Apologies in advance for the long response.

How far does data get you? And how much further can ideology take you?

It's true: you can't deny that he's preaching dogma and ideology. Relying on the force of rhetoric rather than fact.

The problem you'd come up against in making this case is that a lot of people would still agree with his motivations the outcomes he's aiming for. He's fighting a guerilla culture war. And he might not explicitly say he's relegating fact in lieu of war tactics, but he definitely is.

Try telling a person of faith today that they ought to take hold positions based on data rather than sheer belief. Look where that took Christianity today. It's basically buried as a credible position in public discourse. The smarter apologists spent considerable effort trying to balance reason and faith. Aside from a few good works of literature and a feeling of justified aggrievement - that seems to have been entirely in vain from their perspective.

Why are the bulk of the people from the Islamic middle east so paranoid of our culture being exported their? Is it just that they want to hold on to their own identity? Or is it because to be irrational is antithetical to ethical conduct in our culture. You yourself said Peterson's making strong conclusions without supporting factual justification was extremely alarming? Why? Is the alternative to fact the dark ages? Is praying five times a day the dark ages? Is getting down on the floor and essentially meditating at the same time as millions of other like-minded individuals the dark ages? They are going through the same spiral into unbelief we went through only they know what's coming - they see a skewed view of only the negatives of our culture through the lens of traditional morality and propaganda.

Look what the principle value of factual truth did to psychoanalysis. That's my dog in this fight by the way - I believe the psychoanalysts, Jung especially, explicated unique truths about the way human beings work that could advance human progress significantly if they were accepted as true.

You can't accept psychoanalytic theories as true if you rely on fact and data, you need blind belief. The issue in reality isn't whether or not it is true - since most human beings (as ironically science is finding out) are actually perfectly happy with blind belief. They relish the freedom to be irrational.

And you know what, Anti-intellectual populism is on the rise as well. Do we wonder why? Who are these 'elites' exactly? Are they perhaps a critical entity existing in everybody's subconscious? Easy to project that on to academics and scientists and bureaucrats. Most people hate officiousness more than most things.

Artists are like that too! What's happened to art? Did anybody stop to ask how postmodern art ended up as the sole purview of the tasteless nouveau-riche? Dull materialism. I bet a lot of true artists are excited to see those smug bastards parading around high culture denying the existence of a soul get the kicking they feel they deserve.

So why adopt the uniform of your enemy and rely on facts? You can be clever and 'poetic' without needing science. You can deliver artistic 'truths' without needing science. You can even now (conveniently - thanks Peterson) redefine truth as knowledge across time that hinges on a phenomenological survivability. What do you know, what do you need science for anymore? Lets sweep it away and bring back all the old ways and some new age ones too for good measure.

Don't get upset with the opposite side firing an artillery barrage into your trench. Peterson's in battle mode. Doesn't look good for his credibility at all, I will admit! Unless his ideology wins out. In which case detail oriented, source obsessed, factual reliance can go the way of the dinosaurs. Science can be relegated to a practical status akin to engineering, in service and subordinated to an ethically concerned ideology.

That would make a lot of people very, very happy. There's only a small number of people who can consistently marshal facts to an end without reverting to fiction, fallacy, belief and group identity. Relegating their status would free up some of the power and moral credibility to the qualitatively rather than quantitatively talented people.

It's why the 'postmodern' radicals take issue with science too. It's exactly the same underlying motivation. Whether science conflicts with our beliefs or not, our ethics should win out. After all science is an ideology too.

That looks and sounds grotesque to somebody brought up in a society that holds factual truth as the highest principle. Will it seem grotesque to somebody brought up on artistic truth? Will we get to see that kind of world in the west again? Would we have to risk another dark age for it?

Obviously Peterson's a bit better than that. He's not himself particularly ideological. His ideology is broadly anti-ideology. Which is a valid position to take I suppose, if boring. And he's concerned with pragmatic truth so he does care about the general efficacy of science. He's more balanced.

But which is more compelling: sticking up for one subcategory of your definition of truth and remaining principally unaffiliated to any group? Or making temporary alliances with the enemy of your enemy and feeding them what they want to hear, regardless of their irrational populist tendencies?

All the war rhetoric is my own characterisation by the way. He probably thinks about it in a more subtle/vanilla way. But who knows or cares! By rejecting fact he's doing people like me a favour. As far as I'm concerned fact can go fuck itself.