With the announcement of the new book, I see the hate train for @jordanbpeterson has been picking up steam again.

This saddens me, because I've seen the positive effect he's had on so many people.

I've been part of a community where people reach out to me from time to time to tell me their story.

Often they tell me how Peterson's work was instrumental in them improving their life.

From working a deadbeat job, resenting life to becoming a husband and father.

From playing videogames all day to working in a care home and becoming active in church.

Many told me how they improved the relationships with family and/or friends.

Often they yearn to share what they learned with others but don't have many around them to do so.

Could they have learned those things somewhere else? Probably. Most of JBP's ideas aren't new.
But he's the guy who reached them, spoke to them, made them "clean their room".

Most of the time it's not the culture war. It's often the route through which they find him, but it's not what they take away. Often it's the way he speaks to who they could be.

I've seen the man speak live. In a packed theater with all sorts of people. Listening to JBP talk about
how to be a good partner to your significant other, and how to raise a child. And when he talked about
meaning and responsibility you could hear a pin drop.

We've had offline meetups. Met with a small group of folks. We walked along a part of the "Santiago" pilgrim path. Talked about life, relationships, how JBP's ideas had impacted us, about how to become better people.

I've travelled along the US west coast with @PaulVanderKlay, where we ran a series of offline meetups just before C19 shut things down. And none of the conversations we had there were about politics. They were about meaning, philosophy, religion, self-improvement.

I've met a few hundred people desperate to talk about these subjects with others, because he helped them consider how to deal with suffering and take on that responsibility of life itself. Helped them understand how people think, act, and believe at a deeper level.

That's the "other side" of the JBP outrage. It's why he sells books, why his lectures were popular way before the C16 shenanigans started. Why his new book is already massively pre-ordered.

Make of all this what you will.