Jordan Peterson’s self-help conservatism

In the last few years Jordan Peterson has become a rising figure both as a political commentator and a self-improvement author. In his two best-selling self-help books, 12 Rules for Life (2018) and Beyond Order (2021), he oscillates between professional anecdotes, biologism and an allegorical reading of mythological narratives, with a particular focus on the Bible, to offer moral guidance at a time of overlapping crises and uncertain futures, particularly for young men. He does so in an apparently pragmatic, down-to-earth manner, avoiding offering clear-cut frameworks and explicitly rejecting ideological thinking. Despite such pretension, the article shows how Peterson’s self-help works are infused with a particular ideology: conservatism. It does so through the notion of interdiscursivity, which explores how different discourses can be textured together to give way to new, hybrid discourses such as what will be referred to as ‘self-help conservatism.’