Jordan Peterson does not understand Nietzsche, I have had a gripe with him about this for a long long time. He has toured the world for years telling all of you that Nietzsche was wrong to think we can “create our own values”. He qualifies this by declaring: “Carl Jung said you cannot create your own values, our values are revealed to us by our unconscious.”
But in reality, Nietzsche did not use the term “create”. In his native German, Nietzsche’s phrase was: “Umwertung aller Werte”. The word Umwertung translates as reevaluation or reassessment. This is a much more specific concept than “create”. You create a book from scratch, you reassess an already written book to improve it. Nietzsche announced we must “reevaluate all values”. This is a strange blunder for Jordan to make. He himself warns us to be specific with our words. Think of the fuss Jordan makes about the correct reading of “meek” in the Gospel.
The problem is that I have heard people for years taking this opinion and parroting it as an ironclad dismissal of Fredrich. They banish Nietzsche to the filing cabinet labelled: “never go full incel”. This is all built on a mistake.
I wonder if Jordan is creating this strawman so he can casually dismiss Nietzsche’s work? Nietzsche’s requested revaluation would be destabilizing for Jordan Peterson. It would take us far beyond shouting “Woke” at nihilistic leftists. A reassessment of our values would require us to turn a ruthless eye onto the Conservative Culture that Jordan Peterson has fought so hard to redeem. Jordan may lament: “You Neitzscheans are unhinged! You are the manifestation of “The Woke” on the Right! Do we really need another assault on our traditional morals?”
I am sympathetic. Don’t mistake me for an aimless edgelord. I bring this up because we are in the business of discussing the grandest questions. We Europeans are going through a reformation of our identity from the ground up and we’re trying to centre ourselves on what is real. Jordan offers us stable Conservatism, but that doesn’t mean it is true. What is real could be radical and destabilizing. In Nietzsche’s own words: “My Truth is terrible. Up until now lies have been called Truth. The Reevaluation of all Values: This is my formula for mankind's greatest step towards coming to its senses.”
So to explore Jordan’s blindspot, you and I will do what Nietzsche asked us to do, which is a reevaluation of our Western moral values. This process starts with a question: what are moral values?
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