A Critical Look at Jordan Peterson’s Revisionism of Hitler and the Nazis

For whatever reasons, Jordan Peterson remains a popular “culture critic” among evangelical Christians.

The Swedish Hitler scholar, Mikael Nilsson, has an interesting article analyzing Peterson’s revisionist account of Adolf Hitler in Haaretz newspaper, linking it with Peterson’s strange obsession with cultural Marxism (whatever the heck that is). A boogeyman he finds under nearly every bush.

The article is entitled “Exposing Jordan Peterson’s Barrage of Revisionist Falsehoods About Hitler and Nazism.”

I have posted an excerpt below.

The railing against “cultural Marxism” (a phrase with a long antisemitic history) is of course something that Peterson, unfortunately, has in common with Hitler and the Nazis. It is his blind spot, and to what degree this hatred of Marxism has influenced his analysis and understanding of Hitler and National Socialism is unknown. 

Perhaps connected to this is his trouble deciding whether Nazism was ideologically “radical right” or “radical left,” suggesting that “maybe they pulled from the worst of both extremes.” This, too, is built on a massive ignorance of the historical research on these topics. 

It’s worth noting that this narrative happens to fit rather nicely with the views of a pool from which he draws many of his fans: the pro-Trump American right, whose leading figures are engaged in a persistent attempt to brand Nazism as socialist and Hitler as a leftist, if not a Democrat

It is not unreasonable to assume that this monomania has affected not only his framing of Nazism – but goes to the heart of his discomforting take on the Holocaust and its perpetrators.

Author: David Crump

Author, Speaker, Retired Biblical Studies & Theology Professor & Pastor, Passionate Falconer, H-D Chopper Rider, Fumbling Disciple Who Loves Jesus Christ