Oddly enough I understand term “metaphoric substrate”.
Its when you start to speak about Bible myths with someone who isnt literalist and he will claim that those are metaphorical moral stories which should educate the reader about certain events which might occur in his future life. In such manner you can learn about morality. If he claims its a source of our culture… well that would be long and unpleasant debate, but he would be partially right in case of judaism, christianity and islam + all syncretic combinations with culture which preceeded those religions (and cultures).
(Note: I would say that if you go 2000 or 6000 years to the past, you might experience a problem that “metaphorical” and “theoretical” were not completely differentiated yet, while people now have problem to understand that. Problem with metaphores is that you are required to KNOW the context. Plain theoretical approach does not have this problem.)
Thats why Bible literalists (“Bible is true” people) are always wrong, and people who pick between literal or metaphorical meanings of the lines are usually even more wrong. The problem is that Bible, Old and New Testament frequently switches from metaphorical content to literal historical (and questionable) accounts, while most readers dont understand they read a collection of books, not a single one.
Dawkins experienced while making documentary for BBC about religion. He met with a priest and asked him why he isnt giving his real opinions to the flock. But how you can translate a metaphor to a literalist? I dont believe he would undestand. This was later explained at 4 Horsemen when was said that theologians speak in a different manners among themselves and say completely different things to believers.
Peterson is in very similar position. I am absolutely sure that he is really intelligent and educated in philosophy, but he expects some degree of knowledge from the audience while he follows his idea of individualism. He got disconnected with the society. In the case I described he disrespected the questioner from the very beginning and thats why he gave simplistic answer from his point of view.
When you get the same question over and over again, you start to dislike it, and later despise it because you attempted to explain your position numerous times and you are having this discussion forever. His problem is that he should bring his… together and write a book about it. From many people he gets the idea that they are following an ideology (which isnt completely untrue about us for example), and he proposes to follow ones individuality.
Thats exactly why he acts so odd. I had (and still have to some extent) same social problem.
What he also actually does, is andragogics (same as pedagogics, but for adults). He provokes thinking, by using his own language, he gets further questioning because his answers are thought provoking regardless when are poorly formulated. But also he does a lot of context switching because he goes to examples which are similar, but actually quite far away from original topic.