Jordan B. Peterson wrapped up a wildly successful European tour this past week. The University of Toronto professor and author has spent the past month speaking to huge crowds at sold-out venues across the continent. Ahead of his visit to Stockholm earlier this month, leading Swedish daily newspaper Svenska Dagbladet examined the popularity of a figure who was been called both the saviour of masculinity and an extreme demagogue. Translated into English for the first time, reporter Adam Svanell looks at Peterson’s attraction in Sweden and seeks out people who say their lives have changed because of the controversial psychologist.“It’s like living in the beginning of the Age of Enlightenment.” That’s how Johan Karlström describes his feeling. “I think this is a time of a new direction. A new era is coming and there are enormous opportunities for change.”Karlström, who is 41 years old and unemployed, lives alone in a house outside Sollefteå, a small town in Sweden. We speak on the phone.I have just been watching one of his YouTube videos about political correctness, the PC-ism, a fanatical ideology that he claims is dominating Sweden. The PC-ism has, according to Karlström, created a repression of opinion where it is forbidden to speak the truth about feminism and immigration. Read more:I was Jordan Peterson’s strongest supporter. Now I think he’s dangerousJordan Peterson documentary ‘Shut Him Down’ an insightful take on controversial profPeterson is trying to make sense of the world — including his own strange journey“Everybody with the slightest intellectual capacity has been forced away from the public domain to the advantage of people who either are morally reprehensible or daft,” he says in the video.Still, when I, a journalist from Svenska Dagbladet, a daily newspaper published in Stockholm, call him, he is friendly, low-voiced and cheerful.“I feel an ...
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