, Peterson’s attacks on the “woke right” are focused less on drag queens and pronouns, and more on people questioning Israeli influence, Jewish identity politics, or the wisdom of continuing the Cold War-era alliances that define the Post-War Consensus.

This is a strange pivot for a man who became famous for standing athwart compelled speech. Why now, in the face of an increasingly obvious global reordering, does he choose to defend not truth, but taboo? And more to the point—why is he starting to look more like David French than his former self?

The answer lies in the fact that Peterson, for all his talk about confronting chaos, has found the one dragon he will not slay. For him, Israel—and the broader constellation of Jewish exceptionalism in modern Western political theology—is sacred ground. And if your compass doesn’t allow you to move into forbidden territory, the only remaining path is retreat. And retreat is exactly what he's doing—away from truth, and toward the increasingly exhausted and shriveled center-left.

THE MOMENT WHEN PETERSON TURNED LEFT

The shift didn’t happen all at once, but there was a clear moment when the edges of Peterson’s courage began to dull—when his voice, once defiant in the face of institutional power, began to tremble around a particular subject. You could see it in interviews where the topic of Israel surfaced—not even harsh critiques, just gentle questioning of the status quo. Where Peterson had once dissected Marxism, feminism, and the ideological underpinnings of postmodernism with surgical precision, he suddenly grew vague, tense, and visibly irritated. The sharpness faded. The psychologist who once told millions to speak truth “precisely” now seemed to fumble for euphemisms.

A notable instance came during his uneasy comments on rising Christian nationalism, in which he all but admitted that criticism of Israel was the “one bridge too far.” He didn’t offer counterarguments—he offered revulsion. Not against a bad idea, but against the idea that certain things could even be questioned. And this discomfort didn’t just remain personal; it became prescriptive. Soon, those who asked the hard questions he refused to ask were branded as dangerous, toxic, or morally suspect.

That was the moment everything changed. From then on, Peterson wasn’t just avoiding the subject—he was reorienting his worldview to guard it. His public alignment with David French wasn’t some quirky one-off; it was the natural consequence of drawing a red line around forbidden topics and attacking anyone who crosses it. Once you refuse to follow the truth wherever it leads, you’re no longer a guide—you’re a gatekeeper. And in choosing which doors must remain locked, Peterson revealed more than a political preference. He revealed a fear masquerading as principle. And it’s that fear—not conviction—that now defines his drift.

THE FALSE FRONT OF NEUTRALITY

Peterson’s entire project has always presented itself as “non-political.” His fans love to describe him as a psychologist first, not a pundit. And yet, over time, his audience has increasingly been composed of young men who are seeking not just psychological help, but metaphysical answers—and social courage. They aren’t tuning in to hear about Jungian archetypes; they’re looking for a map out of the nihilism of modernity. For a time, Peterson gave them that—or at least gestured in that direction.

But now, in his desperate attempt to remain “neutral” on the most radioactive topic in Western discourse, Peterson has betrayed the very virtue he once modeled: courage. You can’t build a worldview on the necessity of truth-telling and then smother the truth whenever it points toward a sensitive demographic. You can’t demand that others clean their room while you refuse to clean your own ideological house.

This is where David French comes in. French is, in many ways, the natural landing place for a man like Peterson—someone whose conscience prevents him from going “too far,” and whose respectability addiction prevents him from telling the whole truth. French, after all, has made a career out of being technically right on safe issues while betraying the right on every issue that actually matters. Gay marriage? Shrug. Drag queen story hour? “A blessing of liberty.” Christian Nationalism? Oh no—absolutely not. Like Peterson, French is deeply uncomfortable with any strain of conservatism that goes beyond individualism or questions the sacred cows of modern liberalism. In other words, both men are defenders of a neutered conservatism, one that conserves nothing but the taboos of the Left.

THE LEFTWARD GRAVITY OF COWARDICE

What we are witnessing is a migration—not of ideology, but of resolve. When someone refuses to deal honestly with the core conflicts of our time, when they slap the label “anti-Semitism” on anyone who asks inconvenient questions, they don’t stay in place. They drift. The gravity of cowardice pulls them leftward, not because they’ve had a change of heart, but because refusing to change your mind often means changing your allies.

The old guard of liberalism is full of men like this—pseudo-centrist intellectuals who claim to stand on “principle” while tithing respectability to every dominant regime narrative. And once you refuse to reexamine those narratives, once you declare whole categories of thought out of bounds, you’ve already surrendered the field. Conservatism, by its very nature, requires confrontation with reality—especially when it’s uncomfortable. A conservatism that cannot name its enemies is just liberalism with better haircuts.

So what brings Peterson and French together? It’s not masculinity. That’s just the pretense. French has written nothing of substance on masculinity—he's spent most of his career shaming the very kind of men Peterson used to inspire. No, what unites them is their shared horror at the rise of a bold, non-cucked Christianity. They are both terrified of a faith that says Christ is King, the nations are His inheritance, and that the people of God should build societies ordered around that claim.

That kind of faith isn't polite. It doesn’t genuflect to Holocaust museums or defer to foreign lobbies. It asks hard questions. It’s willing to rethink the Post-War Consensus. It’s willing to offend. And that’s precisely why it’s gaining traction—because the people are tired of being lied to, gaslit, and browbeaten by the likes of David French and Jordan Peterson.

THE REAL CONSERVATIVES ARE ALREADY GONE

At the end of the day, Jordan Peterson is not moving left because he wants to—but because he has to. If you refuse to rethink sacred narratives, you will eventually be absorbed by the institutions that preserve them. The truth is that the “right” he fears isn’t woke—it’s just awake. It’s awake to the failures of postwar liberalism, awake to the hypocrisies of neoconservatism, and awake to the fact that many of our institutions, media outlets, and wars are not being directed by our national interest or biblical morality, but by a foreign one.

Peterson can either confront that reality—or keep pretending. And since pretending pays better, gets you invited on more stages, and avoids the “anti-Semitic” label, we all know which route he’s going to take. He’ll share a stage with David French. He’ll keep accusing the “far right” of going too far. And he’ll continue preaching courage while practicing cowardice.

That’s not wisdom. That’s betrayal. And it’s not conservative—it’s a white-knuckled surrender to the liberal order he once swore to resist.

Tonight on X, I said that I didn’t have time to put this together and I would do it this weekend. Instead, I decided to whip up this little article anyway.

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