Author and psychologist Dr. Jordan Peterson analyzed the influence of the “Daniel Penny Effect” on people’s willingness to put themselves at risk to help others following Penny being found not guilty in New York.
“I think that’s a good example of someone acting in accordance with his character,” Peterson said of Daniel Penny, a 26-year-old Marine veteran and architecture student who confronted a 30-year-old homeless man with schizophrenia who barged onto the train shouting death threats while high on a type of synthetic marijuana known as K2.
“It’s dangerous to interfere in a violent situation and you have to be a bit of a hero to do it and obviously Penny is in that category and that’s something that’s deeply characteristic of him,” Peterson told “The Ingraham Angle.”
Penny was found not guilty of criminally negligent homicide in the subway chokehold death of Jordan Neely.
Peterson spoke about the “Daniel Penny Effect” as a result of Penny’s treatment by the justice system in New York City. He argued that while he does not believe that people will act substantially different as a result of Penny’s case, he still said the the political left in the U.S. wrongly believes in the “victim status of criminals.”
“That’s a very bad idea. … It’s not true. There are plenty of people who are in dire socioeconomic straits who aren’t criminal,” Peterson said.
“The comments about the Daniel Penny case are relevant… with regards to a critique of the left insofar as the left treats people as victims,” he continued. “But they’re not relevant, I think in that the Daniel Penny affair will have very little effect in the medium or long term on people’s proclivity to help.”
DANIEL PENNY FOUND NOT GUILTY IN SUBWAY CHOKEHOLD TRIAL
“That’s what happens when you treat criminals like they’re victims,” Peterson said.
“Criminals are rational actors, by and large, and they take risk into effect as we’ve seen in California with the waves of shoplifting emerging after the California government so foolishly decided that any shoplifting under $1,000 wouldn’t be prosecuted,” he said. “Anyone with a criminal bent is going to feel that that’s a field day.”
