Dr. Jordan B. Peterson
Appearances
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
This is why I have sympathy, let's say, for people like Mark Zuckerberg and for Elon Musk sort of equally, even though they're not necessarily on the same side of the political spectrum. It's like Zuckerberg gets hauled to Congress and raked over the coals. But it isn't like as if we can assume that he knows how to solve this problem because the psychopathic parasite problem is really, really old.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
And those sorts of people are very good at manipulating communication networks. And there's no reason to assume that some of them aren't equally good in the new technologies. And Musk's approach is something like a radical free speech approach. But I just sat with one of my friends here, actually, this morning. This is Greg Hurwitz I was telling you about.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
And he's done some forensic investigations, first of all, indicating how much of the troll activity on social media networks is funded by international actors. Iran topping the list, let's say, which is, you know, unbelievably horrible. And then how much of the pathological content is generated by a very small number of bad actors with disproportionate influence.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
You know, 20 bad actors on Twitter, like seriously malevolent people who are working to cause trouble full time. They can punch way above their weight, way above their weight. Not good.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
Well, the cluster B psychopathologies are notoriously resistant to psychotherapeutic intervention. I mean, first of all, this kind of goes back to the discussion of pride.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
They're very unlikely to come for counseling because, and if they do, they're the sort of people, and I'm dead serious about this, they're likely to announce themselves as the sort of person that the therapist is very lucky to be interacting with. That there's no doubt that this will be at least as advantageous for the therapist as for the client.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
And that they're the sort of special person who has graced this office with their presence. And that's not a word of exaggeration. I had some pretty... pretty unpleasant child molesting psychopaths, for example, in my clinical practice. And the one that I remember most particularly was unbelievably good at putting himself forward as a pillar of the devoted, misunderstood pillar of the community.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
Like it was just his constant refrain, absolutely unteachable and antisocial personality is notoriously resistant to psychotherapeutic intervention. It's the same with histrionic, borderline, narcissistic,
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
it's very it's unbelievably stable personality trait what's your aim and potential target with an individual like that like where could your practice even take well what i did try when i had those people and that was often court mandated and i would never i think court mandated psychotherapy is a contradiction in terms because you have to come there voluntarily for it to work
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
My approach with people like that was to appeal to something like their more extended self-interest, which would be, well, I don't know if you noticed there, buddy, but your constant interference with children has decimated your marriage and your family, and you've been in prison for it, and people are on to you. And so a wise narcissistic psychopath might tone it down a bit, but
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
I wouldn't claim for a moment that that had any effect whatsoever. The degree of cynicism that characterizes someone like that is almost... It's very difficult to develop an appreciation for evil. It's not a fun place to go. And to do it properly, you also have to start to recognize it in yourself. And that is not pleasant.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
And as I said, for example, the naive empathic types, they really do believe that most... of the criminals are misunderstood victims. And you know, what's terrible about that is that some of the criminals are misunderstood victims. You know, there are people in prison who, under duress of various sorts, made one extremely stupid mistake and ended up seriously punished for it.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
Okay, so let's just put those people off the table. We can ignore them. 1% of the criminals commit 65% of the crimes. Okay, so those are the people that we're looking at. Recalcitrant repeat offenders with a proclivity for violence. Okay, can you repair them? No. The standard penological theory is that part of their problem is actually delayed maturation for whatever reason.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
You just put them in prison until they're in their late 20s, and then they're much less likely to reoffend. Why? Did they learn? That's one way of thinking about it. They're less impulsive and sensation-seeking as a consequence of maturity, and likely some of it is just delayed maturity. But it has very little to do with rehabilitation. and a lot to do with age.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
You know, the male crime curve spikes at 15, and even among normal males, let's say, they're much more likely to misbehave as testosterone and maturation kick in, and then you see a return to something approximating normal behavior, usually by the time of 24 or 25, when men take on more of the mature responsibilities of life. And the criminal pattern is
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
approximately equivalent to that, although the lag to maturity is longer. But no, it's There's no evidence that I find credible that the cluster B psychopathologies are amenable to psychotherapeutic intervention. I don't think so. And they're also generally a very, very, very, very, you need a lot of verys to make that right, very difficult population to work with. And you do that at your peril.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
Well, we know this because one of the things we know, for example, is so the dark tetrad males are differentially attractive to women. but mostly younger and naive women. Okay, so why? Well, the typical dark tetrad type is very confident and not anxious. Okay, so why would that be attractive to women? Because men who are competent in their domain are confident and not anxious.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
What the predatory psychopaths do is mimic that. And naive women can't tell the difference. And so they can be more attracted to the dark tetrad types, especially when they're young. And then there's the additional complication that The even more pathological dark tetra types are very good at appealing to empathy by making claims of victimization. It's a nasty game.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
And the people who are good at it They're better at it than you are at detecting it. I knew Robert Hare. Robert Hare was the first clinical psychologist who really delved into psychopathy and non-clinical psychopathy. And he recorded 200 conversations with like brutal criminal psychopaths. And he was quite an agreeable person, Robert Hare.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
And he said invariably that while he was talking to them, they had him convinced. And it wasn't until afterwards when he was watching the videos that he could see the tricks. And that's because these people are watching you more than you're watching them. And they're seeing... which tricks work on you. And that's the goal of the game.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
If I was doing that to you, I'd be thinking, okay, well, I'm going to get this guy to smile more. I'm going to see which lies I can get him to swallow. Because then I'd be testing you, let's say, for your gullibility. And so I'd start out with a little lie and watch you. And then if you swallowed it, I'd get a good boost of superiority, which is partly what I'm after. And then I'd try a
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
you know, another lie. And if you detected that, well, I'd move in another direction, sort of map you for your gullibility, and then I'd find out how you could be exploited. And that'd be the whole purpose of the conversation. Yeah, and then add to that the fact that I've practiced that for 30 years, and that maybe I'm as smart as you are, or possibly smarter, right?
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
Well, part of the way that women have done that historically is by not going out with people they don't know, right? That aren't part of their social network, you know? And one of the things about the psychopathic predators is that they're not very good at maintaining social connections. And so...
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
Oh, yeah. Well, like the dating apps and that sort of thing, they're a complete open playing ground for the psychopathic types. There's something even worse about this, actually. So the sexual revolution was predicated on the idea that we could alter female reproduction patterns so that they could act like men, basically. Because men are more likely to take a short-term mating opportunity. And...
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
The promise of reliable birth control was that that avenue of possibility would be open to women. Okay. And you might say, well, why not? Because, you know, sexuality is pleasurable. And if you could reduce the cost, why not do it? All right. So that's what we've been experimenting with for 60 years. Okay. Well, one reason is that hormonal birth control alters females' perceptions.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
So women on the pill don't like masculine men as much. And what that's done to us politically and sociologically, no one knows. It's a big deal, and we don't know. But the other thing that's happened is... So imagine that there are... You could imagine male reproductive strategies as being on a continuum. There are men who are more inclined towards long-term committed monogamous relationships...
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
And there are men who are more committed to short-term, hedonistic, pleasure-seeking relationships. All right, so now imagine you took these men and you analyzed their personalities, and you took these men and analyzed their personalities. Well, that's been done. The men who prefer short-term mating opportunities are psychopathic, narcissistic, Machiavellian, and sadistic. Right.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
So one of the unintended consequences of the sexual revolution is that the freed-up women have been delivered to the psychopathic men. Right. And what's the consequence of that? We don't know. We don't know. We know that young people are less likely to have relationships. We know that the birth rate has plummeted. We know that people are much less likely to get married.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
How much of that is a consequence of the destabilization of the reproductive pattern by hormonal birth control? No one knows. It's not like it was a minor revolution, right? It was a major technological revolution. But the terrifying thing is, and women should know this, is like, The guys that are just out for a good time, they're not much fun. And they're a lot worse than you think.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
And the worst of them are so much worse than you think that if you ever got a look inside their mind, you would never recover. And I'm not saying that lightly. It's not pleasant. The worst of terrible people are so bad. I'm not making this up. Most people who have post-traumatic stress disorder, don't have it because they were hurt.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
They have it because they encountered someone who wanted to hurt them, right? And so it was that glimpse of that malevolence that fractured them. People can go through all sorts of horrible things and not be traumatized. You know, a terrible illness, terrible pain, an accident. You wait till you tangle with someone who's malevolent.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
Boy, you will not be the same person afterward, assuming you manage to put yourself back together at all. So this is not... And it's many of those people too that have free reign online. It's not a good thing. You brought up identity.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
To be open to learning does mean, at least to some degree, always asking, what am I doing wrong? What do I have to give up? What do I have to let go of? What do I have to transform? That can be very painful. There isn't anything better that you can do with failure, no matter how unjust, than to learn from.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
That's what stories, by the way, that's a good observation. I mean, one of the things I've realized and one of the themes that is developed in this new book is the notion that, so when you're introduced to someone, you'll tell them a story about who you are. So you describe your identity. A story is a description of that implicit identity that you described, right?
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
So, you see the world through a structure of identity. That doesn't mean you know what that is, as you pointed out. When you tell a story about yourself, what you're trying to do is to approximate, you're trying to encapsulate that implicit identity into something that's communicable. And then something that also becomes explicitly understandable to you. This is partly what dreams do. So...
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
In the dream, your implicit identity reveals itself, but not entirely coherently and not entirely verbally. If you take a dream and you interpret it, if you have the good fortune to be able to manage that and maybe some help, you're moving the information that's part of your implicit identity upward into something that's more explicitly recognized.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
Like what you'd hope is that what you're actually pursuing pre-consciously or unconsciously, is mapped very well by your self-description, right? Because then you're a person that has a certain degree of integrity. Who you think you are and who you are are the same thing. That's an optimal situation.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
That's the pursuit of something like integrity, say, in moral development, maybe in psychotherapy, in a relationship that's positive and productive. It's all moving towards that end. And it's very useful to understand that what stories do is stories are the manner in which implicit identity makes itself explicit.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
And so the biblical stories, for example, are part of the process, the historical process by which the developing morality of individuals as they become more complexly civilized reveals itself to those cultures and to the participants. It's a dynamic process. And it's much better to understand the stories that way.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
You know, the atheist types tend to parody belief in God, say, as belief in something like the great genie in the sky, the sky daddy, I think, the benevolent sky daddy, which is the terminology that people like Richard Dawkins use. But that's a very... It's a dismissive parody of the
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
It's not a reasonable approach because the realm of religious conceptualization is far more sophisticated than that parody would indicate. Like, I mean, let's take the idea that the divine reveals itself as the call of adventure. Well, this is a serious idea to contend with.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
So what it implies is that there's a spirit, so to speak, a process, a dynamic that reveals itself within us, that captures what interests us and compels us forward in consequence, and that following that, so when God comes to Abraham, he makes Abraham an offer, like a very explicit offer. This is the covenant of Yahweh, and it's a very interesting offer.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
Dr. Jordan Peterson. The men who prefer short-term mating opportunities are psychopathic, narcissistic, Machiavellian, and sadistic. So one of the unintended consequences of the sexual revolution is that the freed-up women have been delivered to the psychopathic men. Most people who have post-traumatic stress disorder don't have it because they were hurt.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
And I read it from a psychological perspective, even from an evolutionary biological perspective. God, this is how God is defined, by the way. So, God makes Abraham an offer. So, Abraham comes from rich parents, and there's no reason for him to do anything from the purely material perspective. Everything that he could want is already at hand, and it actually takes Abraham 70 years to
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
get moving, right? Because he's an old man by modern standards when the voice of adventure comes to him. And it says something very, very specific to him. It's not vague at all. It says, you need to leave the comforts of your land and home, and you need to voyage out into the great unknown. So it's like a quest story, like the hobbit say. Away you go from comfort.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
Well, then the first question you might ask if you had that impulse is, well, why? I have everything. that I would need, assuming life is based on that kind of need, right at hand. So what's the benefit to me of moving beyond the zone of infantile dependence and comfort? That's a question everybody faces always, especially if they're provided for adequately or even excellently by their parents.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
What should impale you out into the world? And why bother? Well, God tells Abraham something very specific. He says, if you abide by the voice of adventure, you'll be a blessing to yourself. Okay, that's a good deal because it's very frequently the case that people don't have an existence that's a blessing to them. They suffer a lot. They're anxious. They're grief-stricken. They're resentful.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
They're angry. They're self-contemptuous. They're vicious. There's all sorts of ways that their existence is not a blessing to them. So the offer that the voice of God as adventure makes to Abraham is that if you follow this pathway of adventure, your life will actually, you'll start to experience your life as a blessing. So that's a good deal.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
Just that alone, if that was true, that might be good enough to motivate you, right? To think that's okay. That's the pathway forward to self-acceptance, let's say, or something like a sophisticated self-esteem. But that's not the whole offer. The second offer is you'll become known among your peers and validly.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
And that's very interesting because, you know, you can think about people as corrupt power seekers who are clambering for status, or you can be less cynical and you could say, well, we're wired such that we appreciate due consideration for our genuine efforts. Okay, so if my reputation is established on valid basis, that means that
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
I'm appreciated by the people around me, but that there's a valid basis for that. That's the offer, that's part two. So you're a blessing to yourself in a manner that enhances your reputation and you deserve it. That's a good deal, if you could have that.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
Then there's another offer, which is you'll get those two things, plus you'll establish something of lasting significance, because Abraham is the father of nations, like he's the founder of a dynasty. So not only will you have those first two things, but it'll propagate across time.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
It's often the case when people are looking for something meaningful that they think, well, I'd like to do something of lasting value, right? There seems to be something intrinsically motivating about that. And so you think, well, that's a good deal. And then the fourth thing is, you'll do it in a way that'll be of benefit to everyone else. So there's nothing selfish or narcissistic about it.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
They have it because they encountered someone who wanted to hurt them. People can go through all sorts of horrible things and not be traumatized. You wait till you tangle with someone who's malevolent. Boy, you will not be the same person afterward. The dark tetrad males are differentially attractive to women, mostly younger and naive women.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
So you think about what that means. It implies that the instinct of adventure that compels you beyond your zone of comfort is allied psychologically and socially so that if you follow it, you'll be a blessing to yourself. You'll have a reputation that's esteemed and deserved. You'll conduct yourself so that you produce things of lasting value, and it will be good for everyone else.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
Well, that's an excellent deal. And it speaks of a harmony between the advanced psychological motivation that pulls you forward and your emotional states, plus... productivity and integration into the broader social community. Well, I think that's right. I can't see how it can be otherwise because the counter hypothesis would be
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
The force that motivates you forward acts at cross purposes to, say, sociological stability. And I can't see how we could be genuinely social animals, productively social animals, which we are, and there be some intrinsic conflict between the force that moves us forward and the force that brings people together. Why not assume that they exist together in a kind of harmony?
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
I mean, we're adapted to the social world. Anyways, that's one of the avenues that I had explored in We Who Wrestle With God. And there's more in the Abrahamic story that's quite remarkable too, because the other thing that Abraham decides to do, this is so cool when you understand it, is that, so imagine, you know this in your own life, eh? You move towards a new destination.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
And that requires a kind of growth. So you might ask, well, what does that growth consist of? And in the Abrahamic story, it consists of sacrifice. So every time Abraham makes a transformation in identity, he makes a sacrifice. Well, that is what happens when you make a transformation of identity, because as you grow and mature,
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
You have to shed those traits, people even, situations, material possessions, geographic locale, whatever. You have to shed all of that if it's interfering with your progress forward. And so what you see in Abraham's life is a series of adventures, each of which are marked by a sacrifice, that move him upward towards a higher and higher and more integrated form of being. Right?
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
He's the redeemer of cities at one point. And there's nothing in that that doesn't seem accurate to me psychologically. And it's an exciting thing to understand because the Abrahamic story is the template for individual development. That's a good way of thinking. Abraham is the first real individual in the Western canon. And The stories vary. It's very psychologically astute.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
Once you understand the basic reference, once you understand, for example, that sacrifice, at least in part, means dispensing with something you once valued but has now, say, become an impediment. And so, well, so that's a little bit more of a description of the domains of thought that I've been wandering in.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
He's an archer. Yes, he's an archer. You know, sin means to miss the target.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
Yeah, it's an archery term. Yeah. And that notion of sin has that archery connection in multiple different languages.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
And so it's the same theme that you're describing. And the reason for that is an archer hits the target, right? So to hit the target accurately is to pursue the divine most appropriately. So there's a metaphysics of archery. So that's definitely not a, that's not, that's a good example of how there's, that's right. There's no mistake in that. Right. There's no mistake in that.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
You want to hit the target dead center.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
Okay. So there's a meaning there too. Yeah. Psychologists have demonstrated convincingly, mostly statistically, that there's no difference between being self-conscious and being miserable. Right. They're so tightly associated. So, for example, in the Big Five, in one of the classic Big Five personality descriptive books, processes, tests, self-consciousness is a facet of neuroticism.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
So it's actually a sub element of suffering. Okay, so what does that mean? It means that if you're focused on your narrow self, what you want now, you're going to become both aimless and anxious. And that's technically the case. And so you might say, well, then what's the medication for that?
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
And the medication isn't exactly to stop thinking about yourself because, well, then what do you think about? And exactly how do you continue to maintain your care for yourself? The medication to that is to aim higher.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
For example, in our conversation, and you're obviously good at this because your podcast wouldn't work, you can't sit in a conversation like this and do nothing but aim at the enhancement of your own status, let's say, in the eyes of your audience or at the expense of your audience. Guest.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
First of all, if you do that, you won't have guests for long and their quality will disintegrate, but also people will see through you eventually and see you as self-serving. If by contrast, you aim the conversation at the expansion, let's say of your own understanding and wisdom, then you're not, it's not about you.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
It's about the dynamic of the conversation and you can bring everybody along for the ride. But one of the benefits of that is you won't be self-conscious. So your hands won't sweat. You won't, you won't miss your grip on the bow.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
That's well, that's... And see is the right metaphor there. So the ancient Egyptians... One of their gods, Horus, was the god of the open eye. And the Mesopotamian god Marduk, who was a savior figure, whom the emperor should model himself after, was also, he had eyes all the way around his head, so he could see. That's not the same as thinking. So to have an open eye is to attend.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
And so you might say, well, if you've missed your adventure, Carl Jung said, modern man doesn't see God because he doesn't look low enough, which is a very interesting way of conceptualizing. It's like one of the things I try to do in this new technology we're developing with Essay, but also as a theme in Essay. we who wrestle with God, is to point out that you can learn to watch.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
So for example, when I was dealing with depressed people in my clinical practice, and this is a pretty standard behavioral approach, is one of the things you do with depressed people is you have them track their mood, say maybe every hour during the day. Because a depressed person will assume that they're very unhappy and that that's always there.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
But if you get them to track it, what you find is they may be comparatively unhappy, but there is variation. So there'll be times when they're much more miserable than usual, but also times when they're less miserable. And they may not even really know when those times are without tracking it.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
So one of the things typically is depressed people will isolate themselves because they think they don't want to see anyone. But if you have them track their emotions, you find that when they're with other people, they're almost invariably less depressed. Okay, so imagine now I had you make a map of your emotions across a week, and we associated the emotions with what you were doing.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
What we'd find is some of the things you were doing were making you much more depressed, and some of the things less. And so then your goal, so the first goal is see that, attend to that, as if you're ignorant even with regards to your own nature.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
And then the next thing would be, well, how about you do a little bit more of the things that are positive and a little bit less of the things that are negative, right? And then we will remap that and see if you've moved your average mood, you know, up the distribution. And so this is what they call the beginner's mind, at least in part in Buddhism.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
You want to look at the situation, which might be your own situation, as if you don't know yourself. It's like, okay, well... What am I interested in? People are often loath to even ask that question because they may find, for example, that the thing that compels them forward isn't the thing their father or mother wanted them to do. That's a very common familial story.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
You know, you might be shocked at who you are. It's highly probable, just like you're shocked when you start to get to know someone else. It's the same as gonna apply to you. And the rule there is something like, watch, don't assume. Don't put your presuppositions before the realities of your experience. So he had to watch. And if you watch, you see you can rectify your aim.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
And so that's the difference between attention and thought. You know, Luciferian intelligences worship their own presuppositions. Someone who's active and attentive watches, they're alert. Meditation can foster that, right? Because it teaches you to be present and awake. And so I would say to people who haven't found their calling is that they're not noticing it in its micro-manifestations.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
You know, it's not going to necessarily announce itself like Gandalf announced himself to the Hobbit. It's going to be subtle. Things bother you, that's part of your adventure. Like, there's going to be certain things that grip you and disturb you, and those are the problems that you're destined to have to contend with.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
And you might be annoyed about that because you think, I don't want to have any problems. It's like... No, you actually probably want to have some serious problems that you can contend with that are going to occupy you, some responsibilities. And then there'll be the things that clearly motivate your movement forward.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
And it's very good to start to understand what those are, to understand that that's how it works first, but then also to understand them in more detail. You can start to come to understand that by understanding your own temperament. So, for example... If you're high in neuroticism, you're going to be more concerned with safety and security.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
If you're agreeable, you're going to be relationship focused. If you're disagreeable, you're going to be competitive. If you're conscientious, you're going to be interested in order and productivity. If you're open, you're going to be interested in aesthetics and ideas. Well, right there, you've got a bit of a map of the... territory of calling and conscience that you're going to occupy.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
And so you have a nature, you know, and it's given to you and it manifests itself in what interests you and what bothers you. And the biblical insistence, at least in part, and this is common, I think, to sophisticated religious systems of thought worldwide, is that There's an autonomy in what calls you and what calls to your conscience, right? You have a relationship with your conscience.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
You have a relationship with what interests you. It's not exactly under your control. It's something that can guide you and that you can follow. And that's... portrayed in the story of Abraham, for example, as God is the call to adventure. It's an extremely interesting conceptualization. You see that implicitly in quest stories like The Lord of the Rings or The Hobbit.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
You have this ordinary guy who's protected. That would be The Hobbit in the first book of Tolkien's series. Or even Harry Potter, who... unbeknownst to him is magical and has ordinary parents, right? So there's this call out of ordinariness, and the voice of that call is associated as definition with the divine.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
That's not a superstitious conceptualization, and it's not something like an abdication of responsibility in favor of superstition. You know, it's a terrifying idea. It's also predicated to some degree on the idea that the purpose of life isn't something like
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
secure comfort that's partly why people make so much trouble so we're not wired for infantile secure comfort and if we don't have a real adventure we'll find a false one and we'll cause a lot of trouble in that false adventure a lot alcoholism that's a false adventure drug abuse that's a false adventure you know sequential Parasitical love affairs, that's a false adventure.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
Political activism of a destructive sort.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
That's a very good question. Well, I think conscience is a big part of that, you know, because it's very frequent that people will be visited by their conscience when they do something that's hedonistically valuable in the short term. Hmm. But then they think, oh, you know, I shouldn't have done that. It's like, well, why shouldn't have you done that? Well, I cheated on my girlfriend.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
All right, well, you got to cheat. There's the benefit. What's the downfall? Well, I can't trust myself. I'm a liar. She can't trust me. Okay, so what's the problem with that? You want to be alone? You want to be a parasitical psychopath? Like, what's your goal here?
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
And so the problem, part of the problem with just calling, let's say, is it can become short-term and it can entice you into false micro-adventures that... don't propagate well across time and that disturb other people.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
You know, you said something when we were talking just before the interview started about, because I was asking you what you thought you might be doing right with regard to your podcast, say that would account for its popularity. And you said, well, you're in it for the long run.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
Well, a fundamental part of cortical maturation from a biological perspective is that you start to see things in the long run. And then you don't do things in the short term that are exciting and even adventurous that violate what? The propagation of the adventure across time. You know, you can envision it this way socially. If you and I have an honest conversation. Okay. Yes.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
Imagine that you have a guest who uses your podcast in a manipulative way, okay? They could gain some short-term advantage, putting you down, let's say, playing a power game, using the podcast as a means to enhance their economic standing or their social standing. Well, what's the problem with that? Well, they're not going to get invited back. Well, you do that 20 times, you're done, right?
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
Okay, so one of the ways of thinking about this, if you're trying to understand what constitutes morality, technically is that the moral pathway, if I'm interacting with you morally, assuming you're treating yourself properly, our interactions are going to have to be of the kind that you want to voluntarily repeat. That's what you have with a friend.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
And there's a pattern to that, obviously, a pattern of reciprocity, a pattern of mutual aid, unless it's a pathological friendship, in which case it's likely to collapse anyways. But that's a constraint. repeatability, voluntary repeatability across time is a real constraint.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
And it's something like the future because it's across time, but it's also something like the constraint on your actions by the necessity for you to be embedded in a voluntary social framework, right? And that's a huge advantage. You know, like one of the things you can think about, for example, there's this game that economists play. behavioral economists. So this is how the game works.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
You pick two people and you say to one of them, I'm going to give you a hundred dollars and you have to split it with this person. If they accept the offer, then you get the hundred and you pay them. But if they refuse the offer, neither of you get anything. So that's the game. Now, if you play that across cultures, what you find is that regardless of socioeconomic status, people offer 50%.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
Okay, now this violates the tenets of classical economics, which views people as self-maximizers. Because if I'm only going to play a game with you once, I should take $99 and give you one. And you should take one because, what, do you want zero or do you want one? But that isn't what people do. They split it 50-50. Now then you might ask, why? Well, You don't play one-off games with people.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
So imagine you're doing this publicly. Okay, now everyone watches you and they see that you're a fair player. Well, then they're going to play with you if they get an opportunity. You could even say, I don't know if this has ever been tested, but you could even say, well, maybe you do a 60-40 split and you offer the person that's playing slightly more than you get.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
Well, you lose in that game, but if you get a reputation, that's part of that Abrahamic adventure. If you get a reputation for bending over backwards to be reciprocal, People are going to line up to play with you. And so that's why you try to teach your children to be good sports. Because, you know, you say to them, it doesn't matter whether you win or lose. It matters how you play the game.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
And the kid thinks, what the hell do you mean? Of course it matters if I win. You know, parents are usually not sophisticated enough to pursue that philosophically. But the right answer is no. What good is there winning one game when you never get invited to play again? It's much better to be invited to play 100 games.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
And that means you're going to have to be the sort of person that other people are lining up to play with. And that's the basis. That's part of the basis of a genuine ethic. And I think raised to a... Raised to the philosophical level, you get something like a transcendent ethic out of that. It's biologically predicated, but it's a higher order.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
It's a higher order and more mature ethic, and it's real. It's super real.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
I'm looking forward to it, yeah, and I appreciate the invitation.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
Yeah, well, that's also a very central observation, I would say. So the first story in the Genesis, in the Old Testament, the first story about actual human beings that are in history is the story of Cain and Abel, because Adam and Eve are, well, they're made directly by God. So the first two humans in history are Cain and Abel. It's a story of resentment and envy.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
Right, and it's exactly what you just laid out, is that Abel aims up and makes the proper sacrifices. Right, say in the Abrahamic sense. And because of that, everything he does works. And Cain makes second-rate sacrifices, and... deceives himself and other people and God and fails. And instead of learning from his failure, he becomes bitter.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
He shakes his fist at God and complains about the structure of reality itself. And then he becomes murderous and kills his own ideal. And then his descendants become genocidal. And then you have the flood. So that's another of the consequences, let's say, of non-existent adventure or false adventure is those who took the adventurous path become the targets of envy.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
There's destruction that's then aimed at them, and that can propagate so widely through a society that it does itself in. That's happened over and over in human history. Yeah, it's really, it's brutal. And it's so terrifying that that's the, you know, you could argue that that Cain versus Abel narrative is in many ways the fundamental narrative of, what would you say?
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
It's the fundamental battle of the most likely attitudes of each individual, right? You can maintain faith and courage. You can make the proper sacrifices. You can aim up. You can be a benefit to yourself and others, or you can hold back what's best. You can try to manipulate the system. You can degenerate into bitterness and envy and then look the hell out. Right? Right?
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
And this is one paragraph, that story, right? It's like 12 lines long. It's a stunning miracle of...
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
Well, I think some of that's actually a technical problem, and I think it's an extremely serious problem in our society. So we've... invented these new communication technologies, which we're utilizing now. The long-form discussions seem to be pretty radically on the positive side of that, I would say.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
an answer to that question. So the first would be, you could practice gratitude. And you could make the case that if you're not screaming in agony because you're on fire right now, You have lots of things to be fortunate about. You know, when people who have passed through extremely harrowing experiences, they often learn that.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
It's like, oh, the sorts of things that I thought were terrible are almost negligible. And there's so many good things happening to me all the time around me that are invisible to me, maybe because of my arrogance, that... I'm just blind to them. So the practice of gratitude, that's a standard religious exercise, I would say, across the domains of valid religious systems. What else? Humility.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
So one of the things that distinguishes Cain from Abel is that when Cain fails, he thinks it's God's fault, or society, or other people, or it's externalized blame. When Abel fails, he learns.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
And that's the proper sacrificial attitude because you might... So for example, if you're a man and you're getting nowhere with women, it's very easy for you to become extremely hostile to women, which is not going to help you out much, generally speaking, in the relationship market.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
And you can certainly understand why that might be because if you've had 50 encounters with women you're attracted to and every single one of them resulted in maybe not only rejection, but contemptuous rejection, you can certainly understand why you might conclude from that that there's something seriously wrong with women.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
But you could flip that and you could presume that by definition, if you're failing in that regard, there's some changes that should be made. And it really does depend on your initial stance with regard to the situation.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
One of the things that comes through very clearly with regards to the upward-aiming Israelites, they're not all upward-aiming, but the upward-aiming ones in the Old Testament is whenever a cataclysm visits them, they assume it's their fault. And that's a hell of a thing to take onto yourself, right? If I'm failing, it's my fault.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
And you can certainly understand why that's difficult, because a certain amount of misery seems to visit people arbitrarily. But there's almost no failure, regardless of how arbitrary, that you can't learn from. And there isn't anything better that you can do with failure, no matter how unjust. than to learn from it.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
And so as a general attitude, how did I go wrong here is a hyper useful existential stance, right? And it's also a bulwark against hopelessness because, you know, even if it was 95% situational and 5% you, if you adjusted that 5%, maybe that'd be enough so that the next time that situation arises, you'd come out on the positive side of it. And you're also not a torment to other people then because
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
But the discourse on places like Twitter, Facebook, in comment sections and so forth, is pretty degenerate. And I think the reason for that is that the evolved mechanisms that we use in face-to-face real-world discourse have been stripped away in the electronic domain. And the problem with that is twofold.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
Your general question is, how am I insufficient? That also gives you something to do because, man, trying to rectify your own insufficiency, that'll keep you busy for the rest of your life. And that's a good thing, right? That's a meaningful pursuit. And you will experience it that way.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
Yeah, well, it's an inexhaustible source of possibility, right? Because there's always, you could be better at something than you are, no matter how good you are at something and no matter how many dimensions you're doing that analysis in simultaneously, right? It's like a horizon of opportunity in some ways. That's the flip side of it.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
Your insufficiencies, the flip side of your insufficiencies are the opportunities that growth in those dimensions would represent. That's a good way of looking at the world.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
That's the classical answer from the Judeo-Christian perspective anyways. Pride and arrogance, you know, that would be something like the presumption that that you're right and that you're above it all, that you're on top. And so, and you could see that as a, well, first of all, it's something very annoying to other people. So that's a problem given that you have to put up with them.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
And it's also an impediment to learning, right? Because to be open to learning does mean at least to some degree, always asking, well, what am I doing wrong? What do I have to give up? What do I have to let go of? What do I have to transform? That can be very painful, but So pride, that's one. That's a major one. Hedonism, that's a problem, and that's a kind of immaturity.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
So that's that desire for immediate gratification at the expense of other people, at the expense of you in the long run. Right. So at the expense of the general future. And so that's a very difficult thing to overcome. I mean, a lot of what you do when you're socializing children is you're trying to encourage them to become capable of integrating their various hedonistic desires.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
so they don't conflict with one another, so that they can find their gratification in the long run in a manner that's commensurate with the needs and wants of other people. And it takes 20 years to socialize a child to become a full-fledged adult, and it's not like the process ends there. It's a very complicated process of integration and self-regulation. And it is upward. And why?
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
Why is it better? Even if the goal is gratification, if one strategy allows 20 repetitions of gratification and the other strategy offers one gratification followed by regret and catastrophic failure, it seems pretty obvious, even by the standards of gratification, that the first strategy is better than the second.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
Yeah, right. Right, right, right. So the iteration element of it is crucial. Now, is this a long-term playable game?
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
better is this the kind of long-term playable sustainable game that i would like to engage in voluntarily and maybe bring others aboard equally voluntarily that's a that's a good ethical question it's also extremely practically valuable you know we were talking before this began about this about the utility that you found in putting together around you a very functional team well
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
A functional team is composed of people playing the same game and all doing it full-heartedly and voluntarily. Yeah, well, so that's an optimal solution. Even if the goal is, say, the maximization of your success, your success that comes at the expense of other people, that's not... that means that your definition of success is thoroughly flawed. That's all it means.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
The first problem is the exploitative, sadistic psychopaths have free reign because they're not held responsible for their utterances. They're anonymous. They get rewarded for the propagation of their emotionally arousing material. The algorithms will capitalize on it. And that's a very toxic combination.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
That's especially true if the world isn't a zero-sum game, and I don't see any evidence that it is. There's no reason that your victory, unless you're envious and spiteful, sadistic even, there's absolutely no reason that your victory has to come at the expense of someone else.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
Yeah, well, some of that is the attempt to obtain status, and sometimes that's predicated on the erroneous assumption that if you defeat someone, let's say in an argument, that you're right. Now, There's a certain amount of truth in that because you can evaluate ideas in the ideational space.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
But you can be intelligent and unwise and defeat someone wise and less articulate in an argument and still be profoundly wrong. What you should be trying to do, and this is especially true in the confines, let's say, of a marital relationship, is... you should be trying to listen.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
And maybe you're trying to help your partner formulate their argument more accurately so that you both can get to the root of the problem. Oh, I love that. Oh, it's very useful. It's like, well, you might have a point. I mean, this is actually one of the things that can help men in their understanding of women. So women, on average, are more sensitive to negative emotion.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
So you could think of them as having a lower threshold for alarm. Okay, now what that implies is that there'll be times when the alarm bell goes off when it doesn't have to, but there'll be other times when... the alarm bell is going off to signify something that is barely detectable, but is there.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
Okay, so often what women find frustrating in speaking to men is the men, they'll start, the women will start to lay out the problem and the men will offer a solution. And the men think, well, don't you want a solution? And the women who often can't articulate this think, Well, yeah, but neither of us know what the problem is yet.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
And then the anonymity as well, like we know perfectly well from a vast array of psychological experiences that normal people anonymized are much more likely to let the negative part of their character have free reign. And so I really see this as a technical problem is that Societies and psyches are always threatened by what they call the dark tetrad personality proclivities. Narcissism.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
And so the initial stages in much couple communication are the woman bringing up a problem, but not knowing what it is. And so making all sorts of wandering attempts to specify the problem and hoping, even implicitly, that she'll have enough space, enough scaffolding, so that that investigative process can work. come to focus on the actual problem.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
Well, once you've got the problem identified, it's a lot simpler to put forward a solution and implement it. But that's the case for... Well, that's the case often for yourself if you're upset or any dialogue. It's like you want to listen long enough so you actually understand what the problem is. And that's of great benefit to you because now the cost is... If you're wrong...
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
you're going to have to give something up. And that's annoying and difficult and complicated and can be humiliating. And then you might say, well, why bother? And the answer to that is straightforward. It's so you don't make the same stupid mistake again. And that comes at a cost.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
This is why there's this dawning insistence, arising insistence in our culture that you shouldn't be able to be offensive in your speech, which sort of means you shouldn't be allowed to upset anyone emotionally.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
Well, if you're speaking about something that's foundational and you're pointing out an error, that's going to be upsetting to the person you're talking to because it means they're going to have to do a fair bit of cognitive retooling. They're going to have to undergo a partial death and rebirth. Well, that can be terribly painful, but...
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
It's better than actually failing cataclysmically repeatedly in the world. You know, so we substitute death in argumentation for death in actuality. That doesn't mean that death in argumentation is nothing. And because there is an emotional burden and an effort that has to be made, people are resistant to that. I'd rather show that I'm right so that you have to change. Fair enough, but...
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
But you might be the one with the problem. I mean, that's a terrible thing to contemplate.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
Well, definitely. I mean, you don't want to wield the truth as a weapon more than necessary. You know, and people might say, well, I hurt your feelings, but I was only telling you the truth. It's like...
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
You might have been telling the truth at one level of analysis and lying like mad at another, because maybe your motivation was to hurt, and you figured out how to use something that was nominally true as your weapon. And so, at the very narrow level of analysis, semantically, what you said was true, but in the broader context, no, you're just this sadist.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
And so there are technical approaches to that to some degree that are coded in the law. So for example, if you're defending yourself, you're entitled to use something approximating minimal necessary force. And that's a good maxim for communication. You want to deliver a corrective message in the most constrained possible manner. There's ways of doing this. So for example, if you have an employee
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
and they've made a mistake, you want to bring up the mistake primarily so it's not repeated. And so one of the ways of buffering that is to bring the person in and to say, look, here's a bunch of things you're doing right. And we don't have a global problem. But in this specific case, here's what you did. This was the consequence and this is what you could have done to do it differently.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
Machiavellianism, psychopathy, that's parasitical predatory, a parasitical predator is a psychopath, and sadism. And you have those impulses within you, and there are people who are primarily characterized by those motivations. We have evolved mechanisms for keeping that under control, but they're all dispensed within social media.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
And then you close it by reiterating the fact that, you know, having said that, I have confidence, for example, that you'll rectify this error and people make mistakes and it... The real issue here is whether you take responsibility for it and rectify it, and then the person can learn without being demolished, without being demoralized. And that's also a very good thing to do to yourself.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
Like if you see that you've made a mistake and you're guilty as hell and tearing yourself apart, you want to approach it with the presumption of innocence. It's like, don't assume you're any more terrible than you have to assume. Okay, then do the analysis and figure out what's the minimal transformation you can make that will suffice.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
This is also a good principle when you're arguing with... Maybe you're upset with your partner, your wife or your husband. It's incumbent on you to figure out what you want. Like, what would satisfy you? Okay, so you have a problem with me. I didn't... I wasn't properly appreciative for... the efforts you made when you were preparing dinner. I was dismissive of it.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
It's like, okay, what is it that you wish I would have said? The person might say, well, if you loved me, you'd know that. It's like, yeah, but I'm stupid. So I need to know What words should have I used that would have encouraged your efforts in that regard? And then the person can tell you, and then you can say the words.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
And you have to understand that there's going to be a certain falseness about that the first time that it happens. But it's something you can get good at over time. You may have to teach your partner how to reward you properly. And there may be pretty bad at it the first 10 times, and that might be annoying to you and them. And even false, right? but you can practice it and it's worth practicing.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
Throwing some evidence in their direction would be useful in that. Here's some things, you know, that I remember that you really did well.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
Well, this is one of the things that you see repeated in the biblical stories is that this is why there's insistence in those stories that whatever the divine is, it's something that you actually enter into a relationship with because there is this element of let's say, tolerance for failure combined with encouragement, right?
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
And so what seems to be happening is the dark tetrad types are hijacking the political discourse on the right and the left, polarizing and dividing and capitalizing on that. And it's catastrophic socially and psychologically, but they benefit from the ensuing chaos by attracting attention to themselves in a manner that's undeserved and counterproductive.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
It's not merely that what constitutes the divine is this unattainable infinite standard against which you're always going to fall short. That's what a tyrant does, falsely. It's more like the spirit of encouragement that a good father would... put into play with his kids.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
You know, you want to set a standard that pulls the child upward towards further development, but you want to put it within the range of their grasp. And so, and, you know, does that characterize your interaction with the world? Well, I think it's fair to say that it is, because, you know, we can fail without dying, and we can improve. And so the notion that ideals...
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
can exist in concert with encouragement isn't an unreasonable proposition. And it is. I mean, I think part of the reason that God is represented, let's say, in the biblical text as a wise father is because that element of the divine that's discriminating but encouraging is paramount. And that is what you want in a father, for sure. You want someone who says, I think you're capable of being great.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
I really think that. And here's some evidence that you've provided that that might be the case. But given that I believe that you're capable of that, I'm not going to let you get away with any deviation from that that would be finally counterproductive. That's not care, right? That's the devouring mother who says, whatever you do is fine, dear. It's like, that's not love, right?
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
That's actually love. The desire on the part of the person who's delivering that message to keep the person being communicated with in a continually infantile and dependent state So it's a weird thing because you need that discriminating judgment, which can be quite harsh. It's like, no, that wasn't up to standards there, buddy. But that failure isn't emblematic of your core self.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
The part of you that I really want to communicate is the part that's aiming up. That was sort of the agreement I had with my clients in my clinical practice. I'm on the side of you that's aiming up, and that's an interesting basis for a relationship. It's like, I'm not going to accept everything you do.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
Now, that doesn't mean I'm going to arbitrarily judge it or dispense with you in the case of failure, but our deal has got to be something like we're trying to make things better. And so I'm going to be on the side of you that's trying to make things better and help you discriminate that part within you from the part that might be envious and aiming down and being destructive.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
Oh, there's lots of things to be hopeful for. I mean... We're feeding twice as many people regularly as even the most wild optimists imagined in the late 1960s. Absolute poverty is being restricted around the world at a rate that's miraculously inconceivable.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
I mean, before things destabilized to some degree over the last five years, the UN projections were that we could eradicate absolute poverty by 2035. That's, I mean, that's a huge improvement. I mean, these communication technologies, they enable, well, with Peterson Academy, for example, we figure we can offer people a high-quality university-level education for under $2,000. and everywhere.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
So like, that's a major improvement. I think that things are actually somewhat less polarized on the political side than they were two years ago. I mean, there's tendencies in both directions, but I see, I was just in Uzbekistan. That was extremely interesting. I met a man there who's an industrialist. His enterprises comprise 15% of Uzbekistan's GDP.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
I think the danger in that is sufficient that it's civilization threatening. I mean, we can't underestimate the power of these electronically mediated communication networks. They're insanely powerful and they amplify people to a degree that's almost unimaginable. And so the manipulators and the bad actors have disproportionate influence.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
He refurbished 400,000 square meters of post-Soviet factory floor space. And They're manufacturing everything you can possibly imagine. Marble tiles, building materials, fridges, microwaves, air conditioners, golf carts, hospitals, hotels, high-rises. Uzbekistan under the Soviets was barely functional. Everyone was raising cotton. They drained Lake Bekel to irrigate the cotton fields.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
That was the only industrial development. They got themselves out from underneath the...
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
boot of the soviet totalitarians and the society is becoming wealthy and opportunity rich at an insane level and that's happening all over the world i mean endless numbers of reasons to assume that everybody could thrive that's what people like musk are trying to aim at you know however imperfectly i see no reason at all that the future couldn't be one of unlimited abundance.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
There's going to have to be a transformation in ethical orientation to go along with that because there's no difference between the ability to generate genuine wealth and ethical conduct. Those are the same thing. That's the life more abundant that's promised by the divine in the In the Old Testament stories, for example.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
You have to conduct yourself honorably so that you can trust each other, so that you can cooperate to be productive. Right? So, yeah, I'm optimistic fundamentally.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
Definitely. Definitely. Yeah.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
It just, it bemuses me that... Well, and there's no classes even on the relationship between character and economic progress. I read a great book once called The Wealth and Poverty of Nations, and it was a study of... Really, it's a study of the role that honesty and trust plays in the generation of wealth. Japan's a really good example of that. Japan has like no natural resources.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
And it's an extremely wealthy country. Why? Well, it's a high-trust society. No one steals. And envy is looked down upon, right? Ambition is fostered, and so is conscientious hard work, and maybe even to a fault in Japan. But it's a high-trust society. In high-trust societies, everybody can become rich, but it means that everybody has to conduct themselves ethically.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
And that is a precondition for anything approximating a, I hate to use the word sustainable, but an iterable capitalism. Because people, the leftist critics in particular, like to think of capitalism as a rapacious enterprise. But that's a... Well, first of all, compared to what? You know, dynastic poverty? Because that's generally the alternative. And it's not like that's not rapacious.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
And most enterprises that orient themselves too much to the short term fail. So... It's important to teach people, we do this so badly. I mean, even the word capitalism isn't one that should be used because really what we're talking about is free exchange of goods and services. I mean, who's opposed to that? Do you want to be able to have a different job? You want to have some choice?
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
On our Peterson Academy website, we have a social media network and we're trying to incorporate all the features of social media networks that have made them attractive. But Our system differs from, let's say, Twitter. Why? Well, there's a payment barrier. And you might say, well, I would rather it was free. It's like, hmm, free, eh? If it's free, you're the product.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
Do you want to actually be able to own the things you purchase? Do you want to be able to purchase things? Do you want to have a choice? Who says no to that? No one. But no one, young people in particular, aren't taught that, well, that's the capitalism that you're criticizing. The fact you get to own something and move your labor voluntarily from one place to another.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
You're going to oppose that, are you? In favor of what? Of top-down authoritarian planning, where everyone starves miserably. And, you know, a lot of that's been removed from the world since the wall fell, and people are much richer than they've ever been, and not in an entirely pathological manner. So, yeah, there's lots of reason to be optimistic.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
I actually think we're on the cusp of something like an ethical revolution, because I tried to outline in this new book is that I think that We're at the point where our scientific discoveries in fields like cognitive neuroscience and evolutionary biology can be seen to dovetail with our traditional understanding of high-order ethics. That's partly the case I tried to make in this book.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
And it's certainly the ethos that saturates the course offerings in Peterson Academy. You know, we're trying to encourage people to take maximal responsibility, to have an adventurous life, to pursue an ethical pathway, to tell the truth, and to educate themselves broadly and aesthetically. And so far... it seems to be working, you know, people are pleased with the, I'm so excited about this.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
I mean, I got to hand it to my daughter and her husband. Um, they've done a bang up job of, of putting this together. The courses are really beautiful. They're very, They're compelling. They're very well produced. And the technology works like a charm. And the social media network so far is behaving exactly how we hoped it would behave when we were feeling particularly optimistic.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
And we now have the capital to put all the things that we wanted to build into the system into place. So translation into multiple languages, that'll be on the table very soon. A radical expansion of the curriculum, We're going to predicate it on, I think, something approximating the Chicago great books tradition.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
So we're imagining something like the selection of great books that would characterize a high quality education in the humanities. One course, something like a minimum of one course per great book.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
I can't see any reason we can't do that. We have an excellent stable of professors. All of them want to continue working with us. I think that's true without exception so far. And I'm able to make contact with great lecturers all the time and to keep discovering them. That's beautiful. Congratulations. Yeah, fun. It's fantastic.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
I've been tweeting out funny ads about being the most progressive university in the world. Well, the progressives hope for universal education at something approximating zero cost. Wow. That's what we've got. It's open to anyone. And no one comes out with debt. So that seems pretty progressive to me. Absolutely.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
And I'm very excited about the translation possibilities, because AI systems are getting pretty good at that. So we'll have our lecturers be able to lecture in other languages using their own voice and modify the video so that it appears that they're speaking that language.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
So God only knows how many languages we'll be able to translate our material into, you know, as the AI systems develop and it gets cheaper and cheaper. So yeah, exciting. It's exciting. And the essay app, you know, that teaches people to write, it works. It helps people figure out what they want to write about.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
It runs them through the process of generating their ideas and then it teaches them how to edit. And so, and there's no difference between doing that and teaching people to think. So hopefully we can provide people with content and we can teach them the mechanics of thinking and writing.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
Yeah, that's fun. It's fun. And I think we will be able to do it.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
We've got 30,000 students and the system seems to be working. So we've got good proof of concept now. Absolutely.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
And if it's free, there's zero barrier to your exploitation. So the bad actors, you could—I think this is probably a rule— In a social communication system that's free, the psychopaths come to dominate because they can take it. It's not free because you're devoting your attention and attention is valuable. And the bad actors can take advantage of your attention and pay zero price. Well,
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
I think I'm doing, in my way, the same thing that Elon Musk said that he was doing when I interviewed him, which is to continue exploring the limits of possibility. That's an adventure, right? To explore the limits of possibility. A lot of times, possibility comes to you as tragedy. That's a good thing to understand. They say every treasure has a dragon, but you can reverse that.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
And that's worth knowing too. If something terrible comes your way, it's like there's an opportunity there. Like it might be not the kind of opportunity you would have wished for, but that doesn't mean it isn't there.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
So that's a good thing to know.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
I've met him four times. So we've probably spent a total of about seven hours together. Yeah. And I would say I've walked away from each encounter More impressed with him as a character in terms of his character. I mean, you have to be mouth open in amazement with regards to his technological and managerial entrepreneurial prowess.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
I mean, it's just, it's ridiculous, but I believe that he's doing his best to aim up. Thank God. And I think that's what the Mars voyages symbolize, right? He's, it's a mythological adventure to aim up in that manner. And he's, it's part of his story, right? It's the mythological dimension of his story. And it's not practical, right? Except insofar as a great story is practical.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
So I remember the Apollo voyages. They were very motivating to people, you know, as an indication of what humanity was capable of doing. And certainly Musk is playing that out on the technological side.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
By attempting to practice honesty in your own life. And by rewarding it among the people that you interact with. It's very useful to understand that you have the opportunity to point out to other people who you interact with regularly what they're doing that is positive and good, and that there's nothing in that that isn't productive.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
Well, that's the hard part of the problem, isn't it? I think, well, I had that conversation with my kids because it is something I told them when they went to school. I said, look, there's going to be reasonable rules at your school and there are going to be unreasonable rules. And I don't require you to follow the unreasonable rules, but you have to be willing to bear the consequences.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
Right, so you're morally obliged to object to foolish restrictions, but you have to be willing to pay the price for that. And there will be a price. And it has to be you that pays it, right?
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
Yes, yes. It's also the difference between activism, let's say, and civil disobedience. Because if it's civil disobedience, you pay the price. If it's activism, someone else does.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
If you set up a system where actors can take advantage of your attention for zero price, the psychopaths are going to dominate. So one of the things we might hypothesize, I don't know if it's true, is that there should be a price barrier to all social media interactions. If it's free, the bad actors will dominate.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
Yeah, that would be good. I'd love to do that. We did a little bit of that. We got into the overlap between the narrative domains. That would be really useful. And I loved it. Yeah, I really loved it too. It's really beautiful. I don't know nearly as much about Hindu, religious thought as I should.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
I know a little bit about Buddhism and a moderate amount about Taoism, and that's been extremely useful to me, but I'm less conversant with the Hindu tradition of thought, and it would be very interesting to... I mean, I've never delved deeply, almost without exception, into a religious tradition without finding stories that were of incalculable value.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
Yeah, yeah. Well, so yeah, that would be a good thing to do.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
And then the other thing we're trying to do is to, well, encourage and reward positive interactions, but we're also going to take the responsibility of identifying the small number of people who will repetitively misbehave and just ask them to leave. Now, you know, that raises the specter of something approximating censorship, let's say, but I don't think it's reasonable to draw a direct line
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
line between censorship and not putting up with immature psychopaths. That's not the same thing. It's not opinion based. I've been attacked by the psychopathic types on the left and on the right. It's politically agnostic. And so, because the psychopathic manipulator types, they'll use whatever system of ideas is at hand to further their own machinations.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
And I think you can distinguish the psychopaths I mean, I use some rules online when I'm dealing with comments. If you're anonymous, you're questionable. If you're anonymous with a demonic name, you're definitely questionable. And a lot of anonymous accounts have names that are Luciferian. I guess that's part of the edginess.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
If you use LOL, LMFAO, if you use derisive names, those are all indications of bad actors, like I think you could characterize the bad actor space quite clearly. You do that with diagnostic criteria. But we have this situation now where the social media spaces are overwhelmingly tilted in a negative direction by the predatory psychopaths.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
No, I know they're not. I was speaking with one of my friends today, Greg Hurwitz, who has been doing polling, trying to identify statements of conception that Americans radically agree on. And he has a list of about 50 that 85% of Americans agree on. They're very foundational things. No, I don't believe it at all.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
I think that there's a fringe of the dark tetrad types who are radically stirring the pot. And that the algorithms and the anonymity and the costless nature of the communication is... enabling them. Yeah, and it's extremely dangerous.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
I don't know. I don't know how you do that. I mean, I think part of that might be realizing that that is happening. You know, it'd be useful for people to familiarize themselves with the symptoms of what's called cluster B psychopathology, borderline personality disorder, narcissism, psychopathy, antisocial personality, histrionic personality, to know who those people are.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
And to start to become aware of that. I think that's actually harder for people on the left. And the reason for that, I believe, is that Agreeableness tilts people towards the radical left because agreeable people are highly empathic and they tend to think of anyone who's suffering as a victim.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
The problem with that attitude is that it doesn't arm you very well with an understanding of evil because truly malevolent people camouflage themselves as victims and they take advantage of the empathic. And that's a big problem, because the last thing you want to do if you're truly empathic is enable the sadists, right? And there's no shortage of that.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
We know, for example, there's a developing psychological literature that shows that the active anonymous troll types are much more likely to be characterized by dark tetrad traits. Is there a way that we can...
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
Well, I think that one of the things that social media operators should do is they should separate the anonymous accounts from the verified accounts. So, for example, I would like to see it on Twitter where the verified accounts, you see their comments, and then there's a hidden space underneath, which is anonymous accounts.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
And if you wanna click on that and look through what the troll demons have to say, you can. It's a little trip to hell. You're not required to do it. And they're separated from the people who will stake their reputation on their words, which is what you do when you genuinely identify yourself. Now the anonymous types like to say,
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
well, you know, anonymity is necessary because in a tyrannical state, only the anonymous can tell the truth. And my experience with that is that for every one in 10,000 people brave, anonymous whistleblowers. There's 9,999 sadistic Machiavellians.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
And so you might think that you're a brave truth teller in the confines of your anonymous, demonically named account, but probably you're just a sadistic troublemaker. So I think that would be. And then the other issue, it probably is cost like free money. First of all, free is an illusion because there is nothing that's free. At least you're paying with your attention and your time.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
It's not free. Your data, yeah. Well, that's the next thing. You're also paying with your identity and all your behavioral data, right? And so none of that's free. And so that's an illusion.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
And I think one of the things we have observed with Peterson Academy, because the social interactions there are very positive, and pretty much universally so, and hopefully we'll establish that as a, what would you say, a cultural convention, right? But I'm certain that a fair part of that is just that
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Jordan Peterson: 5 Ways to Shift Envy into Growth & How to Recognize and Pursue Your True Calling
You can't produce 100 troll accounts for nothing and do nothing but cause trouble because at minimum it's going to cost you some money. So I think we can probably dispense with maybe 80% of the bad actors just by not making it free. So no one knows, right?
The Ben Shapiro Show
Jordan Peterson Reveals Crucial Differences Between Mothers & Fathers | Parenting
My new Daily Wire Plus series, Parenting, brings what I've learned in decades of research and clinical practice to the concerns of real mothers and fathers. Watch Parenting exclusively on Daily Wire, May 25th. Go to dailywireplus.com today to subscribe.
The Ben Shapiro Show
Jordan Peterson Reveals Crucial Differences Between Mothers & Fathers | Parenting
What lessons can you derive from today's discussion? How do you operate effectively as a father and as a mother in today's world? Well, you could say, if you wanted to play sex stereotype, that a mother secures and a father encourages. You could say that a father is radically on the side of who the child could become. And a mother is more radically on the side of who the child is.
The Ben Shapiro Show
Jordan Peterson Reveals Crucial Differences Between Mothers & Fathers | Parenting
And that's a nice dynamic because when you're dealing with a child, you have to be happy and grateful for who they are. and encouraging them to be the person they could become. Now, I think it's a mistake for the mother always to be the nurturer and the father always to be the person pushing forward. Both parents should play both roles, but that's a good way of considering the sex differentiation.
The Ben Shapiro Show
Jordan Peterson Reveals Crucial Differences Between Mothers & Fathers | Parenting
In all likelihood, you're going to be a mother of small children for a much shorter time than you think and for a much smaller fraction of your life than you imagine. While you have little kids, time sort of slows and it seems like it's always been that way and it's always going to be that way and that's not the case.
The Ben Shapiro Show
Jordan Peterson Reveals Crucial Differences Between Mothers & Fathers | Parenting
You have little kids for a very short period of time and it is a major mistake not to notice that and to appreciate it. It's the pathway to a future with the least regrets to understand and be grateful for the opportunity that you have to care for your children while they're little and to be as grateful as you possibly can for that because it really is a privilege.
The Ben Shapiro Show
Jordan Peterson Reveals Crucial Differences Between Mothers & Fathers | Parenting
In the first few months of life a child has to be in very close contact with his or her mother. It's virtually impossible to give a true infant too much attention. In fact, I don't even know if it is possible. As the child becomes autonomous, can start doing things on his or her own, then you have to pull back in lockstep with the child's independence.
The Ben Shapiro Show
Jordan Peterson Reveals Crucial Differences Between Mothers & Fathers | Parenting
And you might say, well, how do you know how fast to pull back? You really take your cues from the child. A mother or a parent acts as a zone of security and predictability and care for the child. And so the child uses the mother, let's say, as a place of safety and will come back for comfort, for attention, and then will go out into the world and play and interact until they hit an obstacle.
The Ben Shapiro Show
Jordan Peterson Reveals Crucial Differences Between Mothers & Fathers | Parenting
And then they'll retreat to the mother. to be that island of stability, security and encouragement. And so then there's a continual dance between outward movement and retreat that the mother anchors. And eventually the child is capable of completely autonomous life. And then if you've handled that properly and you've been the proper balance of security and encouragement,
The Ben Shapiro Show
Jordan Peterson Reveals Crucial Differences Between Mothers & Fathers | Parenting
There is nothing you'll do in life that's more challenging, difficult and rewarding than being a parent. Nothing with greater highs or lower lows. Worthwhile meaning in your life is going to be found in the voluntary adoption of responsibility. Voluntary self-sacrifice, that's the spirit of the functional psyche, family and community. What does it mean to be a father?
The Ben Shapiro Show
Jordan Peterson Reveals Crucial Differences Between Mothers & Fathers | Parenting
The child won't leave permanently because you'll establish an adult relationship with them and then a relationship with their children. And then you get to have your cake and eat it too. And that's a good deal for everybody. If you're willing to lose your child as they adventure outward, you'll gain them back in an adult relationship.
The Ben Shapiro Show
Jordan Peterson Reveals Crucial Differences Between Mothers & Fathers | Parenting
How did you overindulge, do you think, exactly?
The Ben Shapiro Show
Jordan Peterson Reveals Crucial Differences Between Mothers & Fathers | Parenting
I've seen mothers who are at the beck and call of their three-year-old son in particular. That's a bad idea. Your son, your daughter for that matter, isn't little god emperor of the universe and shouldn't conceptualize himself or herself that way. That's a good pathway to narcissism. Your best pathway forward as a mother is to not do for your child anything that your child can do for themself.
The Ben Shapiro Show
Jordan Peterson Reveals Crucial Differences Between Mothers & Fathers | Parenting
That means doing up their shoes or putting on their clothes and cleaning up their rooms and helping to set the table when they're old enough to help set the table. One of the mistakes that parents make is they'll step in and do things quickly for the child instead of letting them learn.
The Ben Shapiro Show
Jordan Peterson Reveals Crucial Differences Between Mothers & Fathers | Parenting
Now, at any given time, it's faster for you to dress your child, but you don't want to be dressing them when they're seven. Everything you can do to bring the child into the realm of adult responsibility is exactly the sort of thing that you would do if you were reasonable and you were trying to boost what people now so casually call self-esteem.
The Ben Shapiro Show
Jordan Peterson Reveals Crucial Differences Between Mothers & Fathers | Parenting
There's nothing that gives a person more esteem than to see that they're useful and necessary and that that's real. How are you doing? I'm good.
The Ben Shapiro Show
Jordan Peterson Reveals Crucial Differences Between Mothers & Fathers | Parenting
Micah. Micah. Nice to meet you. Micah. So what brings you here today?
The Ben Shapiro Show
Jordan Peterson Reveals Crucial Differences Between Mothers & Fathers | Parenting
Yeah, well, I guess you're going to find out the answer to that question, aren't you? Yes. Can you become a father? Is that a rule you take on? I think it's always a rule you take on. Being a father is a relationship, and a relationship is something you have to develop. Any time that you spend with your child, one-on-one,
The Ben Shapiro Show
Jordan Peterson Reveals Crucial Differences Between Mothers & Fathers | Parenting
teaching them, talking to them, playing with them, listening to them, walking with them is encouragement because they need to learn to be adults. And your children need to see you modeling how to be an engaged adult for them. Honest and committed pursuit of a worthwhile goal. That's a good way of thinking about what a father should model. Voluntary adventure.
The Ben Shapiro Show
Jordan Peterson Reveals Crucial Differences Between Mothers & Fathers | Parenting
That's another encapsulation of the masculine role. The establishment of a vision. The commitment to its pursuit. Resilience in the face of failure. Faith in the future. service to your family, your community, protection from the catastrophes of life, and care of the most vulnerable. That's masculinity in a nutshell.
The Ben Shapiro Show
Jordan Peterson Reveals Crucial Differences Between Mothers & Fathers | Parenting
What does it mean to be a mother? You need to know very clearly what it is that you can do for your children in order to help them live a life that's adventurous and responsible. I've distilled the decades of my experience as a researcher and clinical psychologist into the lessons every striving mother or father needs to learn.
The Ben Shapiro Show
Jordan Peterson Reveals Crucial Differences Between Mothers & Fathers | Parenting
That's why the shepherd, for example, in old religious stories is a model of masculinity. Ancient shepherds, they kept the wolves and the lions at bay and took care of the most vulnerable. And that's what men who are worthy of the name strive for. Don't assume that there's a pathway to being a father. Just have a relationship with the kid. And that'll unfold at its own speed.
The Ben Shapiro Show
Jordan Peterson Reveals Crucial Differences Between Mothers & Fathers | Parenting
And that is what happens with fathers anyways. You've got to get to know your kid. And you do that by spending time with them. And just because children know less about the world at the experiential level doesn't mean they're not paying attention. And it certainly doesn't mean that they're stupid. They're not stupid, and they're watching, and you can talk to them.
The Ben Shapiro Show
Jordan Peterson Reveals Crucial Differences Between Mothers & Fathers | Parenting
Now, you have to talk to a two-year-old about the things that a two-year-old can understand, but if you have a genuine conversation with them, then you're communicating, and that's just steady all the way through. There's no difference, technically speaking, between being concerned with yourself in the narrow sense, say concerned with your own pleasure, concerned with your own status.
The Ben Shapiro Show
Jordan Peterson Reveals Crucial Differences Between Mothers & Fathers | Parenting
There's no difference between that and suffering. The answer to that isn't to stop being self-conscious because that's not something you can voluntarily control. The answer is to note that meaning in your life is going to be found in adoption of responsibility for other people, and responsibility for the future.
The Ben Shapiro Show
Jordan Peterson Reveals Crucial Differences Between Mothers & Fathers | Parenting
Shouldering that load makes you productive and useful, but it also provides you with the sustaining meaning that helps you manage yourself even through times of trouble.
The Ben Shapiro Show
Jordan Peterson Reveals Crucial Differences Between Mothers & Fathers | Parenting
Oh, yeah.
The Ben Shapiro Show
Jordan Peterson Reveals Crucial Differences Between Mothers & Fathers | Parenting
Yeah.
The Ben Shapiro Show
Jordan Peterson Reveals Crucial Differences Between Mothers & Fathers | Parenting
Okay. You know, people think, well, I'm taking on this responsibility. I'm sacrificing my freedom. It's like, well, first of all, freedom to do what? To be self-centered and miserable? What, and lonesome? That's all the freedom I want, self-centered, miserable, and lonesome. So then you take on the hypothetical responsibility of a child, but the thing is they pay you. There's data on this too.
The Ben Shapiro Show
Jordan Peterson Reveals Crucial Differences Between Mothers & Fathers | Parenting
People who have little kids take more pleasure in the things they do with their little kids than single people do doing the same things. Kids look at the world through fresh eyes. Everything that you do with a little kid is a new thing for the kid and you get to see that and that's a really good deal. And you can become a master of those little adventures that you go on with your kids.
The Ben Shapiro Show
Jordan Peterson Reveals Crucial Differences Between Mothers & Fathers | Parenting
If you learn to do it right, there won't be anything that you'd rather do because it's a very rare adult who is as much joy to be with than a child who's well-disciplined and playfully accompanying you. In conclusion, what lessons can you derive from today's discussion? Lessons for motherhood. Hold them close, but let them go.
The Ben Shapiro Show
Jordan Peterson Reveals Crucial Differences Between Mothers & Fathers | Parenting
If you've ever thought about becoming a parent or are a parent already, this series is for you. Hello. I sat down recently with many moms and dads to personally discuss the situations they were facing with their children.
The Ben Shapiro Show
Jordan Peterson Reveals Crucial Differences Between Mothers & Fathers | Parenting
Encourage your children to go out into the world so they become competent and productive and happy and secure, but be confident that when the need arises, they'll come to you for the care that only as their mother you can provide. Don't worship your child. Care for them, love them, but don't turn them into narcissists. Lessons for fatherhood. Become the man your children want to imitate.
The Ben Shapiro Show
Jordan Peterson Reveals Crucial Differences Between Mothers & Fathers | Parenting
There's very little that you can do that's more important as a man than to provide the model for responsible, adventurous adulthood to your children. Embrace responsibility, gain purpose. You're giving up what's often nothing more than juvenile hedonism to pursue something of much greater significance, the meaning that you find in the voluntary adoption of responsibility.
The Ben Shapiro Show
Jordan Peterson Reveals Crucial Differences Between Mothers & Fathers | Parenting
So I'd like to offer you a sample homework assignment, so to speak. Sit and write a little bit, a couple of paragraphs, about three things that your father did particularly well. And do the same with your mother.
The Ben Shapiro Show
Jordan Peterson Reveals Crucial Differences Between Mothers & Fathers | Parenting
Write down as well three things that you think they might have done better and then give some thought while you're writing to how you could capitalize on the positive things that your father and your mother taught you and how you could rectify the things that were less than optimal. I hope that that's helpful in dealing with the problems that arise in the future.
The Ben Shapiro Show
Ep. 2101 - Alleged UnitedHealthcare CEO Shooter CAPTURED…HERE’S WHAT WE KNOW
I just want to say... I miss my son. My son didn't have to go through this. I didn't have to go through this either. It hurts. Really, really hurts. What are we going to do, people? What's going to happen to us now? I had enough of this. The system is rigged. Come on, people. Let's do something about this.
The Ben Shapiro Show
We Who Wrestle With God | Dr. Jordan B. Peterson
It's more definitive in the Old Testament accounts that whatever God is, is beyond categorization. God is outside our category structures. Now, does that make him real? Well, I would say God is hyper real. God is the reality upon which all reality depends. That's a different kind of category. It's an atheist game. Is God real like a table is real?
The Ben Shapiro Show
We Who Wrestle With God | Dr. Jordan B. Peterson
which is brilliant, brilliant, immediate follow-up from a narrative perspective. And then as you said, you get a story of the forms of society that are likely to prevail if prideful overreach is the name of the game. You get a collapse into chaos, and that's clearly the story of Noah. That's all of its symbolic associations.
The Ben Shapiro Show
We Who Wrestle With God | Dr. Jordan B. Peterson
Or you get the rise of the all-seeing eye of Sauron, and that's the Tower of Babel. And the consequence of the rise of the totalitarian state is that words themselves lose their meaning. And we're certainly at that point in our society because we can't even agree on what constitutes a man and a woman, which is, I think, by the way, the most fundamental perceptual distinction.
The Ben Shapiro Show
We Who Wrestle With God | Dr. Jordan B. Peterson
Yeah, I'm very happy about it. I'm also perplexed.
The Ben Shapiro Show
We Who Wrestle With God | Dr. Jordan B. Peterson
I think it might be the distinction upon which all other distinctions rest. It's certainly the case from the symbolic perspective. Well, then, in keeping with your analysis, the story of Abraham is presented as the alternative pathway to the flood and the Tower of Babel. And Abraham is a story of upward spiraling sacrificial offering, right?
The Ben Shapiro Show
We Who Wrestle With God | Dr. Jordan B. Peterson
And so you could say, well, at each stage of your life, you're in a new narrative. So it's a new episode. And each episode concludes with something approximating a psychological transformation. So you become more than you were. And then the new episode is marked by a reestablishment of your sacrificial relationship with what's highest. That's what Abraham does when he builds the altar, right?
The Ben Shapiro Show
We Who Wrestle With God | Dr. Jordan B. Peterson
Every time he moves into the space of a new adventure, he... reaffirms his commitment to the highest possible sovereign principle. In Abraham's case, it's really construed as something approximating the spirit of adventure, right? And the consequence of that is God offers him a bargain, right? God comes to Abraham with a deal. That's the covenant. It's a really good deal.
The Ben Shapiro Show
We Who Wrestle With God | Dr. Jordan B. Peterson
Well, I don't know what people are going to make of it because... See, I tried to do two things in the book. I tried to make a case that was scientifically and theologically unassailable. And, you know, people might be skeptical about whether or not, let's say, psychology qualifies as a science. But it does if you triangulate with enough precision.
The Ben Shapiro Show
We Who Wrestle With God | Dr. Jordan B. Peterson
And it's so cool because I think it works psychologically again. God tells Abraham that if he leaves his zone of comfort, then he will be a blessing to himself. So that's a good deal because people seldom are. He will have a name that's renowned among his peers and justifiably so. So that's a good deal because we want to be known. That's not exactly right. We want to develop a stellar reputation.
The Ben Shapiro Show
We Who Wrestle With God | Dr. Jordan B. Peterson
That's the treasure that's stacked up in heaven by the way that the gospels refer to, right? Because it's the best place to store your wealth is in your reputation. Clearly. He'll establish something permanent, in Abraham's case, a dynasty. So now he becomes the pattern of fatherhood itself. And he'll do that in a way that's of benefit to everyone else.
The Ben Shapiro Show
We Who Wrestle With God | Dr. Jordan B. Peterson
So it's a great deal, way better than the zero-sum Malthusian nightmare that the apocalypse mongers foist on us. And so then Abraham does that. He swears to do that. And at each stage of his development, he reaffirms his commitment to that spirit of adventure. And then he transforms himself through a process of sacrifice.
The Ben Shapiro Show
We Who Wrestle With God | Dr. Jordan B. Peterson
And what that means is that every time your personality expands because you have a new opportunity, you have to leave things that aren't worthy behind. In the dust, so to speak, right? And so Abraham does that. He does it so thoroughly, he literally becomes a new person, because he gets a new name. And then he's called upon to offer his son to God.
The Ben Shapiro Show
We Who Wrestle With God | Dr. Jordan B. Peterson
And that's the stumbling point for, say, most skeptical atheist readers. But I also understand what that means, I think, because... Mostly because of thinking about Michelangelo's Pieta. You know, there's this tremendous statue in St. Peter's that Michelangelo carved when he was like 23. And it shows Mary holding the broken body of her adult son in her arms.
The Ben Shapiro Show
We Who Wrestle With God | Dr. Jordan B. Peterson
And I would say offering him to the world. or to God, offering him to the highest. And that is what you do if you have children, if you have any sense, right? Is you sacrifice your children, let's say their whims, their immediate desires, all of that, even your relationship with them, their dependency on you, you sacrifice that to the highest possible aim. And
The Ben Shapiro Show
We Who Wrestle With God | Dr. Jordan B. Peterson
if you do that properly, you get them back. And that's also true because if you encourage your children to go out into the world in this Abrahamic way, then they become competent and stable and they're appreciative of you. And once they're adults, they can establish a long-lasting friendship at that point. It's more than friendship, but it's at least that.
The Ben Shapiro Show
We Who Wrestle With God | Dr. Jordan B. Peterson
And so Abraham, he's the archetypal individual, and his pathway forward, him and Sarai, that's definitely offered as the alternative to the catastrophe of the flood and the all-seeing eye of the state. The coherence of the biblical story is so deep that it's
The Ben Shapiro Show
We Who Wrestle With God | Dr. Jordan B. Peterson
So the arguments that I'm making, I think, are, what would you say, they're viable arguments. at a psychopharmacological basis. So with regards to brain chemistry and brain function, and also with what we know about perception and clinical practice. And then they also make sense from a literary and religious scholarship perspective. Now that's what I think.
The Ben Shapiro Show
We Who Wrestle With God | Dr. Jordan B. Peterson
Well, the writing was much easier, Ben. because I've done so much of it now, and because also I was writing this book while I was lecturing continually and on a lecture tour, and the ideas flowed much more easily. I would say in terms of difficulty, this book is probably midway between Maps of Meaning and Twelve Rules. It's not a simple read, but
The Ben Shapiro Show
We Who Wrestle With God | Dr. Jordan B. Peterson
Well, it's as simple as I could make it, you know, and I would also say the same about maps of meaning. Like, I wasn't trying to be opaque. I was trying to figure something out. Now, with 12 rules and beyond order, I was more explaining something than trying to figure it out, although there was some of the latter in it. With this book, it's sort of halfway between.
The Ben Shapiro Show
We Who Wrestle With God | Dr. Jordan B. Peterson
You know, I was definitely entering new territory, much deeper analysis of many more biblical stories, and so there's a fair bit of investigation on my end there, and that tilts it more towards the academic direction, but I think that like 12 Rules or Beyond Order, the book is extremely practical. Like if you understand the things that are in We Who Wrestle With God, it'll change your life.
The Ben Shapiro Show
We Who Wrestle With God | Dr. Jordan B. Peterson
And I don't say that lightly. And I also say it knowing it's true, because hundreds and hundreds of students at Harvard and the University of Toronto told me year after year for 20 years, informally and formally in the course evaluations, that the Maps of Meaning course changed their entire life. It changed the way they looked at everything.
The Ben Shapiro Show
We Who Wrestle With God | Dr. Jordan B. Peterson
And then I also know from the tours and the thousands of people that I've spoken to, or even tens of thousands of people that the 12 rules for life and be on order have had the same effect. And like, I think this is a well, this is a deeper book in that it unites, as I said, it unites modern science with the deepest of our theological traditions.
The Ben Shapiro Show
We Who Wrestle With God | Dr. Jordan B. Peterson
If that's true, like that's a preposterous claim, right? It's really, it's a preposterous claim. But I also think, Ben, like I think we are on the cusp of something truly new because I think the enlightenment has come to an end. I think in my wilder moments that that was signified in some ways by my discussion with Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennett.
The Ben Shapiro Show
We Who Wrestle With God | Dr. Jordan B. Peterson
And the reason that those discussions happened and the reason that they attracted a certain amount of attention was because there is something new under the sun. And it is that what's new is our understanding now, our emergent understanding that there's no escaping from the story.
The Ben Shapiro Show
We Who Wrestle With God | Dr. Jordan B. Peterson
Truth. Well, first of all, there is now a hard science of symbolism. The large language models have mapped out the symbolic world. And what they have mapped out is the probability that ideas will co-occur. And what a symbol is, is like a central symbol would be the center point of a network of statistically associated ideas. And then I would say every perception is a network of that sort.
The Ben Shapiro Show
We Who Wrestle With God | Dr. Jordan B. Peterson
So when you perceive an object, you perceive the object in relationship to its embodiment or incarnation of the ideal. So every object is platonic. It's a platonic idea, but it actually seems to be literally the case. This is actually how you perceive. You perceive every pillow, or there's a pillow in this room that I'm looking at. You perceive every pillow.
The Ben Shapiro Show
We Who Wrestle With God | Dr. Jordan B. Peterson
That's a lot of fields to cover and refer to, you know, and so am I a master in all those areas? Well, I suppose in each of those areas, there are people who know more than me. But across the areas, I'm not doing too bad. And so I figured out some things that are very fundamental, I think. And we'll see how people respond. Like I figured out, for example, that
The Ben Shapiro Show
We Who Wrestle With God | Dr. Jordan B. Peterson
as a reflection of the ideal central form of pillow, which is something like an amalgam of its practical function and its objective qualities. It's both of those. And every perception has that element. There's a center and a fringe around every perception. And that's That's not a matter of opinion. That's how the large language models work.
The Ben Shapiro Show
We Who Wrestle With God | Dr. Jordan B. Peterson
And they've modeled human linguistic cognition far better than anything we've ever created by like many orders of magnitude. So we can map out the symbolic world objectively now, but the best way to think about it is just the symbolic world is the weighting of ideas. So for example, I use this example in the book. If you hear the word witch,
The Ben Shapiro Show
We Who Wrestle With God | Dr. Jordan B. Peterson
There are, you instantly know which W-I-T-C-H, there are a plethora of images and words that co-occur with that. Like it's witch and swamp. It's not witch and glass enclosed, high rise penthouse apartment.
The Ben Shapiro Show
We Who Wrestle With God | Dr. Jordan B. Peterson
Now, you could play with that, like you could play with the witch representation by having a witch who was witchy in all regards, except she lived in a penthouse, you know, and that would be an interesting twist. But you have to stay within the realm of the symbolic representations in order for the portrayal to make sense.
The Ben Shapiro Show
We Who Wrestle With God | Dr. Jordan B. Peterson
And so, and I think I asked one of the world's top neuroscientists flat out, can I remember his name off the top of my head? Anyways, it'll come to me. I asked him if every perception was a micro narrative and he said, yes. right? And so that's very interesting.
The Ben Shapiro Show
We Who Wrestle With God | Dr. Jordan B. Peterson
This is revolutionary because, of course, the atheist reductionist materialists like Dawkins assume that there is a self-evident fact level somewhere and that you can reduce everything that's value predicated to this level of incontrovertible self-evident fact. That level doesn't exist. It's interpretation all the way down. Now,
The Ben Shapiro Show
We Who Wrestle With God | Dr. Jordan B. Peterson
The weird thing about that is that, in a sense, that's what the postmodernists have been claiming. But what they got wrong was that that interpretation level itself, the weighting level, also has a structure. And one of the things I tried to tell Dawkins was that that's the structure of the meme world. That's a good way of thinking about it.
The Ben Shapiro Show
We Who Wrestle With God | Dr. Jordan B. Peterson
Like the world that we've abstracted up in linguistic representation and imagination, it has a structure. That's the Jungian collective unconscious. And that's the consequence of the competition between memes across... hundreds of thousands of years.
The Ben Shapiro Show
We Who Wrestle With God | Dr. Jordan B. Peterson
And so one of the reasons I really wanted to talk to Richard Dawkins, and I had spoken with Brett Weinstein in some detail before that, was that Dawkins' meme idea is way more significant than he thinks, but he won't take that step because if he steps beyond, like he said, a meme is a backwards baseball cap. It's like, Jesus, Richard, really? I mean, come on, give yourself some credit.
The Ben Shapiro Show
We Who Wrestle With God | Dr. Jordan B. Peterson
You're talking about the manner in which abstract representations war for supremacy in the space defined by abstract human cognition. You can do better than backwards baseball cap. You know, I tried to let him know that Mircea Eliade, who's a great historian of religion, has mapped out something like the structure of the war between gods in heaven across multiple cultures.
The Ben Shapiro Show
We Who Wrestle With God | Dr. Jordan B. Peterson
And it's a very calm, it's a very stable pattern. You get a polytheistic interpretation of the world. which is something like the narrative embodiment of different value structures. And then they vie for supremacy. And that probably happens as isolated tribal groups come together in larger civilizations.
The Ben Shapiro Show
We Who Wrestle With God | Dr. Jordan B. Peterson
So there's actual war on the ground, but there's also conceptual war in the space of imagination. And then that tends towards the emergence of a monotheism across time, if the culture manages to unite itself. And then that monotheism has certain properties. You know, like in Mesopotamia, for example, a god named Marduk rose up out of the polytheistic, out of the realm of polytheistic combat.
The Ben Shapiro Show
We Who Wrestle With God | Dr. Jordan B. Peterson
And Marduk was characterized by eyes all the way around his head, so attention, and by the capacity to speak magic words, the words that transform night into day, which is very similar to the conception of Yahweh at the beginning of time. But there's a reason for that. It's that as these underlying value structures vie for supremacy, What emerges as superordinate and stable is structured.
The Ben Shapiro Show
We Who Wrestle With God | Dr. Jordan B. Peterson
I make a very strong case that it is now an unassailable fact that a description of the structure through which we see the world is a story. That's what a story is. A story is actually a description of a weighting function. You know how in large language models, the relationship between words is specified statistically? There's weightings.
The Ben Shapiro Show
We Who Wrestle With God | Dr. Jordan B. Peterson
And I think the reason for that, Ben, is that imagine that you took the set of all possible playable games and you extracted out what playable meant. Playable would mean something like infinitely iterable, improving as you played it, and voluntarily chosen. Well, that's a very tight set of constraints around what would constitute an acceptable game.
The Ben Shapiro Show
We Who Wrestle With God | Dr. Jordan B. Peterson
And there's no reason to assume that wouldn't reemerge continually as the world of playable games battled What would you say? As battles raged in the world of potentially playable games. It makes perfect sense. Dawkins kind of got excited about that idea near the end of our discussion because we talked about how that might function biologically.
The Ben Shapiro Show
We Who Wrestle With God | Dr. Jordan B. Peterson
So once you establish a story as supreme, then people can compete within that framework for reproductive supremacy. And that would mean that the reproductive victory would confer an advantage on the genes that matched that story. So that's how biological evolution can chase the...
The Ben Shapiro Show
We Who Wrestle With God | Dr. Jordan B. Peterson
structure of narrative well geez well Dawkins he figured when we talked about that this was only the last half an hour so he saw how that might work which I thought was well I couldn't have asked for a better end to our discussion than now it's like that's also an explanation for the emergence of the Jungian collective unconscious right at the genetic from the genetic level all the way up to the conceptual I think it's indisputable that these sorts of things have occurred
The Ben Shapiro Show
We Who Wrestle With God | Dr. Jordan B. Peterson
It can't not be the case. It has to be the case. And I think it has to be the case biologically. Once human beings opened up the capacity for abstraction and we created worlds of representation in abstraction, then the fact of the existence of those worlds is going to start to have a determining effect on the course of biological evolution.
The Ben Shapiro Show
We Who Wrestle With God | Dr. Jordan B. Peterson
The alternative hypothesis is that the fact that human beings can think is independent of their reproductive status and their biology. That's a stupid theory. Obviously, that's not true. So I think we're in a revolution, a conceptual revolution, Ben, and I think all this political drama, all the culture wars are a reflection of something much deeper going on underneath the surface.
The Ben Shapiro Show
We Who Wrestle With God | Dr. Jordan B. Peterson
Everyone has that feeling anyways, you know?
The Ben Shapiro Show
We Who Wrestle With God | Dr. Jordan B. Peterson
My answer to that always is, you know, I act as if God exists and people don't like that because they say, well, what do you believe? What do you think is true? It's like, well... It's perfectly reasonable to have a debate about what constitutes the basis of faith. As far as I'm concerned, and it's an existential claim, what you believe to be true is what you stake your life on.
The Ben Shapiro Show
We Who Wrestle With God | Dr. Jordan B. Peterson
It's what you act out. And it isn't... See, I think that's really a hangover in some ways from... a Protestant view of belief. And I'm not trying to single the Protestants out here. The Protestants did more than anyone else, arguably, although you got to give credit to the Jews on this front too, to bring literacy to the world, right?
The Ben Shapiro Show
We Who Wrestle With God | Dr. Jordan B. Peterson
that define the relationship between letters and words and concepts and sentences and paragraphs and A story is a description of the waiting function that someone applies to the facts.
The Ben Shapiro Show
We Who Wrestle With God | Dr. Jordan B. Peterson
It was the combination of the printing press and the Protestant insistence that everyone could have direct contact with the word of God that made the whole world literate. And that is not an overstatement. That's a historical fact.
The Ben Shapiro Show
We Who Wrestle With God | Dr. Jordan B. Peterson
But the problem with the Protestant approach in some ways, because it's so hyper-linguistic, is that belief gets transformed into something like the willingness to mouth a set of propositions. And I just don't think, like, that's true in a way, but it's not fundamentally true. You know, and Christ himself says in the Gospels that not everyone who says, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven.
The Ben Shapiro Show
We Who Wrestle With God | Dr. Jordan B. Peterson
Like, the mere... mere verbal assent to a statement of belief is not sufficient to bring the kingdom of heaven to earth. It's a matter of commitment and action. It's a matter of actual sacrifice. And then I would say to people who want to know what I believe is, well, first of all, it's not like I'm hiding anything. Here's a book. It explains what I believe. That's why I wrote the book.
The Ben Shapiro Show
We Who Wrestle With God | Dr. Jordan B. Peterson
And it's one of four books. And all of those books are my attempts to make what I believe to be the case as clear as possible. People seem to assume that there's some secret hidden underneath that. Maybe there is, but if there is, I don't know what the hell it is. But it's even more like there's, look, I get trolled online a fair bit, as you do, no doubt, and of course.
The Ben Shapiro Show
We Who Wrestle With God | Dr. Jordan B. Peterson
And the worst trolls are two types. The atheistic reductionist materialists, they're Luciferian beyond belief. And every time I interview a scientist, the Simpsons comic book guys come out of the bloody, out from underneath their rocks and whine about how the fact that they're smart hasn't made them king of the world in their bitter and resentful troll demon world.
The Ben Shapiro Show
We Who Wrestle With God | Dr. Jordan B. Peterson
So for example, when you go to a movie and you see the protagonist in action, you watch how he attends to things and you watch how he conducts himself and you infer from that the manner in which he waits the facts that are presented to him. And in consequence, you can internalize the story and then you can see the world that way.
The Ben Shapiro Show
We Who Wrestle With God | Dr. Jordan B. Peterson
epithets and the other ones are the christian fundamentalists and like they're equally intolerable you know peterson's almost there it's like well hey you know great glad you think so You know, what have you done lately?
The Ben Shapiro Show
We Who Wrestle With God | Dr. Jordan B. Peterson
Well, the insistence of the entire biblical library is that God is not real in that manner. God is outside of time and space, for example, and all material objects are inside of time and space. And so God is a reflection of the substrate that makes time and space themselves possible.
The Ben Shapiro Show
We Who Wrestle With God | Dr. Jordan B. Peterson
You put your finger on something of crucial importance there with regards to the nature of both the real and belief. Like two plus two equals four doesn't demand anything of you. And that means it's not, it isn't a proposition that is translatable immediately into a value proposition, let's say. Not with regard to your own action. Well, things that are deeply true have implications for action.
The Ben Shapiro Show
We Who Wrestle With God | Dr. Jordan B. Peterson
This is something that I tried to lay out maps of meaning. There's a structure of perception that has to do with action. And that's a different form of It's a much different form of belief. It's even instantiated differently neurologically.
The Ben Shapiro Show
We Who Wrestle With God | Dr. Jordan B. Peterson
And so, but there's, we also have to understand for the religious types that are listening, especially the more literal minded religious types who are propositionalized beyond belief. The God in the Old Testament and the New, for that matter, is ineffable. He's beyond category. And so to say, is God real?
The Ben Shapiro Show
We Who Wrestle With God | Dr. Jordan B. Peterson
And that's why that also accounts, by the way, for why we're so interested in narratives, right? So the problem with the empiricist perspective, technically, is that the empiricists essentially presume that all facts are to be weighted equally, right? And that's a value-free consideration of the facts at hand, but that's not viable biologically. It's not viable psychologically.
The Ben Shapiro Show
We Who Wrestle With God | Dr. Jordan B. Peterson
In some ways, it isn't a genuine question because God doesn't have the same order of reality as the profane things that are littered about us. The landscape, God isn't real the same way a table is real, right? And this is, I'm not inventing this up and out of whole cloth. There's an insistence that's continual.
The Ben Shapiro Show
We Who Wrestle With God | Dr. Jordan B. Peterson
And I think it's more definitive in the Old Testament accounts that whatever God is, is beyond categorization. right? This is why even Moses can only get a glimpse of God. So God is outside our category structures. Now, does that make him real? Well, I would say God is hyper real. God is the reality upon which all reality depends. That's a different kind of category.
The Ben Shapiro Show
We Who Wrestle With God | Dr. Jordan B. Peterson
And it's not exactly comprehensible. It's certainly not It's an atheist game. Is God real like a table is real? Well, the insistence of the entire biblical library is that God is not real in that manner. God is outside of time and space, for example, and all material objects are inside of time and space. And so God is a reflection of the substrate that makes time and space themselves possible.
The Ben Shapiro Show
We Who Wrestle With God | Dr. Jordan B. Peterson
Well, so one of the issues that I wrestle with in this book is actually something I derived from Dawkins, because Dawkins is at pains, not least in his new book, to establish the proposition that every organism is a microcosm of its environment. And I think that that's actually key to solving the mystery that you just described.
The Ben Shapiro Show
We Who Wrestle With God | Dr. Jordan B. Peterson
He said that not only is that so, this is Dawkins, but it's necessarily so. So, for example, if an alien ever got a hold of a bird, an earthly, a terrestrial bird, it could derive a tremendous amount of knowledge about the constituent nature of the earth from analyzing the bird. The bird's DNA has encoded its entire evolutionary history, for example.
The Ben Shapiro Show
We Who Wrestle With God | Dr. Jordan B. Peterson
And the ratio of bird wingspan to body weight describes the atmosphere. And the fact that the blood is oxygen dependent describes the chemical nature of the air through which it propels itself, et cetera, et cetera. Its eyes speak a certain language about the sun. So every organism is a reflection of the environment to which it is adapted.
The Ben Shapiro Show
We Who Wrestle With God | Dr. Jordan B. Peterson
And there's an ancient medieval idea that the human soul is a microcosm. And I don't see that those ideas are different at all. And so, you know, the Genesis insistence is that we're made in the image of God. And I don't see that that's any different whatsoever than Dawkins' claim that every organism is a microcosm of its environment. And what that would mean, Ben, is that possibly,
The Ben Shapiro Show
We Who Wrestle With God | Dr. Jordan B. Peterson
Some things have to be more important to you than other things because otherwise you drown in the complexity of all of those facts. So, I mean, just as a family man, you pay more attention to your child, for example, than someone else's child. Well, that's a waiting function. So, okay, so the first part of it is we see the world through a story, and I think that's incontrovertible.
The Ben Shapiro Show
We Who Wrestle With God | Dr. Jordan B. Peterson
Imagine that there's a layer of reality that's divine. and it's outside the realm of human conception. And you don't believe in that the same way that you believe in the existence of an object. I mean, that's just an idiot atheist game anyways, because what the atheists want to do is they want you to say, well, I believe in God like I believe in a table.
The Ben Shapiro Show
We Who Wrestle With God | Dr. Jordan B. Peterson
And then the atheist says, well, there's no material evidence for your God the way there is for a table, so you're a fool. It's like, no, you're a fool because the game that you're playing is the game of a fool. So there's a divine level that's beyond human understanding. And I would also say that's potentially the realm, let's say, that people contact when they're...
The Ben Shapiro Show
We Who Wrestle With God | Dr. Jordan B. Peterson
under certain psychophysiological conditions that are replicable. All sorts of exercises can put people in touch with that strata of reality, not least prayer. And so, and above that, there's a material level, and then there's a social level and a psychological level. And those are all, what would you say, the divine patterning is reflected in the patterning at each of those emergent levels.
The Ben Shapiro Show
We Who Wrestle With God | Dr. Jordan B. Peterson
And that's all That all echoes in the human soul. And so, and can you speak with that? I think you can. Like if you devote, look, here's another strange proposition. And I believe this to be true. The spirit that will reveal itself in consequence of your inquiry is the spirit that the aim of your inquiry is calling upon. So imagine this, we can walk through this very logically.
The Ben Shapiro Show
We Who Wrestle With God | Dr. Jordan B. Peterson
So imagine that I'm having an argument with my wife and I allow myself to be possessed by the spirit of anger. And I call on it for, revelation of my pathway forward. Well, my head is going to fill with aggressive images and I'm going to strive for domination and victory, even over someone I love. And that's because I called on the spirit of anger to reveal itself to me as I'm moving forward.
The Ben Shapiro Show
We Who Wrestle With God | Dr. Jordan B. Peterson
or I could call on the spirit of pride, or I could call on the spirit of immediate sexual gratification. We do this when we're plotting our pathway forward continually. So imagine instead that I oriented myself so that I was communing with the highest possible spirit. That was my aim.
The Ben Shapiro Show
We Who Wrestle With God | Dr. Jordan B. Peterson
Even if I left that somewhat ineffable, the goal would be, I want to do what would be best in the next moment, all things considered. What would that be? Well, I believe that our perceptual and cognitive systems are set up so that the spirit that that aim, the spirit that responds will be the spirit that your aim conjures, even conjures out of the void.
The Ben Shapiro Show
We Who Wrestle With God | Dr. Jordan B. Peterson
And that's a very, I truly believe that's the case. I can't see how it could be otherwise. Because our perceptions and our conceptions do orient us toward our aim. Otherwise, what the hell good would they be? And so the spirit that responds to your inquiry is going to be the spirit of your aim. Jesus, man, once you understand that, the whole world changes.
The Ben Shapiro Show
We Who Wrestle With God | Dr. Jordan B. Peterson
So then why wouldn't you aim for the highest possible good? Because then that's the spirit that's going to respond. See, in the Gospels, that's what Christ refers to as the pearl of great price, that the wealthy man would sell everything he owns to possess. It's like, if you had that, why would you want anything else?
The Ben Shapiro Show
We Who Wrestle With God | Dr. Jordan B. Peterson
I think, Ben, that's actually why we're in a culture war, most fundamentally, because there has been converging evidence from about six disciplines not least the literary theorists in France, the dread postmodernists, that have insisted that we see the world through a story. Now, where they went wrong is that The story that is being put forth as canonical is one of power.
The Ben Shapiro Show
We Who Wrestle With God | Dr. Jordan B. Peterson
And the promise, the eternal promise in the biblical corpus is that pursuit of that highest aim is simultaneously the pursuit that brings life more abundant. And I also think that's incontrovertibly true in that The best long-term strategy is virtue.
The Ben Shapiro Show
We Who Wrestle With God | Dr. Jordan B. Peterson
You see this relationship between cleverness, let's say, and nakedness manifest itself very directly in people's lives. So a common nightmare for people is to be naked on stage. And so that's to have all your vulnerabilities, your bare self exposed to the evaluative eye of the social community. Okay, so now imagine that you are on stage and you become self-conscious.
The Ben Shapiro Show
We Who Wrestle With God | Dr. Jordan B. Peterson
And there's no difference between becoming self-conscious and becoming aware of your vulnerability. Then you might say, well, what's the preconditions for being self-conscious on stage? And the answer is, well, as soon as it's about you, when you're on stage, you're self-conscious, right? How am I doing? Am I winning the argument? What do people think of me? Am I performing properly?
The Ben Shapiro Show
We Who Wrestle With God | Dr. Jordan B. Peterson
Is this going to further my career? Those are all prideful conditions. queries. And the consequence of that query making itself manifest is self-consciousness. If you're on stage and you're just trying to say what you believe to be the case, you know, and letting the cards fall where they will, then that self-consciousness disappears.
The Ben Shapiro Show
We Who Wrestle With God | Dr. Jordan B. Peterson
That's certainly the case for the mad Marxists and the French postmodernists fit into that category. Or hedonic self-gratification or nihilistic collapse. And all of those are self-defeating. The proper story is one of sacrifice. And I know why that is too. And I think I explained it. There's two reasons that the fundamental story is one of sacrifice.
The Ben Shapiro Show
We Who Wrestle With God | Dr. Jordan B. Peterson
And I don't think there's any difference between that and walking with God in the eternal garden. And that's because you're allowing that deep reflection of the structure of reality within yourself to make it manifest in your words. And there's no reason for self-consciousness then because it's a sacrificial gesture. It's not about you. It's about wherever the truth will take you, let's say.
The Ben Shapiro Show
We Who Wrestle With God | Dr. Jordan B. Peterson
And the biblical insistence, the voice of adventure that comes to Abraham is no different than the voice of truth that comes to Jonah, let's say. It's the same thing. It's the voice of conscience that comes to Elijah. Right? And it's the thing that can and should possess you. And it's the thing that Eve and Adam try to usurp in the Garden of Eden.
The Ben Shapiro Show
We Who Wrestle With God | Dr. Jordan B. Peterson
And they do bring undue suffering into the world in consequence. And so... All of these things can be seen fairly directly once you understand a few, what would you say, key concepts. And that's ridiculously exciting. I mean, it was extremely... I had a better time writing this book than any book I've written. I mean, partly because my health is much better.
The Ben Shapiro Show
We Who Wrestle With God | Dr. Jordan B. Peterson
I was very ill when I wrote the last book I wrote, and I'm much better now. But this was also almost entirely an exciting venture. When I wrote Maps of Meaning, I was really still...
The Ben Shapiro Show
We Who Wrestle With God | Dr. Jordan B. Peterson
dealing with the depths of malevolence and ignorance, let's say, you know, the darkness that characterizes human beings, because this question I was trying to answer in the final analysis was something like the origin of evil. And that's a very dark endeavor. But with we who wrestle with God, I was more investigating the nature of the good. And that's a lot. That's a lot.
The Ben Shapiro Show
We Who Wrestle With God | Dr. Jordan B. Peterson
That's a lot more joyful an endeavor, that's for sure. And it was a series of continual optimistic revelations as the structures of the texts revealed themselves because the news is so good. While the covenant, for example, that covenant that Abraham makes with God or that God makes with Abraham. Here's the cool thing about that, Ben, because we can do a counter proposition.
The Ben Shapiro Show
We Who Wrestle With God | Dr. Jordan B. Peterson
So imagine that the divine in the story of Abraham is conceptualized as the spirit of adventure that impels people forward into the world. So that would be the same spirit that makes your child exploratory and courageous, even on a playground when he has to meet new people or when he's mastering a new skill. And you're trying to foster that as a good father.
The Ben Shapiro Show
We Who Wrestle With God | Dr. Jordan B. Peterson
Okay, so now imagine that that spirit of adventurous exploration leads to the... is the best pathway forward to the expansion of the child's character. Okay, a genuine character in the most positive possible way. Well, then you'd say that the instinct for development is the same instinct that fleshes out possibility most... thoroughly.
The Ben Shapiro Show
We Who Wrestle With God | Dr. Jordan B. Peterson
Well, the counter proposition would be the spirit of adventure that drives a child to explore has no relationship with the psyche or society or the world. Well, that's a stupid theory. Obviously, that can't be the case.
The Ben Shapiro Show
We Who Wrestle With God | Dr. Jordan B. Peterson
Okay, so now imagine that the world is structured so that if you followed the voice of adventure fully, which is the spirit you would encourage as a good father, and of course, Abraham is the archetypal father as well, then you would entice or invite people down the pathway that makes them a blessing to themselves, that helps them establish something permanent, that
The Ben Shapiro Show
We Who Wrestle With God | Dr. Jordan B. Peterson
makes their name renowned among other people for good reason, and that does that in a way that brings benefit to everyone. Well, how could it be, given that we're social creatures, how could it be that our deepest instinct for developing ourselves and moving into the world, how could it be other than aligned with what brings the optimal social order?
The Ben Shapiro Show
We Who Wrestle With God | Dr. Jordan B. Peterson
Because it would mean that we're maladapted to the social environment, right? Well, that's just obviously not. Now, That doesn't mean there isn't a niche for psychopaths, for example. You know, I mean, once you establish a playable and productive game, people can take the role of parasite and scavenger and they can eke out a pathetic cane-like existence.
The Ben Shapiro Show
We Who Wrestle With God | Dr. Jordan B. Peterson
The first is that whenever you attend to one thing, you sacrifice everything else. So every act of perception is a sacrifice. That's why, for example, in the Christian, what would you say, conceptual universe, that the reality itself is
The Ben Shapiro Show
We Who Wrestle With God | Dr. Jordan B. Peterson
By doing that, they have to be wanderers in the land of Nod. But you can do it. But that's... the perversion of the postmodernists is that the path of Cain is the only story that rules. Well, no, that doesn't, no. And, you know, I detail that out quite radically in the book too, not least from talking to people like Franz de Waal and knowing the work of people like Jacques Panksepp.
The Ben Shapiro Show
We Who Wrestle With God | Dr. Jordan B. Peterson
Power doesn't even work to structure the social relations of chimpanzees. Even in chimps, you see the emergence of something like a reciprocal ethos. At least you see that in the behavior of the chimps who establish relatively stable and peaceful reigns and troops. They're not power-mad, chest-thumping Hitlers. Those chimps meet a vicious end.
The Ben Shapiro Show
We Who Wrestle With God | Dr. Jordan B. Peterson
And that's part of that, the self-defeating nature of a game that's predicated on power.
The Ben Shapiro Show
We Who Wrestle With God | Dr. Jordan B. Peterson
Hey, man, I'm looking forward to it too, Ben. We've got lots more to talk about.
The Ben Shapiro Show
We Who Wrestle With God | Dr. Jordan B. Peterson
founded on sacrifice it's a very strange concept right that's that's john making the case that christ's sacrifice is identical to the word at the beginning of time but the the psychological significance of that proposition is that reality itself is predicated on sacrifice and because attention is sacrificial there's something about that that's deeply correct but but there's more than that
The Ben Shapiro Show
We Who Wrestle With God | Dr. Jordan B. Peterson
There's no difference between work and sacrifice because work is the sacrifice of the future to, sorry, the sacrifice of the present to the future and the sacrifice of the narrow self to the community. And so you could imagine that for reality to unfold properly, and that would be the reality that is good or very good as is portrayed, say, in Genesis 1, the appropriate sacrifice has to be made.
The Ben Shapiro Show
We Who Wrestle With God | Dr. Jordan B. Peterson
Sacrifices have to be made. And then you can envision the biblical library from beginning to end as a analysis of sacrifice. And I think that's all correct. And so that's pretty damn terrifying because I don't know what it means for that to be correct. I don't know what it means for there to be a convergence between neuroscience and our deepest theological presuppositions.
The Ben Shapiro Show
We Who Wrestle With God | Dr. Jordan B. Peterson
And I don't know what it would mean if people actually started to understand that the proper story is sacrificial. But look, I'll just close with this, Ben. Look, the community is founded on sacrifice. Okay, justify that. Well, if it's all about me in the most narrow way, then there's no community, right? There's only the immediate gratification of my whims.
The Ben Shapiro Show
We Who Wrestle With God | Dr. Jordan B. Peterson
So I devolve into a set of whims and I have to impose those whims on other people using power because they're not going to cooperate voluntarily if it's all about me. Now, to the degree that I establish a voluntarily chosen and reciprocal community around me, then I'm sacrificing my narrow aims to that higher end. Obviously, right?
The Ben Shapiro Show
We Who Wrestle With God | Dr. Jordan B. Peterson
I mean, it seems to me that once you understand these things, this is another thing that's very strange, is once you understand these things, they attain the much vaunted status of self-evident. We'll see what people think. I ran it by Jonathan Paggio, and he's terrified with regards to some of the things that I said theologically, and so I'm sure I misstepped in various places, but
The Ben Shapiro Show
We Who Wrestle With God | Dr. Jordan B. Peterson
Yeah, well, and you might say, well, what's wrong with that? Why can't I pursue my own ends? And There's a variety of answers to that. The first answer is, what do you mean by your ends? Because actually what you're really proposing is that your immediate fragmented whims become the ruler of the world, right? Because the my you're referring to is what you want now.
The Ben Shapiro Show
We Who Wrestle With God | Dr. Jordan B. Peterson
And it's sort of what you want now, regardless of the consequences for your future self or for other people. I mean, the whole issue of what I want begs the question of what is meant by I. What is this sovereign, self-evident I that in principle is... what would you say, is the highest possible source of value? Well, that's by no means obvious.
The Ben Shapiro Show
We Who Wrestle With God | Dr. Jordan B. Peterson
You know, we're an internal war of competing motivations, and each of those motivations can emerge as dominant at any moment. That's what you see in the behavior of two-year-olds, for example. And to say that each emergent whim should be triumphant is to doom yourself to the same fate that a two-year-old who never grew up would be doomed to. So what
The Ben Shapiro Show
We Who Wrestle With God | Dr. Jordan B. Peterson
The simplest explanation for why your own desire can't be paramount is that that isn't a playable game. Everyone will run away from you. You will end up isolated and alone. And a society that facilitates that will become corrupt and unmanageable overnight. And I just don't see any way out of that. I mean, one of the things I've really come to understand, Ben, is that I think is that
The Ben Shapiro Show
We Who Wrestle With God | Dr. Jordan B. Peterson
I hate to get political, and I'll try to avoid that as much as possible, but I think part of the reason that a radical progressivism is eternal is because there's no difference between rule by whim and power and immaturity from a psychophysiological perspective. They're the same thing. And so any immaturity is going to find its political expression.
The Ben Shapiro Show
We Who Wrestle With God | Dr. Jordan B. Peterson
I mean, in many ways, that's what you see in the story of Exodus with the worship of the golden calf, right? What happens when...
The Ben Shapiro Show
We Who Wrestle With God | Dr. Jordan B. Peterson
moses departs from the israelite polity right and they have the habits of slaves and all that's left for the israelites to attend to is the political voice that's aaron and the political voice without a connection to the divine let's say without being subordinate to what's properly highest reverts to a a mirror, a mirrored populism and just offers the Israelites, let's say what they want.
The Ben Shapiro Show
We Who Wrestle With God | Dr. Jordan B. Peterson
But that isn't what happens is that what happens is the worst of the Israelites rise to the top and demand their immediate gratification. And the Israelites end up partying naked partying naked in the desert in the midst of an orgy in a manner that makes them, you know, contemptible to their enemies.
The Ben Shapiro Show
We Who Wrestle With God | Dr. Jordan B. Peterson
And if that doesn't echo for you with regards to the modern situation, you're not really thinking very hard. And I think that's eternally the case, is that it makes perfect sense structurally and psychophysiologically, because if the
The Ben Shapiro Show
We Who Wrestle With God | Dr. Jordan B. Peterson
If the form of order that unites us most thoroughly collapses, so that would be something equivalent to the disappearance or the death of God, then what happens is a war between competing underlying motivational states emerges. And one of the things I've been thinking through, I'd like your opinion about this, is that... What is to be expected in the aftermath of the Nietzschean death of God?
The Ben Shapiro Show
We Who Wrestle With God | Dr. Jordan B. Peterson
What's to be expected psychologically? Well, the most dominant subordinate motivational forces will vie for supremacy, and that would be sexuality, so now we have Freud, or power, and that would give us, say, Nietzsche or even Alfred Adler to some degree, or the postmodernists or the Marxists.
The Ben Shapiro Show
We Who Wrestle With God | Dr. Jordan B. Peterson
Hedonism and power go hand in hand because if you're a hedonist, you have to use power because you can't get people to cooperate voluntarily. Or the collapse of everything into a nihilistic mess. And I also don't see any... Like, how else could it possibly work? If you lose the highest uniting value...
The Ben Shapiro Show
We Who Wrestle With God | Dr. Jordan B. Peterson
Things could collapse utterly, and that's where you get a kind of nihilistic depression, or the next most powerful forces will emerge. And I think it's inevitable that those are something like hedonistic sexuality and power. I mean, what else? What the hell else would rule when you remove, let's say, sovereign self-sacrifice as the highest order principle?
The Ben Shapiro Show
We Who Wrestle With God | Dr. Jordan B. Peterson
Well, you also laid out a remarkable point narrative accomplishment by the editors of the biblical story because The story starts out, of course, with creation and the establishment of man and woman, and then the fall, and the fall is a consequence of overweening pride and overreach, right?
The Ben Shapiro Show
We Who Wrestle With God | Dr. Jordan B. Peterson
Adam and Eve bite off more than they can chew, and suffering enters the world, and that's very much worth contemplating because the degree to which suffering characterizes existence as a consequence of prideful overreach is an open question. No, I mean, because we're mortal and fragile, a certain degree of suffering seems built into the structure of existence.
The Ben Shapiro Show
We Who Wrestle With God | Dr. Jordan B. Peterson
It's the finite against the infinite, that conundrum. But true suffering has this hellish aspect that you can only attain if you bring it on yourself. And the best way to do that is through pride. And I think the story of Adam and Eve, the fall of Adam and Eve, actually details out the particularities of the prideful sin that each sex is most prone to.
The Ben Shapiro Show
We Who Wrestle With God | Dr. Jordan B. Peterson
So it's a kind of hyper-compassionate all-inclusion on the part of Eve, and it's a part of pathological attempt to impress the other on the part of Adam, cowardly, and then to blame. And that produces this collapse of paradise. Then you get the establishment of these two sacrificial patterns in the story of Cain and Abel.
The Ben Shapiro Show
Ep. 2196 - A New Pope…Plus Will Trump RAISE Taxes?!
The more effective you are in laying out these disciplinary rules, the more they'll like you. Rules consistently applied with minimal force and plenty of patience. You don't want to let your worry destroy the pleasures of the moment. Just because children know less about the world doesn't mean they're not paying attention and certainly doesn't mean that they're stupid.
The Ben Shapiro Show
Ep. 2196 - A New Pope…Plus Will Trump RAISE Taxes?!
They're not stupid and they're watchers.
The Ben Shapiro Show
Ep. 2196 - A New Pope…Plus Will Trump RAISE Taxes?!
There is nothing you'll do in life that's more challenging, difficult and rewarding than being a parent. Nothing with greater highs or lower lows. You have little kids for a very short period of time. It is a major mistake not to notice that and not to appreciate it.
The Ben Shapiro Show
Ep. 2196 - A New Pope…Plus Will Trump RAISE Taxes?!
When a disciplinary issue arises, you need to make space to master it. I have to not do what I thought I was going to do for ten minutes to set this right.
The Ben Shapiro Show
Ep. 2196 - A New Pope…Plus Will Trump RAISE Taxes?!
The consequences of his abdication of thought is that other people think for him. That's what'll happen.
The Ben Shapiro Show
Ep. 2196 - A New Pope…Plus Will Trump RAISE Taxes?!
Look for mood changes and behavioral changes, and then you can tell your kid, look, it might be an unpleasant conversation that we have to have, but I'm not going to let you be miserable and drift away. Discuss the disciplinary strategies, discuss the rules, discuss what it is that you want from your child. Talk that through so that you're the same person.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
And it takes like 10 minutes instead of two years. I'm going to bring this back to Sonia.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
That's partly how you can tell it's interesting and valid, because it also is controversial. One of the things he's established, which is of cardinal importance, is that our perceptions of other people are not mostly biased. Right? This is...
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
We should be doing this with all the questionnaires. It's the same with narcissism. If you put... See, the other thing you could do with ChatGPT is you could say, here's 20 items significant of narcissism, okay? Which is the central item? And can you generate 20 items that are better markers of that central tendency?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
And the thing is, it can do it because it's mapped the linguistic representations.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
So all the factor structures already built into the ChatGPT systems, like all of it.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
Yeah. So, okay. So, this is one of the things I would pursue if I still had a research lab, right? These things are hard to pursue without having that infrastructure in place. But I think this is radically... Speed up the... Yeah, yeah. Radically speed up the process of... I totally see that. And also make it much more reliable and valid.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
Okay. Absolutely. All right, so back to... Yeah, yeah. All right, so now you've got people voting for one comic or the other.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
And so the questionnaires predicted that?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
Yeah, yeah. It's a great study. Another thing you might want to do is take that questionnaire, do an item analysis with regards to preference, and rank order the items in terms of their predictive validity in relationship to the cartoon, because you might be able to see which of the items are central. Especially if you saw that pattern across multiple cartoons. Yeah, yeah. Okay, okay.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
Well, how many studies have you done now on left-wing authoritarianism?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
The contrary claim is rather preposterous, which is that all of the categories that we use to structure our interactions with other people are based on the power distortion of our perceptions, let's say, which is essentially a... and postmodern claim. And Lee became infamous, at least in part, because he showed that our perceptions, our stereotypes, if you will, are mostly accurate.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
Yeah, those are probably studies that I'd run across of yours.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
Well, it's one thing to say that DEI programs work. It's another thing to say they don't work. And it's a completely different thing to say they do the opposite of what... Yeah, that's not good. And it seems to me highly probable. Yeah. You know, suicide prevention programs, the kind the government's always running, they make suicide rates go up. Well, because- Why?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
you're advertising and normalizing suicide, right? And you think, well, we're gonna put up a prevention program. It's like, first, are you clinically trained? Second, did you do the research? Third, did you ever stop to consider that your conceptualization of the problem might be inadequate in relationship to its solution? There's so many things like this that happen.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
Clinicians have become, the research-oriented clinicians have become very, very sensitive to such things because it's frequently the case that a well-meaning intervention will make things worse. And then you might ask why. It's like, well, there's 50,000 ways something could be worse and like one way it could be better.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
And so just, it's an overwhelmingly high probability that whatever you do to change something that works makes it worse. Right. Okay. So now, so do you, what was your evidence that the DEI interventions made? What was made worse? What interventions and what was your evidence linking them? Yes. Okay.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
so the podcast today took a turn back to the psychological which is an improvement over the political as far as i'm concerned generally speaking um likely because the topic of concentration has more long-lasting significance, all things considered.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
Yeah, okay, okay, fine, fine. So you used that as a validation.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
There are sources of bias, and they do enter into the process, and they're relevant. But that's a very different claim than that the foundations of our perceptions themselves are indistinguishable from the biases we hold as motivated agents. And so... His work is extremely important. It's core to the culture war that is tearing us apart.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
Okay, so I'm going to put on my devil's advocate hat. Yes. And I'm going to play Robin D'Angelo, despite wearing this Trump badge. And I'm going to say, well... The effects of institutional racism are so pervasive that they even invaded your experimental material.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
And the consequence of being exposed to the contents of my writing, speaking as Robin D'Angelo, was that the scales fell from the eyes of your experimental subjects, and they were able to perceive the racism that we claimed was there in a manner they couldn't before.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
How do you know that your own implicit bias didn't stop you from seeing the bias that was there? Yeah.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
Okay, so you regard it as highly improbable that what they were reading into the situation. You regard it as highly probable that they were reading into the situation. Okay, let me ask you a couple more technical questions.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
How much of this material were they exposed to before they did the evaluation? About a paragraph. Just a paragraph. Just a paragraph. How soon before the evaluation? Pretty soon. Okay. Do you have any idea what the lag time, like if you did a dose response study, so to speak, is there a decay? Like how permanent are the effects?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
I know I couldn't expect you to do all that in one study, but it's germane, right?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
Right, fair enough. Well, I would also say probably you evaluated some of the weaker systemic effects of that kind of rhetoric, because it isn't merely exposure to the rhetoric, it's the fact that post hoc detection of such things as microaggressions, let's say, are radically rewarded by the participants in those ideological systems. That's a more powerful effect.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
So, if you're interested in the definition of perception, the relationship between perception and reality, and the analysis of bias in a manner that's credible, then pay attention to this podcast and get things cleared up. So I guess we might as well get right to the point.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
So you got it with weak exposure, fundamentally. Okay, so- Right, and no reward, right?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
Exactly, exactly. Yes, yes, yes. So- So I would say the weakness of your intervention demonstrated the power of the rhetoric. Okay, what did Kendi have to say about this? He described us as racist pseudoscientists. Oh, yeah. Okay, well, that pretty much covers the territory. Did he say why? Or was that unnecessary? You know, that quote— How are you at wasting money?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
My sense is that he was particularly good at that. So, yeah, university money, counterproductively.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
Yeah, right, right, right. Okay, well, then we can just let it go. So, okay, okay. Okay, you said that produced quite a splash, including enhanced probability of being on this podcast, for example. Yes, yes. So I'd followed your work for a long time before coming across that. What effect has it had? When was the study published, first of all? Well, so— And is it a sequence? Is it a single study?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
Oh, yeah, I talked to moderate Democrats who told me that Antifa was a figment of the right-wing imagination. Yes, right. But, you know, there's something weird about that that's very much worth pointing out, I believe, is that we radically underestimate the effect...
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
And the first thing I'm curious about is, and this is something I think that can be fairly definitively laid at the feet of social psychologists, was that there was an absolute denial that anything like left-wing authoritarianism existed, even conceptually, literally until 2016. Yeah, that's right. For 60 years. I came across that and I thought...
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
very small minority of people who are organized can have in destabilizing a society for example in the flux of the aftermath of World War one Russia was Chaotic enough so that a very small minority of people that would be the Bolsheviks destabilized and captured the entire country so even if The true radicals on the left are 3%. Say, well, 97% of them are peaceful.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
It's like, fair enough, but you're suffering from the delusion that a demented minority is harmless.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
Yeah, that's exactly what you'd expect. Of course that's going to happen.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
what do you mean there's no such thing as left-wing authoritarianism? We know that. It's like, that's insane.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
Well, that is what they do.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
They can dance in the ashes that way. Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah. The real criminal psychopaths, the short-term guys, the narcissists, they thrive in chaos. Yeah. Because they're... Their niche is chaos, right?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
And that's where your studies were, were what?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
And then there were a couple of papers published in 2016 on left-wing authoritarianism in the Soviet Union. That was the first... breaking of that dam. I did a master's, I supervised a master's thesis at that time. It's a very good thesis on left-wing authoritarianism. And because we showed that there were statistical clumps of reliably
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
So why that approach with regards to the dissemination of this information, this particular experimental information, rather than the more standard journal approach?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
It's... unforgivable. Yeah, that's right. It needs to be that whole system I've been thinking about.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
It's like in this day and age, a two-year lag to publication, it's completely insane.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
You spend 30% of your time writing grand applications that go nowhere and two years to lag to publication that almost no one is likely to read. That's right. How the hell have you not been cancelled? Why is that? Because it's weird. There have been repeat attempts to cancel me that have failed. Okay. Well, so why don't you tell me and everybody else, first of all, why you're, what would you say?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
Why you so richly deserve canceling. That's the first issue. And then the next issue, which is of equal importance, is how you've managed to not have that happen. Because that's actually really hard.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
Because if people try to cancel you, especially given the things that you've researched and have insisted upon and said, if people try to cancel you, there's an overwhelming probability in academia in particular that that will be successful. So let's start by talking about the sorts of things that you've been pointing to in academia.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
Well, in academia in general, and then more specifically in psychology and social psychology.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
characterizable left-wing authoritarian beliefs that did in fact associate statistically and that identifiable groups of people with identifiable temperamental proclivities did hold. I really wanted to follow up on that because it was very rich potential source of new
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
Okay, there's a distinction there, too, that we should draw. Clearly, it's the case that if you want to draw generalizable conclusions about human beings from a study, that the study participants should be a randomly selected and representative sample of the population to whom you're attempting to generalize. Obviously. Because otherwise it doesn't generalize.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
information but my academic career exploded at that point it became impossible so people have taken that have taken that ball and run with it yeah yeah so well yeah yeah tell us about it what have you found well okay how do you let's let's start with some definitions like what constitutes left wing as opposed to right wing authoritarianism let's say right so there are measurement
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
That's very different than making the case that underrepresented groups should be preferentially hired or employed or promoted or specified.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
One of the great movies of all time.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
So for example... Yes, with two seconds of thought, it's a positive thing.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
Or that people should be free of...
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
And that's very well documented.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
Now, how many faculty members at colleges and universities do you suppose there are in the United States approximately? Do you have any idea?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
I have looked into it. It's very large. So that means there's 80,000 academic activists who are being employed full time in the United States.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
Do you think they'd be less liberal? I don't know. Bias?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
Okay, so it's not 80,000, but it could easily be 50,000. Yes, yes. Okay, so that's a number I want to return to. Okay, okay. Yeah, because there's implications.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
It was a very narrow... See, that's actually the fundamental flaw of intersectionality, is intersectionality devolves into combinatorial explosion almost immediately, right? Because...
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
once you start combining the categories of oppression, you don't have to make, your list of combinations, black, women, gay, et cetera, every time you add another variable to that multiplicative list, you decrease the pool of people that occupy that list radically, right?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
But there's also an infinite, there's literally an indefinite, this is your point, an indefinite number of potentially relevant group categories Yes. So how in the world are you going to ensure that every possible combination of every possible group category is... You can't even measure it, much less ensure it. Yeah, you can't do that.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
So there's this underlying insistence, which you're pointing to, I believe, that there are privileged categories of oppressed people. And it's a weird thing. It's like, why is it that it's race... and sex. And you might think, well, those are the most obvious differences between people, and maybe you can make that case.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
But then it's also gender, which is a very weird insistence, because whether the idea of gender is a valid... I don't think the idea of gender is a valid idea at all. I think it's super... It's, what would you say, it's a warped misconceptualization of everything that's captured by temperament much more accurately and precisely. We can talk about that.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
But also sexual orientation, I can't see at all why that would emerge as a privileged category of oppression alongside something like sex. Like it could, but it's not obvious why. Okay, so you're pointing some of, and then you said, well, there's important elements of diversity, especially intellectually. That's right.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
adequate distribution of political or ethical views across the spectrum that's completely off the table. Yeah, it's completely off the table.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
Okay, so I just want to provide people some background on this and correct me if I get any of this wrong. Scientists publish in research journals, and they generally publish articles of two types. One type would be a research study, an actual experiment, let's say, or a sequence of experiments. And the other, I guess there's two other types. There's reviews and there's commentaries. And so...
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
So, in any case, I spoke today with Lee Jussom, and Lee is a distinguished professor of psychology at Rutgers, and he's been the chair there of the Department of Psychology, and separately of anthropology, which is a peculiar happenstance that we discuss in the podcast. I was interested in Lee's work because there's a lot of trouble in the field of social psychology.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
And then there's a variety of different journals that scientists publish in, and some of those cover all scientific topics, science and nature. The world's premier scientific journals used to do that before they became woke institutions. And then there are specialized journals that cover fields like psychology, and then there are sub-specialized journals.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
The less specialized the journal, all things considered, the more prestigious it is. Anyways, that's where scientists publish. And they do publish commentaries on each other's material, especially if it's a review of something contentious or something that's emerging in the field.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
And now, this journal, Perspectives on Psychological Science, there's also an interesting backstory here because that's an American Psychological Society journal. Yes. Okay, so there's two major... organizations for psychologists, especially research-oriented psychologists in North America.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
There's the American Psychological Association, which has its journals, and then a newer organization, which is now a couple of decades old, American Psychological Society. And the American Psychological Society was actually set up, at least in part, because the American Psychological Association
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
had started to become ideologically dominated, particularly in the leftist and progressive direction, and that that was having an arguably negative effect on research, reliability, accuracy, and probability of publication. That was set up 25... Okay, so that's a little off-kilter. Okay, okay.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
Well, okay, so yeah, yeah, yeah, fair enough. But See, I was watching that happen because I knew some of the people who were setting up the APS at the time.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
And my sense, though, also was that part of the reason that the APA was tilting in a more and more clinical direction was because there was an underlying political ethos that was increasingly skeptical of science as the privileged mode of obtaining valid information.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
I think that's fair. Yes. So the proximal cause was the overemphasis on the clinical. But, you know, it's also the case that, as you've seen, is that certainly the clinical psychology and the whole therapeutic enterprise has taken a cataclysmic turn towards the woke direction in the last, especially in the last 10 years. It's been absolutely devastating. And I don't know, is social psychology...
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
I think you could probably say the same thing about social psychology. Maybe you could say maybe that's even worse. Anyways, we can get into that.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
Right, so I presume that these 1,400 are a subset of the 50,000 activists.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
Right now. I'm curious about the 1,400 too, because you often see legacy media headline news that 1,400 scientists have signed some petitions. But then when you look into it, you know, it's often... I know the distinction between graduate student and, let's say, full-fledged scientist is murky. But part of the issue is always, well, exactly who were these 1,400 people, right?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
And out from under which rocks did they climb? And so who were the 1,400? Like, roughly speaking, who were these people that-
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I see. I see.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
Okay, so that's a very interesting definition, though, because you're pointing to the fact that arguably, and tell me if you think this is right, the core of authoritarianism, which, as you said, can't be measured outside the political, isn't precisely political. It's your attitude towards those who don't agree with you. Yes, it is.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
scientists publish their research findings and their reviews of the literature in scientific journals and it's one of the ways that the quality of these articles is vetted is by submitting the manuscripts before they're published to
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
Well, first of all, the editor reviews them to see if they're even vaguely possibly suitable for publication in that particular journal on the basis of, let's say, topic and quality and apparent integrity of research. Then they're sent out to experts in that area, multiple experts. for analysis, and that's part of the quality control process.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
And that worked pretty well up until about 2015, I would say, or maybe even spectacularly well, all things considered. So that's the peer review process. What happened in this case was the reviews of this, the peer reviews of this particular article were of sufficient quality so that the editor decided that they might... Invite them as commentary. Right.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
They might turn into standalone pieces with some development.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
And Jordan, that is exactly... Was that included when it was published or was that... I don't remember.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
Okay, so now they're broadly overseeing the group of journals that publish under their ages. Yes, that's right. Okay, but they generally don't have an editorial say.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
Right, but it's still the case that generally they don't do such things. Yeah, they don't do this, right. Partly because often... Well, they don't have the specialized expertise, at least in part, which is partly why they hire the editors to begin with, who then they give pretty much carte blanche. Yes, right. As they should, because that's part of academic freedom. That's right. Right. Yes.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
Okay, but they decided that they were not going to proceed with the publication.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
But you have to have some beliefs for that to be... I didn't say can't.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
Well, that's good, but that doesn't— What, what? Detract from the seriousness of the allegation. The fact that he was able to successfully wend his way through the thicket.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
So how the hell did they... complainants get access to the papers? Like, how did they know what the papers were if they hadn't been published?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
I was just curious because it's strange that A brouhaha of that sort would emerge prior to publication. But there was quasi-publication.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
On what grounds do you think this investigation was made? How was the progression of this investigation justified? I mean, there's no established precedent in the scientific community for re-evaluating an editorial decision based on political objection, right? We'll reevaluate if 500 people sign a petition. This isn't the domain of rule or principle or tradition.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
Okay, so I'm thinking about that clinically. It's like... Well, that's where you'd start to look at overlap between cluster B personality psychopathology, narcissism, borderline personality disorder, histrionic, because those are the people who are very likely to elevate their own status at the cost of other people, including their children and those they purport to love.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
So what's the fear here, do you think? These 1,400 people signed this petition, which is something that takes like two seconds and costs you nothing and has no risk to you whatsoever. And so it's not an ethical statement of any profundity unless you're an activist. So what was it, do you think, that... raised people's hackles about the mere fact that these complaints had been raised?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
To this second, I don't really know.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
The mere fact of questioning the diversity agenda constitutes racism.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
But... At least once per paper submitted.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
That's right. Yes, well, has that not been formally tested as a hypothesis? If it has, I don't know.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
It's something like, more broadly speaking, is that are there... It's a mechanism of gaming the reputation domain, right? Because obviously, our reputations are probably arguably the most valuable commodity, so to speak, that we possess. system of value is susceptible to gaming in a variety of ways.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
And one way of gaming the reputational game is to make claims of reputational virtue that are risk-free, broad, immediate, and cost-free.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
And for me, if you're accused of something, and I can say, and accused of transgressing against a group towards whom I feel guilt, I can signify my valor as a moral agent by also denouncing you. And it costs me nothing, right? Which is a big problem, right? It's like, maybe it's the problem of our time. It's a very big problem. It's a huge problem.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
Especially now, because there's something else that's happened, right? Is that Groups of denunciators can get together with much greater ease than they ever could. Yes, because of social media. And the effort necessary to make a denunciation has plummeted to zero. Right. And the consequences of making a false denunciation are also zero.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
This is not good. It's like denunciation firestorm time. And that's certainly happening.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
Yeah, well, just because something's advantageous for some people in the short run does not mean that it's good for the whole game in the medium to long run. Right. That's for sure. Yes, that's right. That's exactly that. Well, that's actually, I think, in some ways, the definition of an impulsive moral error.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
Like, if it accrues benefit to you in the short run but does you in in the medium run, that's not a very wise strategy. Yes. Right? And that's what impulsive people do all the time. Yes. Right, right. That's even the definition of what constitutes a temptation.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
Any place infiltrated by narcissists is going to be susceptible to exactly, and narcissists will use whatever political stance gains them the most immediate credibility, completely independent of the validity of the ideological stance. See, one of the things, we'll get back to the story right away.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
See, one of the things I've observed, this is very interesting, because I've talked to a lot of moderate progressives, let's say, or actually even genuine liberals within the Democrat, congressmen and senators, many of them. And I've been struck by one thing. And I'm curious about what you think about this.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
We know that a tilt towards empathy, so agreeableness, trade agreeableness, a tilt, tilts you in a liberal direction and maybe in a progressive direction. And there are concomitants of being more agreeable on the personality side. But I think one of them is that The moderates that I've talked to always denied the existence of the pathological radicals on the left.
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507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
And I've really thought, I mean, this is to a man or woman. Yeah, yeah. And I think what it is, I think it has something to do with the unwillingness or inability of the more liberal types to have imagination for evil. Like, I would make the case that most criminals You could validly interpret most criminals whose criminal history is sporadic and short as victims.
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507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
They've come from abusive families, alcoholic families, often multi-generationally antisocial families, etc. But there's a subset of criminals. It's 1% of the criminals, 65% of the crimes. There's a subset of criminals who are not victims. They are really monsters. And I don't think there's any imagination for the monstrous among the compassionate left, it's all victims.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
It doesn't matter how egregious the crime. Now, that's something I would have tested as a social psychologist if I still had an active research lab, which I don't. But the problem with what we know that we know from simulations that networks of cooperators can establish themselves in a way that's mutually beneficial and productive. But that if a shark is dropped into a tank of cooperators,
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
then the shark takes everything. So the problem with being agreeable and cooperative is that the monsters can get you. And if you're temperamentally tilted towards denying the existence of the monster so much the worse. Now, I made that case because you talked about the relationship between narcissism and left-wing authoritarianism. I mean, narcissism shades into sadism as well.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
And so this is a very big problem, especially with online denunciation. Okay, so back to 2022. Now there's... debate about whether these papers are going to proceed to publication. Right, they were... And there's allegations made against the people who wrote the reviews.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
So why did Smith have such an outsized say in all this? Like, that isn't how the scientific process generally works. So they once... APS...
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
Nothing at the moment comes to mind. I have a memory of a memory of something associated with that, because I've tried to follow the literature, but I've definitely seen it emerge on the left. Correlations on the right. Well, from what I remember, and I'm vague about this because I can't give you sources, is that dark tetrad traits stand out quite markedly as associated with authoritarianism.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
So they were... Maybe they also thought it was trouble they didn't need.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
When you're working for a scientific journal, you're not doing it for the money, right? It's a lot of work. And the editors, was he paid? Was that his full-time job? It was not his full-time job, and I don't know whether he was paid. Right, right. Okay, so that just illustrates the point, is that people are doing this because that's actually what you do as a scientist.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
There's not a lot of, you know, it's a prestigious position and you meet people. You have a certain say over the direction the field might go. And those are perks, but generally people do this like they do peer review because it's part of the tradition of scientific activity. Right. Right, right. That's right.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
And so you can see why people might bail out if it was going to just be nothing but reputation catastrophe. Exactly, right. Because they'd be thinking, why the hell am I going to expose myself to this dismal risk when it's already hard and there's very little upside?
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507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
Despite this, despite the... Because of it.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
And I thought that was somewhat independent of whether it was left or right. But I can't provide the sources out there. I review them in this new book I wrote on We Who Wrestle With God. There's a lot of reference to the dark tetrad personality constellations and the political manifestations. But okay, but you've been studying it. Okay, so when we looked at...
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
Well, this is a good thing for people to know, too. You know, if you've watched my podcast, you know because I say this all the time that... mythologically speaking, that every treasure has a dragon, right? And that's a representation of the world, because the world is full of threat and opportunity.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
And the co-association of the dragon and the treasure is a mythological trope indicating that there's opportunity where there's peril. But there's a corollary to that, which is a very interesting one, which is where there's peril, there's opportunity. And so you might think when
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
something negative happens to you, let's say on the social side, that you become the brunt of a cancellation attempt, you might think, oh my God, my life's over. It's like, yeah, that's one possible outcome. That's the same outcome as ending up as dragon toast, let's say. But the other outcome is that you find the treasure that's associated with the dragon, and that can definitely happen.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
And that's a good thing to know because it means that when things become shaky around you, one of the things you can validly ask yourself is, there's something positive lurking here if I had the wisdom to see it and the, what would you say, the capacity for transformation necessary to allow the challenge to change me. Yeah, that's right.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
Well, you know what Nietzsche said, if it doesn't kill you, it makes you stronger. Now, unfortunately, there's an if. Well, seriously, right? Yes, absolutely. And the if is that the dragon is real. It's not a game.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
So your point about... You have to get rid of the remaining conservatives.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
So there's some concrete recommendations that can be brought out of that too. I would say, like, if you find yourself in serious trouble, this is one of the things I learned about I learned from dealing with very dangerous people in my clinical practice, let's say, dangerous and unstable people. It's a very bad idea to lie when you're in trouble. It's a seriously bad idea.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
The way we developed our measure, because I'd like to know how you developed yours, is we took a very large sample of political opinions and then factor analyzed them to find out if we could identify first clumps of left-wing and clumps of right-wing belief, which you can clearly identify.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
And so if the mob or the monster comes for you, your best defense is... extremely cautious, plain truth. Now that's very different than trying to, what would you say, strategize and manipulate your way out of a difficult situation. It's also very different than apologizing. And my experience on the woke mob cancellation side is,
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
If you lie in your own defense or falsify your speech, you're in serious trouble. And if you apologize, a different mob will just come for you. That'll be the post-apology mob that comes for you. It's not a good idea. So what we've been outlining here is the fact that if you're in serious social peril, there's two outcomes. One is that
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
Perversely enough, in retrospect, it might turn out to be an opportunity and one you wouldn't forego now that you know the consequences. That's not impossible, but it's difficult. The other one is, is you're seriously done. And so then the question is, what can you do to maximize the possibility of the former and minimize the latter? And those are some things that I know. So, okay, okay.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
So let's back up a bit then. We still haven't exactly described why the cancellation attempts weren't successful for you. Now, you said you demonstrated your ability to keep a calm head under fire and that you did that well enough so the university actually recognized that and that turned out to be of substantive benefit to you.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
But we don't know why it was that you maintained a calm head under fire or how you did that without... Well, having the reputation damage that was certainly directly implied by the accusation take you out. Like, do you have, was it good fortune? Were there things you did right? Like, how do you assess that?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
And then to look within the left-wing constellation to see if there is a reliable subcategory of clearly authoritarian proclivities.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
And people forget. That's the weird thing, because the present is so large. Yes. You're going to panic. Yes. Yeah, yeah. Don't panic. Don't panic. That's right. Don't panic. Don't assume that it's going to be successful. That's right. Because people... They might be interested in you today, but they weren't interested in you yesterday. They probably won't be interested in you tomorrow.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
And we found the biggest predictor of left-wing authoritarianism was low verbal IQ. It was a walloping predictor, negative 0.40.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
Let me add something to that. Yeah, yeah. No, not if you genuinely believe it, because you might not be your own best defender. That's why you have a Fifth Amendment. No, seriously. Conscientious... Guilt-prone people will accuse themselves. So then I would say, if you feel that you've done something wrong, remember the presumption of innocence before provable guilt. Remember that.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
It applies to you too. And then go talk to five or six people that you trust and lay out the argument on both sides and see if they think you're the bad guy. That's good.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
Don't assume that you're morally obligated to apologize, even if you feel guilty. That's right. Because your guilt feelings are not an unerring indication of your guilt. That's right. And may distort how you think about your culpability.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
See, this is why I think, too, the council mob is particularly effective against genuine conservatives. Because genuine conservatives tilt towards higher conscientiousness. And it's very easy to make conscientious people feel guilty. Right, right. So that can be weaponized.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
Yeah, go silent. Including... You can always apologize in a month after you've thought it through if anyone still cares. That's right. Okay, go silent.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
immense predictor yeah so so that's something to continue because you know one of the things we talked about at the beginning of the podcast was that some of these ideas sound good in the absence of further critical evaluation so that you might say well if you lack the capacity for deep verbal critical evaluation what apparently moral ideas would appeal to you and well you can imagine that there might be a set of them and one of them would be well don't be mean to people who aren't like you
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
Yeah, that's especially true if someone's interviewing you. Yeah, it's like record all of it. Record all of it.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
That's also why you need that time of silence is to muster your resources. Yes. And you could also assume, even if people are nervous in the aftermath of the accusations for two or three days or a week even, they may come to their senses as the...
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
A lot of the claims of the field are not true. Now, you got to expect that in scientific inquiry because a lot of the things we believe are false and the whole reason that we practice as scientists is to correct those falsehoods. And it's also the case that
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
Okay, so there is... Okay, so given all that, it's less surprising that that speculation might have arisen in relationship to your analogy. Right, right. Things you find out too late.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
You know, which is a perfectly good rule of thumb. Yes, absolutely. But that doesn't mean it's the... It doesn't mean that everyone who says that's what they're for are, in fact, agitating on behalf of that principle.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
So let me ask you a question about strategy there too. I've spent a lot of time strategizing with people because that was a big part of my clinical practice. But in terms of... silence and then mustering your support network, right? And then you said, well, you can start your defense. It's like... My sense is that a good offense is a very strong defense. Yes. Right.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
Because you can, if you're careful now, you know, you can defend yourself or you can turn the tables. And I would say if you're turning the tables because you're angry, that's not a good idea because you're going to make mistakes in your strategizing. Right. I think you can distinguish that.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
The search for justice and truth from the search for revenge by the intermediating role of especially resentment. If you're resentfully angry, your head isn't clear. But if you can quell that and you want to establish the truth and you can do that with a certain amount of detachment, then a good defensive strategy is offense. It's like what's actually... You can flip the table, so to speak, and...
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
The problem with a defense is there's something... Well, there's something defensible. There's something defensible.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
Well, I might have made a mistake. Yes, right, absolutely, right. No, no, you're seriously wrong. Yeah, yeah. And in a manner that's actually detrimental to the cause you purport to be putting forward.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
All right, look, we have to stop this part of the discussion, even though there's like 50 other things I want to talk to you about, but we'll continue. I'm going to, I think, focus the discussion on the Daily Wire side. You guys listening on YouTube know about this, that we do another half an hour there. I think I'm going to talk about... categorization and implicit bias.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
And delve a little bit more into social psychology's role, for better or worse, in promoting many of the policies, the DEI policies, for example, and justifying them hypothetically on scientific grounds. I want to delve into that because it's definitely been social psychologists who've been
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
particularly interested in the issue of implicit bias, even though to some degree that notion came from the clinical world, including from people like Carl Jung, who were very interested in the idea of complex and implicit association back in the 1920s.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
Anyways, there's a veneer of scientific respectability that's been laid over the diversity, inclusivity, and equity claims, the notion of implicit and systemic bias. And that's always bothered me because I think the social psychologists have done a terrible job distinguishing between categorization, which is like the basis of perception itself, bias, because you can't consider categorization bias.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
It's like, that's insane. That's insane, even though the postmodernists really do make that claim. And Lee's done work too, looking at the accuracy of such things as so-called stereotypes, because what's the difference between a stereotype and a category? That is a hard question. You could spend a thousand years trying to figure that out.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
Anyways, I think that's what we'll delve into if you want to join us on the Daily Wire side. And so thank you very much, sir, for offering what you know and also your story. to the more general public and join us on the Daily Royal side if you want to continue with the discussion.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
Do you think there are good scales now for left and right-wing authoritarianism? Adequate scales?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
You can tell if someone's belief is part of a set of identifiable beliefs. If they hold that belief, the fact they hold that belief predicts reliably that they hold another belief, right? And then you want to see a pattern like that emerge across a lot of people. Then you see that there are associations of ideas, right? Those would be something like, the manifestation of an ideology.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
You want to see if that's identifiable, what its boundaries are, that it can be distinguished from other clumps of ideas. So left could be distinguished from right. This can all be done statistically and very reliably. Now, it wasn't done by social psychologists from the end of World War II till 2016. Shameful lacuna in the history of political analysis within the psychological community.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
It shocked me when I first discovered it. Me too. It was shocking. It's like, really? Talk about blind spots. Oh, my God. It's like, oh, do you guys miss Mao and Stalin? Yeah, I know, right.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
How do you miss that? It's fairly obvious. You're a social psychologist. A biggest... social movements of the 20, the biggest pathological social movements of the 20th century had their existence denied for 70 years. Mind boggling. It's mind boggling. I've never recovered from discovery. It took me like a year to even believe it was true. Okay, so you're using other people's questions.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
So what's your approach?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
much of what's published is not going to be true because the alternative would be that everything that was published was a discovery that was true and we'd be overwhelmed by novelty so fast that it would be untenable if that ever happened. Lee is one of the rarer social psychologists who's actually a scientist and He's done a lot of interesting and also controversial work.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
So the true nature of American liberty.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
So is that a benevolent left view and an authoritarian left view?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
Demonizing America versus... We did find in our analysis that there's a liberal left that's clear and there's an authoritarian left. And the liberal left, this is part of our investigation, the liberal left isn't... Now did we figure that out? The liberal left doesn't partake of the attitudes of the Radical authoritarian.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
Yes, but they're the ones that I also think that they're sort of oblivious nice.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
I think that's true And we that is what we found we found in the study. I got a research idea. Yes. Yes It's relevant to this well with regards to these questionnaires. It's something that I wanted to do You know the large language models track statistical probability so you can take those left-wing Questionnaire sets and you can ask chat GPT. Here's an item or here's three items generate 30 more
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
and it doesn't. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right, so if you wanted to improve the statistical reliability of the measures, so you can imagine, take the measures that already exist, put them in clumps of three in ChatGPT, have it expanded out to like 300 items, administer it to a thousand people and distill it. Because the thing- That's a great idea.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
507. The Insanity of Woke Psychologists | Lee Jussim
This will speed things up radically because the thing about the large language models is they already have the statistical correlations built in. When you ask ChatGPT to generate 40 items that are conceptually like these four, that's what it does. It's not an opinion. So you can use ChatGP to purify the questionnaires. And you can do that on the left and on the right.