Thanks for reading, and for your well considered response. And I definitely feel as you do that at other times in my life I would have been more receptive to his ideas.

You ask some tricky questions. Has he done more harm than good? I would say on the balance there's been more harm. His rationale for both his toxic and positive output are both based largely on junk science and philosophy, so the best you can hope for is to end up with mildly helpful ideas with bad justifications.

Although I think people should be skeptical of any advice or insight they receive, I don't think a lack of skepticism is really the core problem with Peterson. The problem is more with the absence of consensus in society for what makes a "good" person, and even less support in how to get there.

This creates a void for ideologues like Peterson to step into... and profit from. Even very "smart" people can gravitate towards problematic ideas if they feel a hole in their heart where an identity should be.

In an ideal world, we'd have more of an open source set of social tools for people to work with in achieving self understanding, and "self help" gurus in general would not really be necessary.