Why Do Joe Rogan, Jordan Peterson Ignore Reality of Ukraine?
Missile Strikes vs Ice Baths
I send this during only the second air-alarm today, during a highly-unusual time of several days with no Russian strikes on Kharkiv. Many foreign intelligence agencies warned that Russia would do something huge before the February 24 anniversary of Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and there was a palpable sense of trepidation here in Kharkiv on February 23. But now as two days pass, people find a new strength and keep going—though still with some anxiety.
Meanwhile, after one year of war, I want to ask Joe Rogan and Jordan Peterson why, given their huge focus on human excellence in difficult situations, they have ignored Ukrainian resilience, preferring to focus on Russia and on conspiracy theories:
KHARKIV—From its rejection of victimhood to its fierce freedom, Ukraine is everything you’d think Jordan Peterson, Joe Rogan, and their followers would love. But after one year of Russia’s big invasion, they largely ignore it, even though morning missile strikes wake you up better than an ice bath. Read my story from Poland’s TVP World here.
From its rejection of victimhood to its fierce freedom, Ukraine is everything you’d think Jordan Peterson, Joe Rogan, and their followers would love. But after one year of Russia’s big invasion, they largely ignore it, even though morning missile strikes wake you up better than an ice bath.
KHARKIV—It’s been nearly one year of war in Ukraine, where I got pleasantly stuck during the pandemic and where I have been every minute of Russia’s full-scale invasion. In these twelve brutal months, I have seen the best of humanity, both from Ukrainians and the foreigners who’ve come to fight, feed, and fortify. The stories of the push for human excellence in difficult circumstances, of radical honesty as people buck each other up, are the sort of things you’d hear on a Joe Rogan podcast or a Jordan Peterson interview.
Except we don’t. After one year of Ukraine’s Spartan-like resistance to massive Russia neither super-podcaster Joe Rogan nor super-psychologist Jordan Peterson, with masses of followers, have embraced this most amazing story of human excellence.
Before February 24, 2022, many of my Ukrainian friends admired Joe Rogan because of their fierce belief in free speech, something they stand to lose under Russian occupation, and also perhaps because they like to go looking for mushrooms in the forests. And they. Loved Jordan Peterson, especially his focus on bootstrapping self-reliance.
“I always loved Jordan Peterson,” my friend Sasha, a Ukrainian knifemaker in Lviv, told me recently. “But we don’t need him now. He’s left us. He doesn’t understand us.”
Indeed, as Russia seeks to destroy Ukraine, Peterson, author of 12 Rules for Life, has largely ignored Ukraine, except when he tells mass media that it’s impossible for Ukraine to win.
“We cannot win against Vladimir Putin,” Peterson said on Piers Morgan’s show last fall. “Because you can’t win against someone you cannot say no to.”
Here Peterson misses something crucial. One year of resistance has shown the world that you also can’t say “no” to the Ukrainians, for whom the idea of freedom—of being self-directors—is so vital that they have a special word that goes beyond freedom: volya, the will to freedom. That word is embedded in their Trident symbol.
Read the rest of the story here.
Six unpopular truths about Ukraine
1. Russia’s war on Ukraine is happening for one reason: Ukrainians insist on freedom.
2. The talk of war crimes misses the point. The entire war is a war crime.
3. Ukraine’s democratic corruption is not as awful as in numerous other countries.
4. Most Ukrainians are unvaccinated against coronavirus.
5. Hunter Biden made money from Russia, and not from Ukraine.
6. The US has actually given less support to Ukraine than it seems.
“[It's something rare in our world of corporate and automated radio regular, real humanity.”
—Neil Steinberg, in the Chicago Sun-Times, on Joe Lindsley’s daily Ukraine reports with Bob Sirott of Chicago’s WGN Radio. We invite you to follow on YouTube.
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Walking in a Winter Wonderland, Before the Big War:
... and remembering the last moments of peace one year ago, those freedom days of jazz music in Lviv…
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