Mid-afternoon on Thursday 21 February this year, I got an offer from a good friend. He said “Hey, I have a spare ticket to Jordan Peterson this evening, do you want to come?”.

I responded, “Who is Jordan Peterson?”.

I wondered: A musician? A poet? A stand-up comedian? An Inde Rock band from Seattle? An international politician?

Completely naive to this chap, his philosophies, ideologies and even his existence, and with little time to deliberate let alone Google him, I committed. And I’m glad I did.

Recognising that I knew Jordan Peterson as well as Jordan knew me, my friend provided me a gentle warning that he could be a “little controversial at times” as we walked to the event. That was certainly helpful to know prior to passing the protestors at the entrance to the venue, who were there demanding equal rights for the transgender community.

As we entered the building and made our way to the auditorium, I closely surveyed the audience, noticing the wide array of ages, backgrounds, and races as well as a moderate gender skew in favour of males.

A public address announcement sparked up to advise that there were strict rules preventing the video or audio recording of the talk, and that heckling from the audience would not be tolerated. It wasn’t clear to me, the alien in the room, whether this last bit was a joke or dead serious. What a great pre-gig gag for Bill Bailey to have the same recording played before his shows.

Jordan B. Peterson swept on to Wellington’s Michael Fowler Centre stage 15 minutes late, to what I can only describe as a creepy standing ovation. I had searched him up before arriving and glimpsed Google’s summary, which described him as “a Canadian clinical psychologist and a professor of psychology at the University of Toronto”. In my assessment, the associated images presented him as a learned, middle-aged, wannabe-hipster who looked like a relaxed and interesting character.

The standing O was creepy for me, as I’d only experienced such things when Dire Straits came on stage at Lancaster Park in 1986 for their much-anticipated Brother’s in Arms tour, or when Brendon McCullum scored New Zealand’s first ever triple century at the Basin Reserve. I couldn’t conceive how someone I’d never heard of just five hours earlier could be receiving a standing ovation from a three-quarter full Michael Fowler Centre after arriving 15 minutes late and without having said a word. I still can’t.

He started off slowly, shaping a one-way discussion with the audience that he apparently chose minutes before, back stage. He decided tonight would be about Toxic Masculinity. As his mellifluous, well-constructed eloquence and pacing back-and-forth across the stage unfurrowed a story of his rural Canadian upbringing, we got to learn of his friend. A depressed chap. Primarily his father’s fault we’re told, but other factors such as alcohol, drugs and oppressive Canadian winters surely didn’t help.

Peppered throughout was quips and jokes, sub-stories and rhetorical questions put to the audience.

There were moments of truth that truly resonated with me. And there were moments of cringe, that made me want to break the trance of hypnosis I feared the audience were under. Like when after spending some time turning Us (the audience) against Them (anyone who utters the evil and upsetting phrase “toxic masculinity”), Jordan acknowledges a French feminist writer who he admires greatly. To me, it simply felt like a “Some of my best friends are gay” moment.

Just like Jordan, the phrase ‘Toxic Masculinity’ had also miraculously passed me by. So I had this privileged position of being able to listen to a speaker on a topic, where both were unencumbered by baggage accumulated through prior knowledge.

Seeing the lather that Jordan was working himself and the audience into over Toxic Masculinity, I really struggled to understand his concern. Sure there’s toxic masculinity. There’s also toxic femininity. Hell, there’s also toxic waterways. Sadly you don’t have to go far to find most of these things.

But if you want to do something about fixing any of them, is turning people against each other really the best way to go about it?

Would those concerned with the health of our waterways, for example, be served well to get a group of like-minded individuals in a room and set them against ‘the others’ who are causing the pollution? Perhaps pouring their efforts (and money) into understanding the causes of the pollution, understanding the people who are contributing to it (even befriending them!), and creating education campaigns may be more constructive and productive.

The structure and delivery of his talk felt designed to appear as if a conscious stream of thought. A spontaneous delivery of his deeper thoughts and concerns, all focussed on improving society and humanity in general. However, the occasional pause during delivery to allow himself to gather his emotions, steel himself or have a subtle sob – it happened when he was recalling the precious time his father had invested in him as a young boy, reading books to him at bed time, and it happened when his ‘good friend’ story approached the suicide bit – felt a little manufactured to me. Almost as if they were contrived to provide evidence of his femininity.

My ersatz radar was triggered by these choke-points, other smaller aspects of his performance, and the finale.

He took two questions “from the audience” electronically, and I was left wondering about their authenticity. Were they really from the audience or were they patsy questions Jordan had submitted himself?

One asked “What is the difference between ‘toxic masculinity’ and ‘non-toxic masculinity’?”. The other asked something like “I have delayed my suicide to attend your talk tonight. I want to take my life and will very soon, to teach my family a lesson. What advice do you have for me?”. His answer to this was two-part and, to a layman, sensible, pragmatic, grounded, compelling and hopeful.

My overwhelming feeling from the two-hour Jordan B. Peterson talk was that it was intellectual, artful, polarising entertainment.

But it’s not entertainment like you’d expect from Bic Runga, Maya Angelou, Bill Bailey, or Coldplay.

I had answered the question I had first asked upon hearing his name. He is a cult figure.

[I have purposefully written this as the ‘alien’, ignorant to the baggage Jordan B. Peterson has amassed and the pundits have gifted him. Part 2 will follow once I’ve read his book “12 Rules for Life” and done some Internet research on the character. I’m looking forward to how my informed views may alter these uninformed ones]