In interviews and lectures over the course of this past summer, University of Toronto psychology professor Jordan Peterson expressed his ambition to make an online university to counter the teachings of traditional universities.
Peterson has emphasized his desire to provide students with better and more affordable education. “There is absolutely no reason why high quality education can’t be made available to masses of people at low cost,” said Peterson in a recent interview on CTV’s Your Morning. “I think it’s a scam pretty much from top to bottom and it’s a very expensive scam.”
He has not clearly stated when he will form the online university, though he said on Your Morning that he will soon start a website that will distinguish between postmodern and classical content and “cut off the supply to the people who are running the indoctrination cults.”
Peterson also expressed that his online university would be an alternative to traditional universities, which he believes “have abandoned the humanities.”
“About 80 percent of the humanities papers are never cited once and the humanities have been dominated by a kind of postmodern neo-Marxist, cult ideology,” said Peterson. “[The humanities have] abandoned their mission to students. Their mission should be to teach students to speak, to think, and to read, and to become familiar with the best of the world fundamentally.”
For the 2017–2018 academic year, Peterson is on sabbatical and will not teach undergraduate courses.
Peterson did not respond to The Varsity’s request for comment.
