Agree with most of that. But until the GOP is in the dumpster of history, we'll make no progress on any of it. Big money owns politics, but there are people on the left fighting it, where more money in politics is a core principle of the right.

You can't fight inequality when one entire party wants more inequality than we already have.

As for Peterson, I agree that most of what I've read is straightforward, dull self-help-y stuff: stand up straight, get your life in order, etc. The problem for me is I judge people's inner motivations. Many people do good things for the wrong reasons, and I don't want to ally myself with that or fail to point it out.

An extreme example:

I wrote an article a while back criticizing "TERF" s (anti-trans feminists) for making common cause with the Christian right. The CR is the most dangerous and destructive segment of American society, with the ability to bring the whole house down - and a willingness (eagerness?) to do so rather than lose. They want to crush feminism and the entirety of the LGBTQ+ community. No one with the slightest concern for women of any kind should be allying themselves with conservative Christians, no matter the cause.

The enemy of my enemy is not my friend, not if he's using me to kill off our common enemy so he can then turn around and kill me.

Of course, Peterson isn't that bad. As the commenter I quoted wrote, his message is outwardly even positive. But what are his motivations? Is this guy a reliable ally?

Clearly not. So allying with him is a bad idea.

So is he worth criticizing? 100%. He might seem trivial, but he's part of the misogynist underbelly. He's taking impressionable young men - some are lost causes, but others could be tipped on a better path - and filling their heads with destructive ideas. He's the enemy with a pleasant face but still doing harm in the background. Leaving him unopposed is a mistake.

Circling back to your last paragraph, the culture war stuff has to be important to the enlightened because (1) it is the singular driving force for the reactionaries trying to roll back social change, (2) it's only benign for straight white Christian men because the goal is destroying everyone else. We can't fix anything else until they are dispensed with.