In keeping with a strain of natalist talking points in recent weeks, Jordan Peterson interjected the following rumination on gender roles during a recent Daily Wire broadcast with Elon Musk.
'The sacred image of masculinity in the West is a crucifixion -- a man who is crucified. But the sacred image of a woman isn't a woman. The sacred image of a woman is a woman and an infant...It's a dyad and not a monad...In the Christian view, those two images, they vie for supremacy...Obviously, Christ is the superordinate image, but Mary as the mother of God is what would be the female equivalent. And so, one of the things I've been playing with, at an axiomatic level, is the notion that unless the feminine is conceptualized as the combination of female and infant, then the culture has lost its attachment to the traditional sacred images and is probably on its way out.'
As Peterson admitted, he has been 'playing with' a combination of Christian moralizing and patriarchy of late. In fact, he introduced a similar strain of thought into a conversation with Mary Harrington in another episode, wherein he went so far as to claim that gender as viewed through the lens of Christianity means 'you don't have an individual woman. You have woman and infant, as a unit.' Part hermeneutics, part semiotics, Peterson has essentially been dressing up and moralizing support for what are altogether extremely simplistic ideas -- binary gender; distinct gender roles; male supremacy; motherhood as the highest aspiration for women; culminating in fire and brimstone predictions for societies in which motherhood is not the peak of femininity. With more than 6.5 million views on X of his conversation with Musk to date, this theologically couched expression of patriarchal natalism has real stakes and warrants interrogation.
Unfortunately, in Musk, Peterson hardly found an enthusiastic discussion partner -- Musk mumbled 'Yeah' before pivoting to a slightly different topic. This allowed Peterson's views to seem unquestionable, even logical. However, had Peterson been faced with a partner even remotely willing to engage in Socratic questioning or interested in discussing Christian iconography, his views on gender would be exposed for the straw -- men or women -- that they are. Since Musk did not heed the call to question Peterson's assertions, I will. Although no more a theologian than Peterson is, I nonetheless offer up my questions to him (and to all who swear by his interpretation) in good faith and in the hope of their being earnestly contemplated.
My Questions (as addressed to Peterson):
1. Do you see any cognitive dissonance in your decision to declare that 'culture has lots its attachment to traditional sacred images and is probably on its way out' should it depict the feminine separate from motherhood, while electing to wear a suit jacket adorned with several classic images of Mother Mary alone?
2. Presuming that this suit jacket appears on the commercial market (rather than being one of your own making), could one not argue that another method of diminishing the sacredness of the image of Mary is her commodification? Does late stage capitalism -- in full force in the selling of this so-called sacred image -- not further tarnish the sacred aura around these figures? And if so, why participate in that commodification given your feelings about preserving traditional sacred images?
3. What, precisely, do you mean by 'sacred'? Is your definition of sacred synonymous with common? With revered? With worshipped?
4. How, exactly, did you decide that these images are the most sacred of their respective genders?
5. You say that the images of the Crucifixion and the Madonna and Child 'vie for supremacy.' In what way do you see them as competing with one another? While Marianism within Catholicism exists, who within the Christian theological community is seriously arguing for the supremacy of Mary -- doctrinally or artistically -- over Jesus? Could you, perhaps, be seeing contention between genders where none exists?
6. Your rhetoric -- 'the sacred image' and 'the female equivalent' -- implies a hierarchy of depictions of Mary, the most sacred being her with the infant Jesus. How did you make this determination? Why not the Mary of the Annunciation? Or the Mary depicted as holding her dead son, such as in Michaelangelo's La Pietà? Or after she dies and is in Heaven (in the Catholic tradition, there is even the image of the Assumption into Heaven)?
7. Within Christian hermeneutics, Jesus is conceptualized as a man, but he is also considered to be uniquely divine -- the Word Made Flesh, the Only Son of God, the Messiah, the Savior, to name a few alternative titles for him. Given that the Crucifixion is interpreted by believers to depict a being who is more than just a man, can it really be the sacred image of masculinity? Wouldn't it instead be considered to the most common depiction of the divine within the West?
8. If Jesus' doctrinal divinity disqualifies him from being the sacred image of masculinity, what depiction would stand in its stead? What might your choice say about your views on normative masculinity?
9. You juxtapose the alleged monad of the Crucifixion with the dyad of the Madonna and Child. How do you square this with the immense number of artistic portrayals (in fact, almost all of the most influential/revered pieces) of the Cruficixion that feature Mary, if not other members of a crowd as described in the New Testament?
10. What (other than personal bias) leads you to conclude that the sacred image of a woman is incomplete without another person, but the sacred image of a man must exclude those explicitly said to be surrounding him in the exact moment of peak masculinity?
11. You made a point to note the Western element to your analysis of sacred images of masculinity and femininity. Do they differ from non-Western ones? Given your frequent decision to talk about gender in universal and/or anatomical terms, why would they differ?
12. You articulate a declinist narrative for societies that slowly reject these sacred images of masculinity and femininity. Does a society seeking to coalesce around secular values need to cling to theologically-rooted images? Why do you think that modern societies are all but doomed if their lauded expressions of gender differ from those created in antiquity?
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