Markle vs Peterson: the fight for civilisation's soul

Ying and yang. Good versus evil. Jordan Peterson and Meghan Markle.

There may be better embodiments of the current dualistic state of our culture than the last two, but I cannot think of them.

Pootling along and listening to Jordan Peterson's Beyond Order: 12 More Rules For Life, I felt like I was getting a stern but fair lecture from the mythological father, as the psychologist would probably say. Much of his philosophy centres upon one idea: 'You must do better'.

The rules rush past. Each one stabs at a part of my psyche as I realise I fall guilty of a litany of personal sins.

Rule II: Imagine who you could be, then aim single-mindedly at that: I spent years having no idea what I was doing, or where I was going. Time rolled by and opportunities were squandered. I should probably get a handle on that at some point.

Rule VII: Work as hard as you possible can on at least one thing and see what happens: I am sure I could work harder. I do all this writing but I am a terrible self-publicist. Success won't just fall out of a tree and hit me on the head. Yet part of me still hopes it might.

Rule XII: Be grateful in spite of your suffering: who doesn't slump into ingratitude? I all too often do.

Peterson turns driving down the A14 into a valuable period of self-reflection. I will do better, I find myself pledging. No wonder his books sell by the million and have been translated into every tongue under the sun. He's an antidote.

To what?

On one journey I decide to ring the changes. Instead of everybody's favourite Canadian psychologist, I subject my lugholes to the onslaught of everyone's least favourite Californian princess.

Staggering through an episode and a half, I find myself swinging violently from nausea to incredulity to snorts of laughter.

Every sentence uttered by Markle is a treacle-ladened falsely saccharine Californification. 'Totally.' 'Absolutely.' 'Amazing.' 'Oh my gosh.' 'You're thriving.' 'It's a journey'. Each utterance delivered with the false gravitas only a failed actress could muster.

An episode I listened to ended with a crescendo of cacophonous drivel. After exploring how Asian women are oppressed by those pesky White Males, Markle delivered a tour de force of woke guffery, talking about how we should perceive ourselves:

“You want to be weird or be sponge-like, be silly or fierce, be curious, or even self doubting or unsure some days and strong and brave on others?

Just be yourself no matter what any societal framework or archetype or loud voice coming from a small place tells you that you should be.

Be yourself. Your full complete whole layered, sometimes weird, sometimes awesome, but always best and true self. Just be you. You're so much greater than any archetype."

Meghan likes to bandy around the word 'archetype', much like a young child who has just learnt a new word. My two-year-old nephew uses 'pterodactyl' about as frequently.

Nor is this comparison too far off the mark. In another episode she expresses envy that her young child can erupt in a temper tantrum and let out its anger in a somehow 'authentic' way, as opposed to having to 'suppress' and 'repress' her true emotions (naturally there is a healthy dose of cod psychology to contend with in any episode).

She is the perfect symbol of the malign forces that rot our society from beneath. Self-obsessed, shallow and vacuous, she implores we 'be ourselves'.

The incantation quickly hits its logical limit. If everyone should 'be themselves', and she just spent fifty-five minutes decrying how so many people are malign – the omnipresent forces of repression – then surely everyone shouldn't just 'be themselves'. Or should only certain people 'be themselves'? Meghan's hollow platitudes never quite makes it clear.

The answer is, of course, provided by Doc Peterson. You shouldn't be happy with yourself. You shouldn't unconditionally love yourself, either. Have you never made a massive error of judgement, been a git to someone or acted improperly? Could you not be greater than you are today if you strove to be more tomorrow? Should you love your current self, or what you maybe could be, if only you weren't so deeply flawed?

But all of that requires hard work and some introspection. Hence it is unappealing to the vapid drips of the Hollywood mould.

If you want to get anywhere in this world, follow the good Doctor's advice. The medicine is bitter but it lends a long-lasting resistance to the traps that befall those who swallow the mindless platitudes of post-modernism, of which Markle is just the latest purveyor.