Jordan Peterson
Appearances
Global News Podcast
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Hello everybody. I want to share an announcement concerning some of my recent work exploring the biblical texts that sit at the foundation of our culture. All of this initially exploded on the public front with the Genesis lectures I recorded in 2017.
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So I think part of the reason that we're in a crucial moment is because the enlightenment doctrines that have savaged Christianity have also now turned upon themselves. And partly conceptually, but also scientifically, one of the things I've come to understand as a practicing research psychologist is that we see the world through a story. In fact, that's a technical description.
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A description of the structure through which someone sees the world is a story. It's their story. And we have to see the world through a story because we have to direct our attention. And I think that's been revealed on the scientific side as incontrovertible. I've interviewed many top cognitive scientists pushing on this issue.
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And the best of the best of them now understand that even our perceptions of objects are micro narratives. We see the world through a story. All right, so that's radical. That's a radical realization. We can't derive the world from a simple list of facts. That's become starkly evident. We don't even train our AI systems that way. It's just not the case. Okay, so then what's the story exactly?
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That's the crucial issue. What's the story? Well, maybe there is no story, but if there's no story, there's no point and there's no aim and there's no way of organizing attention and action. And in that chaos, there's nothing but despair. And I think that's also evident, say, neuropsychologically, neurophysiologically. No aim, no hope, and despair. What are candidates for this story?
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Well, the big candidates that have emerged since Nietzsche announced the death of God is the story of power and the story of sex. And those are good contenders for the throne. But power is the most dismal of stories, except for perhaps the story of hedonism. Right? Those two things compete. These two great stories, power and sex, they lead to catastrophic ends. They play with each other.
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They rotate around each other. They drive us either towards a remarkably unproductive and bitter hedonism that cannot sustain itself psychologically or socially. And then on the power side, well, if everything's about power, then... That claim to me is no different than the claim that like the spirit of Lucifer rules the world. It's the same claim in a different guise. There's nothing but power.
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All right, so there's no basis for marriage that isn't power. There's no basis for friendship that isn't power. There's no description of human society that isn't power. It's just all against all, right? And for what? And not only is that a stunningly hellish and dismal story, I think there's absolutely no evidence that it's true and plenty of evidence that it's not.
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The religious question, the monotheistic question could be conceptualized as what could unite even power and sex and something higher and harmonious psychologically and societally. And I think that's what the biblical corpus is about. I think that's what the gospels focus on.
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And I've come to realize, to understand, not just to believe, but also to understand that it has something to do with sacrifice. And so to mature is to sacrifice. To mature is to sacrifice the immediate delights of power in the present for the long term psychologically and the communal broadly. That's the definition of maturation.
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And there's a spirit that underlies that movement towards integration and community. And that spirit is the spirit of progressive sacrifice. And the gospel story is the culmination of the sacrificial story. And so, I don't understand how it can be true
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The Exodus story is arguably the central narrative in the Old Testament. Now, there are many profound narratives in the Old Testament, some which are equivalent depth, but there's none that have that combination of depth, narrative integrity, and detailed length. And so... And Moses is a great prophet who establishes the law. He's a central figure.
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I don't understand how it can be right, but I now don't understand how it cannot be true because the converging evidence that something like the spirit of divine sacrifice animates the world, I think that's, I think we're there. I think that's the realization.
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Now, what I hope to accomplish in this seminar is to further my understanding of that because the story upon which our culture is based, the gospel story, let's say, is deeply mysterious and dramatically peculiar and hallucinogenic. It's a trip, and it's not understandable from the purely rational perspective, yet it seems to be right, and I don't know what that means.
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It's a terrifying thought, that's for sure. The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom. That's for sure. If you understand that... The gospels call to you to bear the weight of tragedy and malevolence on your shoulders along with the divine spirit that guides you. There is nothing more terrifying and no greater field of opportunity than that. And so we've got our work cut out for us, gentlemen.
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This is one peculiar time and one peculiar text, and I sure hope we're up to the task.
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That was followed some years later by the four-part documentary series I recorded with Daily Wire Plus on the foundations of the West, examining the contributions of Rome, Jerusalem, and Athens. That, in turn, expanded into our very successful seminar on Exodus, and then, most recently, on the Gospels.
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Well, it's a hard thing to... what would you say, to come to terms with when that's the claim, but the arc of the narrative of Christ is the worst possible death for the least possibly deserving person and the full encounter with malevolence, right?
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So I thought I'd start, if you gentlemen are in accordance with John 1 to 4, and because it's one of the most peculiar paragraphs, let's say, in the Gospel account, we could talk about it for 10 hours, which we won't, but it'll set us up to start to investigate the metaphysical foundations of the text as well as the autobiographical foundations.
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One other thing I'd like to point out to people, perhaps, before we get going from a conceptual perspective, is that Dr. Headley, for example, pointed to the philosophical as part of the understructure of the cultural and made the claim that perhaps underneath that is the theological. And I think that's a nice pattern. It's a nice description of the pattern of conceptualization itself.
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It appears as though philosophy is nested inside drama. That's a good way of thinking about it. And a verbally portrayed drama is a story. And a story isn't philosophy. It's got a dreamlike quality to it. It's still something embodied and dramatized.
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If philosophy emerges from the story, and then our other cultural concepts emerge from philosophy, you can see kind of an inverted pyramid with something at the foundation. And the foundation is the story itself. And at the base of that foundation is something like sacrifice in love. And that's the claim that's being made in the Christian context. Now, John opens up with...
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And Christ plays the same role in the New Testament. And his passion story has the same delineation of narrative detail combined with profound depth. And so it's very useful to understand the Exodus story and to understand the gospel story and to know both of them in relationship to one another.
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an allusion to that whole set of claims because John does this extremely strange parallel by making the radical and improbable claim that Christ
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the Christ of the Bible, who was born in a particular time and in a particular place, a no account place in the middle of nowhere, in an equally nondescript time in some ways, is equivalent to the spirit that gave rise to the cosmos at the beginning of time and has always existed. It's an unbelievably radical way of starting a book, and I'll read the words. In the beginning was the Word,
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The word was with God and the word was God. The word existed in the beginning with God. All things were made through him and God created nothing except through him. In him was life. And this life brings light to all mankind. The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it. And the word was made flesh and dwelt among us, full of truth and kindness.
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We have beheld his glory, the glory of the only begotten Son of the Father. And from the abundance of Jesus' grace, we have all received blessing upon blessing. For the law was given through Moses. Grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has seen God at any time, but the only Son who is closest to the Father's heart has made him known to us.
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So I structured this seminar in relationship to a book called The Single Gospel, and he describes it as Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John consolidated into a single narrative. That's not an approach without its pitfalls. He compresses and retranslates many of the verses. So I'm sure there'll be something in that to offend everyone who's listening. For me, it allowed me to enter the
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single narrative of the gospels relatively rapidly and to make sure that we had the appropriate narrative through line jonathan maybe you could start with that terribly complicated piece of writing yeah well the first thing i think it's important to see is that it is definitely referring back to genesis 1. it's it's basically giving us a type of account of genesis 1 which is god spoke
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So that's the purpose of the investigation, is to bring people to the story, including ourselves, and to further our understanding of the text upon which, for better or worse, the West is founded. Hello everyone. Welcome to the Gospel Seminars and welcome to all the panelists, all of you who were here before for the Exodus Seminar. and those of you who have newly joined us.
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And you would understand this in the Genesis context, is that there's an insistence on something like the primacy of the process that extracts the order that's good out of potential and chaos. And that's the word. And the Christian insistence is that Christ embodies the pattern of loving sacrifice that characterizes that word. And so that idea is something like the foundation of God
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existence itself is the spirit of loving sacrifice and that's equivalent it's the same thing as the word that extracts the order that's good out of potential at the beginning of time and one way of understanding that more prosaically i would say is that imagine the order that you establish in your family
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if that little microcosm of the walled garden, your family, to the degree that you embody the spirit of loving sacrifice as a father, then you'll create, out of the potential that's your family relationships, the order that's good. And it's sacrifice because, well, that's what you do on behalf of your children, right? You put them first, not you. You certainly put them first before your whims,
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You put what's best for them before their whims, too. And so there's an upward aim in that, and all that upward aim is sacrificial. And then, well, then we get to the issue of what constitutes the ultimate sacrifice, which is partly what's explored in the gospel accounts. It's obviously explored in Abraham, because Abraham is called upon to make an ultimate sacrifice.
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But this is an extension in a different direction.
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I'm very excited about this. It's the day after Easter Sunday. It's a good time to do it. There's a lot of buzz in the world at large about the state of Western civilization and the dependence or lack thereof of that civilization on the fundamental stories from which it emerged historically and conceptually and It's a wonderful time to be investigating that.
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It seems to me that John is establishing a radically, extending a radically non-materialist axiom. He's trying to identify what the core phenomenon of being is and it's in this story. It's not material. It's being itself. It's very fundamentally associated, I think, with what modern people would call consciousness, which is a complete opaque mystery in and of itself, right?
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And so we've all come together to take all of you who are watching and listening through that and to learn as much as we possibly can simultaneously. And we're going to open this. I'll have everybody go around the table and introduce themselves, tell who they are, and also...
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John is attempting to characterize the spirit of being itself. And he's making a claim. The claim is it's embodied in Christ. It's the same as the divine principle that generated order at the beginning of time. It's apprehensible. It's foundational. And
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And it's also the fullest expression, this isn't directly in this text, but it emerges, it's the fullest expression of the tradition that's made manifest in the Old Testament. It emerges out of our primordial stories and announces itself as the principle of being itself. And it seems to me irrefutable that the principle of sacrifice is the basis of sophisticated thinking.
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psychological integrity and community. I just can't see how that cannot be true. And that's being pointed to here as well. Sacrificial love, it's something like that.
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why they're here and why they think this is both interesting and necessary for themselves personally and then perhaps also at the broader cultural level. So, Bishop Barron, thank you very much for coming today. My great pleasure.
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You made a comment about this, James, it was you, about this being a meta-scientific claim, and So I want to add a couple of things to that. So I watched Richard Dawkins yesterday talk about his existence as a cultural Christian. And he's also, he's not just a cultural Christian ethically.
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He's a cultural Christian scientifically because the scientific program itself, which is a very particular sort of program and only emerged in the context of a Judeo-Christian society. And that wasn't accidental. It is predicated on a variety of meta-scientific claims. One is that the Logos characterizes the cosmos, which means it's intelligible.
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Also that that intelligibility is good, because otherwise a scientist studying the intelligibility of the cosmos could be a terribly destructive force, which is of course something that we're afraid of, and is also true if the aim of the scientist isn't proper.
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right and that and that there it is possible for us to exist in a relationship with the cosmos such that its intelligibility will reveal itself to us if we participate in that investigation both in the spirit of truth which is core to the scientific enterprise but also in relationship to our upward aim because scientists don't ever have to say we're conducting this research to further the good.
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That's just axiomatic. But the reason it's axiomatic is because it's nested in this underlying ethos. I mean, you can easily imagine a science that serves totalitarian claims. I don't think it would last long as a science because it would eat itself. But we've certainly seen that enterprise perverted in directions that take it away from what it is and
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and what it has to be nested in in order to be genuine science and to serve psyche and society.
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Right, right. That's an interesting point, the idea that you can't be scientific if you worship nature. We're actually seeing that played out in the academy now because as the academy decolonizes, there are claims by the decolonizers that the scientific enterprise itself violates the sacred.
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Okay, so I'm going to move us now to the first biographical detail, let's say, out of the realm of high metaphysics, and to the story of Zechariah. And so this is the announcement of the impending birth of John the Baptist, and this is really where Christ's story starts on the biographical side. It doesn't start with Christ himself in the Gospels, it starts with John the Baptist,
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interesting and complicated figure, assimilated by Jesus himself to Elijah, who is the prophet of conscience, I would say, above all, and also, by the way, the figure in the Old Testament who brings the worship of nature to a halt. And so I'm going to read this. This is the Annunciation to Zechariah. One day, this is John the Baptist's father.
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One day when Zechariah's group was on duty and he was serving as a priest before God, he was chosen.
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Luke, beginning of Luke. Luke 1, 5 to 25. I'm hoping that's where it is. I'm using the single gospels, by the way, in this journey forward.
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One day when Zechariah's group was on duty and he was serving as a priest before God, he was chosen by lot randomly, according to the custom among the priests, to enter the temple of the Lord and burn incense. At the time for this burning, all the assembled worshipers were praying outside. Then an angel of the Lord appeared to Zechariah standing on the right-hand side of the incense altar.
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Zechariah was shaken when he saw the angel and fear fell upon him. But the angel said, Do not be afraid, Zechariah, for your prayer has been heard, and your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you shall call his name John. And you shall have joy and gladness, and many will rejoice that he was born, for he will be great in the eyes of the Lord. And he shall drink neither wine nor strong drink.
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And he will be filled with the Holy Spirit even from his mother's womb. And he will turn many of the children of Israel back to the Lord their God. He will go as a forerunner before the Lord in the spirit and power of Elijah to turn the hearts of fathers to the children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous and to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.
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So Elijah calls the Israelites back to conscience. John the Baptist is the forerunner and the announcer of Christ. This is the announcement of his conception and birth. And so, what do we make of John the Baptist? Why is it necessary? Greg, maybe you can start us off here.
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Why do you think it's necessary in the narrative flow of things for there to be an unroller of the red carpet, let's say, for someone to make the way ready?
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So you're making two points. One is that one's a psychological point or a theological point, which is that It might be that it's conscience that alerts us when our sacrifices are insufficient or something like that. It's conscience that alerts us to the necessity for a higher form of sacrifice than what we're currently performing. And so conscience is continually the forerunner of the sacred.
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But then there's a dramatic level here too where you need to prepare the ground for the introduction of a major character.
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Well that touches on something, Peugeot, maybe you can speak to this. There's a very deep mystery there because the story of Christ doesn't really get going apart from some description of birth and youth, which we'll cover, until the baptism. And so that question immediately arises, well if Christ is the Son of God from birth, why the necessity of the baptism? What does the baptism represent?
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All of those, 17 for the former, Exodus, and 10 for the latter, the Gospels, are now available exclusively on Daily Wire+. Joining me for the Gospel Seminar were many of the same stellar intellectual scientists, authors, and philosophers who journeyed through Exodus and the cities of the Foundations of the West series, along with some exceptionally insightful newcomers.
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Why is John a Baptist? What does it mean for him to be a Baptist, and what does baptism signify? Now, there's a lot of work on the anthropology of religion that's focused on this issue, and it's very frequently the case across cultures anthropologically distributed that men in particular must undergo an initiation ceremony, which generally bears some symbolic relationship to the modern church.
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to the Judeo-Christian concept of baptism before they can adopt their full individuality. And it's often associated with something like a passage or re-immersion into the sacred waters or into the chaos. And it's a dissolution into chaos and then a restructuring, right? That would be the neurophysiological take on it.
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So he's a radical, is he doing the same thing, do you think, with the temple that Moses is doing after the Israelites leave God with the golden calf and he sets up the tabernacle outside the center of the community? Is that associated with Jonathan's claim that John the Baptist is signifying the end of the old world?
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So what happens, the way I understand the baptismal event, let's say, if we can jump to that momentarily, is that it recapitulates the time at the beginning of time. You have the water, which is the tohu vabohu, right? I would say that's the deep pool of possibility. And you have the spirit descend that sets on the water, and that's a recapitulation of the initial state.
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You can think about that as a neurophysiological transformation writ large, right? It's the dissolution of the old personality, the re-instantiation of the process that brings order out of chaos and the generation of a new order. And so, and it's new in the sense that you said, but it's very, very archaic. The baptismal idea is unbelievably old, right?
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That initiatory idea, tens of thousands of years old. But that is the forgiveness of sins. Right, but... Right, because the, yeah, yeah, yeah.
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Well, my sense is that they're comparatively forgiven because the Israelites and the Egyptians both have to face the chaos of the Red Sea. But the Egyptians are so tyrannical and so bent beyond redemption that that Flood of chaos destroys them. Now, that doesn't mean the Israelites are finally saved, but they at least managed to pass through the chaos alive. And so, there's an... And what?
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They established themselves as a new people on the opposite shore, right? There is a new beginning there. And... That doesn't necessarily signify that they've been washed clean by the chaotic Red Sea, but it does mean that the tyranny that held them back has been demolished by the chaos. Well, they've been washed clean of the Egyptians. Right. And if you view them as one organism in a way,
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It's only partial. That's right. Well, we do, there are psychological investigations that show, for example, that if people take a bath or a shower, they feel, they declare themselves more morally pure.
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Right, and it's a removal of contamination, but it's not as profound a removal as could conceivably be imagined. So, okay, so now for the Christians again, why does Christ require a baptism?
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So is the baptism... The baptism seems to precipitate two events. One is the sojourn in the desert, and one is the onset of the ministry. So what's your reading?
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But to Jonathan's point... How do you read that from the human side? I mean, is Christ as a man... Does Christ as a man... He obviously matures. He matures from infant onward. Does Christ as a man... reveal his relationship with God more and more deeply as he progresses even to himself?
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So another very strange occurrence happens. So after the annunciation to John's father and mother, we have the annunciation to Mary. And I'll read that because it's worth going into, I would say.
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In the sixth month of Elizabeth's term, the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, a nowhere town, to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph of the lineage of David. This maiden's name was Mary. Gabriel came to her and said, Hail, O favored one, the Lord is with thee. Mary was greatly troubled at these words and wondered what this greeting might mean.
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But the angel said to her, Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. He will be great. He will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will rule over the house of Jacob forever, and his kingdom will have no end.
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Mary said to the angel, How can this be, since I have never known a man? And the angel replied, the Holy Spirit will come upon you and the power of the most high will overshadow you. Therefore, the child to be born will be holy and he will be called the son of God. And Mary agrees to that. Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord.
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Okay, so I want to unpack a couple of things in that from a psychological perspective and then I'll let the people who are more biblically oriented take it from there. So the first thing I would, I've got two things to say on that front. The image of mother and child is an ancient image. It predates Christianity.
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And the reason for that is that, well, any culture that doesn't hold the image of mother and infant sacred is done because that's the very image of love, maternal love, life, reproduction, continuity, sacrifice, all of that. And so, I think it's either Mary and the infant or the whore of Babylon. I think those are the directions for women fundamentally.
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And so there's that from the psychological perspective is that the sacrificial relationship of mother to infant is core. It's fundamental. Then the next issue is possibly that The very definition of feminine, of female, biologically isn't chromosomal difference. Chromosomal difference is a reflection of a more fundamental difference.
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What female means biologically is that sex which contributes more to the reproductive process. And so right from fractally, right from the level of sperm and egg upward, the bulk of the reproductive responsibility, especially in its initial phases, is clearly feminine. And so it is as if, at least as if, It's mother and God producing child with the father donating a trifle to the process.
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Now, in Mary's case, that's obviously taken to the ultimate degree. But at minimum, it reflects this underlying biological reality. It's also the case that Mary... embodying as she does the spirit of motherhood, says yes to the fact of the child. Now, we don't know what Mary's informed of by the angel with regard to the destiny of her child, which is a very brutal and great destiny.
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But that's the destiny of all children, right? And part of the reason we have a birth crisis in the modern world is because women now look at the world, A, they're unwilling to make the sacrifice, and B, they think, Who would dare to bring a child into a world such as this? And the answer is, well, we've always brought children into a world of death and malevolence.
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And there isn't a deeper reflection of fundamental faith in the goodness of being and becoming than the decision a woman takes to throw herself wholeheartedly and without reservation into into the relationship with her infant. And that's all, as far as I can tell, that's all packed into this story and more. So that's what I have to say.
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Do you think that's, it seems to me arguably that that's implicit in two parts. Son of the Most High, say three parts, Son of the Most High, kingdom will have no end, and the intermediation of the Holy Spirit. So there's strong pointers in that direction.
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You see it more clearly in the Annunciation to Joseph, right, in Matthew 1.18. So let's refer to that again. I'll read through that and then we'll go to the birth of Christ. So this is the Annunciation. After Mary has been betrothed to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be with child by the Holy Spirit.
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And her husband Joseph, being a just man and unwilling to put her to public disgrace... resolved to send her away quietly. But as he considered these things, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for the child within her is conceived of the Holy Spirit.
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She will bear a son, you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins. All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken through the prophet. Behold, the virgin shall conceive, shall bear a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which means God is with us. That's a bit clearer.
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Now, I'm going to speak about that biologically too, and I think the easiest explanation on the biological side is that of paternal uncertainty. And so, in any relationship between a man and a woman, there is always, until DNA testing became possible, but there's always an element of paternal uncertainty, and one of the
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One of the things that a man has to contend with when his wife is pregnant is that paternal uncertainty. And his willingness to act in good faith is, of course, dependent on the integrity of the marriage. But it's that willingness to act in good faith that actually makes for the solidity of the family. That's a terrible place for doubt to emerge.
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And so, at minimum, that's part of what's happening in that story. And so, I'll turn, unless anybody has a comment on that, I'll turn to the birth.
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It's a good criticism, John, but one of the things that's interesting, because your criticism is if it's so central, why isn't it replicated? And people have addressed that, but interestingly, Despite the fact that it's not replicated, it's also become a really fundamental part of the culture of Christianity, right?
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Because there's nothing in many ways that people know more about Christ's life than the birth, right? And so it does seem to speak to something that's very, very deep, despite the fact that those other Gospels also, they say very little about Christ at all until...
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US demands Panama 'reduce China's influence' over canal
So I think there's quite a strong case for... Your point is that if Christ is God, then his patrimony is God. Right. And that's implicit in the other stories.
Global News Podcast
US demands Panama 'reduce China's influence' over canal
referring to there, perhaps, it's an analog of what we pointed to before. It's like, well, how much can you spring on one person at once? Yes, yes. Right, okay.
Global News Podcast
US demands Panama 'reduce China's influence' over canal
The lack of presumption. Mary's pride. Right. Well, when women in the throes of pregnancy do have to throw themselves over to a process that's really outside of them, right? Right. in a way that men can't understand. I'm going to read the birth of Jesus and the angels' proclamation to the shepherds. Now, the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way.
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In those days, a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be taxed. This was the first census taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria. all went to be enrolled, each to his own city.
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US demands Panama 'reduce China's influence' over canal
And Joseph went up from Galilee, out of the town of Nazareth to Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David, to be enrolled with Mary, his betrothed wife, who was great with child. And while they were there, the time came for her to be delivered.
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US demands Panama 'reduce China's influence' over canal
And she brought forth her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling clothes and laid him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn. Then Luke 2, 8 to 20. In the same region there were shepherds abiding in the fields, keeping watch over their flocks.
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US demands Panama 'reduce China's influence' over canal
By night, and lo, an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them, and they were very afraid. But the angel said to them, Be not afraid, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which will be for all the people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a savior who is Christ the Lord. And this is how you shall know him.
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US demands Panama 'reduce China's influence' over canal
You will find a babe wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger. All right. So there's a variety of things happening there. I'll unpack them briefly and then we can discuss them. So the first is that Christ is born under the dominion of the state. That's the point of the
Global News Podcast
US demands Panama 'reduce China's influence' over canal
census and the forced movement of people the state has a tyrannical element every person even the savior of the world is born into a situation where they have to contend with the background tyranny of the state and then the next part is that
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US demands Panama 'reduce China's influence' over canal
Right, right. So that's amplified, that fact, right? Because the Roman state is also degenerating towards a theocracy, right? Isn't he called Weos Tuteu?
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US demands Panama 'reduce China's influence' over canal
So we have the genuine God being born at a time when there's a false God who's emerged in the tyrannical state. Classic, that's a classic hero story. Okay, so who's the true God here? Well, it's a babe, right? So is that every human baby with the potential to be...
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US demands Panama 'reduce China's influence' over canal
to participate in the redemption of the world, born in a very lowly place, well, that's a biological reality as well because all human infants are incredibly threatened, right? Our infants are extremely dependent, they're very, very vulnerable, we're born under the tyranny of the state, we're born in relationship to nature and even low nature and that's associated with the manger,
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US demands Panama 'reduce China's influence' over canal
So it's the emergence of the highest and the lowest as a counter position to the false highest that's Augustus. And then that's reiterated to some degree with the proclamation to the shepherds. It's like, well, who gets wind of this? Well, it's not Augustus. the people of the court, it's the shepherds, right?
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US demands Panama 'reduce China's influence' over canal
And the shepherds are an interesting choice too because, of course, shepherds, there's a kinship between the shepherd and the prophet all the way through the Old Testament and that imagery is replicated continually in the New Testament. And shepherds take care of the vulnerable. That's essentially what they do and they do that independently and responsibly.
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US demands Panama 'reduce China's influence' over canal
And so even though they're lowly, they're not because they're types of something much greater and And even though they are low on the socioeconomic totem pole, The fact that Christ's birth is announced to them is an indication of the universally salvific nature of his birth and mission, right? So that's all happening in those little stories.
Global News Podcast
US demands Panama 'reduce China's influence' over canal
We wrestled through the stories told by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, examining their historical, existential, and literary significance, deriving from those texts as well a wealth of deep and immediately applicable practical knowledge. Today you're joining me for episode one of this new revolutionary but tradition-grounded series. The episode stands on its own.
Global News Podcast
US demands Panama 'reduce China's influence' over canal
I totally agree. And some of that's associated with the glorification of the infant. as a center of attention, which is a proper center of attention.
Global News Podcast
US demands Panama 'reduce China's influence' over canal
Dennis, let's let that hang and get that back into that when we talk about the Pharisees.
Global News Podcast
US demands Panama 'reduce China's influence' over canal
Well, but I think the question is specifically addressed in some of the stories of Christ's conflict, let's say, with religious authorities per se. And I think we should address that.
Global News Podcast
US demands Panama 'reduce China's influence' over canal
We'll spend a whole session on that question in some ways. Okay, so I'm going to go through... the lead up to the baptism here, and we'll conclude with that. So what happens in the next few stories, essentially, and I'll compress them, is that Mary and Joseph and the people around Christ are presented with evidence of various sorts that something particularly special is going on here.
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US demands Panama 'reduce China's influence' over canal
So we have, we first of all have the the naming and events in the temple when Jesus is presented in the temple. And there's a prophetess there who describes his eventual destiny and a prophet there too, Simeon. And so he tells Mary that her son is destined to do spectacular things. And then after that, we have the gifts of the Magi. And these are magicians.
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US demands Panama 'reduce China's influence' over canal
magi from the east who have seen who have analyzed the patterns of the stars in heaven because they're astrologers and have determined that an old age has ended and that would be the age of the ram and a new age pisces is about to begin and so there's there's signs in the stars so to speak that something new is about to be born and the magi come and find christ and
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US demands Panama 'reduce China's influence' over canal
represent and regard him as the fulfillment of their prophetic intuition. And so that's another. And then we have the parallel. This is a Old Testament parallel with the flight into Egypt and massacre of the innocents. Do you want to speak about that?
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US demands Panama 'reduce China's influence' over canal
So the Magi tell Herod that a king will arise and Herod determines to kill all the
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US demands Panama 'reduce China's influence' over canal
Right, all the babies. And so that's equivalent to what happens in Moses' time.
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US demands Panama 'reduce China's influence' over canal
Shepherds and foreigners are the people who mark it. They want to come and see him. Then they don't go back the same way they came. I'm going to close, gentlemen, with this last story, I think, because this sets us up for the baptism and then the flight into the desert, which is where we can start our second session. So this is... the story of the culmination in some ways of Christ's youth.
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And this is Luke 2, 40 to 50. The young Jesus confers with the teachers, Luke 2, 40 to 50. The child Jesus grew and waxed strong in spirit, filled with wisdom, and the grace of God was upon him. Now his parents went to Jerusalem every year for the feast of the Passover. When Jesus was 12 years old, they took him with them when they went up, according to the custom of the feast.
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But after the celebration was over, and they were returning home, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem. His parents did not know this, but supposing him to be in their traveling party, they went a day's journey, and then they looked for him among their kinsfolk and acquaintances. When they did not find him, They returned to Jerusalem to search for him.
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US demands Panama 'reduce China's influence' over canal
After three days, they found him in the temple, sitting in the midst of the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. And all who heard him were amazed at his understanding and his responses. When his parents saw him, they were astonished. And his mother said to him, son, why have you treated us this way? Your father and I have been anxiously looking for you.
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US demands Panama 'reduce China's influence' over canal
And Jesus said to them, why did you need to search for me? Did you not know that I must be in my father's house? But they did not understand the significance of these words. So we see a variety of intimations there. We see the young Jesus first taking his place with the learned men in discussion. And that's a prodroma for much of what happens in the remainder of the Gospels.
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US demands Panama 'reduce China's influence' over canal
We see the fact that he's exceptionally good at it, enough to hold his own even as a 12-year-old with the learned adults. And that he is also pointing out to his parents, who still don't understand this, that he's marked out for a very particular form of destiny. And so it's after that that that seriously starts to unfold, and that's where we'll pick up when we reconvene.
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US demands Panama 'reduce China's influence' over canal
Thank you very much, everyone.
Global News Podcast
US demands Panama 'reduce China's influence' over canal
It also serves as an introduction to the whole series of ten available at dailywire.com. Consider a subscription there. granting you access not only to the Gospel Seminar in its totality, but to Exodus, Foundations of the West, and to the many specials I've recorded for The Daily Wire Plus, addressing marriage, success, vision, masculinity, and mental health, among other topics.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
I mean, there are ideas that are potentially as dangerous. The nihilistic idea is pretty dangerous, although it's more of a disintegrating notion than a unifying idea. The hedonistic idea that you live for pleasure, for example, that's also very dangerous.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
But if you wanted to go for sheer pathology, the notion that, and this is Foucault in a nutshell, and Marx for that matter, that power rules everything, Not only is that a terrible unifying idea, but it fully justifies your own use of power. And I don't mean the power Nietzsche talks about. His will to power was more his insistence that a human being is an expression of will rather than a...
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
mechanism of self-protection and security. He thought of the life force in human beings as something that strived not to protect itself, but to exhaust itself in being and becoming. It's like an upward-oriented motivational drive, even towards meaning. Now, he called it the will to power, and that had some unfortunate consequences, at least that's how it's translated.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
But he didn't mean the power motivation that people like Foucault or Marx became so hung up on.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
Yeah, yeah. Well, you could imagine that, and you should, you could imagine that you could segregate competence and ability. Imagine that you and I were going to work on a project.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
We could organize our project in relationship to the ambition that we wanted to attain, and we can organize an agreement so that you were committed to the project voluntarily, and so that I was committed to the project voluntarily. So that means that we would actually be united in our perceptions and our actions, by the motivation of something approximating voluntary play.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
Now, you could also imagine another situation where I said, here's our goal and you better help me or I'm going to kill your family. Well, the probability is that you would be
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
quite motivated to undertake my bidding and so then you might say well that's how the world works it's power and compulsion but the truth of the matter is that you can force people to see things your way let's say but it's nowhere near as good a strategy even practically than the strategy of that would be associated with something like voluntary voluntary joint
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
agreement of pattern of movement strategy towards a goal. See, this is such an important thing to understand because it helps you start to understand the distinction between a unifying force that's based on power and compulsion and one that is much more in keeping, I would say, with the ethos that governs Western societies, free Western societies. There's really a qualitative difference.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
And it's not some morally relativistic illusion.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
Yeah, and the dominion of the superior Aryans. Yeah, well, that was partly because Nietzsche's work also was misrepresented by his sister after his death. But I also think that there's a fundamental flaw in that Nietzschean conceptualization.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
So, Nietzsche, of course, famously announced the death of God, but he did that in a manner that was accompanied by dire warnings, like Nietzsche said, because people tend to think of that as a triumphalist statement, but Nietzsche actually said that he really said something like the...
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
unifying ethos under which we've organized ourselves psychologically and socially has now been fatally undermined by, well, by the rationalist proclivity, by the empiricist proclivity. There's a variety of reasons. Mostly it was conflict between the Enlightenment view, let's say, and the classic religious view, and that there will be dire consequences for that.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
And Nietzsche knew, like Dostoevsky knew, that, see, there's a proclivity for the human psyche and for human societies to move towards something approximating a unity, because the cost of disunity is high. Fractionation of your goals, so that means you're less motivated to move forward than you might be because there's many things competing for your attention.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
And also anxiety, because anxiety actually signals something like goal conflict. So there's an inescapable proclivity of value systems to unite.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
Now, if you kill the thing that's uniting them, that's the death of God, they either fractionate and you get confusion, anxiety, and hopelessness, or you get social disunity, or and you get social disunity, or something else arises out of the abyss to constitute that unifying force. And Nietzsche said specifically that he believed that one of those manifestations would be that of communism.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
And that that would kill, he said this in Will to Power, that that would kill tens of millions of people in the upcoming 20th century. You could see that coming 50 years earlier. Dostoevsky did the same thing in his book, The Demons. So this is the thing that the areligious have to contend with.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
It's a real conundrum because, I mean, you could dispute the idea that our value systems tend towards a unity, and society does as well because otherwise we're disunified. But the cost of that disunity, as I said, is goal confusion, anxiety, and hopelessness. So it's like a real cost. So you could dispense with the notion of unity altogether, and the postmodernists did that to some degree.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
But they pulled off a sleight of hand too, where they replaced it by power. Now Nietzsche did, he's responsible for that to some degree, because Nietzsche said, with his conception of the overman, let's say, is that human beings would have to create their own values. Because the value structure that had descended from on high was now shunted aside. But there's a major problem with that.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
Many major problems. The psychoanalysts were the first people who really figured this out after Nietzsche. Because imagine that we don't have a relationship with the transcendental anymore that orients us. Okay, now we have to turn to ourselves. Okay, now if we were a unity, a clear unity within ourselves, let's say, then we could turn to ourselves for that discovery.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
But if we're a fractionated plurality internally, then when we turn to ourselves, we turn to a fractionated plurality. Well, that was Freud's observation. It's like, Well, how can you make your own values when you're not the master in your own house? Like you're a war of competing motivations. Or maybe you're someone who's dominated by the will to force and compulsion.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
And so why do you think that you can rely on yourself as the source of values? And why do you think you're wise enough to consult with yourself to find out what those values are or what they should be, say, in the course of a single life?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
I mean, you know, it's difficult to organize your own personal relationship, like one relationship in the course of your life, let alone to try to imagine that out of whole cloth you could construct an ethos that would be psychologically and socially stabilizing and last over the long run. It's like, and of course Marx, people like that, the...
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
the people who reduce human motivation to a single axis. They had the intellectual hubris to imagine that they could do that. Postmodernists are a good example of that as well.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
Yeah, well, it's one of the key sub-themes in the Gospels is the sub-theme of the Pharisees. And so the fundamental enemies of Christ in the Gospels are the Pharisees and the scribes and the lawyers. So what does that mean? The Pharisees are religious hypocrites. The scribes are academics who worship their own intellect. And the lawyers are the legal minds who use the law as a weapon.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
And so they're the enemy of the Redeemer. That's a subplot in the gospel stories. And that actually all means something. The Pharisaic problem is that the best of all possible ideas can be used by the worst actors in the worst possible way. And maybe this is an existential conundrum, is that the most evil people use the best possible ideas to the worst possible ends.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
And then you have the conundrum of how do you separate out, let's say, the genuine religious people from those who use the religious enterprise only for their own benefit.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
machinations we're seeing this happen online like one of the things that you're seeing happening online i'm sure you've noticed this especially on the right wing trolls right wing psychopathic troll side of the distribution is the weaponization of a certain form of christian ideation and that's often marked at least online by the presence of what would you say cliches like christ is king which has a certain religious meaning but a completely different meaning in this sphere of
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
emerging right-wing pathology, right-wing. The political dimension isn't the right dimension of analysis, but it's definitely the case that the best possible ideas can be used for the worst possible purposes. And that also brings up another specter, which is like, well, is there any reliable and valid way of distinguishing truly beneficial unifying ideas from those that are pathological.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
And so that's another thing that I tried to detail out in these lectures, but also in this new book. It's like, how do you tell the good actors from the bad actors at the most fundamental level of analysis?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
Right, right. That's a more subtle variant of the religious problem. And that's what the communists say all the time, the modern-day communists. Like, real communism has never been tried. And you could say, I suppose, with some justification, you could say that real Christianity has never been tried because we always fall short of the ideal mark. And so...
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
I mean, my rejoinder to the communists is something like every single time it's been implemented, wherever it's been implemented, regardless of the culture and the background of the people who've implemented it, it's had exactly the same catastrophic consequences. It's like, I don't know how many...
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
examples you need of that, but I believe we've generated sufficient examples so that that case is basically resolved. Now, the general rejoinder to that is, it's really something like, well, if I was in charge of the communist enterprise, the utopia would have come about, right? But that's also a form of dangerous pretense.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
Part of the way, see, that problem is actually resolved to some degree in the notion of in the developing notion of sacrifice that emerges in the Western canon over thousands and thousands of years.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
So one of the suggestions, for example, and this is something exemplified in the passion story, is that you can tell the valid holder of an idea because that holder will take the responsibility for the consequences of his idea onto himself. And that's why, for example, you see... One way of conceptualizing Christ in the Gospel story is as the ultimate sacrifice to God.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
So you might ask, well, what's the ultimate sacrifice? And there are variants of an answer to that. One form of ultimate sacrifice is the sacrifice of a child, the offering of a child, and the other is the offering of the self. And the story of Christ brings both of those together because he's the son of God that's offered to God.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
And so it's an archetypal resolution of that tension between ultimate sacrifice. Ultimate because once you're a parent, Most parents would rather sacrifice themselves than their children, right? So you have something that becomes of even more value than yourself. But the sacrifice of self is also a very high order level of sacrifice.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
Christ is an archetype of the pattern of being that's predicated on the decision to take, to offer everything up to the highest value, right? That pattern of self-sacrifice. And I think part of the reason that's valid is because The person who undertakes to do that pays the price themself. It's not externalized. They're not trying to change anyone else, except maybe by example. It's your problem.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
Like Solzhenitsyn pointed that out too, when he was struggling with the idea of good versus evil. And you see this in more sophisticated literature, in really unsophisticated literature or drama, There's a good guy and the bad guy, and the good guy's all good, and the bad guy's all bad. And in more sophisticated literature, the good and bad are abstracted.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
You can think of them as spirits, and then those spirits possess all the characters in the complex drama to a greater or lesser degree, and that battle is fought out both socially and internally. In the
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
high-order religious conceptualizations in the West, if they culminate, let's say, in the Christian story, the notion is that battle between good and evil is fundamentally played out as an internal drama.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
Right, it's your moral duty to constrain evil within yourself. And, well, there's more to it than that, because there's also the insistence that If you do that, that makes you the most effective possible warrior, let's say, against evil itself in the social world. That you start with the battle that occurs within you, in the soul, let's say.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
The soul becomes the battleground between the forces of good and evil. There's an idea there too, which is if that battle is undertaken successfully, then it doesn't have to be played out in the social world as actual conflict. You can rectify the conflict internally without it having to be played out as fate, as Jung put it.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
See, I would say that the woke phenomenon is the manifestation of the slave morality that Nietzsche criticized, and that There are elements of Christianity that can be gerrymandered to support that mode of perception and conception. But I think he was wrong in his essential criticism of Christianity in that regard. Now, it's complicated with Nietzsche because...
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
Nietzsche never criticizes the gospel stories directly. What he basically criticizes is something like the pathologies of institutionalized religion. And I would say most particularly of the, what would you say, of the sort of casually too nice Protestant form. You know, that's a thumbnail sketch and perhaps somewhat unfair, but
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
Given the alignment, let's say, of the more mainstream Protestant movements with the woke mob, I don't think it's an absurd criticism. It's something like the degeneration of Christianity into the notion that good and harmless are the same thing, or good and empathic are the same thing, which is simply not true and far too simplified.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
And I also think Nietzsche was extremely wrong in his presumption that human beings should take it to themselves to construct their own values. I think he made a colossal error in that presumption.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
Well, and I think the reason that he was wrong about that is that... So when God gives instructions to Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, he basically tells them that they can do anything they want in the walled garden. So that's the kind of balance between order and nature that makes up the human environment. Human beings have the freedom...
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
vouchsafe to them by God to do anything they want in the garden, except to mess with the most fundamental rules. So God says to people, you're not to eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, which fundamentally means there is an implicit moral order and you're to abide by it. Your freedom stops at the foundation. And you can think about that.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
I'd be interested even in your ideas about this as an engineer, let's say, is that we're There is an ethos that's implicit in being itself. And your ethos has to be a reflection of that. And that isn't under your control. You can't gerrymander the foundation because your foundational beliefs have to put you in harmony, like musical harmony, with the actual structure of reality as such.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
So I can give you an example of that. So our goal, insofar as we're conducting ourselves properly, is to have the kind of interesting conversation that allows both of us to express ourself in a manner that enables us to learn and grow, such that we can share that with everyone who's listening. And if our aim is true and upward, then that's what we're doing.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
Well, that means that we're going to have to match ourselves to a pattern of interaction, and that's marked for us emotionally. Like, you and I both know this. If we're doing this right, we're gonna be interested in the conversation. We're not gonna be looking at our watch. We're not gonna be thinking about what we're aiming at. We're just going to communicate.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
Now, the religious interpretation of that would be that we were doing something like making the redemptive logos manifest between us in dialogue, and that's something that can be shared. To do that, we have to align with that pattern. I can't decide that there's some arbitrary way that I'm going to play you.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
I mean, I could do that if I was a psychopathic manipulator, but to do that optimally, I'm not going to impose a certain mode of a certain a priori aim, let's say, on our communication and manipulate you into that. So the constraints on my ethos
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
reflect the actual structure of of the world and i can't this is this is the communist presumption it's like we're going to burn everything down and we're going to start from scratch we've got these axiomatic presumptions and we're going to put them into place and we're going to socialize people so they now think and live like communists from day one and human beings are infinitely malleable
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
And we can use a rational set of presuppositions to decide what sort of beings they should be. The transhumanists are doing this too. It's like, no, there's a pattern of being that you have to fall into alignment with.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
And I think it's the pattern of being, by the way, that if you fall into alignment with, it gives you hope, it protects you from anxiety, and it gives you a sense of harmony with your surroundings and with other people. And none of that's arbitrary.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
We definitely come to the conversation with a hierarchy of foundational axioms, right? And I would say the more sophisticated you are as a thinker, the deeper the level at which you're willing to play. So imagine first that you have presumptions of different depth, there's more predicated on the more fundamental axioms, and then that there's a space of play around those.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
And that space of play is going to depend on the sophistication of the player, obviously, but... Those who are capable of engaging in deeper conversations talk about more fundamental things with more play.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
Now, we have to come to the conversation with a certain degree of structure because we wouldn't be able to understand each other or communicate if a lot of things weren't already assumed or taken for granted.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
No, no, no, no, no, no. It's got a rigidity.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
It took me about 40 years to figure out the answer to that question. So it wasn't, I'm serious about that. So it wasn't, it wasn't a random answer. So... Play is very rigid in some ways. So like if you and I go out to play basketball or chess, like there are rules and you can't break the rules because then you're no longer in the game.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
But then there's a dynamism within those rules that's, well, with chess, it's virtually infinite. I mean, I think, what is it? There's more patterns of potential games on a chessboard than there are subatomic particles in the observable universe. Like it's an insane space. So it's not like there's not freedom within it. But it's a weird paradox in a way, isn't it?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
music is like this too is that there are definitely rules and so and there are things you can't throw a basketball into a chess board and still be playing chess but weirdly enough if you adhere to the rules the realm of freedom increases rather than decreasing and i i think you can make the same case for a playful conversation it's like we're playing by certain rules and a lot of them are implicit but that doesn't mean that it might mean the reverse of constraint you know because
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
In this seminar, for example, that I was referring to, the Exodus seminar and then the Gospel seminar, everybody in the seminar, there's about eight of us, played fair. Nobody used power. Nobody tried to prove they were right. They put forward their points, but they were like, here's a way of looking at that. Assess it. And they were also doing it
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
Genuinely, it's like, this is what I've concluded about, say, this story, and I'm going to make a case for it, but I'd like to hear what you have to say, because maybe you can change it, you can extend it, you can find a flaw in it, and that's... well, that's a conversation that has flow and that's engaging and that other people will listen to as well.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
And that's also, see, I think that one of the things that we can conclude now, and we can do this even from a neuroscientific basis, is that that sense of engaged meaning is a marker, not only for the emergence of harmony between you and your environment, but for the emergence of that harmony in a way that is developmentally rich, that moves you upward towards, what would you say?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
Well, I think towards a more effective entropic state. That's actually the technical answer to that. But it makes you more than you are. And there's a directionality in that.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
Yeah, right. Absolutely. Well, and some of them may actually have an appropriate scope of application. It could be that some of the foundational axioms of communism, socialism slash communism are are actually functional in a sufficiently small social group, maybe a tribal group even.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
I also have a... I'm not sure this is correct, but I have a suspicion that the pervasive attractiveness of some of the radical left ideas that we're talking about are pervasive precisely because they are functional within...
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
say, families, but also within the small tribal groups that people might have originally evolved into, and that once we become civilized, so we produce societies that are united, even among people who don't know one another, different principles have to apply as a consequence of scale. So that's partly an engineering response, but I think there's a deeper way of going after the communist problem.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
So... I think part of the fundamental problem with the communist axioms is the notion that the world of complex social interactions can be simplified sufficiently so that centralized planning authorities can deal with it.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
And I think the best way to think about the free exchange rejoinder to that presumption is, no, the sum total of human interactions in a large civilization are so immense that you need a distributed network of cognition in order to compute the proper way forward. And so what you do is you give each actor
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
their domain of individual choice, so that they can maximize their own movement forward, and you allow the aggregate direction to emerge from that, rather than trying to impose it from the top down, which I think is computationally impossible. So that might be one engineering reason why the communist solution doesn't work.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
Like I read in Solzhenitsyn, for example, that the central Soviet authorities often had to make 200 pricing decisions a day. Now, if you've ever... started a business or created a product and had to wrestle with the problem of pricing, you'd become aware of just how intractable that is. Like, how do you calculate worth? Well, there's the central existential problem of life.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
How do you calculate worth? It's not something like a central authority can sit down and just manage. And... There is a lot of inputs that go into a pricing decision. And the free market answer to that is something like, well, if you get the price right, people will buy it and you'll survive.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
Yeah, right.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
And it doesn't iterate. It doesn't.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
I would say religious thought is the record of those ideas that have, in fact, scaled. Right. And iterated.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
Yeah.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
Yeah. This is why I like Mircea Eliade, for example, who I referred to earlier. One of the things Eliade did, and very effectively, and people like Joseph Campbell, who in some ways were popularizers of Eliade's ideas and Carl Jung's, what they really did was devote themselves to an analysis of those ideas that scaled and iterated across the largest possible spans of time.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
And so Eliade and Jung, Eric Neumann, they were looking—and Campbell— They were looking at patterns of narrative that were common across religious traditions that had spanned millennia and found many patterns. The hero's myth, for example, is one of those patterns. And it's, I think, the evidence that it has its reflection in human neurophysiology and neuropsychology is incontrovertible.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
And so these foundational narratives, they last. They're common across multiple religious traditions. They unite. They work psychologically, but they also reflect the underlying neurophysiological architecture. So I can give you an example of that. So the hero myth is really a quest myth, and a quest myth is really a story of exploration and expansion of adaptations.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
So Bilbo, the hobbit, he's kind of an ordinary everyman. He lives in a very constrained and orderly and secure world. And then the quest call comes and he goes out and he expands his personality and develops his wisdom. And that's reflected in human neuropsychological architecture at a very low level, way below cognition. So one of the most fundamental...
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
elements of the mammalian brain and even in lower animal forms is the hypothalamus. It's sort of the root of primary motivation. So it governs lust and it regulates your breathing and it regulates your hunger and it regulates your thirst and it regulates your temperature. Like really low level biological necessities are regulated by the hypothalamus. When you get hungry, it's the hypothalamus.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
When you're activated in a defensively aggressive manner, that's the hypothalamus. half the hypothalamus is the origin of the dopaminergic tracts, and they subsume exploration. And so you could think of the human motivational reality as a domain that's governed by axiomatic motivational states, love, sex, defensive aggression, hunger, and another domain that's governed by exploration.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
And the rule would be something like, when your basic motivational states are sated, Explore. And that's not cognitive. Like I said, this is deep, deep brain architecture. It's extraordinarily ancient.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
And the exploration story is something like, go out into the unknown and take the risks because the information that you discover and the skills you develop will be worthwhile even in stating the basic motivational drives. And then you want to learn to do that in an iterative,
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
manner so it sustains across time and you want to do it in a way that unites you with other people and there's a pattern to that and i do think that's the pattern that's we strive to encapsulate in our deep religious narratives and i think that in many ways we've done that successfully what is the belief in god
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
Okay, so in one of the stories that I cover in We Who Wrestle With God, which I've only recently begun to take apart, say, in the last two years, is the story of Abraham. And it's a very cool story. And it's also related, by the way, to your question about what makes communism wrong. And Dostoevsky knew this. Not precisely the Abraham story, but the same reason.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
In Notes from Underground, Dostoevsky made a very telling observation. So he speaks in the voice of a cynical, nihilistic, and bitter bureaucrat who's been a failure, who's talking cynically about the nature of human beings, but also very accurately.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
And one of the things he points out with regards to modern utopianism is that human beings are very strange creatures, and that if you gave them what the socialist utopians want to give them, so let's say all your needs are taken care of, All your material needs are taken care of, and even indefinitely.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
Dostoevsky's claim was, you don't understand human beings very well because if you put them in an environment that was that comfortable, they would purposefully go insane just to break it into bits just so something interesting would happen. Right. And he says it's the human proclivity to curse and complain.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
And he says this in quite a cynic and caustic manner, but he's pointing to something deep, which is that we're not built for comfort and security. We're not infants. We're not after satiation. So then you might ask, well, what the hell are we after then? That's what the Abraham story addresses. And Abraham is the first true individual in the biblical narrative.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
So you can think about his story as the archetypal story of the developing individual. So you said, well, what's God? Well, in the Abraham story, God is characterized a lot of different ways in the classic religious texts. Like the Bible is actually a compilation of different characterizations of the divine with the insistence that they reflect an underlying unity. In the story of Abraham,
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
The divine is the call to adventure. So Abraham has the socialist utopia at hand. He's from a wealthy family, and he has everything he needs. And he actually doesn't do anything until he's in his 70s. Now, hypothetically, people in those times lived much longer. But a voice comes to Abraham, and it tells him something very specific. It says,
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
leave your zone of comfort leave your parents leave your tent leave your community leave your tribe leave your land go out into the world and abraham thinks well why i've got naked slave girls peeling grapes and feeding them to me. It's like, what do I need an adventure for?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
And God tells them, and this is the covenant, by the way, part of the covenant that the God of the Israelites makes with his people. It's very, very specific. It's very brilliant. He says, if you follow the voice of adventure, you'll become a blessing to yourself. So that's a good deal because people generally live at odds with themselves. And he says, God says, that's not all.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
You'll become a blessing to yourself in a way that furthers your reputation among people and validly so that you'll accomplish things that were real and people will know it and you'll be held high in their esteem and that will be valid.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
So that's a pretty good deal because social people would like to be regarded as of utility and worth by others and so that's a good deal and God says that's not all. you'll establish something of lasting, permanent, and deep value. That's why Abraham becomes the father of nations. And finally, he caps it off and he says, there's a better element even to it. There's a capstone.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
You'll do all three of those things in a way that's maximally beneficial to everyone else. And so the divinity in the Abrahamic story is making a claim. He says, first of all, there's a drive that you should attend to. So the spirit of adventure that calls you out of your zone of comfort,
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
Now, if you attend to that and you make the sacrifices necessary to follow that path, then the following benefits will accrue to you. Your life will be a blessing. Everyone will hold you in high esteem. You'll establish something of permanent value and you'll do it in a way that's maximally beneficial to everyone else.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
And so think about what this means biologically or from an engineering standpoint. It means that the instinct to develop that characterizes outward moving children, let's say, or adults, is the same instinct,
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
that allows for psychological stability, that allows for movement upward in a social hierarchy, that establishes something iterable, and that does that in a manner that allows everyone else to partake in the same process. You know, that's a good deal.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
And I can't see how it cannot be true, because the alternative hypothesis would be that the spirit that moves you beyond yourself to develop, the spirit of a curious child, let's say, what, is that antithetical to your own esteem? Is that antithetical to other people's best interest? Is it not the thing that increases the probability that you'll do something permanent? That's a stupid theory.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
A call to true adventure.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
To true adventure. Yeah, and then that's a good observation because that begs the question, what constitutes adventure? the most true adventure.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
Well, that's not fully fleshed out until, at least from the Christian perspective, let's say, that's not fully fleshed out until the Gospels, because the passion of Christ is the, you could say, this is the perfectly reasonable way of looking at it, the passion of Christ is the truest adventure of Abraham. That's a terrible thing, eh, because it's a, it's a,
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
The passion story is a catastrophic tragedy, although it obviously has its redemptive elements. But one of the things that's implied there is that there's no distinction between the true adventure of life and taking on the pathway of maximal responsibility and burden. And I can't see how that cannot be true.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
Because the counter hypothesis is, well, Lex, the best thing for you to do in your life is to shrink from all challenge and hide. To remain infantile, to remain secure, not to ever push yourself beyond your limits, not to take any risks. Well, no one thinks that's true.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
The hardest possible available adventure voluntarily undertaken.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
Absolutely.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
Well, here's an example of that. That's a good question, too. When Christ is, the night before the crucifixion, which in principle he knows is coming, he asks God to relieve him of his burden, and understandably so. I mean, that's the scene famously in which he's sweating, literally sweating blood, and Because he knows what's coming.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
And the Romans designed crucifixion to be the most agonizing and humiliating possible... Agonizing, humiliating, and disgusting possible death. Right, so there was every reason to be apprehensive about that. And you might say, well, could you undertake that voluntarily as an adventure? And the answer to that is something like, well, what's your relationship with death?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
Like, that's a problem you have to solve. And you could fight it, and you could be bitter about it, and there's reasons for that, especially if it's painful and degrading. But the alternative is something like, well, that's what's fleshed out in religious imagery always. It's very difficult to cast into words. It's like, no, you welcome the struggle.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
That's why I called the book We Who Wrestle With God. You welcome the struggle. And Lex, I don't see how you can come to terms with life without construing it as something like Bring it on. Welcome the struggle. And I can't see that there's a limit to that. It's like, well, I welcome the struggle until it gets difficult.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
Well, it's worse than that in some ways, because the crucifixion exemplifies the worst possible death. But that isn't the only element of the struggle, because mythologically, classically, after Christ's death, he harrows hell.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
And what that means, as far as I can tell, psychologically, is that you're not only required, let's say, to take on the full existential burden of life and to welcome it, regardless of what it is, and to maintain your upward aim despite all temptations to the contrary, but you also have to confront the root of malevolence itself. So it's not merely tragedy.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
And I think the malevolence is actually worse. And the reason I think that is because I know the literature on post-traumatic stress disorder. And most people who encounter, let's say, a challenge that's so brutal that it fragments them It isn't mere suffering that does that to people. It's an encounter with malevolence that does that to people. Their own sometimes, often, by the way.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
Soldier will go out into a battlefield and find out that there's a part of him that really enjoys the mayhem. And that conceptualization doesn't fit in well with everything he thinks he knows about himself and humanity. And after that contact with that dark part of himself, he never recovers. That happens to people, and it happens to people who encounter bad actors in the world, too.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
If you're a naive person and the right narcissistic psychopath comes your way, you are in, like, mortal trouble because you might die, but that's not where the trouble ends.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
So there's other characterizations of the divine, say, in the Old Testament story. So one pattern of characterization that I think is really relevant to that question is the conception of God as calling and conscience. Okay, so what does it mean? It's a description of the manner in which your destiny announces itself to you.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
And I'm using that terminology, and it's distinguishable, say, from Nietzsche's notion that you create your own values. It's like, part of the way you can tell that that's wrong is that you can't voluntarily gerrymander your own interests, right? Like, you find some things interesting— And that seems natural and autonomous.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
And other things you don't find interesting and you can't really force yourself to be interested in them. Now, so what is the domain of interest that makes itself manifest to you? Well, it's like an autonomous spirit. It's like certain things in your field of perception are illuminated to you. Think, oh, that's interesting. That's compelling. That's gripping.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
Rudolf Otto, who studied the phenomenology of religious experience, described that as numinous. The thing grips you because you're compelled by it, and maybe it's also somewhat anxiety-provoking. It's the same reaction that a cat has to a dog when the cat's hair stands on end. That's an awe response. And so there's going to be things in your phenomenological field that
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
pull you forward, compel you. That's like the voice of positive emotion and enthusiasm. Things draw you into the world. Might be love, might be aesthetic interest. It might be friendship. It might be social status. It might be duty and industriousness. There's various domains of interest that shine for people. That's sort of on the positive side. God is calling.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
That would be akin to the spear of adventure for Abraham. But there's also God as conscience, and this is a useful thing to know too. Certain things bother you. They take root within you and they turn your thoughts towards certain issues. Like there are things you're interested in that you've pursued your whole life. There are things I'm interested in that I felt as a moral compulsion.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
And so you could think, and I think the way you can think about it technically is that something pulls you forward so that you move ahead and you develop. And then another voice, this voice of negative emotion says, while you're moving forward, stay on this narrow pathway, right? And it'll mark deviations, and it marks deviations with shame and guilt and anxiety, regret.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
And that actually has a voice. Don't do that. Well, why not? Well, you're wandering off the straight and narrow path. So the divine marks the pathway forward and reveals it, but then puts up the constraints of conscience. And the divine in the Old Testament is portrayed not least as the dynamic between calling and conscience.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
Yeah, envy is a really bad one. Pride and envy are among the worst. Those are the sins of Cain, by the way, in the story of Cain and Abel. Because Cain fails because his sacrifices are insufficient. He doesn't offer his best. And so he's rejected. And that makes him bitter and unhappy. And he goes to complain to God. And God says to him two things.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
He said, God tells him, if your sacrifices were appropriate, you'd be accepted. It's a brutal thing. It's a brutal rejoinder. And he also says... You can't blame your misery on your failure. You could learn from your failure. When you failed, you invited in the spirit of envy and resentment, and you allowed it to possess you, and that's why you're miserable.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
And so Cain is embittered by that response, and that's when he kills Abel. And so you might say, well, how do you fortify yourself against that pathway of resentment? And part of classic religious practice is aimed to do that precisely. What's the antithesis of envy? Gratitude. That's something you can practice, right? And I mean literally practice.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
And you're striving and you're failing constantly because... And you see other people whom you think aren't having the same problem.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
Yeah, yeah, definitely. Well, the gratitude element would be something like, well, yeah, you don't know anything, and you're at the bottom, but you're not 80.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
The old rich guy or the young poor guy? And I would say most old rich guys would trade their wealth for youth. So it's not exactly clear at all at any stage who's got the upper hand, who's got the advantage. And, you know, you could say, well, I've got all these burdens in front of me because I'm young and oh my God. Or you could say every dragon has its treasure.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
And that's actually a pattern of perception. You know, I'm not saying that people don't have their challenges. They certainly do. But discriminating between a challenge and an opportunity is very, very difficult. And learning to see a challenge as an opportunity, that's the beginning of wisdom.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
The only reason you're envious is because you see someone who has something that you want. Okay, so let's think about it. Well, first of all, The fact that they have it means that in principle, you could get it, at least someone has. So that's a pretty good deal. And then you might say, well, the fact that I'm envious of that person means that I actually want something.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
And then you might think, well, what am I envious of? I'm envious of their attractiveness to women. It's like, okay, well, now you know something about yourself. You know that one true motivation that's making itself manifest to you is that you wish that you would be the sort of person who is attractive to women.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
Now, of course, that's an extremely common longing among men, period, but particularly among young men. It's like, well... What makes you so sure you couldn't have that? Well, how about, here's an answer. You don't have enough faith in yourself. And maybe you don't have enough faith in, well, I would say, the divine.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
You don't believe that the world is characterized by enough potentiality so that even miserable you has a crack at the brass ring. And I talked about this actually practically in one of my previous books, because I wrote a chapter called Compare Yourself to Who You Are and Not to Someone Else at the Present Time. Well, why? Well, your best benchmark for tomorrow is you today.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
And you might not be able to have what someone else has on the particular axis you're comparing yourself with them on, but you could make an incremental improvement over your current state, regardless of the direction that you're aiming. And it is the case, and this is a law, The return on incremental improvement is exponential or geometric and not linear.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
So even if you start... This is why the hero is always born in a lowly place, mythologically. Christ, who redeems the world, is born in a manger with the animals to poverty-stricken parents in the middle of a God-forsaken desert in a nondescript time and place, isolated. Well, why? Well, because everyone young... struggles with their insufficiency.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
But that doesn't mean that great things can't make themselves manifest. And part of the insistence in the biblical text, for example, is that it's incumbent on you to have the courage to have faith in yourself and in the spirit of reality, the essence of reality, regardless of how you construe the evidence at hand. Right. Look at me. I'm so useless. I don't know anything. I don't have anything.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
It's hopeless. I don't have it within me. The world couldn't offer me that possibility. Well, what the hell do you know about that? This is what Job figures out in the midst of his suffering in the book of Job, because Job is tortured terribly by God, who makes a bet with Satan himself to bring him down. And Job's
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
decision in the face of his intense suffering is, I'm not going to lose faith in my essential goodness, and I'm not going to lose faith in the essential goodness of being itself, regardless of how terrible the face it's showing to me at the moment happens to be. And I think, okay, What do you make of that claim? Well, let's look at it practically.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
You're being tortured by the arbitrariness of life. That's horrible. Now you lose faith in yourself and you become cynical about being. So are you infinitely worse off instantly? And then you might say, well, yeah, but it's really asking a lot of people that they maintain faith even in their darkest hours. It's like, yeah, that might be asking everything from people.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
But then you also might ask, this is a very strange question, is if you were brought into being by something that was essentially good, wouldn't that thing that brought you into being demand that you make the best in yourself manifest? And wouldn't it be precisely when you most need that, that you'd be desperate enough to risk what it would take to let it emerge?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
Yeah, well, I think that's always part of a heroic adventure. is that ability to cut the Gordian knot. But you could also ask from an engineering perspective, okay, what are the axioms that make a decision like that possible?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
And the answer would be something like, I'm going to make the presumption that if I move forward in good faith, whatever happens to me will be the best thing that could possibly happen, no matter what it is. And I think that's actually how you make an alliance with truth. And I also think that truth is an adventure. And the way you make an alliance with truth is by assuming,
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
that whatever happens to you, if you're living in truth, is the best thing that could happen, even if you can't see that at any given moment. Because otherwise, you'd say that truth would be just the handmaiden of advantage. Well, I'm going to say something truthful, and I pay a price. Well, that means I shouldn't have said it. Well, that, possibly.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
But that's not the only possible standard of evaluation. Because what you're doing is you're making the outcome your deity. Well, I'd just reverse that and say, no, no, truth is the deity. The outcome is variable, but that doesn't eradicate the initial axiom. Where's the constant? What's the constant?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
That's an interpolation, obviously, but would have been out of keeping for the times.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
So I think it's perfectly reasonable to bring the sexual element in because it's a powerful motivating force and it has to be integrated. I don't think it's adventure. It's romantic adventure.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
There's very little doubt about that. We know perfectly well anthropologically that the most unstable social situation you can generate is young men with no access to women. That's not good. And they'll do anything, anything to reverse that situation. So that's very dangerous. But then I would also say,
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
There's every suggestion that the pathway of adventure itself is the best pathway to romantic attractiveness. And we know this in some ways in a very blunt manner. The Google boys, the engineers who are too, what would you say, naively oriented towards empirical truth to note when they're being politically incorrect, they wrote a great book called A Billion Wicked Thoughts, which I really like.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
It's a very good book and it's engineers as psychologists And so they'll say all sorts of things that no one with any sense would ever say that happened to be true. And they studied the pattern of pornographic fantasy and women like pornographic stories, not images. So women's use of pornography is literary. Who are the main protagonists in female pornographic fantasy?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
Pirates, werewolves, vampires, surgeons, billionaires, Tony Stark, you know? And so the basic pornographic narrative is beauty and the beast. Those five categories. Terrible, aggressive male, tameable by the right relationship, hot erotic attraction.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
Yeah, well, he was a big influence on me stylistically and in terms of the way I approached writing. And also many of the people that were other influences of mine were very influenced by him. So I was blown away when I first came across his writings. They're so...
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
And so I would say to the young men who, and I have many times to the young men who are locked in isolation, it's first of all, join the bloody club, right? because the default value of a 15 year old male on the mating market is zero. And there's reason for that. And zero is a bit of an exaggeration, but not much. And the reason for that is, well, what the hell do you know?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
Like you're not good for anything. You have potential and maybe plenty, and hopefully that'll be made manifest, but you shouldn't be all upset because you're the same loser as everyone else your age has always been since the beginning of time. But then you might ask, well, what should I do about it? The answer is, get yourself together. You know, stand up straight with your shoulders back.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
Take on some adventure. Find your calling. Abide by your conscience. Put yourself together. And you'll become attractive. And we know this is, look, we know this is true. The correlation between male sexual opportunity and relative masculine status is about 0.6. That's higher than the correlation between intelligence and academic achievement.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
I don't think that there's a larger correlation between two independent phenomena in the entire social science and health literature than the correlation between relative male social status and reproductive success. It's by far the most fundamental determinant.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
It's a loop. Men are motivated to attain social status because it confers upon them reproductive success. And that's not only cognitively, but biologically. I'll give you an example of this. There's a documentary I watch from time to time, which I think is the most brilliant documentary I've ever seen. It's called Crumb.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
And it's the story of this underground cartoonist, Robert Crumb, who was in high school, was in the category of males. for whom a date was not only not likely, but unimaginable. So he was at the bottom of the bottom rung. And almost all the reactions he got from females wasn't just, no, it was like, are you out of your mind? Like, with that contempt, right? And then he became successful.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
And so the documentary is super interesting because it tracks women the utter pathology of his sexual fantasies because he was bitter and resentful. And if you want to understand the psychology of serial sexual killers and the like, and you watch Crumb, you'll find out a lot more about that than anybody with any sense would want to know.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
But then he makes this transition, and partly because he does take the heroic adventure path. And he actually has a family and children, and he's actually a pretty functional person, as opposed to his brothers, one of whom commits suicide, and one of whom is literally a repeat sexual offender. It's a brutal documentary. But what he did...
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
in his adolescence after being rejected was he found what he was interested in. He was a very good artist. He was very interested in music. And he started to pursue those sort of single-mindedly and he became successful. And as soon as he became successful, and the documentary tracks this beautifully, he's immediately attractive to women.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
they're so intellectually dense that I don't know if there's anything that approximates that Dostoevsky maybe although he's much more wordy Nietzsche is very succinct partly because he was so ill because he would think all day he couldn't spend a lot of time writing and he condenses writings into very short while this aphoristic style he had and it's it's really something to strive for and
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
And then you might ask, too, even if you're cynical, it's like, well, why do women, why do I have to perform for women? And the answer to that is something like, why the hell should they have anything to do with you if you're useless? They're going to have infants. They don't need another one, right?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
Partly the reason that women are hypergamous, unless they want males who are of higher status than they are, is because they're trying to redress the reproductive burden. And it's substantial. I mean, the female of any species is the sex that devotes more to the reproductive function. That's a more fundamental definition than chromosomal differentiation.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
And that's taken to its ultimate extreme with humans. And so, of course, women are going to want someone around that's useful because the cost of sex for them is an 18-year-old period of dependency with an infant. So I think the adventure comes first.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
Well, it's complex because the other problem, let's say, with the crumboids is that their mother was extremely pathological and they didn't get a lot of genuine feminine nurturance and affection.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
In good families, they're both. Because they put up constraints on your behavior, but they, like, I've interviewed a lot of successful people about their calling, let's say, because I do that with all my podcast guests. How did the path that you took to success make itself manifest? And it's very, the pattern's very typical. Almost all the people that I've interviewed had a mother and a father.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
Now, it's not invariant, but I'd say it's there 99% of the time. It's really high. And both of the parents, or at least one of them, but often both, were very encouraging of the person's interests and pathway to development.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
No, no, no. I don't think you, I think that that's a reflection, maybe, correct me if I'm wrong, I think that's a reflection of that dynamic between positive and negative emotion. Like my son, for example, who's doing just fine. He's firing on all cylinders as far as I'm concerned. He has a nice family. He gets along with his wife. He's a really good musician. He's got a company. He's running well.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
He's a delight to be around. He was a relatively disagreeable infant. He was tough-minded. And he didn't take no for an answer. And so there was some tussle in regulating his behavior. He spent a lot of time when he was two sitting on the steps trying to get his act together. And so that was the constraint.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
But that wasn't something that was... It's an opposition to him away because it was in opposition to the immediate manifestation of his hedonistic desires. But it was also an impetus to further development. The rule for me... when he was on the stairs was, as soon as you're willing to be a civilized human being, you can get off the stairs.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
And you might think, well, that's nothing but arbitrary superego, patriarchal, oppressive constraint. Or you could say, well, no, what I'm actually doing is facilitating his cortical maturation. Because when a child misbehaves, it's usually because they're under the domination of some primordial emotional or motivational impulse.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
They're angry, they're overenthusiastic, they're upset, they're selfish, like it's narrow self-centeredness expressed in an immature manner.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
And then he's also an exciting writer, like Dostoevsky, and dynamic and romantic in that emotional way. And so it's really something. And I really enjoyed doing that. I did that lecture that you described. That lecture series is on the first half of Beyond Good and Evil, which is a stunning book.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
Okay, so my observation as a psychologist has been that it's very, very difficult for someone to get their act together unless they have at least one figure in their life that's encouraging and shows them the pathway forward. So you can have a lot of adversity in your life. And if you have one person around who's a good model and you're neurologically intact, you can latch onto that model.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
Now you can also find that model in books. And people do that sometimes. Like, I've interviewed people who had pretty fragmented childhoods who turned to books and found the pattern that guided them in, like, let's say, the adventures of the heroes of the past, because that's a good way of thinking about it.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
And I read a book called Angela's Ashes that was written by an Irish author, Frank McCourt's fantastic book, beautiful book. And his father was an alcoholic of gargantuan proportions. He just, an Irish drinker who... drank every cent that came into the family, and many of whose children died in poverty.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
And what Frank did, as a testament to the human spirit, is he sort of divided his father conceptually into two elements. There was sober, mourning father who was encouraging and with whom he had a relationship, and then there was drunk and useless, later afternoon and evening father, and he rejected the negative and he amplified his relationship with the positive.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
Now, he had other things going for him, but he did a very good job of discriminating. And I mean, partly the question that you're raising is, to what degree is it useful to have a beneficial adversary? Yeah, and I mean, struggle-free progress is not possible
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
And I think there are situations under which where you might be motivated to prove someone in your immediate circle wrong, but then that also implies that at some level, for some reason, you actually care about their judgment. You just didn't write them off completely.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
And that was really fun to take pieces of it and then to describe what they mean and how they've echoed across the decades since he wrote them. And yeah, it's been great.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
My father was always willing to approve of the things I did that were good, although he was not effusive by any stretch of the imagination, and the standards were very high. Now, I was probably fortunate for me, you know, and it does bear on the question you're asking.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
It's like, if you want someone to motivate you optimally, God, it's complicated, because there has to be a temperamental dance between the two people. Like... what you really want is for someone to apply the highest possible standards to you that you're capable of reaching. Right? And that's a vicious dance because you have to have a relationship with your child to do that properly.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
You know, because you want to, if you want to be optimally motivating as a father, you keep your children on the edge. It's like, you might not reward something in your child that you would think would be good in someone else because you think they could do better. And so my father was pretty clear about the idea that he always expected me to do better. And was that troublesome?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
It was like, I felt often when I was young that there was no pleasing him, but I also knew that that wasn't, I knew that that wasn't right. See, I actually knew that wasn't right because I could remember, especially I think when I was very young, that I did things that he was pleased about. I knew that was possible. So it wasn't unpredictable and arbitrary. It was just difficult.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
Well, that's where you have to have a relationship with your children. You have to know them. And, well, with yourself too. And with your wife. You can't hit that optimal. That optimal is probably love. Because love isn't just acceptance. Love is acceptance and encouragement. And it's not just that either. It's also, no, don't do that. That's beneath you. You're capable of more.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
And how harsh should that be? It's like, that's a really hard question. You know, like if you really love someone, you're not going to put up with their stupidity. Don't do that. You know, one of the rules I had with my little kids was don't do anything that makes you look like an idiot in public. Why? Because I don't want you disgracing yourself. Why not? Because I like you. I think you're great.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
And you're not going to act like a bloody fool in public so that people get the wrong idea about you. No.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
I would say to some degree that depends on your temperament. My wife is quite a provocative person. And there are times when I, I suppose, do I wish that... There are times when I casually wish that she was easier to get along with. But as soon as I think about it, I don't think that. Yeah. Because I've always liked her. We were friends ever since we were little kids. And she plays rough.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
And I like that, as it turns out. Now, that doesn't mean it isn't a pain from time to time. But... You know, and that is going to be a temperamental issue to some degree and an issue of negotiation. Like, she plays rough but fair, and the fair part has been establishing that. It's been part of our ongoing negotiation.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
Oh, definitely not. Definitely not. You find out all sorts of things about yourself in a relationship. That's for sure. Well, and partly the reason that there is provocativeness, especially from women in relationship to men, is they want to test them out. It's like, can you hold your temper when someone's bothering you? Well, why would a woman want to know that?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
Well, maybe she doesn't want you to snap and hurt her kids. And so how is she going to find that out? Ask you? Well, you're going to say, well, I'd never do that. It's like, never, eh? Let's find out if it's never. So we don't know how people test each other out in relationships, or why exactly, but it's intense and necessary.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
you should have one and you should be able to regulate it. Like that's part of that attractiveness of the monstrous that characterizes women's fantasies, right? Because, and Nietzsche pointed this out too, go back to Nietzsche, you know, Nietzsche, one of Nietzsche's claims was that most of what passes for morality is nothing but cowardice. You know, I'd never cheat on my wife.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
It's like, uh, is there anybody asking you to? That you actually find attractive? Or are there dozens of people asking you to that you find attractive? It's like, well, I would never cheat. It's like, no, you just don't have the opportunity. Now, I'm not saying that everyone's in that position, you know, that they would cheat even if they had the opportunity, because that's not true.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
Yeah, well, those are the great writers because the greatest writers, virtually everything they wrote is worth attending to. And I think Nietzsche is in some ways the ultimate exemplar of that because... Often when I read a book, I'll mark one way or another. I often fold the corner of the page over to indicate something that I've found that's worth remembering.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
And it's the same with regards to, oh, I'm a peaceful man. It's like, no, you're not. You're just a weak coward. You wouldn't dare to have a confrontation, physical or metaphysical. And you're passing it off as morality because you don't want to come to terms with the fact of your own weakness and cowardice.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
And part of what I would say is twisted pseudo-Christian morality that Nietzsche was criticizing was exactly of that sort, and it tied into resentment and envy, and he tied that in explicitly. said that failure in life, masked by the morality that's nothing but weak cowardice, turns to the resentment that undermines and destroys everything and that does that purposefully.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
Yeah, that's for sure. That's also the danger of being...
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
to forthcoming with people see this is another thing let's say about my wife who's not particularly agreeable it's like she's not particularly agreeable but she's not resentful and that's because she doesn't give things away that she that she isn't willing to and if you're agreeable and nice and you're conflict avoidant you'll push yourself too far to please the other person and then that makes you bitter and resentful so that's not helpful
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
No, no. We know each other pretty well. And like I said, it's a trait that I find admirable. It's provocative and challenging.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
Well, we've been together 50 years, so... Quick pause. Bath and break.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
It's everything in its proper place is the answer to that. You know, we might think that our life would be easier without fear, let's say. We might say that our life would be easier without anger or pain, but... The truth of the matter is that those things are beneficial even though they can cause great suffering, but they have to be in their proper place.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
And that capacity that could in one context be a terrible force for evil can in the proper context be the most potent force for good. a good man has to be formidable. And partly what that means, as far as I can tell, is that you have to be able to say no.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
I couldn't do that with a book like Beyond Good and Evil because every page ends up marked. And that's in marked contrast, so to speak, to many of the books I read now where it's It's quite frequently now that I'll read a book and there won't be an idea in it that I haven't come across before. And with a thinker like Nietzsche, that's just not the case at the sentence level.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
And no means, like, I thought a lot about no, working as a clinician, because I did a lot of strategic counseling with my clients in a lot of extremely difficult situations. And I learned to take apart what no meant, and also when dealing with my own children, because I used no sparingly, because it's a powerful weapon, let's say, but I meant it.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
And with my kids, what it meant was, if you continue that pattern of behavior, something you do not like will happen to you with 100% certainty. And when that's the case, and you're willing to implement it, you don't have to do it very often. With regards to monstrosity, it's like, weak men aren't good. They're just weak. That's Nietzsche's observation.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
That's partly, again, why he was tempted to place the will to power, let's say, and to deal with that notion in a manner that, when it was tied with the revaluation of all values, was counterproductive. Counterproductive in the final analysis. It's not like there wasn't something to what he was driving at. No... Formidable men are admirable, and you know, don't mess with them.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
Douglas Murray's a good example of that. He's a rather slight guy, but he's got a spine of steel, and there's more than a bit of what's monstrous in him. And Jocko Willink is like that, and Joe Rogan is like that, and you're like that.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
You can easily be in this situation. You can easily and unfortunately find yourself in a situation where all you have in front of you are a variety of bad options. You know, that's partly why, if you have any sense, you try to conduct yourself very carefully in life, because you don't want to be in a position where you've made so many mistakes that all the options left to you are terrible.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
And so you said, well... Was it necessary to ally with Stalin? It's like, well, it's very difficult to second guess the trajectory of something as complex as World War II, but we could say casually, at least as Westerners have in general, that that alliance was necessary.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
Now, I think the mistake that the West made in the aftermath of World War II was in not dealing as forthrightly with the catastrophes of communism as an ideology as we did with fascism. And that's especially true of the intellectuals in the universities.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
I mean, it was very common when I was teaching both at Harvard and at the University of Toronto for the students in my personality class where we studied Solzhenitsyn, who's actually an existential psychologist in many ways and a deep one. None of them knew anything about the Soviet atrocities. None of them knew anything about what happened in Ukraine and the death of 6 million productive people.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
Had no idea that the Communists killed tens of millions of people in the aftermath of the Russian Revolution.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
Yeah, right, right, which some estimates are 100 million people. Now, you know, when your error bars are in the tens of millions, well, that's a real indication of a cataclysm, and nobody knows how many people died from direct oppression or indirect in the Soviet Union. 20 million seems like a reasonable estimate. Solzhenitsyn's upper bound was higher than that.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
And I don't think there's anyone that I know of who did that to a greater extent than he did. So there's other people whose thought is of equivalent value. I've returned recently, and I'm going to do a course to the work of this Romanian historian of religions, Mircea Eliade, who's not nearly as well known as he should be, and whose work, by the way, is a real antidote to...
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
Well, productive farmers, for that matter, and anyone who was willing to tell the truth. Right, absolutely. So, yeah, catastrophic. And so I think the West's failure... wasn't so much allying with Stalin. I mean, it was Douglas MacArthur who wanted to continue. He thought we should just take the Soviets out after the Second World War.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
And they removed him from any position of authority where such a thing might be made possible. And people were tired. But was MacArthur wrong? Well, he certainly wasn't wrong in his insistence that Stalin was as big a monster as Hitler or bigger. So the valorization of the leftist proclivity, the radical leftist proclivity, is the sin of the West, I think, more intensely than allying with Stalin.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
Well, the first thing I would say is that I think that viewing the political landscape of today as a political landscape is actually wrong. I think it's not the right frame of reference because what I see happening are a very small percentage of
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
dark tetrad personality types, so Machiavellian, manipulative, narcissistic, wanting undeserved attention, psychopathic, that makes them predatory parasites, and sadistic, because that goes along with the other three. That's about, in the serious manifestation, that's probably three to five percent of the population. And they're generally kept under pretty decent control by
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
civilized people and stable social interactions. I think that their machinations are disinhibited by cost-free social media communication. So they gain disproportionate influence. Now, these people want undeserved recognition and social status and everything that goes along with it, and they don't care how they get it. Because when I say they want that, I mean that's all they want.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
They're overrepresented in the realm of fractious political discourse because they can use ideas. First of all, they can use, let's say, the benevolent ideas of the right and the benevolent ideas of the left, either one, and switch back and forth, for that matter, as a camouflage for what they're actually up to.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
the postmodern nihilistic Marxist stream of literary interpretation that the universities as a whole have adopted. And Iliad is like that too. I used this book called The Sacred and the Profane quite extensively in a book that I'm releasing in mid-November, We Who Wrestle with God, and it's of the same sort. It's endlessly analyzable.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
I wouldn't say that I do know. In normal social circumstances, we have evolved mechanisms to keep people like that under control. Let's say that you and I have a series of interactions and you screw me over once. I'm not going to forget that. Now, I might not write you off because of the one time. But if it happens three times, it's like we're not going to play together anymore. And...
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
In normal times, most of our social networks are connected and interacting. So if you rip me off three times and I noted that, I'm going to tell everybody I know, and they're going to tell everybody they know, and soon everyone will know, and that's the end of your tricks. But that assumes that we know who you are and we're in continual communication. Well, all of that's gone online.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
I think what we're doing, this is happening on Twitter continually, is we're giving the 5% of psychopaths a radically disproportionate voice. And what they're doing is there's a bunch of them on the left, and they're all, we're so compassionate. And there's a bunch of them on the right, and at the moment they're all, we're so Christian and free speech oriented. It's like, no, you're not.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
You're narcissistic psychopaths, and that's your camouflage. And you hide behind your anonymity, and you use fractious and divisive language to attract, fools, and to elevate your social status and your clout. And not only that, to gain, what would you say, satisfaction for your sadistic impulses.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
Yeah, well, if you were charitable about Tucker Carlson's recent interview, you'd say that was exactly the conundrum he faced. And it is hard. Like, I've thought about, for example, interviewing Andrew Tate. And I thought, I don't think so. And then I thought, why? I figured, it's not obvious to me at all that he wouldn't charm me. So I knew this guy, Robert Hare.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
Robert Hare was the world's foremost authority on psychopathy. he established the field of clinical analysis of psychopathic behavior. And Hare was a pretty agreeable guy. So, you know, he would give people the benefit of the doubt. And he interviewed hundreds of serious psychopaths, like imprisoned violent offenders. And he told me in one of our conversations that
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
Every time he sat down with a violent offender psychopath, and he had a measure for psychopathy that was a clinical checklist, so he could identify the psychopaths from just the, say, run-of-the-mill criminals. Every time he sat down with them, they pulled the wool over his eyes.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
He videotaped the interviews, and it wasn't until later when he was reviewing the videos that he could see what they were doing. But in person, their tricks were more sophisticated than his detection ability.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
I'm an agreeable guy. That's the problem. I'll give people the benefit of the doubt. Right, right.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
Well, you know, I've had very difficult clinical interviews with people in my clinical practice.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
Iliad had walked through the whole history of religious ideas, and he had the intellect that enabled him to do that, and everything he wrote is dreamlike in its density. So every sentence or paragraph is evocative in an image-rich manner, and that also... what would you say, deepens and broadens the scope.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
Well, I really probably approach that the way I approach most conversations. And it's something like, I'm going to assume that you're playing a straight game, but I'm going to watch. And if you throw in the odd crooked maneuver in, then I'll note it. And after you do it three times, I'll think, okay. I see. I thought we were playing one game, but we're actually playing another one.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
And if I'm smart enough to pick that up, that usually works out quite successfully for me, but I'm not always smart enough to pick that up.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
Yes, and I think that's true, by the way.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
Yeah, I've had the odd interview with people that I wasn't happy with having organized because I felt that I had... brought their ideas to a wider audience that might've been appropriate. But my conclusion and the conclusion of my producers and the people I talked to was that we could run the interview, the discussion and let the audience sort it out. And I would say they do.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
So I think as a general rule of thumb, that's true. And I also think that the long form interviews are particularly good at that because It's not that easy to maintain a manipulative stance, especially if you're empty for like two and a half hours. Yes. So you get tired, you get irritable, you show that you lose the track, you're going to start leaking out your mistakes.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
Yeah, and it might be the intelligence of the distributed crowd. I mean, that is what I've seen with the YouTube interviews, is that it's hard to fool... people as such over a protracted period of time. And I guess it's partly because everybody brings a different, slightly different set of falsehood detectors to the table. And if you aggregate that, it's pretty damn accurate.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
It also motivates the paranoid types because one of the reasons that paranoia spirals out of control is because paranoid people almost inevitably end up being persecuted because they're so touchy and so suspicious that people start to
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
walk on eggshells around them as if there are things going on behind the scenes and so then they get more distrustful and more paranoid and eventually they start misbehaving so badly that they are actually persecuted often by legal authorities and you know it's down the rabbit hole they go and so you know musk is betting on that to some degree right he believes that
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
free expression on Twitter X will sort itself out and be of net benefit. And I follow a lot of really bad accounts on X because I like to keep an eye on the pathology of the left, let's say, and the pathology of the right, thinking at least in my clinical way that I'm watching the psychopaths dance around and try to do their subversion. And it's an ugly place to inhabit, that's for sure.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
And that's part of often what distinguishes writing that has a literary end from writing that's more merely technical. Like the literary writings have this imagistic and dreamlike reference space around them. And it takes a long time to turn a complex image into something semantic. And so if your writing evokes deep imagery, it has a depth that can't be captured merely in words.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
But it's also the case that a very tiny minority of seriously bad actors can have a disproportionate influence. And one of the things I've always hoped for for social media channels is that they separate the anonymous accounts from the verified accounts. They should just be in different categories. People who will say what they think and take the hits to their reputation
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
Anonymous types, if you want to see what the anonymous types say, you can see it, but don't be confusing them with actual people because they're not the same. We know that people behave more badly when they're anonymous. That's a very well-established psychological finding. Well, and I think the danger to our culture is substantive.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
I think the reason that everything, perhaps the reason that everything started to go sideways pretty seriously around 2015 is because we invented these new modes of communication. We have no idea how to police them. And so the psychopathic manipulators They have free reign. About 30% of the internet is pornography. A huge amount of internet traffic is outright criminal.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
And there's a penumbra around that that's, you know, psychopathic, narcissistic, troublemaking trolls. And that might constitute the bulk of the interactions online. And it's partly because people can't be held responsible. So the free riders have free reign.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
It might be the fundamental problem of the age, given the amplification of communication by our social networks.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
Yeah.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
Yeah, yeah. Short-term attention, even worse. Yeah, because you might, you know, that's another problem, eh? Like if the algorithms are maximizing for the grip of short-term attention, they're acting like immature agents of attention, right? And so then imagine the worst case scenario is negative emotion garners more attention, right? And short-term gratification garners more attention.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
So then you're maximizing for the grip of short-term attention by negative emotion. I mean, that's not going to be a principle. We were talking earlier about unsustainable unifying axioms. That's definitely one of them. Maximize for the spread of negative emotion that garners short-term attention. Jesus.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
3% to 5% is the estimate worldwide.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
And I think... That's the sadistic pull.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
It's pleasure in the suffering of others.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
Some more than others, but everyone to some degree.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
Alone.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
And the great romantic poetic philosophers, Nietzsche is a very good example, Dostoevsky is a good example, so is Mircea Eliade, they have that quality. And it's a good way of thinking about it. It's kind of interesting from the perspective of technical analysis of intelligence. There's a good book called The User Illusion, which is the best book on consciousness that I ever read.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
I think all of that is right. I think the idea that that's more likely to occur among young people, that's clear. People, as they mature, get more agreeable and conscientious. So we actually know that what you said is true technically. It's definitely the case that there's an innate tilt towards pleasure in that sort of behavior, and it is associated to some degree with dominant striving.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
And I do think it's true, as you pointed out, that many of the people who are toying with that pattern can be socialized out of it. In fact, maybe most people. Even the repeat criminal types... tend to desist in their late 20s. So imagine that 1% of the criminals commit 65% of the crimes. So imagine that that 1% are the people that you're really concerned with.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
They often have stable patterns of offending that emerged very young, like even in infancy and continued through adolescence and into adulthood. If you keep them in prison until they're in the middle of their late 20s, most of them stop. And that might be, the easiest way to understand that might just be delayed maturation. So are most people salvageable? Yes, definitely. Is everyone salvageable?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
Well, at some point it becomes, first of all, they have to want to be salvaged. That's a problem. But then it also becomes something like, well, how much resources are you going to devote to that? Like the farther down the rabbit hole you've gone, the more energy it takes to haul you up.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
So there comes a point where the probability that you'll be able to get enough resources devoted to you to rescue you from the pit of hell that you've dug is zero. And that's a very sad thing. And it's very hard to be around someone who's in that situation. Very, very hard.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
Well, we know that what you said is true even historically to a large degree because Germany was successfully denazified. And it's not like everybody who participated in every element of the Nazi movement was brought to justice, not in the least. The same thing happened in Japan. So... to some degree, the same thing happened in South Africa, right?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
And so, and it's the case, for example, also in the stories that we were referring to earlier, the biblical stories, the patriarchs of the Bible, most of them are pretty bad people when they first start out. Like Jacob's a really good, Jacob is the one who becomes Israel. He's a major player in the biblical narrative. And he's a pretty bad actor when he first starts out. He's a mama's boy.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
It explains the manner in which our communication is understandable in this manner. So imagine that when you're communicating something, you're trying to change the way that your target audience perceives and acts in the world. So that's an embodied issue. But you're using words which aren't when obviously aren't equivalent to the actions themselves.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
He's a liar. He, uh, He steals from his own brother and in a major way, he deceives his father. He's a coward, you know, and yet he turns his life around.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
Yeah.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
Well, I would say I started contending with the problem of evil very young, 13 or 14, and that's been the main, that was my main motivation of study for 30 years, I guess, something like that. At the end of that 30 years, it became more and more I became more and more interested in fleshing out the alternative.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
Once I became convinced that evil existed, and that was very young, I always believed that if you could understand something well enough that you could formulate a solution to it. But it turns out that seeing evil and understanding that it exists is less complicated than a technical description of its opposite.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
You can say, well, it's not that, for sure. It's not Auschwitz. How about we start there? It's as far from Auschwitz as you can get. It's as far from enjoying being an Auschwitz camp guard as you can get. Okay, well, where are you when you're as far away from that as you could possibly get? What does that mean? And it does have something to do with play, as far as I'm concerned.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
Like, I think the antithesis of tyranny is play. So that took me a long time to figure out that specifically, you know. And so that was very dark. Like I spent a lot of time studying the worst behaviors that I could discover abstractly in books, but also in my clinical practice and in my observations of people. And so that's rough. More recently, I was very ill and in a tremendous amount of pain.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
like that lasted pretty much without any break for three years. And what was particularly useful to me then was the strength of my relationships, my immediate relationships, my friendships. Also the relationships that I had established more broadly with people, you know, because by the time I became ill, I was reasonably well known and people were very supportive.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
when I was having trouble and that was very helpful, but it's certainly the case that it was the connections I had, particularly with my family, but also with my friends that were the saving grace. And that's something to know, you know, I mean, it's necessary to bear the burdens of the world on your own shoulders. That's for sure.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
The burdens of your own existence and whatever other responsibilities you can mount, but that by no means means that you can or should do it alone. And so, You know, you might say, well, welcoming the adversity of life as a redemptive challenge is a task that's beyond the ability of the typical person or even maybe of anyone. But then when you think, well, you're not alone.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
You can imagine that the words are surrounded by a cloud of images that they evoke, and that the images can be translated into actions. Yeah, and the greatest writing uses words in a manner that evokes images that profoundly affects perception and action. And that's the, so I would take the manner in which I act and behave. I would translate that into a set of images.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
Maybe you're not alone socially. You're not alone familial. Maybe you're not alone metaphysically as well. No, there's an insistence, and I think it's true, there's an insistence, for example, in the Old and the New Testament alike that the more darkness you're willing to voluntarily encounter, the more likely it is that the spirit of Abraham and the patriarchs will walk with you.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
And I think that's right. I think it's sort of technically true in that the best parts of yourself make themselves manifest. If you want to think about it that way, the best parts of yourself, whatever that means, make themselves manifest when you're Contending actively and voluntarily with the most difficult challenges. Why wouldn't it be that way? And then you could think, well, that's yourself.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
It's like, well, are the best unrevealed parts of you yourself? Well, no, they're a kind of metaphysical reality. They're not yet manifest. They only exist in potential. They transcend anything you're currently capable of, but they have an existence.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
You could call that yourself, but like it was Jung's contention, for example, with regards to such terminology, that the reason we use the term self instead of God is because when God was dispensed with, let's say, by the process as Nietzsche described, we just found the same thing deep within the instinctive realm, let's say. We found it at the bottom of the things instead of at the top.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
It's like it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter fundamentally. What matters is whether or not that's a reality. And I think it's the fundamental reality because I do think that the deeper you delve into things, This is what happens to Moses when he encounters the burning bush. So Moses is just going about his life. He's a shepherd. He's an adult. He has wives. He has children.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
He has responsibilities. He's left his home and he's established himself. And so things are pretty good for Moses. And then he's out by Mount Horeb in that story, but it's the central mountain of the world. It's the same mountain as Sinai, which is the place where heaven and earth touch. And he sees something that grabs his attention, right? That's the burning bush and bush is a tree. That's life.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
That's the tree of life. And the fact that it's on fire is that's life exaggerated because everything that's alive is on fire and so what calls to Moses is like the spirit of being itself and it attracts him off the beaten track and he decides to go investigate so Moses is everyone who goes off the beaten track to investigate and so as he investigates he delves more and more deeply
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
until he starts to understand that he's now walking on sacred ground. So he takes off his shoes, and that's a symbolic reference of identity transformation. He's no longer walking the same path. He no longer has the same identity. He's in a state of flux. And that's when what happens is that he continues to interact with this calling. And Moses asks, what it is that's being revealed.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
And God says, I'm the spirit of being itself. That's basically the answer. I am what I am. It's a more complex utterance than that. I am what I will be. I am what was becoming. It's all of that at the same time. It's the spirit of being that's speaking to him, the spirit of being and becoming.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
And it tells Moses that he now, because he's delved so deeply into something so compelling, his identity is transformed and he's become the leader who can speak truth to power. And so he allies himself with his brother Aaron, who's the political arm and who can communicate, and he goes back to Egypt to confront the tyrant.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
And that's an indication of that idea, that if you wrestle with life properly, that the spirit of being and becoming walks with you. And it's like, how can that not be true? Because the contrary would be that there would be no growth in challenge. Well, that's... You have to be infinitely nihilistic to believe that.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
My dreams do that for me, for example. Then I compress them into words. I toss you the words, you decompose them, decompress them into the images and then into the actions. And that's what happens. in a meaningful conversation. It's a very good way of understanding how we communicate linguistically.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
It's hardship voluntarily undertaken. And it's crucially true. Look, if you bring someone into therapy, let's say, they're afraid of elevators, and you trick them into getting near an elevator, you'll make them worse. But if you negotiate with them so that they voluntarily move towards the elevator on their own recognizance, they'll overcome their fear and they become generally braver.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
But it has to be voluntary.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
Yeah.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
Yeah.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
That's a good question. The same thing happens in the story of Job. Because Job is a good man. God himself admits it. And Satan comes along and says to God, I see you're pretty proud of your... your man there, Job, God says, yeah, he's doing pretty well. And Satan says, I think it's just because things are easy for him. Let me have a crack at him and see what happens.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
And God says, yeah, I think you're wrong. Do your worst. Right, and that's how people feel when those slings and arrows come at them, let's say, like Nietzsche. Well, Job's response to that—now, the story is set up so that what befalls Job is actually quite arbitrary, right? These catastrophes that you're describing.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
The volunteerism in Job is his refusal to despair, even in the face of that adversity. And that seems like something like an expression of voluntary free will. He refuses to lose faith. And the way the story ends is that Job gets everything back and more. And, you know, so that's a descent and ascent story. And a cynic might say, well, the ends don't justify the means.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
And I would say, fair enough, but that's a pretty shallow interpretation of the story. What it indicates instead is that if you're fortunate, because let's not forget that, and you... optimize your attitude even in the face of adversity, that it's not infrequently the case that your fortunes will reverse.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
You know, and I've found that in many situations, the journalists whose goal was most malicious in relationship to me, who were most concerned with improving their own, what would you say, fostering their own notoriety and gaining social status at my expense were the ones who did me the greatest favor. Those were the interviews that went viral.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
And so that's interesting, you know, because they were definitely the places where the most disaster was at hand. And I felt that in the aftermath. Every time that happened, my whole family was destabilized for like two months because things... It wasn't obvious at all which way the dice were going to roll.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
Well, not necessarily, let's say. But you could say that's your best bet. Well, you know, I'm never going to say that you can transcend all catastrophe with the right attitude because that's just too much to say. But I could say that in a dire situation, there's always an element of choice.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
Yes, and change in perception.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
And if you make the right choices, you improve the degree, you improve your chances of success to the maximal possible degree.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
Well, those are both relevant, and it's an important thing to understand because the classic empiricists make the presumption, and it's an erroneous presumption, that perception is a value-free enterprise. And they assume that partly because they think of perception as something passive. You know, you just turn your head and you look at the world and there it is.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
Well, that's what the resurrection story proclaims, is that even under the darkest imaginable circumstances, the fundamental finale is the victory of the good.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
Well, as I said, I was very ill for about three years and it was seriously brutal. Like every, this is no lie, every single minute of that three years was worse than any single time I'd ever experienced in my entire life up to that. So that was rough.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
And it was worse than that because as the day progressed, my pain levels would fall until by... 10, 11 at night, when I was starting to get tired, I was approaching, what would you say? I was approaching something like an ordinary bad day. But as soon as I went to sleep, then the clock was reset and all the pain came back. And so it wasn't just that I was in pain.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
It was that sleep itself became an enemy. And that's really rough, man, because sleep is where you take refuge. You know, you're worn out, you're tired and you go to sleep and you wake up and it's generally, it's something approximating a new day. This was like Sisyphus on steroids. And that was, it was very difficult to maintain hope in that because I would do what I could.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
Like there were times when it took me like an hour and a half in the morning to stand up and And so I do all that and more or less put myself back into something remotely resembling human by the end of the day. And then I knew perfectly well, exhausted, if I fell asleep, that I was going to be right at the bottom of the bloody hill again.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
And so after a couple of years of that, it was definitely the fact that I had a family that carried me through that.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
Well, I think I learned more gratitude for the people I had around me. And I learned how fortunate I was to have that and how crucial that was. My wife learned something similar. She was diagnosed with a form of cancer that, as far as we know, killed every single person who ever had it except her. It's quite rare. And
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
Her experience was that what really gave her hope and played at least a role in saving her was the realization of the depth of love that her son in particular had for her. And that says nothing about her relationship with Michaela, with her daughter. It just so happened that it was the revelation of that love that...
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
It's like, perception is not passive. There is no perception without action. Ever. Ever. And that's a weird thing to understand because even when you're looking at something, like your eyes are moving back and forth. If they ever stop moving for a tenth of a second, you stop being able to see. So your eyes are jiggling back and forth just to keep them active.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
It made Tammy understand the value of her life in a way that she wouldn't have realized of her own accord. We're very, very... There's no difference between ourselves and the people that we love. And there might be no difference between ourselves and everyone, everywhere. But we can at least realize that to begin with in the form of the people that we love.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
And I hope I'm better at that than I was. I think I'm better at it than I was. I'm a lot more grateful for just ordinary ordinariness than I was because when I first recovered, I remember I was standing for started to recover. I was standing in this pharmacy waiting for a prescription in a little town and they weren't being particularly efficient about it.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
And so I was in that standing in the aisle for like 20 minutes and I thought, I'm not on fire. I could just stand here for like the rest of my life, just not being in pain and enjoying that. And, you know, that would have been something that before that would have been, you know, I would have been impatient and raring to go because I didn't have 20 minutes to stand in the middle of an aisle.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
And I thought, well, you know, if, If you're just standing there and you're not on fire, things are a lot better than they might be. And I certainly, I know that. And I think I remember it almost all the time.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
Yeah, definitely. The miracle of the mundane, right?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
I think Nietzsche had that because he was very ill.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
And he was regarded by the inhabitants of the village that he lived in near the end of his life as something approximating a saint. He apparently conducted himself very admirably, despite all his suffering.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
It's more the mediocre and resentful.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
Fair enough.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
This is why I like the story of Cain and Abel, I would say. Because Cain is mediocre. But that's because he refuses to do his best. It's not something intrinsic to him. And I actually think that's the right formulation. Because I had people in my clinical practice who were They were lost in many dimensions from the perspective of comparison.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
One woman I remember in particular who, man, she had a lot to contend with. She was not educated. She was not intelligent. She had a brutal family, like terrible history of psychiatric hospitalization.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
And then there's involuntary movements of your eyes. And then there's voluntary movements of your eyes. Like what you're doing with your eyes is very much like what a blind person would do if they were feeling out the contours of an object. You're sampling. And you're only sampling a small part. element of the space that's in front of you.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
She was an outpatient from the psychiatric ward. And she had been in there with people that she thought were worse off than her. And they were. And that was a long way down. That was like Dante's Inferno leveled down. It was a long-term psychiatric inpatient ward. Some of the people had been there for 30 years. It made One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest look like a romantic comedy show.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
And she had come back to see if she could take some of those people for a walk and was trying to find out how to get permission to do it. And so, you know, better than other people, some people are more intelligent, some people are more beautiful, some people are more athletic. Maybe it's possible for everyone at all levels of attainment to strive towards the good.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
And maybe those talents that are given to people unfairly don't privilege them in relationship to their moral conduct. And I think that's true. There's no evidence, for example, that there's any correlation whatsoever between intelligence and morality. You're not better because you're smart. And what that also implies is if you're smart, you can be a lot better at being worse.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
Yeah, well, that's why we have that metaphysical presumption that everybody's made in the image of God, right? Despite that immense diversity of apparent ability, there's that underlying metaphysical assumption that, yeah, we all vary in our perceived and actual utility in relationship to any proximal goal, but all of that's independent of the question of axiomatic worth.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
And that preposterous as that notion appears to be, it seems to me that societies that accept it as a fundamental axiomatic presumption are always the societies that you'd want to live in if you had a choice. And that to me is an existence proof for the utility of the presumption.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
And also, you know, if you treat people like that in your life, every encounter you have, you make the assumption that it's an assumption of It's radical equality of worth despite individual variance in ability, something like that. Man, your interactions go way better. I mean, everyone wants to be treated that way. Look, here's the developmental sequence for you. Naive and trusting.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
Hurt and cynical. Okay, well, is hurt and cynical better than naive and trusting? It's like, yeah, probably. Is that where it ends? How about cynical and trusting? as step three, right? And then the trust becomes courage. It's like, yeah, I'll put my hand out for you, but it's not because I'm a fool. And I think that's right because that's the re-instantiation of that initial trust, right?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
And the element that you choose to sample is dependent on your aims and your goals. So it's value saturated. And so all your perceptions are action predicated. And partly what you're doing when you're communicating is therefore not only changing people's actions, let's say, but you're also changing the strategy that they use to perceive. And so you change the way the world reveals itself for them.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
That makes childhood magical and paradisal. But it's the admixture of that with wisdom. It's like, yeah, you know, we could be, we could walk together uphill But that doesn't mean, and I'll presume that that's your aim, but that doesn't mean that I'm not going to watch.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
Oh, you can't dispense with vulnerable to be hurt. That's the other realization. It's like you're going to stake your life on something. You could stake your life on security, but it's not going to help. You don't have that option.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
Maybe do what you can to help the person who betrayed you. And if that all proves impossible, then wash your hands of it and Move on to the next adventure.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
Yeah, yeah.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
Well, I would say first that you practice that. It's like that question is something, and Hemingway knew this, at least to some degree, and he certainly wrote about it, is that you have to orient your life upward as completely as you can, because otherwise you can't distinguish between truth and falsehood. It has to be a practice.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
And for me, I started to become serious about that practice when I realized that It was the immorality of the individual, the resentful, craven, deceitful immorality of the individual that led to the terrible atrocities that humans engage in that make us doubt even our own worth. I became completely convinced of that.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
that the fundamental root cause of evil, let's say, wasn't economic or sociological, that it was spiritual, just psychological. And that if that was the case, you had an existential responsibility to aim upward and to tell the truth. And that everything depends on that. And I became convinced of that. And so then, look, You set your path with your orientation. That's how your perceptions work.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
As soon as you have a goal, a pathway opens up to you and you can see it. And the world divides itself into obstacles and things that move you forward. And so the pathway that's in front of you depends on your aim. The things you perceive are concretizations of your aim. If your aim is untrue, then you won't be able to tell the difference between truth and falsehood.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
And you might say, well, how do you know your aim is true? It's like, well, you course correct continually and you can aim towards the ultimate. Are you ever sure that your aim is the right direction? You become increasingly accurate in your Apprehension.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
See, this is why it's such a profound experience to read a particularly deep thinker, because you could also think of your perceptions as the axioms of your thought. That's a good way of thinking about it. A perception is like a, what would you say? It's a thought that's so set in concrete that you now see it rather than conceptualize it.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
Of course. That's what you do in part and play. I was at the Comedy Mothership and every single comedian was like completely reprehensible. All they were doing was saying things that you can't say. Yeah. Well, but it was in play. What I'm trying to do in my lectures is I'm on the edge. I have a question I'm trying to address and I'm trying to figure it out.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
I don't know where the conversation is going. Truly, like it's an exploration. And I think the reason that the audiences respond is because they can feel that it's a high wire act, you know, and I could fail. And, you know, my lectures have degrees of success. Sometimes I get real fortunate and there's a perfect narrative arc. I have a question, I'm investigating it.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
It comes to a punchline conclusion just at the right time. And it's like the whole act is complete. And sometimes it's more fragmented, but I can tell when the audience is engaged because everyone's silent. except maybe when they're laughing.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
Look, if you're going to play hard in a conversation to explore, you're going to say things that are edgy, right? That are going to cause trouble. And that might be wrong. And that's another reason why free speech protection is so important. You actually have to protect the right... let's say in the optimal circumstance, you have to protect the right of well-meaning people to be wrong.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
Now, you probably have to go beyond that to truly protect it. You have to even protect the right of people who aren't meaning well to be wrong. And we also need that because we're not always well-meaning. But I don't, you know, the alternative to that protection would be the insistence that people only say what was 100% right all the time.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
Especially if it's the worst thing they ever said. Yeah. Yeah, because God, well, anyone judged by that standard is doomed unless they're silent.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
Yeah, well, that's kind of the definition of a totalitarian state. Yes. No one's playing in a totalitarian state ever.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
Yeah.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
Well, you know, that might be the general pattern of totalitarianism. Yeah.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
Yeah, but everyone else is complicit, at least in their silence.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
Yes, definitely.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
Yes. Yes, definitely.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
A really profound thinker changes the way you perceive the world. That's way deeper than just how you think about it or how you feel about it.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
Probably I experienced most of that on X. But that's also where I find most of my guests. That's also where I get a sense of the zeitgeist, which is necessary, for example, if you're going to be a podcast host. It's necessary for me to make my lectures on point and up to date, to get a sampling of the current moment. You have to be of the moment in many ways to function at a high level.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
There's a price to be paid for that because you're
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
Yeah, definitely.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
Yeah, well... It's a danger, right? Yeah, well, luckily for me, you know, I have many things that counterbalance that. The familial relationships we talked about, the friendships, the... And then also, all of the public things I do are positive. The lecture tours, for example, which I'm on a lot... They're basically 100% positive. So I'm very well buttressed against that.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
Darker element.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
Well, you have a moral obligation, too, to maintain a positive orientation. It's a moral obligation. The future is, of course, rife with contradictory possibilities. And I suppose in some ways, the more rapid the rate of transformation, the more possibility for...
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
good and for evil is making itself manifest at any moment, but it looks like the best way to ensure that the future is everything we wish it would be is to maintain faith that that is the direction that will prevail. And I think that's a form of moral commitment when it's not just naive optimism.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
Thanks very much for the invitation and for the conversations, but it's always a pleasure to see you. And you're doing a pretty decent job yourself about their illuminating dark corners and bringing people upward. I mean, you've got a remarkable thing going with your podcast and you're very good at it.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
Yeah, right. Even a certain set of emotions as well.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
Yeah, it's like a form of possession. So there's two things you need to understand to make that clear. The first issue is that as we suggested or implied that perception is action predicated, but action is goal predicated, right? You act towards goal. And These propagandistic thinkers that you described, they attempt to unify all possible goals into a coherent singularity.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
And there's advantages of that. There's the advantage of simplicity, for example, which is a major advantage. And there's also the advantage of motivation. So if you provide people with a simple manner of integrating all their actions... you decrease their anxiety and you increase their motivation. That can be a good thing if the unifying idea that you put forward is valid.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
But it's the worst of all possible ideas if you put forward an invalid unifying idea. And then you might say, well, how do you distinguish between a valid unifying idea and an invalid unifying idea? Now, Nietzsche was very interested in that, and I don't think he got that exactly right. But...
Lex Fridman Podcast
#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning
The postmodernists, for example, especially the ones, and this is most of them, with the neo-Marxist bent, their presumption is that the fundamental unifying idea is power, that everything's about compulsion and force, essentially, and that that's the only true unifying ethos of mankind, which is, I don't know if there's a worse idea than that.
The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett
Jordan B Peterson: You Need To Listen To Your Wife! We've Built A Lonely & Sexless Society! If You & Your Partner Do This, You'll Divorce!
we know that couples that live together before the marriage actually increases the probability that the relationship will fail and the reason for that is very straightforward and talking of things that risk harming relationships the subject we've never spoke about before is oh yeah and that's a huge reason sex has disappeared people need to stop doing that jordan peterson the psychology professor people love or love to hate he's undeniably one of the greatest intellectual phenomenons on the planet and many view him as the ultimate father figure welcome back mr peterson
The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett
Jordan B Peterson: You Need To Listen To Your Wife! We've Built A Lonely & Sexless Society! If You & Your Partner Do This, You'll Divorce!
Bugs Bunny's a trickster character. Right.
The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett
Jordan B Peterson: You Need To Listen To Your Wife! We've Built A Lonely & Sexless Society! If You & Your Partner Do This, You'll Divorce!
Yeah, well, I'm probably half idiot and half Raskolnikov. That's another way of looking at it.
The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett
Jordan B Peterson: You Need To Listen To Your Wife! We've Built A Lonely & Sexless Society! If You & Your Partner Do This, You'll Divorce!
The character of the idiot in Dostoevsky's novel is a holy fool. It's a strange combination. A person who's doing things right in a manner that's, I suppose, not obvious, that looks, that can easily be confused with naivety or foolishness. Playfulness even, I suppose.
The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett
Jordan B Peterson: You Need To Listen To Your Wife! We've Built A Lonely & Sexless Society! If You & Your Partner Do This, You'll Divorce!
Or even malevolence at times. You know, I mean, that's partly why people have gone after my reputation. Does it ever bother you?
The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett
Jordan B Peterson: You Need To Listen To Your Wife! We've Built A Lonely & Sexless Society! If You & Your Partner Do This, You'll Divorce!
I mean, sometimes it's like it's been very distressing, very distressing. The... Battles I've had with the College of Psychologists in Ontario, those are no joke. It's very, very stressful and unconscionable. So expensive, hundreds of thousands of dollars, years, it's been 10 years of legal battles, calumny in the press.
The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett
Jordan B Peterson: You Need To Listen To Your Wife! We've Built A Lonely & Sexless Society! If You & Your Partner Do This, You'll Divorce!
They're attempting to undermine my professional credibility with some degree of success. You know, because when your professional college goes after you, people have to make a choice. It's either the professional college is corrupt and wrong or the individual being targeted is corrupt and wrong. It's way easier to draw the second conclusion.
The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett
Jordan B Peterson: You Need To Listen To Your Wife! We've Built A Lonely & Sexless Society! If You & Your Partner Do This, You'll Divorce!
And under most circumstances, in a valid state, that's the correct conclusion. So, and it was very stressful to... find myself embattled at the University of Toronto. I liked working there. That place had its problems, but it was pretty functional, and I really liked being there. I enjoyed my career as a professor. I had great relationships with the undergraduates and my graduate students.
The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett
Jordan B Peterson: You Need To Listen To Your Wife! We've Built A Lonely & Sexless Society! If You & Your Partner Do This, You'll Divorce!
I loved doing my research, which has also disappeared. So, now, those are the serious... disputes that I've had reputationally, let's say.
The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett
Jordan B Peterson: You Need To Listen To Your Wife! We've Built A Lonely & Sexless Society! If You & Your Partner Do This, You'll Divorce!
There's a lot of casual reputation savaging that I don't really care about from journalists and so forth, although sometimes that's been pretty brutal because whenever that happened, especially when things just started to be developing around me, let's say, on the public stage, when I encountered a particularly psychopathic journalist
The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett
Jordan B Peterson: You Need To Listen To Your Wife! We've Built A Lonely & Sexless Society! If You & Your Partner Do This, You'll Divorce!
which happened quite often, particularly in the UK, it was completely a toss-up which way it was going to go. It could have just finished me and my family. That was definitely the case three or four or five times, maybe more than that. So, yes, it's very bothersome. Now, and really for a long time, All of that takes place within a much broader context.
The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett
Jordan B Peterson: You Need To Listen To Your Wife! We've Built A Lonely & Sexless Society! If You & Your Partner Do This, You'll Divorce!
All the interactions I have with people in my actual life are ridiculously positive. And what would you say? Positive and gratifying.
The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett
Jordan B Peterson: You Need To Listen To Your Wife! We've Built A Lonely & Sexless Society! If You & Your Partner Do This, You'll Divorce!
Well, yeah, oh, definitely. I mean, I had very strong relationships when all of this started to develop around me. And that's just become more the case. A very tightly knit family and a very tightly knit group of friends. Now, I lost some more peripheral friends, but You know, that's unfortunate, but c'est la vie. So there's that. Now, is that a strategy?
The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett
Jordan B Peterson: You Need To Listen To Your Wife! We've Built A Lonely & Sexless Society! If You & Your Partner Do This, You'll Divorce!
Well, it's not exactly a strategy because I didn't design it towards an end. It was more like an end in itself, right? I mean, I had kids not as a strategic move, but because I like kids. So, and I particularly like my kids. So... That's not a strategy. And I really have a great relationship with my wife. And I've known her for 52 years. It's a very long time.
The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett
Jordan B Peterson: You Need To Listen To Your Wife! We've Built A Lonely & Sexless Society! If You & Your Partner Do This, You'll Divorce!
And she's definitely my best friend and probably has been for 52 years. And so that's really helpful. And that refers back to this issue of identity that we were discussing. My identity is well-structured. in the social sense. And then in terms of strategy, yeah, I mean, I have a meta strategy, I suppose. I just say what I think, right? Now, is that a strategy?
The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett
Jordan B Peterson: You Need To Listen To Your Wife! We've Built A Lonely & Sexless Society! If You & Your Partner Do This, You'll Divorce!
It depends on how you define strategy. It's not a strategy that's designed to serve my ends, not in a individualistic way. So I'm just trying to see what happens if I say what I think. That's a way of navigating in the world, right? It's an adventurous way of navigating in the world because you don't know what's going to happen. You have to let go of that.
The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett
Jordan B Peterson: You Need To Listen To Your Wife! We've Built A Lonely & Sexless Society! If You & Your Partner Do This, You'll Divorce!
And then there's an element of faith in that, right? There's faith in everything you do. You know, the empiricist types, the scientific reductionists, they say, well, you can move forward in the world without faith. That's complete bloody rubbish. There isn't anything you ever do that's important that you don't do in light of faith.
The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett
Jordan B Peterson: You Need To Listen To Your Wife! We've Built A Lonely & Sexless Society! If You & Your Partner Do This, You'll Divorce!
It's like, if you get married, you do that on the basis of the evidence, do you? What bloody evidence do you have? You're 23 years old. You don't know a damn thing. You know, maybe you're in love with the person that you want to marry, but you have no evidence whatsoever about how your life is going to go. None. You have to leap into the unknown, like you do with everything that's important.
The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett
Jordan B Peterson: You Need To Listen To Your Wife! We've Built A Lonely & Sexless Society! If You & Your Partner Do This, You'll Divorce!
That's all faith. predicated. Now, the question is, faith in what? Well, if you decide that you're just going to say what you think, then you have faith in the truth, at least insofar as you have access to the truth.
The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett
Jordan B Peterson: You Need To Listen To Your Wife! We've Built A Lonely & Sexless Society! If You & Your Partner Do This, You'll Divorce!
No, I don't think so.
The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett
Jordan B Peterson: You Need To Listen To Your Wife! We've Built A Lonely & Sexless Society! If You & Your Partner Do This, You'll Divorce!
And you think that's more... I know it. It's not a matter of thinking. I know it. I know it. Absolutely, 100%. I spent a lot of time studying evil. A lot of time. And I know how it arises. It arises when good men hold their tongue. You don't want that. There's nothing worse that can happen to you. Now, you may suffer some consequences of speaking, for sure.
The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett
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But all things considered, which is the right attitude if you're wise, there's nothing worse that can happen to you than to falsify your speech.
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Yes, it is when you have something to say. Yeah, definitely.
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Yeah, it might mean that. But it also might mean that if they bite their tongue and pretend to be something other than they are, they'll be a weak model for their children. And is that better than having some financial instability? Maybe here's a counter proposition. If your job requires you to lie, maybe you should find another job.
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Now, look, I also understand that there are strategic considerations in such a decision. There's no sense martyring yourself stupidly. And if you're going to say what you believe to be the case, then you need to put yourself in a position where doing so won't be instantly catastrophic in a way you can't fix. Because that's not a good... That's not wise.
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Now, when things blew up around me, I had three sources of income. That wasn't accidental. Now, you know, people say, well, you were fortunate. It's like, yeah, and careful. So I didn't want to have all my eggs in one basket. And that turned out, well, I knew that. It's like, You have no autonomy if you have all your eggs in one basket.
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So if you're going to think strategically, if you're going to think like someone who's at war, let's say, then you don't leave a mortal flank exposed. And so if, you know, here's a rule. If you find yourself in a position where you're unable to speak, you haven't fortified your territory properly. Right. So then you have to think about that.
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Fractionated is another way of thinking about it, right? Because you can think about it as individualistic, and that's a positive spin, so to speak. But alienated, isolated, and fractionated is the, what would you say, is the accompaniment to that. See, I think the case is that the liberal experiment in... Individualism only works when the conservative foundation is in place, right?
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It's like you think, okay, why can't I say what I believe to be the case? Where am I vulnerable? And you can say, well, that's inevitable. It's like, no, it's not. It's not inevitable. That doesn't mean it isn't difficult to fortify and to put yourself in a position where you're on the offense successfully. That's hard. But
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retreating one step at a time defensively for your whole life and shrinking while you do it, that's also difficult. It's just the kind of difficult that wears you down and makes you sick of yourself. That's not a good plan. That's a bad plan.
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Oh, you see that in people's marriages all the time when marriages deteriorate. A marriage ends in divorce when there's 10,000 fights that haven't been had. And I really, I'm not just guessing at that number. It's like, let's say your marriage isn't going very well. And so you have five uncomfortable quasi disputes a day just to pick a number.
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Maybe it's 50, maybe it's three, whatever five will do. Well, that's 1500 a year. Okay. Now you just aggregate that over. Let's say the 10 years it takes your marriage to collapse. Well, you've got, something approximating 10,000 fights you didn't have. That's 10,000 times you remain silent when you had something to say. And they all aggregate.
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And then every time, once you've collected the first 5,000, Then every time you have a dispute, all 5,000 are lurking behind that dispute. And the fact of their existence makes it much less likely that you'll say what you have to say. That's the reemergence of the dragon of chaos as a consequence of fleeing from your fate. That's exactly right.
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Like, it's hard for women to give themselves to men. And no wonder. It's amazing they ever do it. They have a lot on the line. What are the preconditions for that offering? Peace and security. You can tell if the territory is being cleared because play emerges. Right, right. Play emerges. And play is a very...
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fragile motivational state it can be disrupted by almost anything so if there are impediments to understanding play will not arise and then you don't have the romantic adventure that you want it's grudging right you don't have a voluntary partner and that's a very hard thing to attain right that full voluntary partnership that means that you're in sync with each other
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You can't expect that to be easy. You can't even be in sync with yourself. Like, it's hard. And you need to keep each other up to date. You need to know what's going on. You need to iron out the sources of discomfort or distrust. And there's a lot of Dante's Inferno. What's that? Well, Dante's Inferno is a characterization of hell by Dante, by Dante.
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It's one of the most famous poems ever written, and you can think about it as what you have to do to get to the bottom of things. So let's say that you have a dispute with your wife, and it's a recurring dispute, right? It's an issue. You have an issue. Well, do you want to address the issue? It's like, do you want to do surgery without anesthetic? It's the same question.
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Addressing an issue is a journey into the abyss. Dante placed Satan at the bottom of hell, right? So that's the figure of malevolence itself, encased in ice and frozen, so immobile, surrounded by those who betray. That's the lowest level of hell. Why? Well, it's often the case that if you journey into an issue, spiral down, to the bottom, you'll find betrayal.
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If you aggregate people together and they share enough fundamental values, especially of a particular sort, then you can concentrate on the individual and individual freedom. But there's a lot of preconditions for that. And, you know, the Scottish liberals, so the ones who really established Western liberalism as a philosophical and political movement. They knew that.
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Right, because maybe your partner doesn't trust you because she was betrayed. Highly probable. Highly probable. Or her grandmother was betrayed. Like, you know, there's bad blood between men and women.
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Well, you have to find out that it's there. Okay, that's a hard question. You both have to want to. That's the first thing. That's the setting of the aim. What do we want? We want to play forever in God's heavenly garden. How about that? That's a metaphorical representation, right? But that's a walled garden. That's the human environment. The walls are the walls of your house.
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The garden is nature displaying itself in its beauty within boundaries. That's a place that play can take place. That's what you want. You got to think about it. What do you want? Okay, so now we might ask, what do you mean want? Okay, if you were taking care of yourself and you could have what was good for you, what would that be? Now, that's a hard question, right?
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You're going to have to think about that for a long time. What would satisfy someone as miserable and resentful and useless as me, right? If I could have it. Now, people will... They don't even want to address that issue because part of the problem with making your aim clear is you know when you're failing.
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And people would rather keep the evidence of their failure obscured from themselves, even if it meant continued failure. But now let's say you decide not to do that. You're going to think, okay, I'm going to aim high. I'm going to take care of myself. Okay, now your wife's on board. with that.
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Now, that's really what the marital vow is in the final analysis, most deeply, is that willingness to participate in that game. Now you have to tell each other the truth. What the hell do you want? Well, she doesn't know, and neither do you, not really. So you got to start digging, finding out, and noticing. It's like now and then you'll see that you're happy with each other.
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And maybe it'll happen kind of randomly. You'll be out in some, I don't know, maybe you're at a restaurant or you're gone for a walk or who knows. And you'll notice, oh, this is going well. It's like, oh yeah, this is going well. What are we doing right? Could we take that little episode and could we start to expand it?
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You know, because one of the things you can do in a marriage is you can notice when things are going well and then you can have a chat with each other and say, look, I don't know what we did, during this period of time, but let's see if we can figure it out. See if we could do like 10% more of that next week or 1% more, and then just make that expand.
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You can do that too by, you know, hypothetically at some point, if you're married, at some point you were in love with your wife. You can remember that. You have to remember that. You have to practice remembering that. You have to practice bringing it to mind and occupying that. Because when you first fall in love, it kind of happens to you, right? That's a gift.
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But you have to, in order for that to last, you have to become an expert at it. You have to take it on as a responsibility. It's offered as a gift, but then you have to take it on as a responsibility. Then you have to practice. It's like, oh yes, I love this person. And if you don't at the moment, you have to think, well, I did and I could, so why don't I? Is it me? That's probably it's you.
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Might be them too, but you might as well start with you. I mean, you got lots of flaws. You could start with those.
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You know, it was individual liberty, Judeo-Christian substructure, and that was an assumption. Now, the problem with modern liberalism is that that underlying foundation has become extremely shaky, and everyone feels it. That's what the culture war is about, fundamentally. And That fact is invalidating the fractionated liberal experiment.
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Well, that's a tough one, eh? Because you're not really compatible with anyone. People think, well, I'll find the right person. It's like, first of all, no, you won't. Second, if you found the right person and they ever saw you, they'd just run away screaming. So it's just the whole conceptual scheme is wrong.
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When I was on tour, there was one three-day period where the same question emerged from the audience because I do a Q&A three nights in a row. How do I find the person that's right for me? And I tried answering it. And by the third night, I thought, oh, I know why I can't answer this question. It's because it's a stupid question.
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It's badly formulated, like profoundly badly formulated, fatally badly formulated. It's not the right question. The right question is, How can I learn to offer something to someone else that would make me eminently desirable? That's a way different question. They're not even in the same conceptual universe.
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And it's the right question because you can build yourself into a person that people would line up to be with. How? Well, have you done it? Well, you're very successful, right?
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There's a difference between narcissism and giving the devil his due. Okay, let's pull back a little bit. What have you done right?
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So that's not exactly focusing on yourself, right?
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That's focusing on getting your act together. And I'm being very picky about the words because focus on yourself, that has a narcissistic But that isn't what you're talking about. You said you fortified yourself financially, okay? So now you have foundation under your feet financially.
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Okay, good. What else?
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Right, so you're trying to learn.
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Well, so there's three things that are pretty good.
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You've got a firm financial foundation. you've, your work, you're, you're maintaining yourself physically or even improving yourself. And you're doing the same thing, say spiritually and, and intellectually. Okay. Well, that'll attract a fair number of people, just those three. Right.
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And maybe you're increasing the probability that it will attract the sort of person that you would like to attract.
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That's worth taking apart. I like to do arithmetic with my clients. Like people hate arithmetic and it's no wonder because it's so savage. So I'll give you an example. So 15 years ago, I counted the number of times I would see my parents. It was like 20 times. So then I knew that. Right. 20 isn't very many. Right. How many people do you get to try on in your life? Five. If you're lucky.
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If you're attractive and fortunate, you get five cracks at the pinata. Five isn't very many. And people think, well, there's plenty of fish in the sea. It's like, That doesn't mean they're going to swarm around you, buddy. Right? And maybe it's even worse for women because their time frame is very short.
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You know, like if a woman isn't in a relationship, family relationship, by 30, then it's starting to get pretty damn rough. And that's almost independent of how attractive she is. It's like you don't have much time. Better get yourself prepared.
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Well...
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Partly, see, it's partly because we have the wrong conception of identity, fundamentally. Identity is a hierarchical structure. So we kind of think that you end at your boundaries as an individual, but you don't because, well, you're probably not going to want to be alone. So then let's say you're married, okay? So now your identity as a husband, that's a social identity.
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Both. Well, we know now that at the present time in the West, half of women, 30 and younger, don't have a child. Now, we also know that couples 30, one in three couples at 30, already have trouble conceiving. That definition of trouble is one year of attempt with no success. Okay, so fertility goes off a cliff at 35. So 30, you're pushing your luck at 30.
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At 35, you are seriously pushing your luck. I worked for 10 years with a strata of the highest achieving women likely in Canada. I had, as part of my clinical practice, a offering that we made to consulting firms and law firms. And the offer was, send us your best people and we'll work for them. But the consequence of that is that they'll be even more productive.
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So in the typical law firm, for example, There's people who don't do well. Then there's people who are good lawyers. Then there are people who are good lawyers that bring in business. There's like none of them. They're super valuable. And if a law firm has someone like that, they want to keep them. And they're often women. Half the time, let's say. And those were the women.
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I worked with a bunch of men too, but I'll concentrate on the women here. Those were the women I was working with. And they were generally extremely attractive, extremely intelligent, very hardworking, and very focused on career development. And they'd done very well in junior high school and high school. Then they aced college and their LSATs.
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And then when they were articling, the firm snapped them up quickly. And then they rocketed up towards partnership. And then they were 30. And they all thought, what the hell am I doing working 70 hours a week with a bunch of insanely competitive men? Right. And that is the question. It's like, what are you doing? Exactly.
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And then even if you're radically successful, let's say in your law school career, if you get run over by a bus on the way to work, the waters just close over you at the firm and the firm continues on. It's not like anyone cares. Not really. So now I'm not saying that people shouldn't pursue a career. I'm not saying that.
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But I would say even in my case, and I'm male, so that makes a big difference because men are also oriented towards status, competition, victory in a way that women just aren't, at least not in the career domain. And the reason for that is very straightforward. And the thing that makes men, by default, most attractive to women is their comparative success in the hierarchy of men.
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It's a walloping predictor. And it's irrelevant to men. Men don't care at all whether women are successful in their career. It's not a determinant of their attractiveness. In fact, it's often the contrary. Well, these women that I'm talking about, they were often alone. Why? Well, they're beautiful. So that like intimidated 90% of men right there. They're smart.
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So that's another 90% of the remaining 10%. They're accomplished and wealthy. Well, like, first of all, who's going to approach them? And second, who are they going to accept? Because women are hypergamous, right?
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We're built for maximal challenge. And that isn't the way we view ourselves in the modern world. We view ourselves as built for consumption and pleasure. For example, watching pornography.
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Yeah, well, but there's reason for that. Like... It's not weakness on the part of men, exactly. It's the desire of the woman to find someone who brings a benefit to the relationship. And why? Well, because a woman will make herself vulnerable when she has a child. And so she's looking for a man who'll be helpful compared to her. Okay, so if the woman is like...
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full of ability, while then her standards for a guy who's gonna be helpful get very high. And that's hard on her because it decreases the pool of available candidates radically. So like there's a negative relationship between IQ and women and the probability of being married. So it's harsh. Now, are men intimidated? Well, yes, obviously. Are men intimidated by beautiful women?
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Well, you can answer that. especially if you're young. Why? The probability that any given beautiful woman is going to reject you when you're a young man is like, it's basically 100%. Now, it's not exactly 100%, and there are exceptions, but the default response is rejection. And beautiful women get hit on you know, a fair bit.
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And then you have an identity as a father, that's a social identity. Then you have an identity as a member of your community and a member of your city and a member of your state and a member of your nation. And then you're involved in a metaphysical endeavor that constitutes the foundation for the nation, let's say. That would be one nation under God. That's one way of thinking about it.
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Yeah, that's fascinating. That's fascinating.
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Well, one of them I would say is that in a free... and easy mating environment, women don't trust men. And no wonder. Well, here's a terrible thing to know. So, Imagine that there are men who are oriented towards short-term relationships, and there are men who are oriented towards long-term relationships, committed relationships, right?
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Okay, so that would be the men who want love along with sex, let's say, love and commitment. Then there's the party today because we're all dead tomorrow sort of guys. And there's some women like that too, although fewer women because they pay a much higher price for sexual impropriety. Okay. The pool of short-term maters has more men in it. Okay, what are they like?
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Well, the personality studies have already been done. They're Machiavellian, which means they use their language to manipulate. They're narcissistic, which means they want unearned social status. They're psychopathic, which makes them predatory parasites. And they're sadistic. Okay, so now you open up the mating market so that short-term dalliances are acceptable.
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You throw all the women into the hands of the psychopaths. Well, that's a bad strategy. And it's no wonder that it decimates the mating market because women are thinking, well, are those men trustworthy? And the answer is no. And sex is costly. Like, we have this immature delusion that we can free sex from, like, the grip of the oppressive patriarchy, let's say. It's like, no, you can't.
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Obviously, you can't. Emotional entanglements are an inevitable consequence of intimate physical relationships. There's that. Then there's the issue of abortion and pregnancy. That actually constitutes a problem. And then there's sexually transmitted disease. And that's just like the first of a very long list of potential problems with sex. So there's no simple sexual landscape.
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And there are deluded people who think there is a simple landscape and that there should be. But most, they tilt hard in the psychopathic direction because they're manipulative.
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As an ideal, yeah. Yeah, yeah, that's right.
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Well, here's one way of looking at it. So let's say you take the alternative approach, okay? You're going to try your partner on for size. So you live together. Well, first of all, we know that couples who live together are more likely to get divorced rather than less. We know that the probability of cheating is...
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proportionate to the number of partners before the marriage or the committed relationship. Well, partly that's just self-evidence. Like the best predictor of future behavior is past behavior. Right. So if you had a lot of partners, you're the sort of person who's likely to have a lot of partners. And then there's also a conceptual problem. It's like, are you shopping for a car?
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It's like, you're going to take it out for a test drive and see how it goes? Okay. That's not the right... Metaphor. And then here's another problem. I'm going to see what it's like to be married by living with this person. It's like, no, you're not. Because you don't know what it's like to be married until you're married.
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Whatever you're doing when you live together, that's not a model for what you're going to do when you're married. Because being married is different. It's permanent.
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Well, I know the stats on living together. It's like you live with someone and then you marry them, you're more likely to get divorced. It doesn't work. The theory was you try it out, and if it works, you go ahead with it. Yeah, well, the theory was wrong because that isn't what happens. It actually increases the probability that the relationship will fail.
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Or you could think about it as the self-evident truths that underlie the state. Your identity exists at all those levels. And then your mental health isn't something you carry around in your head. It's the harmony that exists or doesn't exist between all those levels. And that isn't how liberal individualists think about identity at all.
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It's also partly you've got to ask yourself what the message is. I know what the message is when you live with someone. It's pretty straightforward. You'll do unless someone better comes along. And I'll grant you the same opportunity. But Jesus, that's a hell of a foundation for a long-term relationship.
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Well, I don't know exactly what the trial period should be. I mean, people have dated. And I'm also not saying that this is simple. Why would it be simple? There isn't anything more difficult that you do in your entire life than find a partner and establish a family. It's like it's going to be hard. How to do it optimally? Well, I can tell you in my own experience, you know,
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Like I said, I've known my wife since she was eight. And we were friends, good friends. And we kind of departed from each other during adolescence. I was a year younger than everyone in my class. And she matured faster. Women do anyways. And so that kind of split us apart. And we didn't get married until I think we were about 27, something like that, 28.
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But it would have been better to do it earlier. To get married earlier? Yeah, it's just time I didn't have with her.
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Yeah. Hmm. The general rule of thumb for life is that you should do what other people have done forever unless you have a really good reason not to. Don't deviate from the straight, narrow path. Like you are already deviating in all sorts of ways. You're very entrepreneurial, right? So your life has a variety of adventurous pathways. You're going to want to put firm foundation wherever you can.
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That'll actually free you up to do more adventurous things. Children are a multi-generational commitment because it's children and grandchildren. And so the marriage is a signifier of that. And in order to stay with someone optimally over the longest period of time possible, it has to be serious. And for something to be serious, you have to throw everything at it.
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And you might say, well, love is enough. It's like that's a very naive view of the world because there'll be times when Because that's kind of like saying, well, as long as we love each other and we're happy, we'll be together. It's like, well, if you're talking 40 years, there's going to be plenty of years in there where you're not happy and you probably don't love each other. So what then?
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Is it just going to dissolve? Or are you going to say, we're in this, you know, come hell or high water, which is the vow. Come hell or high, and hell and high water, they're coming. And then you got to ask yourself, you know, is this the person you want in the boat with you when hell and high water come? And that's not going to be fun. That's for sure. You want to do it alone?
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Or you think that when everything falls apart around you, you're going to be in a better position to find someone better? I don't think so. It's a long, and then, you know, you take the marital vow in a religious sense and you do it in front of a community, right? So it signifies commitment. And you need that because, like, you think you can maintain all that commitment on your own?
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And that's because they were, for a long time, fortunate enough so all those other strata were in place.
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Maybe you can't. I doubt it. Generally, people can't, like no one. We need to fortify ourselves in all sorts of ways to get through the things in life that are most difficult.
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you're talking about a multitude of different bonds, right? Fundamentally, right? The one that you're prioritizing is the bond that's voluntary and predicated on what? The love of the moment? I mean, we want to be precise here, right? So I think that's a reasonable way of conceptualizing it. And it is a romantic view that that should prevail.
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And it's a romantic view that that should be sufficient. I don't think it it's often the case that it doesn't prevail and it's generally the case that it's not sufficient. And so then you might say, well, maybe you want to add a legal element to that and you want to add a metaphysical element to it because those are all fortifications. And they're indications even to yourself that you're serious.
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It's not like we understand ourselves. You know, like people are just as mysterious to themselves as someone else is mysterious to them. You ask yourself, it's like, okay, well, what...
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process is what do I have to put in place to ensure that I'm doing the right thing well when you're embarking on something difficult like marriage and you better have everything necessary in place if you and Tammy hadn't got married yeah and you were just in a relationship like I am with my partner
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Oh, well, that's undoubtedly true. I mean, both of us just about died in the last five years. And I don't mean by a little bit. I mean, like, it was touch and go for a long time. So it was a good thing everything was in place through that. I mean... The waters were pretty high for the last three years, four years, socially, professionally, physically.
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Ooh, adrift in a storm alone. So look, here's an interesting fact. So... Psychologists who are statistically minded, they're called psychometricians, they're psychologists who are obsessed, research psychologists who are obsessed with measurement and concept definition, spent a lot of time aggregating concepts.
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What are you wrestling with exactly in this issue? I mean, it seems like you're trying to sort out the relationship between the emotional attachment and the personal attachment and the social attachment. structures that say surround marriage.
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Okay. So now I can tell you what to do with that. So you bring those images to mind. So you've got this question in mind. You just found out something. You said that there's something at the bottom of this. Now if you watch your fantasies, They all shed light on this descent into the abyss, so to speak. Now, you had a flash of memory. Okay, that memory is associated with all sorts of things.
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And you can bring that to mind and let it play itself out, right? And it'll explore the contours of the problem that you're... Now, you put your finger on a very important problem. You said that you saw in your father someone who's trapped in his marriage.
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Well, it's no bloody wonder you're leery of that. So now the question would be, what was the nature of that entrapment? What evidence did you have that that was in fact the case? How much of that was him? How much of that was her? And what is it that they did wrong and right? You need to know all of that and you need to know how it affected you. That's a great observation.
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See, that's so cool because that very frequently happens to people when they ask a question. That's like a revelation. So you ask a question. That's like a prayer. The question is, is there something at the bottom of my, the trouble I'm having conceptualizing marriage? Okay. Now you want to know that's the first precondition. Okay. Then you'll get memories, images like that.
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And then people shy away. It's like, I don't want to go there. It's like, yeah, that's for sure. You bloody well don't want to go there, but you do because if it's there, you will go there. It'll plague you. It'll plague your life. It'll show its head continually in your relationship.
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Or you can get to the bottom of it, which is people will fight their whole life with their partner to avoid getting to the bottom of something. That's how terrifying it is to get to the bottom of something. But if you do get to the bottom of it, then you don't have to fight for 30 years. So that's very much worthwhile. And it'll enlighten you as well. You know, because you have a real issue.
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It's like, how can marriage not be a trap?
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Well, yeah, right. Definitely. That's a very good question. And an important one. How can marriage be a trap? How can not being married be a trap? How can being alone be a trap? How can being deluded about what holds people together be a trap? There's traps everywhere, man. There's traps everywhere. And so there's no risk-free pathway forward. There's just risk everywhere.
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Okay, so that's a really useful thing to know. Then the question would shift to something like, well, if I wanted to construct a relationship that was optimized, that's what you have to ask yourself. It's like, and your partner. It's like, what are we doing here? What do we want?
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Tammy and I decided, for example, when we first got married, well, I mentioned this to her right away when we decided that we were going to take things seriously. It was like, we're going to tell each other the truth. So that was part of the vision. Like, no matter what. No matter what. Yeah, no matter what. She's been very good at that. I would say better than me.
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I've been good at it, but she's been really quite remarkably good at it. She really threw herself into it. And I mean, that causes a complete transformation, but there's plenty of skeletons in the closet to be Revealed.
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These were, in some ways, what they were doing was equivalent to the development of early large language models. So psychologists were at the forefront of that on the statistical side. Words that we use to describe people clump together. So, for example, if you're extroverted, you're social and you're happy. You're enthusiastic. Okay, so those clump together.
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Well, first of all, it's easy.
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And generally... Oh, another reason that sex has disappeared.
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It's a terrible thing. Yeah, it's a terrible thing. Everything about it is terrible.
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Well, first of all, it's addictive, and no wonder. I mean, any 13-year-old boy can now look at more beautiful naked women in one day than the greatest king who ever lived managed in his whole life. Right. So it's like, wow, that's not.
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It's easy to get what? Sexual gratification. That's not good. It's not supposed to be easy. And it's easy. So how desperate do you have to be to get married? Not desperate at all. It's like, yeah, right. What do you know? You don't know anything. I'm married just because I'm in love. You're an idiot.
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God, to put you in a position where you're going to have the romantic adventure of your life, the true romantic adventure of your life, you're going to need love and desperation, buddy. You're going to need everything working on your side. Love, desperation, terror, shame, guilt, everything working for you. And so you take the easy road. Pornography. Sure.
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Well, they're definitely less motivated to pursue sexual relationships with women.
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How much of what men do do they do to impress women? A lot. Yeah, like all of it. All of it. I mean, the status battles that men, back to the law firms, for example. So the men I worked with, they were very concerned with their bonuses and their end-of-the-year performance reports. Why? Well, part of it was the money. Most of them had lots of money.
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It's like I'd ask them, I'd say, well, the money is how we keep score. Well, what does that mean? Well, money is the way that men in those competitive enterprises say they compare themselves to one another. And why do they want to be at the top? Because women peel from the top. So men are trying to impress women all the time, and they'll do it in positive ways and in pathological ways.
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The window for sexual representation started to open in the 1920s, let's say, but it really got going with Playboy. Then Penthouse came out right after that. And Penthouse was like full frontal nudity display. And then Hustler came out, and Hustler was sort of, well, whatever Penthouse didn't show you, Hustler will show you. And it got pretty lowbrow, like it was a rough, low-class magazine.
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It just shed all the pretensions that Playboy and Penthouse had. And then the net came along. It's like all those engineers who couldn't, establish a relationship with an actual woman, exchanging pornography. What, 25% of internet traffic, something like that? That desire to exchange pornography, was that what created the net? Yeah. It was a huge part of it. What's that done?
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Sexual gratification. But does it matter? Oh, it's a catastrophe. You're not desperate anymore. And if you're going to have the true adventure of your life, you're going to need love, shame, guilt, desperation, and pain. Like, it's hard. But now, people take the easy road, like avoiding conflict, for example. I spent a lot of time studying evil that arises when good men hold their tongue.
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Well, as you pointed out, I think 30% now of Japanese men and women under 30 are virgins. It's about the same in Korea. Relationships between men and women are falling apart in the rest of the West in the same sort of way. Now, can you attribute that to pornography? Certainly part, like if I was a young woman and I was looking at the pornography world online, I'd think, yeah, maybe not.
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It is desperate. Well, why wouldn't it be addictive?
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If you're anxious, you also tend to be frustrated, disappointed, grief-stricken, and in pain. All the negative emotions clump. Words associated with your empathy, aggregate. Words associated with your dutifulness, aggregate. And so do words associated with creativity. Those are the five fundamental dimensions of temperament.
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That's a good question. That's a good question. Well, there's nothing heroic about it, that's for sure. It's like it's obviously nothing to be proud of. That's a different issue than whether or not it's wrong, right?
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It's certainly not an accomplishment.
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I mean, I don't think anyone would disagree about that. It's not an accomplishment. Well, maybe sex is supposed to be an accomplishment. Maybe you violate the spirit of sexuality itself when it's not an accomplishment. You certainly do that if you rape, right? Right. So is it an accomplishment? Probably. So what if your accomplishment is false? Well, then what are you betraying?
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Well, if it's associated with sex, maybe you're betraying the most fundamental possible thing. It's certainly possible. There is life in sex. That's pretty much that, right? You're alive and you reproduce from a biological perspective. And so you're violating the spirit of what? Maybe you're violating the spirit of relationship.
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Maybe you're violating the spirit of adventure, the spirit of romance, the spirit of reproduction, the spirit of life. Likely.
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They should be angry.
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I don't know how to answer that. I think any policy that, policies that require force rather than voluntary compliance are generally bad policies. There are restrictions that should be placed on its distribution, but I would have to spend a lot of time thinking through what those were from a policy perspective. I think it's wrong. No, I don't think. I know it's wrong.
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That doesn't mean I know how that should be dealt with at the level of policy. It's complicated. I do understand why young men and young women are angry about it. It's like, where are the adults? Where are the adults? Where have they gone? They're not protecting like 11-year-old kids from what you can see on the net.
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You know, I remember when I was a kid, I got a hold of some of these underground comics from the 1960s. And a lot of the underground comic artists were, they're pretty pathological. creatures, like Robert Crumb's a good example. Crumb led a pretty good life for someone as demented as he is. And there's a very famous documentary made about the Crumb brothers, and Robert Crumb was the establisher.
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He was one of the people who established the genre of graphic novel, really, back in the 60s in Hyde Ashbury in San Francisco. And his imagination goes places that you don't want to, you don't want to be along for the ride. Seriously, like seriously. And I read some of that material when I was like 11, you know, I never forgot it. It was shocking as hell. And like typical 11 year old.
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Now it's like, There are things that he is going to see that he'll never forget. It's not good.
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Well, we also don't know. That's right. We have no idea whatsoever what a diet of pornography exposure does to somebody who's making their way through puberty.
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One of the words that clumps with negative emotion is self-consciousness, which means that self-consciousness is so tightly associated with suffering that they're not conceptually distinguishable. Which means, literally, the more you think about yourself, the more miserable you are. And it makes sense when you understand how social people are.
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Write down what it's doing to you.
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Sure, write down every, exhaustively. Everything you think it might be doing to you. Write it down. Everything. Don't worry about whether you're right or not. Like, maybe it's not doing some of the things you think it might be doing. But make an exhaustive list. Then start thinking through. It's like, is that what you want? Is that what you want? And then write down what you want instead.
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That'll help. Because if you're going to... Look, any hedonistic endeavor is... Rewarding in the moment, obviously. The problem is the price you pay for it in the medium to long run, right? That's the problem. It's the contradiction between those two things that's the problem. Okay, now if you want to quit doing something that's gratifying in the short term, you need to know why, right?
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Because otherwise you won't have the willpower. You won't have the part of you that thinks, well, what the hell, we'll win, right? What the hell? Which is what people think when they do something they shouldn't do. And they should notice what they say to themselves when they're making that rationalization. Because what the hell refers to hell.
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And the reason to stop doing things that are self-destructive is because they're self-destructive. I mean, is that the sort of person you want to be? Is that the model you'd like to have for your son, for example? Is that... the way you would imagine that someone you admire would act? These are good questions to ask yourself.
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Are you the sort of person that is acting out a pattern that you think is admirable? I don't think pornography masturbation fits into the ideal of heroic masculinity. I don't think anybody thinks that. There's something furtive about it and second rate. It's ridiculous in a sense that we even have to have this discussion because obviously.
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That's for sure. First they creep, then they rampage.
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Oh, and it's going to get way worse. Wait till there are AI-equipped, adjustable pornographic Suck you by. Then we're really going to have fun. Because we're already at the point now where with a decent chatbot, a really alienated young man can have a better conversation with a decent chatbot than with anybody he's ever talked to in his entire life. Right. Now they're going to get a lot smarter.
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And soon they're going to have like, well, there's already services of this sort available. They'll be fully fleshed out two-dimensional women. They're not women. Simulacra of women. Right. So, yeah. It's interesting because with my hedonistic... Design your own girlfriend.
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Yeah, right. Right. She'll give you everything you want. But that's not true. She'll give the worst part of you everything it wants. Jesus, that's not good. The worst, weakest part of you will get exactly what it wants. That's not good. That's seriously not good. I mean, that's what pornography is kind of doing, right? Definitely. Well, and there's an edge to it too, right?
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Because one of the... Pleasure is enhanced by novelty. Right. So that brings up an issue with regards to marriage. You know, I talked to Bill Maher. Bill's alone. and he's my age, and that's painful. But he said to me, in his Hollywood hedonistic manner, that he really couldn't imagine being with the same woman for any length of time. It's a novelty issue.
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It's like, well, are you restricted by the woman, or are you restricted by the limits of your own imagination? This is an important question. I would say, If you establish the optimized relationship with someone, they're inexhaustible. That doesn't mean novelty isn't important. It's important. That's part of play.
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We're so social that you can take the most antisocial human beings imaginable, so psychopathic criminals, and you can punish them by putting them in solitary confinement. That's how social human beings are. And so, Your mental health is way more dependent on your nesting within a social structure than on your, say, the internal coherence of your belief systems.
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The same person. That's the problem. No, look, I understand. I know that novelty enhances pleasure. So the question is, how do you... Keep your relationship alive. That means novel.
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Well, that's part of that trap, eh?
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Well, okay. So that's very good observation. Because that thought is going to have a story attached to it. The story is going to be something like, Well, I'm with this person. We both become unattractive quite rapidly. We get alienated from one another. There's no sexual dynamism or romance or excitement.
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And then we just sit and eat like cold eggs while looking at each other harshly over the table at breakfast for 40 years.
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Well, yeah, that's dismal. So, you know, maybe don't do that.
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Well, that helps. It helps. Practice helps. Surrounding yourself with people who have the same aim and that keep you responsible, accountable, that helps. Oh, yeah, you need all of that because that battle, the battle between immediate gratification and medium to long-term investment, that's a real battle. Like the right amount of pleasure in the moment isn't zero.
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Well, right, right. And you don't want to be the joyless grind for whom everything is tomorrow.
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Right? It's very hard to, because what you're trying to do is you're trying to optimize emotion and strategy over all timeframes.
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Well, that's also a problem. Exactly, exactly.
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Right.
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Well, and we also know, you know, when people are, say, off to a battle in wartime. They party like there's no tomorrow. Well, because maybe there isn't. So definitely, the religious insistence is that you should live in the light of eternity. Right? Is that you should attempt to conduct yourself in a manner that is best all things considered over the longest possible conceivable span of time.
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Now... Does that mean don't have the dessert? No, no, because, no, it doesn't mean that. Because, look, in the biblical text, for example, there is an insistence that the spirit of the divine wants the provision of life more abundant. That's the language. The idea of a fruitful garden, an earthly garden of delights even, that's part and parcel of a vision of paradise. It's not joyless.
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It's harmoniously balanced. I think the best way to think about it is likely musically. You know, in a musical piece that's great, every note has its place. Every note has its proper place in relationship to the whole, right? But every note is also worthwhile. Well, that's what you want, is you want to balance... your concentration on the present with your apprehension of the medium to long run.
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So I'll give you an example of that. So I did a course for Peterson Academy called, it's on the Sermon on the Mount. And the Sermon on the Mount is the longest record we have of Christ's direct utterances, let's say. And it constitutes the core of Christian ethics. It's a set of instructions, and the instructions are very specific.
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In fact, I think it's hardly at all dependent on the internal consistency of your coherence of your belief systems. It's more like, does anyone like you? Do you have any friends? Do you have anyone that loves you? Or maybe even more profoundly, are there people for whom you make sacrifices?
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So, essentially, the instruction is to aim at every moment at what's highest, okay? So, this is something you have to practice, okay? So, the idea is that at each moment, you're bringing to bear a certain attitude, and the attitude is, I'm going to do what's best, okay? Now,
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All things considered, for me now, for me now in a way that works tomorrow, for me now in a way that works tomorrow and next week and next month and next year and five years from now and 10 years from now, in relationship to my wife, in relationship to my kids, to my parents, to my community, right? It's that whole identity. You're optimizing that.
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Now, you might not know how, but that's your aim. Okay, so that's the injunction to put the love of God above all else, to aim at what's highest. Now, you don't exactly know how to do that, but that doesn't matter. You can specify your aim. Right now, no doubt you do something like that with your podcast. Right. That's why it's successful. Yeah. Okay. You agree with that?
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Why?
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Okay. What are the principles? So this is worth delving into because you've been very successful as a podcast.
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Right. So there's a search in it. Yeah, it's a search. Well, that's a quest. Yeah. So you know what? An adventure story is a quest.
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Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. There's only one thing I would take issue with. You said that you don't judge. See, I would say probably you don't condemn. You have to judge because you have to listen and you have to separate wheat from chaff. You have to evaluate. But you can do that without...
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careless condemnate condemnation or a priori what would you say like a tyrannical is insistence that what you know now is sufficient okay exactly yeah yeah yeah you want to not people say i'm not judgmental it's like that's not a virtue you want to be you want to use judgment all the time but that's not to can like i could judge you so i don't ever have to listen to you about anything
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Yeah, that's right. That's exactly it. That's a hypocritical moralizing. It's the moralizing.
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That's exactly it. Exactly. That's right. You definitely don't want to do that in a podcast. Journalists, the pathological journalists, that's all they do. All they're doing is establishing moral superiority. on the flimsiest possible grounds, at the least possible cost, in the most spectacular way.
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It's relevant to the topic of this book, obviously, because the relationship with the divine in the stories that I'm detailing in this book, most of them are Old Testament stories, the relationship with the divine is a sacrificial relationship. The divine is that to which sacrifice is directed.
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Yeah, well, that is that quest. And what people want in a discussion is a quest. They want to see bloodhounds on the trail towards some truth. That's what they're after. They want to participate in that. Same with the public lectures I do. I'm always trying to answer a question. I don't know what the answer is when I go on stage.
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He has faith in his own ignorance.
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Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, Joe's on a quest. He's trying to be smarter than he is. That's what Joe does. It's curiosity that's driving him. This is what Musk said, too, about himself. And he said that to me when I interviewed him. He said that was how he reconciled. He had a terrible existential crisis when he was, like, 13. You know, and... He reconciled that essentially with a quest.
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He decided that he could just pursue truth, pursue knowledge, pursue understanding, and that that's meaningful intrinsically and valuable intrinsically. And that's the beginnings of a religious orientation, or more than the beginnings even. Because the quest is a religious pursuit. It's pursuit of the truth. It's pursuit of the treasure that the dragon guards, right?
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And so treasures and dragons, they're always in the same place. It's very annoying. It's a good thing to know, though, because if a dragon shows up, you can always ask yourself where the treasure is. Might be close. It's there. Okay, so back to the Sermon on the Mount, because we were talking about orientation. So aim up.
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Assume that other people have the same value as you do and that that value is associated with whatever is divine. And then concentrate on the moment. Right. So it's the most distant possible upward aim with the most intense possible concentration on the moment. Right. You're good at that. That's what... I can't say that's what's made you successful, but it's certainly part of it because...
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you pay attention. See, that's what paying attention means. Because you want your intent to be focused, because otherwise your attention is fragmented. So you want your attention to be focused. Now, your attention is focused on something. Now, we pulled it apart a little bit. You said that you're You know, you have these principles and that you're trying to learn.
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And so your attention is pretty focused. And then you bring all that to bear in the moment, right? And then people find that compelling because they're along for the ride. They're along for the adventure. And that is meaningful. It's the essence of meaningful. And so what we were trying to address was the relationship between hedonism and, say, intelligent long-term pro-social strategy.
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Well, if you get married, it's a sacrificial offering because you sacrifice your potential relationship with all other women to that woman.
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You want them both. optimized solution that delivers both far better than any other solution. This is the pearl of great price that Christ speaks about, that anyone wise and wealthy would sell everything they own to purchase. There isn't anything better than that.
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for some reason it's not working like i can't get out of this situation yeah you meet well maybe maybe you can't start on the porn side then you know like my this is how a good behavior analyst approaches problems of that sort it's like okay is there something in your life that you know is not right that you could improve that you would improve Any step whatsoever.
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Well, generally, you can just ask yourself that question. It's like, it's a contemplative exercise. Sit on the edge of your bed and think, okay, where is my life off kilter?
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is so then then you have a variety of ideas about everywhere yeah okay okay so my mom's bed i mean i've got no relationship my job's crap i hate it okay then i'd say zero in on one of those yeah and find some small thing that you could fix that you would fix why a small thing well because look at you you're completely goddamn useless you better find something small that you could do
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Now, if you can find a big thing, good, but obviously you haven't been able to because all these problems exist. So, see, one of the emphasis in the religious realm, let's say, is humility. One of the things that's emphasized. Well, what's humility? What's the opposite of pride? Well, humility is starting where you are. That's what humility is.
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And it's annoying because, you know, like if your life is a mess, then you have to see that you're the person in that mess. And then you have to understand that your first attempt to redress the mess might not be something you're particularly proud of, you know?
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I mean, I saw this lots in my clinical practice where people would, the first steps they had to take to put things in order were pretty embarrassing. It's like, really, that's all I can do? Hey, man. Uphill is better than downhill. And there's a doctrine in the Gospels that Christ puts forward, which is very interesting.
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He says, it's the Matthew principle, it's called, to those who have everything, more will be given. From those who have nothing, everything will be taken. Okay, so it lays out a view of the world. Progress, Regression. That's one model. Here's another one. Progress. Regression. This is the right model. So even if you have to start small, you accrue success exponentially.
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You accrue defeat exponentially too. That's the abyss that is hell. You start going downhill, you go downhill faster and faster. Start going uphill. You go uphill faster and faster. So even if you have to start small or even painfully small, which is highly probable, especially if you're trying to tackle something that's really plagued you, it doesn't really matter. How small?
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Take, I would say, take the step that you can take, that you will take, that actually feels like some accomplishment. Imagine you're dealing with a three-year-old kid and you want to encourage him. Okay, you want to set him a task that... You don't want him to say, Dad, I could do that when I was two, right? But you don't want to set him a task that there's not a chance he'll manage.
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You want to set him a task that will stretch him beyond where he is, that has a reasonable probability of success, right? Why? Why stretch him from where he is? Well, because you want to grow. I mean, look, if you love a child... You love the child for who he is and who he could be. And you want to indicate your love for both of those.
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I think if you're a father, you tilt even more towards love for who the child could be.
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Because you watch yourself do it.
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Well, look, if you see someone, a friend, who is continually, incrementally improving, you're going to, well, maybe you'll be jealous and resentful and bitter and miserable and try to undermine them. But assuming you're not like completely encapsulated by dark forces, you'll think, oh, that's admirable. Well, you see the same thing in yourself. You have to act differently.
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You have to develop an opinion of yourself the same way you would develop an opinion of someone else. So now, and I'm not hypothesizing about this, by the way. We know this clinically. If I want to truly help you build your confidence rather than merely...
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readjusting the words you say about yourself, which would be something like self-esteem, which is something that doesn't even exist, by the way. It's just a pathological concept altogether. You want confidence, okay? More to the point, you want the confidence that's based in competence. Otherwise, it's narcissistic. Okay, so how do you develop that?
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Well, you watch yourself exceed your limits, okay? And then you think, oh, look at that. There's something in me that can exceed my limits. That's your true self. That's a good way of thinking about it.
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Well, one of the things you do with disagreeable people who are more inclined by temperament to be competitive and attain victory for themselves is one of the exercises you can do with disagreeable people. If you're a disagreeable extrovert, you tend to be narcissistic. And the problem with that technically is that you alienate people. And the problem with that is while you're hyper-social.
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Well, that's one of the things you can realize, certainly, that... that also you don't exactly know where the limits are. It's like, oh, I exceeded that. It's like, okay, well, now what? What's the upward limit to exceed? What's the upward arc of exceeding limits? That's Jacob's ladder. I would say this is the promise of the kingdom of God. That's one way of thinking about it.
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There's no upward limit. There's no limit to how bad things can get. No one would deny that who has any sense. So that means in a way that hell exists. You can find your way there with no problem.
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Well, these are hard things to do on your own, right? I mean, you only have the span of your life and the probability that you can figure out how to live merely as a consequence of consulting your own limited experience is zero. It's too complicated.
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That's part of it. That would be the more structured part, the more traditional part. You need the traditional stories. That's why I wrote this book is to indicate, well, at least in part, what the stories are and also what they mean. It's not only that, it's not only what they mean, it's how knowing what they mean changes your life. So for example, in the story of Abraham, God comes to Abraham.
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Okay, now questions emerge from that statement. What do you mean God and how does he come to Abraham? What the hell does that mean? Well, the story lays that out. The God that comes to Abraham is the voice of adventure. It's a definition. So this is a good thing to know. God is the voice of adventure. Okay, so now let's think about this a little bit.
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Now, you may suffer some consequences of speaking, but retreating one step at a time defensively when it makes you sick of yourself, there's nothing worse that can happen to you. You want your life to be unbearably entertaining. And maybe all the sorrow and catastrophe has to be part of it, because otherwise there's There's nothing about it that's glorious.
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So the God that's the voice of adventure is the God of the forefathers of Abraham, the father. He's a patriarchal spirit. Okay, if you're a good father, you speak with the voice of adventure to your sons. Obviously, you're encouraging them. It's like, get the hell out there. Make something of yourself. Why do you do that? Because you have this little kid and you think, get at it, man.
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So if you alienate people, well, then you don't have anyone. And not only is that lonesome, but it's also extremely impractical. I mean, you know, you certainly, and no doubt learned this more as you become successful. It's like you need a team and right. And the more, and the more tightly knit it is, and the more you're all working in the same direction, the better everything works. Well, you,
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Let's see what you can be. And so that's that voice of the benevolent father. And that's the spirit of the ancestors. And behind that, there's the God who's the voice of adventure. If you pursue the spirit of adventure, there will be things you have to give up. Right. You know that. I mean, you know, you're taking steps. We'd even say that steps forward in your life. What do you mean forward?
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What do you mean steps? Well, there are little adventures you have that transform you and transform your circumstances. Okay. You have that adventure and you have to change as a consequence of it. You have to give up your immaturity so that you can take advantage of this new opportunity. Okay, and that changes you. Now you're a slightly different person. Now a new horizon of opportunity opens up.
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You have to make a sacrifice. It's like, okay, looks like if I'm going to do this, I can no longer afford this. Well, Abraham changes so dramatically that he gets a new name. He starts as Abraham and he ends as Abraham. Abraham is the father of nations. So what's the moral? If you pursue the spirit of adventure and make the proper sacrifices, you become the father of nations. Right? That's true.
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Well, okay, let's take that claim apart. I mean, yes, it is stories that people came up with thousands of years ago, but no, definitely not one person's opinion. Definitely 100% because these stories have been transmitted over millennia and organized and edited and transformed by a very large number of people. So it's at minimum, it's a massive collective effort.
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And it's a collective effort undertaken by arguably the most literate and intelligent people there are. And that'd be the Jews.
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Oh, there's a huge overlap between the Greek philosophical tradition and the Christian tradition. I mean, Western culture is the... amalgamation of Greece, Jerusalem, and Rome. And the early Christians saw tremendous parallels between Christian theology and Greek philosophy. Where do you think we come from?
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But I'm not trying to be a smart aleck in that response. It's a complicated answer. It's a complicated answer. I think that we're guided by the spirit of meaning. I think that's also our deepest instinct.
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It's not useful to be a narcissist because maybe you get what you want right now this time, but as a propagating strategy across time, it's a degenerating game. Okay, so what do you do? Well, instead of thinking about what you want or even thinking about how to strategize in relationship to your goals, you might think about what you could do for other people or
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Well, I had a rule for this book is I didn't make any claims about the biblical stories that I couldn't justify scientifically. I don't think there's a conflict. I think that viewing the biblical stories as an amalgam of superstitious proto-scientific theories is absurd. I don't think there's any evidence for that at all. These are stories. Stories and scientific hypotheses aren't the same thing.
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The Lord of the Rings is not a scientific hypothesis. But that doesn't mean it's not true.
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Well, you were a sperm at one point. I mean, it's not that implausible. We all come from single-celled organisms.
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Yeah. Well, that's exactly why I wrote this book because I know that that's the time and it's not just the time for you. That's the time that we're in.
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Definitely. Well, it's partly because the enlightenment has exhausted itself. Partly because it was wrong.
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Well, I think exhausted is a better word because it wasn't like the Enlightenment was without its benefits. When you say the Enlightenment. Immense technological progress. The materialist reductionism of the atheist scientist.
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It's not right. Factually, they were wrong. Their theory of perception was wrong. They're wrong. We see the world through a story. We do not see the world as a collection of facts. They're wrong. You see, the postmodernists figured this out, and that's why... The postmodernists had a walloping influence on culture.
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Now, I'm no fan of the postmodernists for a variety of reasons, but their insistence that we see the world through a story, they're right. That's right.
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That's a great question. Well, this is what Nietzsche basically presupposed in some ways. So when Nietzsche observed that God had died, say in 1850 or thereabouts, his medication for that, his warning was, we'll descend into nihilism and communist totalitarianism. And that was exactly right. Maybe a mindless hedonism in there too. Dostoevsky concentrated more on that.
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Nietzsche said we'll have to create our own values. We'll have to become, that's what the Superman is, the Nietzschean Superman, the man who creates his own values. Try. See what happens. You can't do it. You can't create your own values because values are real. They're not arbitrary. They're not relativistic.
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So imagine this, imagine there's a very large number of games that could be played, like an infinitely large number. But there's a very small number of games that people want to play. Then there's even a smaller number of games that sustain themselves and improve as you play them. Okay, so that's like a landscape. Think about it as a landscape of potential patterns of interaction.
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Or you could think about what you would do if you only did what was true and right. Those are very different orientations. And the religious orientation, fundamentally, is the orientation towards what is true and right. And you might say, well, I don't know what's true and right. It's like, yeah, kind of, because our knowledge is bounded and we're ignorant, so do we understand...
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You could even think about it as a landscape of potential tribal affiliations, right? The rules of those games would be the principles of the society. Okay, now your question is, could we come up with our own set of rules? And the answer to that is no. Why? Because the sustainable, abundant playability of a game is... not arbitrary.
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So for example, if you want to get along with your wife, she has to want to play the game you're playing. Okay. Now there's lots of games you could play that aren't going to fit that criteria.
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Now then imagine it's even worse though, because to get along with your wife, you, she has to want to play the game you want to play. But both of you have to play a game that works today and tomorrow and next week, next month, next year, right? And then you have to play it with your kids and your parents and a bunch of other people.
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Oh, and, okay. Yeah, yeah, it's the same thing. You're looking at the same problem from two different perspectives. It's and. Yes, they're handed down from on high. Yes, they're instincts.
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But do you struggle with the answer? I struggle with making the answer simple enough to offer rapidly.
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Not as clear as I could be.
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Well, clarity is part of it. I mean, we want to make things as clear as possible. Breadth of coverage, right? I mean, people ask me what I believe and I say, well, I'm not hiding what I believe. I'm like... I lecture about it. I podcast about it. I write about it. It's like, that's what I believe. There it is. Is there obfuscation in that? Well, partly things are complicated.
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So it's very difficult to give short answers to complex questions. If you give short answers to complex questions, the answers tend to be symbolic.
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You have to say something like, where do they come from? It's like, well, they come from God. Now, is that a useful answer? Well, it's a short answer, so it's useful in that it's short. It begs the question, what do you mean by God? We could return to that. In the story of Abraham, these are definitions.
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Because if you're going to talk about what's properly put in the highest place, you have to know what you're talking about. Okay, in the story of Abraham, the voice of adventure is to be put in the highest place. And if you follow that, then you become the father of nations. That's reproductive success, right?
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So that means the idea is that there's an alignment between the instinct that calls you to adventure and the probability that you'll be attractive to women in the manner that ensures the survival of your descendants.
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It's both. It's both. It's both. It emerges as a consequence of the constraints of social interaction. let's say. Like there's constraints, for example, on what makes a man desirable to a woman.
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Right? That has nothing to do with you, those constraints. Those are there. Right? They're there in the society of women. They're eternal. They're not... No woman, she might vary in her opinion to some degree, but she partakes of the pattern. So it's there. Now... It's also built into you because you're a social creature. And so your physiology indicates to you the nature of that pattern.
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the nature of the highest good? Well, no, but it's a very rare person who doesn't know some of the time when they're doing something wrong. And it's also a non-existent person who doesn't have some concept of the good, because you can't act without a concept of the good, because you act towards a goal you deem desirable. So that's up.
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There's an overlap because your dog understands you and vice versa. So that's a good question. Social mammals understand each other. Right, so there's an overlap in their deepest instincts or their highest impulses. You can think about that both ways.
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Yeah, well, you could think about that as, sure, sure.
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They have a nature. Yeah, they have a different intrinsic nature. That's another way of thinking about it.
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Yes, it is. It is that. You can think about it as rising up from the material world or descending on heaven. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter fundamentally. It doesn't matter. Those are different ways of looking at the same problem.
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Okay, here's one way of thinking about it. So I mentioned that in the story of Abraham – God is the call to adventure. That's the definition. Now, the divine that's put forward in these library of stories has multiple characteristics. He's characterized in many ways, but there's an insistence that that reflects an underlying unity. Now, the unity is incomprehensible in its essence.
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Okay, so you have to accept that as the initial starting point. You're not going to get the answer.
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Okay. You can see something complex from a variety of different perspectives. Okay. In the story of Noah, God is the impulse that comes to the wise to prepare when trouble's brewing.
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Okay, so now you can think of that as an instinct. You can think about it as... Got instinct, intuition. Negative emotion, anxiety. But it's more than that because you can be afraid of something that isn't real.
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Okay, now you might have to ask yourself, okay, what are the preconditions for your fear? What are the preconditions to the validity of your fear? So you're afraid and you should be. Well, let's say that's a characteristic of someone who's wise. Okay, so then the question is, well, what's the essence of the wisdom that makes your fear valid?
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Noah is described in the story of Noah as a man wise in his generations. So that means that by the moral standards of his time, he's an upstanding human being. Okay, so now you can imagine that means he exists in harmonious relationship with his present self and his future self. Okay, that makes him mature. But then he also does that in a way that serves his wife and his family and his community.
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So his self is balanced and optimized across those parameters. That makes him... Secure in his foundation and properly oriented. If you're secure in your foundation and properly oriented upward, then there's no difference between the voice of the divine and the instinct that preserves you in times of trouble.
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I mean, unless you're trying to make your life worse, and people do do that from time to time, but believe that as an exception. I mean, you have to You have to have descended into hell in a way before you're in a situation where you're actively working to make your own life worse. That can happen.
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But you see, you can't exactly get there by the mere bottom-up materialistic notion, because you could think about the fear that guides Noah as an instinct, but the instinct is pathological unless it exists in this wider moral framework, because then you could have the fear of a coward. Well, that's not helpful.
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Yeah, but even reproduction is... See, this is, I think, where Dawkins went dreadfully wrong. Sex and reproduction aren't the same thing for people.
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Well, not at all, because we're high-investment reproducers. Sex just gets the ball rolling. So here's a question. How would you have to act to maximally ensure the survival of your offspring? Okay, so now... What do you mean survival? Do you mean that your son lives? Do you mean that your grandson lives? Do you mean that 20 generations down the road from you?
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The pattern that you represented is still propagating itself successfully. Does it mean that the people that you produce are able to take on all challengers because of the manner in which they conduct themselves? That's a lot more complicated than just sex, like way more complicated. So the pattern that Abraham, so Abraham is the father of nations, right?
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There's an insistence in the story that the manner in which he conducts himself, as a hero, establishes the pattern that makes his descendants successful eternally.
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Is the Bible in part the story of human beings coming to consciousness? Yes.
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Yes.
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Does it reflect a deeper underlying reality? Yes.
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How deep is that underlying? Well, let's say, okay, it's a story about the psyche. And then let's say, well, no, it's a story about the psyche in society. So no, it's a story about the psyche in society, in the natural world. Well, what's underneath that?
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But assuming that you're relatively well embedded in the realm of the normal, then you're moving towards something better always. Because otherwise there's no motivation. We know this technically. This isn't even disputable. So...
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Well, that's not as primitive a conceptualization as the atheists would have you believe. What is it you believe? Well, there isn't anything more complex in the known universe than a human brain.
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So if you want a model for reality as such, like proclaiming that it has something akin to the structure of the human psyche is not an absurd claim, given that that is the most complex thing by far that we know of. By far.
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Well, I've been explaining it. But I mean, I did say, I mentioned something which we skipped over very quickly because I introduced it too rapidly. Postmodernists figured out that we live in a story, but then they leapt to a faulty conclusion. of two forms, well, three. There's no uniting story. That was one of their conclusions.
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In fact, the definition of postmodernism is skepticism of meta narratives. There's no uniting story. It's like, well, that's a stupid theory because there's no union. So what? There's just diversity. Well, we worship diversity now in this utterly foolish manner. There's no difference between diversity and war. Without a uniting narrative, there's nothing but war. So, no, that's not going to work.
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Wrong. Hedonistic self-gratification. There's Michel Foucault for you. Do a T. It's like, why is that wrong? Why can't people just do what they want with whoever they want all the time? Because it defeats itself and quickly. It's not a sustainable game. If it's all about you and your whims, I don't want to be anywhere near you. And that won't be so good for you. That's not going to work. Power.
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That's really where the postmodernists landed with their, what would you say, temptation to turn towards Marx. It's all about power. It's like, first of all, that's probably a confession, if that's what you believe. And second, no, it's not. Try tyrannizing your wife and see how well that works for you. Try tyrannizing yourself and see how successful you are. Power is not the game.
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Okay, what's the game? What's the story? I mentioned earlier, It's voluntary self-sacrifice. Right, you offer yourself up in the service of something higher. That's the basis of society. That's the basis of psychological stability. The Christian insistence is that that's the basis of the world.
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The positive emotion systems that make you enthusiastic, so that fill you with the desire to move towards a goal, independent of fear, say, you know, because you could move towards a safety goal because you're afraid, but imagine you're trying to accomplish something. You have a goal. The positive emotion systems operate to track progress to the goal.
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I think that the claim that Christ is the embodiment of the prophet and the laws, I think that's true.
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Yeah. That's complicated. It's very, very complicated.
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Yeah. I think if you understand what that means, that it's indisputable. I'll give you a brief... Explanation of why.
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The idea there is that there's no difference between making that assumption and then actually beginning to address those problems. And there's no difference between that which best addresses the problems of mankind and the divine. Those are the same thing.
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And I can't see how that can be otherwise, because the contrary hypothesis would be that you would adapt best to your life by avoiding things that are difficult and terrifying. And no one believes that. And so the pattern of the passion, this is the voluntary self-sacrifice issue taken to its extreme.
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The pattern of the passion is the decision to voluntarily confront and welcome anything that happens to you, no matter what it is. And That's a terrible thing to ask or endeavor to undertake, but, well, the alternative is to shrink away. Well, the spirit of shrinking away is the divine. It's like, I don't think so. Like, that's preposterous.
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The spirit of unlimited courage, well, that's not a bad start for a definition of what constitutes the divine. the highest possible value.
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Oh, yeah. Well, and I was in extreme pain For three years. Right. I went through three years where every minute of my life was worse than any minute I had ever had previous to that. It was terrible. And did I lose faith? Was it questioned? Challenged? Absolutely. Absolutely. It just became absurd. It was absurd. So many things had gone off the rails. My wife was dying. My daughter was ill.
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Things had blown up around me in 50 different ways, and I was like seriously in pain. It was terrible. I was walking like 12 miles a day because I couldn't sit. I did that for months. Winter, rain, whenever. I had a friend who walked with me. It was terrible. And yeah, I mean, I thought, what was the desperation? It wasn't even the pain.
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Positive emotion is a consequence of evidence of movement towards a desired goal. Okay, so now... You have a proximal goal, you know, like our proximal goal right now might be just to, like in the most micro level possible, might be to display facial signs of interest in the conversation, right? It's a very micro goal, but then that's nested in our desire to have an interesting conversation.
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It was the fact that I was in such terrible shape that I felt that I was a felt. I believed that I was a burden to everyone around me and that that was only likely to get worse. And I thought, what's the sense in this? What's the possible significance of this? So yes, everyone's faith is challenged. I mean, Christ himself cries in despair out to God on the cross.
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And the story wouldn't be believable without that. Like, if you're going to live, you're going to be pushed past your limit.
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But who knows what you discover when you push past your limit.
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I think generally, if you love someone, it's worse to see them suffer than to suffer yourself. You certainly figure that out when you have kids.
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We're both alive. My family's thriving.
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my adventure is expanding life isn't fair is it doesn't appear to be very fair because i mean this is how your story ended in that regard but it is i don't know if an adventure is fair i don't even know if that's what we want like this is something i really came to understand more deeply when writing this book what are we built for we're built for maximal challenge
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And that isn't the way we view ourselves in the modern world. We view ourselves as built for pleasure, you know, pornography. We view ourselves as built for consumption or for safety or maybe for egotistical self-aggrandizement and fame. Look, all of those things are better than their absence, let's say.
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You know, I think part of the reason that Andrew Tate is so popular among young men, because it's better to be a successful reprobate than a useless scrounger. Seriously. I mean, seriously. But that's why the villain in stories is often admirable compared to the coward. Right? At least the villain is out there, like, doing villain things. You know?
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The villain's on a quest of sorts. And a committed villain can learn. That's another thing too. What are we built for? I think we're built for maximal challenge. And that's way more interesting. I mean, one of the things that... See, I figured out that lies... that totalitarian states were a consequence of lies in about 1985. I really figured it out. I'd been reading Solzhenitsyn and Carl Jung.
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I'd been reading. I was reading a lot. I was really obsessed by it. I thought, oh, I see. So hell is the dominion of the lie. OK, so what do you do about that? Well, you stop lying. That's how you fight it. And that means you do that in your own life. You just stop just. You practice stopping. You practice not doing the things you know you shouldn't do.
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You practice paying attention to your words to see if they're landing solidly and they make you confident instead of weak. You abandon your short-term desire for control and power, understanding that there isn't anything better that can happen to you than what happens if you tell the truth. No matter what it looks like to you in the moment.
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It's a strange thing, but I can't see how it could be otherwise, because you'd have to hypothesize that you're going to align yourself with life, with nature, with society, with God, with yourself, by lying. No one believes that. You might think you can get away with it. That's way different, right? But no one believes that. So... Well, so then what happens in consequence of that?
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on the topic we're having right now, and then inside the podcast as a whole, and then as part of the podcast enterprise that you're involved in, as part of the book enterprise, let's say, that I'm involved in, that's nested inside our view of the world, right? So you see, there are nestings of the good that have no upper limit. That's Jacob's ladder, by the way.
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Well, I think what happens in consequence of that is what happened to Abraham. Your life just goes like this. Just opens and opens and opens and opens. And I don't think there's any limit to that. And that's ridiculously entertaining. Like unbearably entertaining. There's what you want in your life. You want it to be unbearably entertaining.
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And it's funny, you know, when you watch people go to movies, I mean, James Bond, right? That's an unbearably entertaining life. And that's what people want to see when they go to a theater because that's what they want. That's what they want. And maybe all the sorrow and catastrophe that's part of that has to be part of it because otherwise there's nothing about it that's glorious.
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And I don't know, maybe as you ascend uphill, your understanding of the chasm between the peaks and valleys also increases. You know, because you think maybe as you're successful, you're happier. Well, first of all, I'm not sure that success and happiness are the same thing. I'm not sure that we want them to be the same thing. I don't even know what people mean when they say they want to be happy.
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If you investigate it technically, you'll find out that really what people mean when they say they want to be happy is that they don't want to suffer. That's different than the enthusiastic joy that you might think about, you know, that's part and parcel of a child's laughter. You want to be happy. What, do you want to be laughing all the time? Is that what you're saying?
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Well, no, that's not what I mean. Well, what do you mean? Do you mean the gratification that comes along with the cookie at one in the morning? No, that's not what I mean. Well, okay, what do you mean? Well, I don't know. It's like, yeah, you don't know. Partly what you mean is you don't want pointless suffering. Fair enough. But that doesn't mean it's happiness that's your goal.
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I don't think that's your goal. I don't think your podcast would be successful if that was your goal. I think you would have washed up on the shoals of triviality long ago. I do. Well, there's something you're doing that's working. There's something about the way you're approaching the situation that's of broad appeal. There's some archetypal pattern that's
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you're acting out in your conduct in your podcast. Because otherwise it wouldn't have the effect it has.
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We talked about some of it. You know, you said that you can... you can apprehend the outline of some of the principles. Some of that you probably discovered as you went along, rather than putting them in place to begin with. This seems to work. So that's a discovery of a pathway.
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Yeah, yeah.
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And at the top of that is the good itself, which is the divine for all intents and purposes.
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Yeah, well, you're also in a situation then when you have to start worrying about your reputation, which is something you don't have to worry about when no one knows who you are. And it's very dangerous to worry about your reputation. As soon as you start worrying about your reputation as a podcaster, you're going to fail. Because you're not interesting then. You'll stop taking risks.
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So then another question emerges. You've got people yelling at you from this side and this side. Well, how do you know what's right? Well, it isn't... Partly it's by listening because you want to pay attention to your audience. But there's something guiding you if you do what you're doing properly that has nothing to do with the clamor.
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Yeah, yeah. Well, that's a very good illustration of distributed identity.
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Yeah, yeah. It's like you are your wife and your friends and your family.
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Right? There's no – fundamentally there's, there cannot be any separation there. That's yeah. And when you, you said you've experienced that, it's like, that's what gives you, that's part of what gives you a foundation. It's like, yeah, that's not illusory.
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That's a definition. That's what I mean, is that in the hierarchy of what's good, the divine is the peak.
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Yeah.
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Well, it might be that death is what makes things matter.
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Well, right. But then we're talking about a kind of ultimate scarcity. And like you can ask yourself, one of the fundamental questions you can ask yourself is what is the nature of the real, right? And I think death makes things real.
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Yeah.
The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett
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How do you pick your guests?
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Yeah. I pick people I want to talk to. It's like, I'd like to hear what that person has to say.
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Right. Now, you don't know what that is. That's also an insistence in the biblical texts, by the way. In the final analysis, the divine is ineffable. It's not definable. And it's beyond you. And that's partly because there's a practical reason for that even. You know this as well. As you move towards a goal, let's say you attain a goal. Okay, now you've accomplished. Well, are you done?
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That's the word Israel, eh? That's what Israel means.
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And that's the chosen people of God, Israel. I didn't know that.
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Well, there's no reason. So when I'm on stage lecturing, I'm on a journey, right? It's a real journey. It's not an act. I pose a question to myself before I go on stage. It's a question I want the answer to and I don't have. And I go on stage and I try to move towards the answer. And people come along and I want to go there and they want to come along. It's a good deal.
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And the podcasts are like that. If you're doing them honestly, it's like, I want to talk to this person.
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Well, and it'll change as you approach it. The questions and the answers change as you move towards it. That's okay.
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Things last way less long than you think. So you should be aware of that and not take things for granted. And I don't think I took my parents for granted. Now, did I do that perfectly? Well, we don't do things perfectly, but it was pretty good. It was pretty good. I learned when my... I watched my wife's family go through the death of their mother.
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And one of the consequences of that was that my wife and her siblings and her father pulled closer together during that time. And that really... It was like a wound healing, you know? And so I saw that and I saw that that worked. So, for example, Tammy... has a stronger relationship with her older brother than she did before her father also died.
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So we lost her father and my father and my mother this year, basically. It isn't that her brother substituted for her father, but it was that there was more there than she had made use of. And so when her father departed... the possibility of expanding that relationship with her brother was on the table. And I did the same thing with my sister and my brother.
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Even in grief, there's opportunity.
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He taught that very well. And it wasn't a good idea to not pay attention around my father. I wouldn't describe him as an easy person. He had high standards, and he was rather unforgiving. I don't know. Do you forgive the people that you love for not being everything they could be? That's a hard question. It's okay, dear. It's like, is it now? I think we have a lot of that in our culture.
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It's like, no, a new potential goal emerges, a new pinnacle. And then maybe you'll accomplish that. But then a new one exists. And so you could say that the domain of opportunity is limitless. Right. Because the thing that's at the pinnacle recedes as you approach it. And you could say that's a technical definition of God, which is accurate. That is a technical definition of God.
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It's okay. I like you just like you are.
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I don't think there... My dad and I sorted out our differences a long time ago. You know, when I left home... Our relationship was somewhat fractious from the time I was 13 to the time I left home. He developed quite a severe depression, which ran in my family, and that made him harder to understand than had been the case previously.
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It also made the probability that if there were events in the household, that they would be... They'd have more... reverberation than they would have otherwise. And that was confusing to me. I understood why that happened later, not much later. And it wasn't very long after I left home that whatever differences I had with my father were irrelevant.
The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett
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So we didn't really have unresolved issues, I wouldn't say. What about your mother? What's the one lesson? My mom was great.
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My mother was a very hospitable person. And in the Old Testament accounts, hospitality is a cardinal virtue. And she was very good at making people welcome. The day my mother died, I thought about her most of the day that day. Memories came to mind. And one of the things I realized about my mother was that I don't have a single negative memory of my mother.
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It's really quite something to know someone for 62 years. And really, I really don't have a negative memory of my mother.
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Yeah, oh, definitely.
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I appreciated that a lot. And she, although she was a very agreeable person and a very feminine person, she was tough too. And she wasn't a Oedipal type. You know, she had strong protective instincts, but her desire to help her children become independent trumped that for sure.
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I think the people who don't like me, some of them have me confused with some figment of their imagination. Some of the people who don't like me, they understand me. They just don't like what they understand. They don't like what it implies. And so that's okay with me. I don't feel misunderstood, I wouldn't say.
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People who've been listening to me, they understand me. And as far as I can tell, that's been very good for them. And that's unbelievably gratifying for me. You must experience that. I mean, your podcast has had a broad effect. and I presume a positive effect on people. There isn't anything better than that, to see that what you're doing has that broadly... salutary effect. That's great.
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That's another indication of our essentially, I would say, religious nature. You know, Jocko Willink told me this. You know, Jocko said that he could have easily been like a gang leader, criminal type. He's a tough warrior character, you know.
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God is the good towards which all goods point. These are definitions again. Remember, they're not proclamations of faith. They're definitions. So we obviously all believe that All good things share something in common because otherwise we wouldn't have the category good. And then we all believe that there are rank orders of good because otherwise everything good would be equally worth pursuing.
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And he said when he went into the military, he discovered that being the leader of a team and moving people in a positive direction, there wasn't anything better than And so that just straightened them out. And I feel exactly the same way. There isn't anything better than that. And so I'm able to do that. And I see the evidence of that all the time.
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And whatever misunderstandings there might be about me, necessary or unnecessary, are so trivial compared to that that they don't even really register. What a privilege.
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Thank you. You bet. Thanks for the invitation again.
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No one believes that. So there's a rank order. Well, if there's a rank orders towards some end or some pinnacle, you can also think about it as a foundation. Depends on which metaphorical landscape you want to inhabit. Then the question becomes, well, how do you characterize that which is the ultimate aim, that which is and should be the ultimate aim?
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Well, the stories on which our culture is predicated characterize that in story.
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Okay. One of the things the psychoanalytic thinkers insisted on, Carl Jung in particular, was that everybody acts out a story. Sometimes it's a tragic story. Sometimes it's the story of hell. Like you're trapped in a story. one way or another. Now, do you know the contours of your story? Not necessarily. I mean, people are often very bad at describing themselves.
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They don't know what they're up to. That doesn't mean they're not up to something. And you can also think about them as the battleground between warring stories. That also happens. That just means they're are fractionated in their psyche. They're being pulled in many directions at the same time.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
513. Hollywood Undone and the Return to Comedy | Rob Schneider
You can thank the universities for that realization, definitely.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
513. Hollywood Undone and the Return to Comedy | Rob Schneider
We talked about the direction in which entertainment is likely to go in the near future. We talked about the role of Hollywood in its own demise, preferring the politically correct pathway to the pathway of genuine artistic commitment and also genuine humor. We talked about our hopes that maybe that is coming to an end.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
513. Hollywood Undone and the Return to Comedy | Rob Schneider
At least under some circumstances, yeah.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
513. Hollywood Undone and the Return to Comedy | Rob Schneider
So basically, your observation is that a variety of There were a variety of causal factors that gave rise to what happened during the pandemic, and the pandemic crystallized it. It did. Yeah, yeah.
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513. Hollywood Undone and the Return to Comedy | Rob Schneider
pronounced minority of people in the world who have anything approximating the right to free speech, right? That's very rare. So the fact that we take it for granted is something like a miracle. It's a foolish miracle in a way, because the fact that it's barely existed throughout human history and barely exists now attests to the difficulty of establishing a state where that's the expectation.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
513. Hollywood Undone and the Return to Comedy | Rob Schneider
Our curiosity about what the comedians, especially the successful comedians on the center right, let's say, the podcasters, for example, who've been spectacularly successful over the last five or six years, What they're going to turn to now in the aftermath of the Trump victory.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
513. Hollywood Undone and the Return to Comedy | Rob Schneider
So I think... See, it's a funny thing, too, because it isn't only that you have the right to free speech. It's actually because you would only characterize it that way if you believe that free speech was something like a hedonic pleasure, right? I can say whatever I want. But that underplays the importance of the principle because you have a responsibility to free speech.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
513. Hollywood Undone and the Return to Comedy | Rob Schneider
And the fact that you can speak freely might be desirable to you and it might even make you happy, although sometimes it wouldn't.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
513. Hollywood Undone and the Return to Comedy | Rob Schneider
Provide a living too.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
513. Hollywood Undone and the Return to Comedy | Rob Schneider
Yes, for you. Well, yeah, for anybody creative, which is a crucial thing to understand, right? Creative people only have the freedom of their creative expression. That's what they have to offer. But part of the, there's a huge advantage to me that you have the right to free speech because I get to hear what you think. And so if you're wrong, I can learn how things are wrong.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
513. Hollywood Undone and the Return to Comedy | Rob Schneider
And if you're right, then I can listen to you and not have to suffer through whatever you had to suffer through to become wise in that manner, right? Well, I'm pointing this out because we make a big mistake when we think of free, the right to free speech as a hedonic right. Right.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
513. Hollywood Undone and the Return to Comedy | Rob Schneider
Well, it's also the way to ensure that not only that society is protected from tyranny, but that it thrives. Because from a psychological perspective, there's very little difference between freedom of speech and the right to think. And thought is how you adapt to changing circumstances. And so
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
513. Hollywood Undone and the Return to Comedy | Rob Schneider
The fact that the United States is the most dynamic economy in the world is a direct consequence of the fact that free speech rights are so well protected here. Because there can be people like Elon Musk here.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
513. Hollywood Undone and the Return to Comedy | Rob Schneider
Right.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
513. Hollywood Undone and the Return to Comedy | Rob Schneider
Right, and he's... firing in 15 directions at the same time. Right. And he can do that.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
513. Hollywood Undone and the Return to Comedy | Rob Schneider
Because?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
513. Hollywood Undone and the Return to Comedy | Rob Schneider
Well, because, yeah, because the right is established. And the consequence of that is that we all benefit from it.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
513. Hollywood Undone and the Return to Comedy | Rob Schneider
What role are the comedians as critics going to play now that the tide has turned and there's a new king in town, so to speak. So that's going to be very interesting. We talked about, well, we talked about Rob's book, which is a testament to the power of free speech. We talked about the fact that he...
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
513. Hollywood Undone and the Return to Comedy | Rob Schneider
Now all the people in Delaware are very unhappy with you.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
513. Hollywood Undone and the Return to Comedy | Rob Schneider
Junior staffers educated at Ivy League universities.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
513. Hollywood Undone and the Return to Comedy | Rob Schneider
decided to turn in the conservative direction for a liberal relatively early on in the course of the culture war, really starting to get involved in the political and not in the typical Hollywood manner by about 2014. And we discussed why that happened and what it meant and what the consequences have been for his career and potentially for the future. So join us for that.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
513. Hollywood Undone and the Return to Comedy | Rob Schneider
Yeah, well, it's an odd thing that the worst possible consequence of a terrorist attack is that it isn't the attack itself. It's the reaction to the attack that makes the attack successful. Well, I mean, a lot of... Well, you know, I hate airports. I hate them. I was unbearable to travel with my wife for like 10 years. We finally figured out how to work it out.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
513. Hollywood Undone and the Return to Comedy | Rob Schneider
But every time I went into an airport after 9-11, I thought... They're training everybody to accept the doctrines of a totalitarian state. You have to line up like sheep to do stupid things that mean nothing, that give you the illusion of security, implemented by faceless authoritarians and then acted out by powerless minions. And then you get used to it. Well, that's the problem.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
513. Hollywood Undone and the Return to Comedy | Rob Schneider
Everybody goes through airports. And so I think that you can see the... What would you say? Deterioration. The forefront of the authoritarian movement is in airports, and you can see that right now, because now, increasingly, as you board a plane, they want to take your photo.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
513. Hollywood Undone and the Return to Comedy | Rob Schneider
So far, you can refuse.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
513. Hollywood Undone and the Return to Comedy | Rob Schneider
Yeah, right.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
513. Hollywood Undone and the Return to Comedy | Rob Schneider
It's like, oh, I see, so you can pay to circumvent the security as long as you accept the authoritarian presumptions, right?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
513. Hollywood Undone and the Return to Comedy | Rob Schneider
Which meant his attack was very successful. Because, you know, how much did that cost? How much has that cost us, just economically?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
513. Hollywood Undone and the Return to Comedy | Rob Schneider
Right. And then it's replicated everywhere at once. I know Siemens, I think it was Siemens, put in these new scanners, right? They're like cat scanners. Yeah, they're like medical scanners. Yeah, I know. It's like you can't get a medical scan, but your luggage can. Yeah, for free. Right. Which is also pretty strange, all things considered.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
513. Hollywood Undone and the Return to Comedy | Rob Schneider
That'll be really interesting.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
513. Hollywood Undone and the Return to Comedy | Rob Schneider
It's the same thing. It's also very hard to get rid of something once it's there.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
513. Hollywood Undone and the Return to Comedy | Rob Schneider
Well, you have a constituency that's agitating for it desperately, right? Because, well, they're very dependent upon it once it's in place.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
513. Hollywood Undone and the Return to Comedy | Rob Schneider
It's fundamentally none, right? And certainly not at the level of detectability because your false positive rate is like a billion to one. That's not good. That's not good. Everybody's a potential hijacker. It's like, no, like almost no one is a potential hijacker. No matter who you single out, the probability that you're wrong is overwhelming.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
513. Hollywood Undone and the Return to Comedy | Rob Schneider
So I've been making my way through this, You Can Do It, and I want to ask you some questions about what I derived from reading it. So it seems to me to be fair to say that you're part of the club of, what would you say? unwitting and surprised conservatives. Yes. Right? I mean, you characterize yourself in the book as a classic liberal. That's always how I've thought of myself.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
513. Hollywood Undone and the Return to Comedy | Rob Schneider
And yeah, the question is, how much damage do you do in that false pursuit of security? I mean, in London- Many of the buildings, there's a bit of this in New York, but many of the buildings in London have the same sort of security that airports do. People just get more and more accustomed to it. They do.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
513. Hollywood Undone and the Return to Comedy | Rob Schneider
That's right, exactly.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
513. Hollywood Undone and the Return to Comedy | Rob Schneider
So one of the things that's worth pointing out with regards to the precursors for the COVID authoritarian lockdown, let's say, is what, again, what happened in the universities. Because people don't understand this, and it's really important.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
513. Hollywood Undone and the Return to Comedy | Rob Schneider
Because people generally look at the universities and they think that there's a battle raging in the universities about who should be allowed to speak freely. That's what cancel culture is. That's not the battle. That radically understates the significance of the actual battle.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
513. Hollywood Undone and the Return to Comedy | Rob Schneider
Because what is poorly understood by people, especially the moderates on the left, is that the postmodernists dispensed with the idea of free speech itself. They don't believe that progressives should have the right to free speech and no one else should. They believe that the metaphysics of the idea of free speech is false.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
513. Hollywood Undone and the Return to Comedy | Rob Schneider
So for the typical postmodernist, so the Enlightenment or maybe even the Judeo-Christian assumption is that, you know, you're a sovereign authority of sorts as an individual.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
513. Hollywood Undone and the Return to Comedy | Rob Schneider
Right.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
513. Hollywood Undone and the Return to Comedy | Rob Schneider
With... inalienable value. And one of the consequences of that is that you have a viewpoint and that that viewpoint has intrinsic value. And so, and I'm the same sort of being. And that means that if I listen to your viewpoint, we can come to an accord with one another that might be of mutual benefit. And so exchanging our ideas is not only beneficial, it's possible.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
513. Hollywood Undone and the Return to Comedy | Rob Schneider
That isn't what the postmodernists think. They think there's no game but power. And so no matter what I say, you made reference to this earlier, where you're the unwitting oppressor. Well, that stems logically from the tenets of postmodernism because the postmodern insistence is that the only game in town is one of power. It doesn't matter what you say you're doing, that's completely irrelevant.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
513. Hollywood Undone and the Return to Comedy | Rob Schneider
You are, whether you know it or not,
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
513. Hollywood Undone and the Return to Comedy | Rob Schneider
immersed in a power game and the power game is defined by your what would you call it intersectional privilege right it's the intersection of the various group identities that give you an unearned superiority and power over other people and when you're uttering your opinions all you're doing is providing a post-hoc justification for your privilege that's it no other game so
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
513. Hollywood Undone and the Return to Comedy | Rob Schneider
The challenge that the postmodernists levied against Western culture is much deeper than arguments about who should speak freely. It's an assault on the idea of the metaphysics of freedom itself. The postmodernists believe none of that, none of it.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
513. Hollywood Undone and the Return to Comedy | Rob Schneider
Although I would say I'm more conservative in my views than I was 10 years ago. That might be age to some degree, because people do get more conservative as they get older. I think so. I've thought through conservatism a bit more and realized why I'm more conservative than I thought. Or maybe I realized under what conditions classic liberalism still retains its function.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
513. Hollywood Undone and the Return to Comedy | Rob Schneider
Well, you talked about a kind of sleight of hand that, and I still haven't been able to puzzle this out entirely because the French postmodernists were the first, the most influential thinkers who levied this challenge to the metaphysics of the West.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
513. Hollywood Undone and the Return to Comedy | Rob Schneider
But they did ally themselves with the Marxists, which is very strange because the first dictum of the postmodernists is that there's no uniting metanarrative. There's no story that unites us. There's just a plethora of Hydra heads everywhere, and they're all involved in power games. But despite making that claim metaphysically, they did ally themselves with the Marxists.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
513. Hollywood Undone and the Return to Comedy | Rob Schneider
And I don't know if the Marxism came first and the postmodernism was a rationalization for that. It's probably something like that, because partly what happened in the 1970s, even in France, because there's nothing more intransigent to evidence than a French intellectual,
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
513. Hollywood Undone and the Return to Comedy | Rob Schneider
was that the failure of the Marxist system on economic grounds and humanitarian grounds became absolutely incontrovertible in the 1970s. No one could stand up and say, that's not real communism. That just became impossible, especially after Solzhenitsyn. And so what happened was the French in particular played this sleight of hand game where the axis of oppression shifted from the economic
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
513. Hollywood Undone and the Return to Comedy | Rob Schneider
to the cultural or the racial or the sexual, right? And that's fine, because you can play an oppression game on multiple dimensions. That's what intersectionality is. And so that's how that all arose. And then I think partly the left, the liberals on the left, we talked earlier about the fact that, you know, you're a liberal who decided to be sane instead of insane.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
513. Hollywood Undone and the Return to Comedy | Rob Schneider
I kind of think to some degree, I've been trying to think this through most recently. See, after the election, commentators on CNN, MSNBC and so forth woke up to the fact that the conservatives had taken over the new media. Joe Rogan being an example. And so this is very comical to me for a variety of reasons, partly because Rogan is a very weird conservative.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
513. Hollywood Undone and the Return to Comedy | Rob Schneider
So anyways, you describe yourself as a classic liberal.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
513. Hollywood Undone and the Return to Comedy | Rob Schneider
He would say more liberal leaning than anything. More progressive. He voted for Bernie Sanders. But there's a coda to that story, which is that I know all the main podcasters quite well. And we invited the DNC. to speak to us in 2017. There were eight of us.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
513. Hollywood Undone and the Return to Comedy | Rob Schneider
Ben Shapiro was one, Dave Rubin, me, Rogan, like a whole, Brett Weinstein, a whole group of us made a formal offer to the Democrats to speak with us, no games. And we pushed that for six years. This is all documented. And they all knew it. The message went out to pretty much all the Democrat congressmen and the senators. And I spoke to many of them behind the scenes.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
513. Hollywood Undone and the Return to Comedy | Rob Schneider
They wouldn't speak to me publicly. We never got one in seven years who would agree to speak to us and now they're saying well, you know The Conservatives put billions of dollars into this new media, which is of course complete bloody rubbish Rogan's enterprise is Rogan and his producer.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
513. Hollywood Undone and the Return to Comedy | Rob Schneider
It's a pronounced minority of people in the world who have anything approximating the right to free speech. So the fact that we take it for granted is something like a miracle.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
513. Hollywood Undone and the Return to Comedy | Rob Schneider
And the universities.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
513. Hollywood Undone and the Return to Comedy | Rob Schneider
Free speech triumph.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
513. Hollywood Undone and the Return to Comedy | Rob Schneider
It's so insanely preposterous, all of that. None of these people were capitalized. Every single person who became a notable podcaster almost all of them were, many of them were comedians, which is extremely funny.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
513. Hollywood Undone and the Return to Comedy | Rob Schneider
It is, it is. And we will return to that. But also, many of them were disenfranchised Liberals, right? Rogan, Rubin, me, I would say. Absolutely. Grant Weinstein, for sure.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
513. Hollywood Undone and the Return to Comedy | Rob Schneider
And I would say Elon Musk, he would put in that category too. Yeah, well, and maybe even Trump. Although he's not a podcaster, obviously, neither is Musk. But the same sort of thing.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
513. Hollywood Undone and the Return to Comedy | Rob Schneider
Yeah. you'd have to say he's a New Yorker. Yeah, right. Yeah, yeah, definitely. Now, okay, so let's return to that. Now, you said that, you know, you were a liberal who decided to stay sane. Okay, so now you spent a lot of time in the Hollywood milieu. And so I've got two questions for you. It's like, what do you think was the difference?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
513. Hollywood Undone and the Return to Comedy | Rob Schneider
What do you think the difference is between you, let's say, and your decision to remain sane and the decision that 95% of the people in Hollywood took to become insane liberals, really much to their own detriment. My sense is, and you tell me what you think about this, I think the Hollywood liberals killed celebrity culture.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
513. Hollywood Undone and the Return to Comedy | Rob Schneider
And happily. Why?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
513. Hollywood Undone and the Return to Comedy | Rob Schneider
Yes, well, thank God for capitalism.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
513. Hollywood Undone and the Return to Comedy | Rob Schneider
Seriously, it's a very reliable ethos, greed. It is not the highest form of morality by any stretch of the imagination, but it's predictable and it's self-correcting. If I know you're motivated by money, we could work together. I mean, I could imagine there would be circumstances under which that might not go so well for me, but most of the time I can predict exactly what you're going to do.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
513. Hollywood Undone and the Return to Comedy | Rob Schneider
Yeah, right. We could agree that we both want to make money.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
513. Hollywood Undone and the Return to Comedy | Rob Schneider
That's what universities are for. They're to bastardize words.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
513. Hollywood Undone and the Return to Comedy | Rob Schneider
They delayed it for two years. I know. And it's going to fail cataclysmically.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
513. Hollywood Undone and the Return to Comedy | Rob Schneider
I think people are... I watched some of the previews. It's ugly as sin. Like the animation is... This is one of the things that's so interesting about woke illustration in particular. There is nothing uglier than woke illustrations. They're so talentless. It must be the fact that... The people without talent rely on their political credibility to advance. Because their talent alone won't do it.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
513. Hollywood Undone and the Return to Comedy | Rob Schneider
Well, the postmodern types don't believe in inspiration, right? They only believe in power. Like seriously. And so all that inspiration stuff, that's merit. That's just another, what, offshoot of European imperialism, that whole idea.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
513. Hollywood Undone and the Return to Comedy | Rob Schneider
So it's strange to see the Hollywood celebrity crowd subordinate their art ethically to politics. It's fear.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
513. Hollywood Undone and the Return to Comedy | Rob Schneider
Well, the other thing, too, is that fundamentally... you know, and I've probably been sinful in this regard to some degree, you actually don't want to know what celebrities think politically. First of all, it's no more interesting than what anyone else thinks politically.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
513. Hollywood Undone and the Return to Comedy | Rob Schneider
Or if you disagree with Joey Reed, like you're a Nazi, definitely.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
513. Hollywood Undone and the Return to Comedy | Rob Schneider
Theo Vaughn, corporate mogul. You know, it's so insane.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
513. Hollywood Undone and the Return to Comedy | Rob Schneider
It's Joe Rogan. And it's so interesting, too, that all of this was successful despite all that suppression. It wasn't just that the Democrats controlled the legacy media, let's say, and the major tech companies and the universities. They were actually using those entities to squelch, I would say, classic liberal and conservative voices. And it didn't work.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
513. Hollywood Undone and the Return to Comedy | Rob Schneider
We're pro-death penalty. It all depends on what the definition of the word is, is. you know, whatever.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
513. Hollywood Undone and the Return to Comedy | Rob Schneider
So we reiterated, a group of us again reiterated our invitation to sane Democrats, or any Democrats for that matter, to come and talk. Now, I have a question for you about that, because I spent quite a lot of time, well, part of it was this invitation back in 2016 to the Democrats to talk. That never went anywhere, although, as I said, I met many of them behind the scenes.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
513. Hollywood Undone and the Return to Comedy | Rob Schneider
That was always interesting. I always asked the Democrats I met, many senators and congressmen,
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
513. Hollywood Undone and the Return to Comedy | Rob Schneider
when the left goes too far and none of them would answer that there was no cut off and you know people on the progressive side even the liberal side aren't very good with borders and boundaries and because they like the free flow of information and there's some positive things about that but it makes it very difficult for them to defend themselves against ideological infiltrators and you know the first time i interviewed rfk i asked him
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
513. Hollywood Undone and the Return to Comedy | Rob Schneider
when the left goes too far. And he said he didn't want to run that sort of divisive campaign. And the second time I interviewed him, all he did was talk about when the left goes too far.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
513. Hollywood Undone and the Return to Comedy | Rob Schneider
Yeah, okay, so let's delve into that a little bit. I mean, I think one of the compelling differences or the compelling definitional features of classic liberalism is the insistence that it's the individual, that human beings should be regarded as individuals first and foremost, right? Is that the fact of your singular individuality is the defining hallmark of your identity. Yes, I agree.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
513. Hollywood Undone and the Return to Comedy | Rob Schneider
So I have a moral quandary about this invitation to the Democrats to talk. Well, because there's two positions you could take, right? One is find the reasonable people and help them
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
513. Hollywood Undone and the Return to Comedy | Rob Schneider
make their case both within the party and to the public and that would be predicated on the idea that it would be better to have a healthy two-party system yes right where both parties were reasonable and moderate and sane and they're functioning effectively as opposed forces. In good faith. In good faith, yes. But there's another viewpoint, which is tyrants have to burn before they learn, right?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
513. Hollywood Undone and the Return to Comedy | Rob Schneider
And like I've seen in 10 years of talking with Democrats, I've seen very little evidence whatsoever that, like all the Democrats I talked to, they didn't believe the radical left existed. For example, I don't think I talked to a single moderate Democrat who believed that there was a difference between equity and equality of opportunity.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
513. Hollywood Undone and the Return to Comedy | Rob Schneider
All the modern, every single one of them, I swear this is true. They said, I said, well, equity means equality of outcome, which is what Kamala Harris said it meant, which is what all the postmodernists claim. How do we get there together? And their response uniformly to a man and woman was, they don't mean that, they just mean equality of opportunity. Well, and that's, what's his name?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
513. Hollywood Undone and the Return to Comedy | Rob Schneider
That crazy billionaire who insists upon being a Democrat. Jeff Bezos? I mean, which one do you want to talk about? No, no, no. No, no. No, Bezos at least has admitted that the Washington Post has gone too far. Thankfully. The guy who owns the- Omar Cuban. Omar Cuban. Omar Cuban owns the Dallas Mavericks. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
513. Hollywood Undone and the Return to Comedy | Rob Schneider
I mean, Mark insisted publicly on Twitter for like months that the whole idea that equity meant something different than equality of opportunity was a right-wing conspiracy. And I thought, yeah, wow is right. It's like, I don't know where you've been for the last 20 years, Mark, but this is not what's being taught in the universities. And then we have that problem too.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
513. Hollywood Undone and the Return to Comedy | Rob Schneider
It's like, are the Democrats going to sort themselves out? Well, there's a lot of their policy that they have to abandon. All this DEI nonsense has to go. Affirmative action probably has to go because it was the root of all the DEI nonsense, or at least one of them. I mean, the whole oppressor-oppressed narrative has to vanish.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
513. Hollywood Undone and the Return to Comedy | Rob Schneider
There has to be a radical turn back to something like appreciation for the free market. I mean, the Democrats are going to have to turn themselves back into classic liberals.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
513. Hollywood Undone and the Return to Comedy | Rob Schneider
That is an outrageous— With the most consequential potential team.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
513. Hollywood Undone and the Return to Comedy | Rob Schneider
Okay, and I think both conservatism and progressivism can, what would you say, diverge from that. The progressives diverge in that they insist that group identity trumps individual identity, but the conservatives have that proclivity too, right?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
513. Hollywood Undone and the Return to Comedy | Rob Schneider
Yes, yes, definitely. I do want to get to that.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
513. Hollywood Undone and the Return to Comedy | Rob Schneider
I know.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
513. Hollywood Undone and the Return to Comedy | Rob Schneider
I'm going to sell. We can do this together.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
513. Hollywood Undone and the Return to Comedy | Rob Schneider
And happily.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
513. Hollywood Undone and the Return to Comedy | Rob Schneider
Because they might prioritize, especially the more traditional conservative types, as you move farther to the right, they might prioritize religious faith or national identity. And I certainly have always believed that the primary level of analysis when you're dealing with human beings should be the individual, but
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
513. Hollywood Undone and the Return to Comedy | Rob Schneider
God will have no... It's like this person... All the Old Testament prophets were deeply flawed. Yeah, deeply flawed.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
513. Hollywood Undone and the Return to Comedy | Rob Schneider
So do you think it's useful to return to a question that I asked you previously? Is it a better strategy to let the Democrats stew in their own juices for four years and reorganize their party? Or is it better strategy to find sane voices on the moderate Democrat side and highlight them?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
513. Hollywood Undone and the Return to Comedy | Rob Schneider
But I can, seriously. It needs to happen. Yeah, well, I think you can make a strong case for that.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
513. Hollywood Undone and the Return to Comedy | Rob Schneider
It is. What about those 50 people who signed, the 50 former intelligence service workers who signed the document? 51. 51, yeah, who said that.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
513. Hollywood Undone and the Return to Comedy | Rob Schneider
And they all lied. Yeah, they certainly did about something very terrible. And they probably threw the election. Yeah, I would say they definitely, it was such a close election. That's for sure. And it was so well-timed. So what do you do with them?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
513. Hollywood Undone and the Return to Comedy | Rob Schneider
One of the things that I've wrestled with in the last 10 years is maybe the realization that that only works if the bedrock of society is in place. So when the Scots invented liberalism, I think that's a reasonable historical proclamation. it's, there was some unstated elements to their liberalism.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
513. Hollywood Undone and the Return to Comedy | Rob Schneider
Security clearance. Security clearance.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
513. Hollywood Undone and the Return to Comedy | Rob Schneider
Yeah, well, it does seem reasonable to do as little tit-for-tat revenge as possible. It's a weird thing, eh? Because you don't want to avoid the responsibility of bringing people to justice. But it is definitely a sideshow. And the problem with persecuting your political enemies is that you will be their political enemies in no time flat. In one day. Yeah, well, it's a degenerate.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
513. Hollywood Undone and the Return to Comedy | Rob Schneider
That's a Banana Republic game.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
513. Hollywood Undone and the Return to Comedy | Rob Schneider
You see this, there's an old joke in the scientific field about the fact that new ideas...
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
513. Hollywood Undone and the Return to Comedy | Rob Schneider
don't win it's just the the people who held the old ideas that are no longer valid die yeah right right well and this is basically what you're pointing out is that there is a cadre of leadership so to speak on the democrat side that will just be rendered irrelevant and new people who we can't even predict will rise and hopefully some of them will have a vision there's an opportunity right now for
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
513. Hollywood Undone and the Return to Comedy | Rob Schneider
young, competent Democrats, assuming that, well, the problem is, you know, that everyone with any courage has had their voice silenced in that party. So the question is, is there anybody with courage left?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
513. Hollywood Undone and the Return to Comedy | Rob Schneider
And the unstated element was, well, we all share a set of presumptions that we don't have to talk about. We hold these things as self-evident, right? Like the founders of the United States. And if that's the case and it remains the case, then we can be free and be defined as individuals.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
513. Hollywood Undone and the Return to Comedy | Rob Schneider
Yeah, well, maybe that's partly how a two-party democracy actually works, you know, is that the people who are out of power then turn to the people. Well, it could be, right? It could be, yeah. It could easily be that the huge advantage to the system as it's set up is that power flips continually. It does flip. It doesn't matter so much who's in power.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
513. Hollywood Undone and the Return to Comedy | Rob Schneider
When the king dies, chaos breaks out everywhere. It's like the rise of a hydra. Something like that seems to be occurring in the West since about 2012.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
513. Hollywood Undone and the Return to Comedy | Rob Schneider
But it's the same, it seems to be- Well, that has to do with that proclivity to think in terms of group identity. Yes. Yeah, well, you know, in many European countries and also in Canada, the way we solved the problem of the socialists of the liberal side was to have a socialist party. Right, so in Canada, we have the New Democratic Party.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
513. Hollywood Undone and the Return to Comedy | Rob Schneider
Now Trudeau has turned Canadian liberals into people who are farther left than the socialists. And so that's a complete bloody catastrophe.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
513. Hollywood Undone and the Return to Comedy | Rob Schneider
Yeah, well, the bloom has gone off that rose in Canada.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
513. Hollywood Undone and the Return to Comedy | Rob Schneider
And I think white supremacists and confederates.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
513. Hollywood Undone and the Return to Comedy | Rob Schneider
Yeah, I know.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
513. Hollywood Undone and the Return to Comedy | Rob Schneider
Do you know how many people in Canada fly the confederate flag? It's like zero. Zero people. Yeah, but that's one right there.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
513. Hollywood Undone and the Return to Comedy | Rob Schneider
Okay, so let's turn back to Hollywood. Now, you don't seem to have been counseled very effectively. Well, why not? How come?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
513. Hollywood Undone and the Return to Comedy | Rob Schneider
But I mean, you're thriving, I think. I mean, I'm not saying at all that any of this was without a cost. So why don't you walk us through that a little bit?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
513. Hollywood Undone and the Return to Comedy | Rob Schneider
So you already regarded him as credible at that point because of the other work he had done.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
513. Hollywood Undone and the Return to Comedy | Rob Schneider
So that was your first foray into the political and that was essentially, that was in 2014?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
513. Hollywood Undone and the Return to Comedy | Rob Schneider
You're free to... Well, you know that the extermination policies in Nazi Germany started out with the medical community.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
513. Hollywood Undone and the Return to Comedy | Rob Schneider
Well, the problem is if you're smart and you're also celebrated for being smart, you have this terrible temptation to worship your own intelligence, right? That's literally the Luciferian spirit, right? The most... the highest angel in God's heavenly kingdom who goes most spectacularly wrong is Lucifer, right?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
513. Hollywood Undone and the Return to Comedy | Rob Schneider
He's the bringer of light and he's the avatar of the intellect raised to the status of object of worship. And it's absolutely the case that smart people are prone to that temptation. I kind of think that's how God balances the cosmic scales, right? Is that it's really a massive advantage to be biologically blessed with high intelligence, and it's a biological phenomenon. But the temptation.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
513. Hollywood Undone and the Return to Comedy | Rob Schneider
That's the thing, is that it comes along, what it has along with it is the worst of all possible temptations and curses, right?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
513. Hollywood Undone and the Return to Comedy | Rob Schneider
These are now the... That's ground on to some rocky shoals in recent years. Well, this is another thing that I'm really curious about with regards to the renewal on the Democrat side, let's say. Because I can't for the life of me see how the university... I can see how the Democrats can turn themselves around because there's a lot of turnover in politics. But there isn't at the university.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
513. Hollywood Undone and the Return to Comedy | Rob Schneider
Quite the contrary, they're set up so that there is no turnover. And you know, there was reason for that, but In the big universities, all of the faculty are Democrat, and a huge proportion of them are quite radically left. And it's even worse among the administration. So, like, how in the world is that possibly going to be fixed?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
513. Hollywood Undone and the Return to Comedy | Rob Schneider
So the solution to the universities will be capitalism.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
513. Hollywood Undone and the Return to Comedy | Rob Schneider
It'll have to be also.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
513. Hollywood Undone and the Return to Comedy | Rob Schneider
That's a very good place to stop and also well-timed. And I think what we'll do, by the way, for everybody who's watching and listening, if you want to join us on the Daily Wire side, I think we'll spend half an hour there talking about Rob's experiences specifically in Hollywood and what he sees on the horizon for comedy and also for entertainment in general.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
513. Hollywood Undone and the Return to Comedy | Rob Schneider
So if you're inclined, join us on the Daily Wire side. This is Rob's new book, in case you missed it at the beginning. You Can Do It, which is a good message and also a necessary one because even though you have this remarkable experience,
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
513. Hollywood Undone and the Return to Comedy | Rob Schneider
cadre of people in charge on the republican side under trump they're going to need help at every possible level and you know your whole culture here in the united states is predicated on the idea that not only can you do it but you should and if you don't then all hell will break loose so yeah thank you so very good talking to you yeah thanks again everybody for watching and listening you
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
513. Hollywood Undone and the Return to Comedy | Rob Schneider
So I had the opportunity today to sit down in Scottsdale, Arizona, with Rob Schneider, and Rob's been, what, stand-up comedian, a movie star, an author. He's got this new book called You Can Do It, entitled You Can Do It. So we discussed his book. We discussed, well, to some degree, the origins of comedy in Hollywood and the collapse of the Hollywood star system.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
513. Hollywood Undone and the Return to Comedy | Rob Schneider
There's a very old idea that you see replicated in mythological stories and fairy tales and so forth very frequently that when the king dies, let's say, that chaos breaks out everywhere. It's like the rise of a hydra, right? A serpent with a multitude of heads. And something like that seems to be occurring in the West that's accelerated since about 2012.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
513. Hollywood Undone and the Return to Comedy | Rob Schneider
Maybe it's a consequence of the insistence that the patriarchal order should dissolve That's like a variant of the idea that God is dead, the central patriarchal or paternal authority disappears. And the delusional presumption is that the consequence of that dissolution will be the flowering of a kind of untrammeled freedom.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
513. Hollywood Undone and the Return to Comedy | Rob Schneider
But the reality is the dissolution into something like a warring oligarchy where there's multiple sources of power And they're all, what would you say? They're all vying in their particular way for supremacy. And there's a totalitarian spirit that emerges out of that that's very much antithetical to anything approximating freedom.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
513. Hollywood Undone and the Return to Comedy | Rob Schneider
Especially comparatively speaking.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
513. Hollywood Undone and the Return to Comedy | Rob Schneider
It's not that. It's dynasty and oligarchy and authoritarianism and terror.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
Jerusalem & the Axis Mundi | Foundations of the West Episode I with Ben Shapiro
Last year, Daily Wire Plus and I released a fantastic series on the origins of Western culture entitled Foundations of the West. The series had a tremendously positive impact. Because of this, the Daily Wire and I have decided to share the first episode with you free of charge. You're about to watch episode one.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
Jerusalem & the Axis Mundi | Foundations of the West Episode I with Ben Shapiro
Yeah. That's the Jerusalem stone. And there must be strict building codes in Jerusalem. Everything has to be made up. Pretty much, yeah. Yeah, so it gives it a homogeny. Yeah, it's really nice to see that, you know. It makes it feel like a place instead of this. Just hodgepodge. Yeah, which is every modern city now. Exactly.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
Jerusalem & the Axis Mundi | Foundations of the West Episode I with Ben Shapiro
I see the cap.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
Jerusalem & the Axis Mundi | Foundations of the West Episode I with Ben Shapiro
That's what I was told the other day. Cats are quite something.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
Jerusalem & the Axis Mundi | Foundations of the West Episode I with Ben Shapiro
Absolutely. Well, you see that extending itself was particularly in Protestantism, where everything's become propositionalized.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
Jerusalem & the Axis Mundi | Foundations of the West Episode I with Ben Shapiro
So what that would mean is in the absence of a shared drama, which would be embodied, then you can't tolerate propositional deviance.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
Jerusalem & the Axis Mundi | Foundations of the West Episode I with Ben Shapiro
It also might be that if we differ propositionally, we start to differ in terms of our actions so much that we can't inhabit the same space. Exactly. And that would always be the unspoken issue. It's like, well, if you disagree with me on this, what else do you disagree with me about? And how do we know that's commensurate with living together?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
Jerusalem & the Axis Mundi | Foundations of the West Episode I with Ben Shapiro
Western civilization rests on three mighty pillars, Jerusalem, Athens, and Rome. Jerusalem offered a morality based in the spiritual world. Athens concentrated more particularly on the logos revealed in the material domain. Rome offered the advantages and perils of power, empire, and reach. I'm joined on the first part of my journey by the redoubtable Ben Shapiro.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
Jerusalem & the Axis Mundi | Foundations of the West Episode I with Ben Shapiro
Yeah. Well, that's good because that also means you know when you're being good.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
Jerusalem & the Axis Mundi | Foundations of the West Episode I with Ben Shapiro
People find it surprising that the oral traditions are conserved and that the texts are conserved, but the alternative is even more hard to believe, which is that, like, scattered small human populations are stunningly creative enough to modify the texts, and they're not. You know, creative people are actually very rare.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
Jerusalem & the Axis Mundi | Foundations of the West Episode I with Ben Shapiro
And so there are periods of time in the Egyptian dynasties where the archaeological record shows no technological transformation whatsoever for 1,000 years. And Egypt was extremely dynamic by archaic standards. And so the truth of the matter, too, is that the older a story is, the more likely it is to be way older than that.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
Jerusalem & the Axis Mundi | Foundations of the West Episode I with Ben Shapiro
So, because like in a tribal society, the rule in a tribal society is nothing changes for 50,000 years. Right.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
Jerusalem & the Axis Mundi | Foundations of the West Episode I with Ben Shapiro
We discuss the origins of the conflict between, and eventual integration of, the spiritual with the scientific and material. The history of Western civilization begins in Jerusalem. Hmm. That's the cemetery there, eh?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
Jerusalem & the Axis Mundi | Foundations of the West Episode I with Ben Shapiro
One of the things that to me lends historical credence to those sorts of stories is that it doesn't exactly show David in a positive light. So what kind of propaganda is that? Exactly.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
Jerusalem & the Axis Mundi | Foundations of the West Episode I with Ben Shapiro
Yeah, definitely, definitely. And that happens a lot.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
Jerusalem & the Axis Mundi | Foundations of the West Episode I with Ben Shapiro
So people would have carved this out of the rock?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
Jerusalem & the Axis Mundi | Foundations of the West Episode I with Ben Shapiro
All pits are the same. Pretty much.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
Jerusalem & the Axis Mundi | Foundations of the West Episode I with Ben Shapiro
One of the things that's so interesting about this archaeological dig is that People are using the techniques of scientific archaeology to revitalize the interpretive narrative. Because you see the truth of the story revealed in artifact, which is so cool. You were commenting earlier that people have lost faith in Jerusalem, let's say, and are starting to lose faith in Athens too.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
Jerusalem & the Axis Mundi | Foundations of the West Episode I with Ben Shapiro
That's the Mount of Olives. Oh, wow, this is amazing.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
Jerusalem & the Axis Mundi | Foundations of the West Episode I with Ben Shapiro
Maybe because one cannot exist without the other, not in the West. The fact that we had to turn to the object to revitalize the narrative at this time, well, it makes a certain amount of sense conceptually, but it's also quite a striking phenomenon. So yes, this was real. These things happened. whatever real means in a context like that.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
Jerusalem & the Axis Mundi | Foundations of the West Episode I with Ben Shapiro
In it, Ben Shapiro and I discuss the lasting impact Jerusalem has made on Western culture, bridging the gap between man and God. The rest of the five-part docuseries is available exclusively on Daily Wire+. There you'll find all episodes, as well as additional bonus content. I traveled alongside my esteemed colleagues...
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
Jerusalem & the Axis Mundi | Foundations of the West Episode I with Ben Shapiro
We're in Jerusalem because the Jews converged on the idea that the central reality of the world was something like an animating spirit. Where's the Garden of Gethsemane?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
Jerusalem & the Axis Mundi | Foundations of the West Episode I with Ben Shapiro
Yeah, well, I mean, one of the things that does keep you going through catastrophe is the faith that something can be rebuilt from the rubble.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
Jerusalem & the Axis Mundi | Foundations of the West Episode I with Ben Shapiro
There's probably no difference between the emergence of monotheism and the spread of civilization. You know, because people might say, well, why is it so necessary that there is a God? The answer to that is because there has to be a central animating spirit. And then you might ask is, well, why does there have to be one God?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
Jerusalem & the Axis Mundi | Foundations of the West Episode I with Ben Shapiro
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
Jerusalem & the Axis Mundi | Foundations of the West Episode I with Ben Shapiro
No matter how hard the communists try, you mean, to obliterate the past and build the new man.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
Jerusalem & the Axis Mundi | Foundations of the West Episode I with Ben Shapiro
This is that idea of a foundation stone too, is that if our perception is hierarchical, which seems to be the case, you either have a foundation stone or you have Fragmentation. Those are the only options. Right. And we know what the psychological consequences of fragmentation are. There's two. Anxiety, because it marks fragmentation. Like anxiety occurs when you have too many pathways forward.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
Jerusalem & the Axis Mundi | Foundations of the West Episode I with Ben Shapiro
And hopelessness. And the reason you get hopeless is because if you don't know where you're going, No positive emotion can mark out the path, because positive emotion specifies movement forward on a path. And so if there's no hierarchy that unites, you get fragmentation. And if you get fragmentation, you get anxiety and hopelessness. And that's that. There's no getting around that.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
Jerusalem & the Axis Mundi | Foundations of the West Episode I with Ben Shapiro
That's what those systems are there to mark. And so that's why the monotheistic impulse is so interesting, because it's an impulse to... unify everything, and to make it hierarchical in the most fundamental sense, right? It's like, well, does it hit a pinnacle?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
Jerusalem & the Axis Mundi | Foundations of the West Episode I with Ben Shapiro
And the answer is, well, to the degree that it's hierarchical, effectively, then it hits a pinnacle, and then the question is, well, what should, this is the question, right? What should be at the pinnacle, or what should be the base? Those are two different metaphors. So part of what the biblical corpus is trying to do is to take characterizations of the
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
Jerusalem & the Axis Mundi | Foundations of the West Episode I with Ben Shapiro
the positive patriarchal animating spirit, that's a good way of thinking about it, multiple characterizations of that spirit, and then to make this insistence by aggregating the books that all of those manifestations of those somewhat... Discriminable spirits are manifestations of the same central thing. Right.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
Jerusalem & the Axis Mundi | Foundations of the West Episode I with Ben Shapiro
So you could think that the central animating spirit for Noah is the intuition that calls you to batten down the hatches when, if you're wise, when a time of crisis is coming. So that's a spirit that might seize you. It might seize multiple people at the same time, and it's a spirit you could attend to and allow to inhabit you or not.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
Jerusalem & the Axis Mundi | Foundations of the West Episode I with Ben Shapiro
And then in Abraham, God is the spirit that calls Abraham out of his hyper-security and wealth, in some sense, into adventure. Right. And then the juxtaposition of those stories, that's metonymy, the juxtaposition of those stories implies that spirit A and spirit B are in some sense manifestations.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
Jerusalem & the Axis Mundi | Foundations of the West Episode I with Ben Shapiro
So the Bible is doing that continually. And it's not... propositional, it's not attempting to explain God as like a meta-object in some sense, or an object in the world. It's an animating spirit. It's a pattern of perception and action, and not the pattern of the thing that's being perceived in the object. It's the pattern of perception itself.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
Jerusalem & the Axis Mundi | Foundations of the West Episode I with Ben Shapiro
And the answer is because you don't have unity without worshiping the same God. You have to be doing the same thing. You have to be possessed by the same spirit. The eternal Jewish question is, what is the proper nature of that central animating spirit? And the Bible is actually an answer to that question.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
Jerusalem & the Axis Mundi | Foundations of the West Episode I with Ben Shapiro
And so then when you have the union of Athens and Jerusalem in some sense, you say, well, fair enough. God is the pattern of perception and not the object, but the juxtaposition would say, the pattern of perception is seeing a reflection in the object that's similar to the pattern of perception itself. And that would be something like the logos.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
Jerusalem & the Axis Mundi | Foundations of the West Episode I with Ben Shapiro
The logos of nature and the logos of the spirit unite. And that's Western civilization. Modern people often ask themselves, why do I have to study history? Well, you're a historical being. You need to know who you are and where you came from and what you stand on, why you think the things you think, what is the appropriate manner to live. Those aren't optional questions.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
Jerusalem & the Axis Mundi | Foundations of the West Episode I with Ben Shapiro
Well, they are because you can fail to answer all of them, but then you live in a chaotic, desolate, nihilistic wasteland of anxiety and hopelessness. The alternative is to place yourself in the proper tradition. And you have to understand what proper tradition is, and part of that understanding is to start to grapple with the complexities and realities of those traditions.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
Jerusalem & the Axis Mundi | Foundations of the West Episode I with Ben Shapiro
And I'm not saying slavery isn't wrong. The issue is, why is it wrong?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
Jerusalem & the Axis Mundi | Foundations of the West Episode I with Ben Shapiro
Well, right. No, it's exactly that. It's not that at all.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
Jerusalem & the Axis Mundi | Foundations of the West Episode I with Ben Shapiro
We think that creative innovation is the standard mode of human being, and that's just not true.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
Jerusalem & the Axis Mundi | Foundations of the West Episode I with Ben Shapiro
All the geography here is high resolution. Everything is marked. Everything is half territory and half map. Everything. This is no wonder there's so much conflict.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
Jerusalem & the Axis Mundi | Foundations of the West Episode I with Ben Shapiro
Yeah, well, it's kind of reminiscent of Manhattan that way.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
Jerusalem & the Axis Mundi | Foundations of the West Episode I with Ben Shapiro
Yeah, right, right. It's crazy.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
Jerusalem & the Axis Mundi | Foundations of the West Episode I with Ben Shapiro
It's even true of European history. Most of the places we think of as old in Europe are like 300 years old. Right, exactly. 500 years old.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
Jerusalem & the Axis Mundi | Foundations of the West Episode I with Ben Shapiro
through the ancient cities of Jerusalem, Athens, and Rome, cities that have shaped Western culture. I invite you to watch them. My hope is that when you do so, you learn something deep and profound as I did about our Western ideals. It was a very worthwhile journey. On to a celebratory note.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
Jerusalem & the Axis Mundi | Foundations of the West Episode I with Ben Shapiro
There's a dispute here about what should sit at the center of the world, and the world in this situation is in some real way a map that's laid on the territory. And a map is a conceptual device that people use to orient themselves as they move forward. a map has to have a center point to allow for orientation. And there's dispute about what the center point would be.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
Jerusalem & the Axis Mundi | Foundations of the West Episode I with Ben Shapiro
I guess it's partly because everybody has to share the same map in order to get along in the same territory. And so you have different groups of people will insist upon a different mapping structure. And if two groups that are isolated come together, they have different maps. And all of this is a dispute about what the center point of the map is going to be.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
Jerusalem & the Axis Mundi | Foundations of the West Episode I with Ben Shapiro
So I was mentioning to Ben, you see the dome here is made of gold. and symbolically gold is associated with the sun and the dome is the, you could think about it as the sun rising in the morning and one of the reasons that the sun rising in the morning would be at the center point of the map is because the axiom that orients the map is something like
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
Jerusalem & the Axis Mundi | Foundations of the West Episode I with Ben Shapiro
The primacy of consciousness, to worship the primacy of consciousness and to have that consciousness emerge on the border between darkness and light is proper symbolically because consciousness actually emerges at the border between order and chaos. the foundation stone is here, the Holy of Holies was here, the place where Jacob Gladys stretched up to heaven, that's all the same idea, right?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
Jerusalem & the Axis Mundi | Foundations of the West Episode I with Ben Shapiro
That's all the same center axis of the world, right? Around which everything rotates and which orients us toward... The axis money points to the North Star, so that gives you orientation at night, right? Because you can look up and you can see a fixed point in heaven, which is the North Star, and you can orient yourself completely in the world as a consequence of that.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
Jerusalem & the Axis Mundi | Foundations of the West Episode I with Ben Shapiro
What does it mean for consciousness to be primary? Well, you can't have something without there being awareness of it. Even when we talk about our cosmological models extending back 14 billion years, we say there was a big bang. And what we say, sotto voce, right, in a soft voice is, if someone was there, this is what they would have seen. But of course, there was no one there.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
Jerusalem & the Axis Mundi | Foundations of the West Episode I with Ben Shapiro
I'm pleased to announce that episode three of this series, Christ, Center of the World, with my good friend Jonathan Paggio, has been nominated for Best Documentary at the 32nd Annual Movie Guide Faith and Values Awards Gala. I'm told that the nominating committee pays special attention to content that inspires and gives hope to our society at large.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
Jerusalem & the Axis Mundi | Foundations of the West Episode I with Ben Shapiro
The reality itself presumes an observer, an experiencer, and consciousness is that experiencer, and we don't know its nature. It's an irreducible mystery. Now, the nature of that consciousness in the Judeo-Christian tradition is conceptualized and symbolized as the word, right? It's this process that brings ordered existence out of the void, the chaotic void, into clarity.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
Jerusalem & the Axis Mundi | Foundations of the West Episode I with Ben Shapiro
You know that Athens and Jerusalem idea as the twin pillars, they're not exactly twin pillars. They're one pillar stacked on top of the other. Because the Jerusalem part of it is the narrative that's been coming down from the top. And the Athenian part of it is the realization of the logos of the material structure that's rising from the bottom. And Western civilization meets right in the middle.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
Jerusalem & the Axis Mundi | Foundations of the West Episode I with Ben Shapiro
That's exactly what we aim to do with this series, and to be recognized for that is a great honor, for which I and the entire Daily Wire team are truly thankful. You can watch the entire series on dailywire.com slash Foundations of the West. Give it a go. It might propel you to greater adventure. Thank you for your time, attention, and your continued support of my work and of Daily Wire Plus.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
Jerusalem & the Axis Mundi | Foundations of the West Episode I with Ben Shapiro
And partly what we're trying to puzzle out right now really in our culture is the further details of how the narrative and the material interpenetrate. And you see that here because this place is a place where the narrative and the material are fighting to interpenetrate and it's multiple narratives competing to map the underlying territory.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
Jerusalem & the Axis Mundi | Foundations of the West Episode I with Ben Shapiro
there's too many potential stories in the material substructure. Right, that's the plethora of facts. Right. Right, so you need an orienting structure that descends from above to extract out the proper facts from the material. Right. And that's the union of Jerusalem and Athens. That makes perfect sense. Yeah, well, and that's all converged, all the cognitive science is converging on that.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
Jerusalem & the Axis Mundi | Foundations of the West Episode I with Ben Shapiro
Revelation, I would say.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
Jerusalem & the Axis Mundi | Foundations of the West Episode I with Ben Shapiro
The scientific insistence that you could have a narrative-free encounter with the facts and orient yourself is simply not true.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
Jerusalem & the Axis Mundi | Foundations of the West Episode I with Ben Shapiro
Well, if you destabilize, what happens is if you destabilize a fundamental, differentiated, functional narrative and destroy it, it gets replaced with a low resolution, catastrophically oversimplified narrative that's just devastating. That would be what happened as a consequence of the death of God. Right. Well, the differentiated, historically instantiated, unifying narrative collapsed
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
Jerusalem & the Axis Mundi | Foundations of the West Episode I with Ben Shapiro
And then what happened? Power. Yeah, right, right. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. One pixel stories. Everything's power.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
People are fat and diabetic at rates that are criminal.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
38%. I don't think I ever recovered from reading about the fact that marketing people built the food pyramid, right? Not scientists. How the hell did we get there?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
They're so diabetic. Like, it's really bad. You know, you see on, if you go on X now, you see these videos of people on the beach in the 1960s and the 19, now people smoke too, but regardless of that, like when I was a kid, there was like one kid who was plump in our class and we thought he was fat and like he would be well within the normal range now.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
And so something, yeah, I went home to my hometown Fairview last Christmas, and I went to see a hockey game, 17-year-old hockey players, you know. Hockey players are in pretty good shape. Hockey's a hard game. It's very aerobically demanding. And after the game, the guys invited me into the dressing room to talk because they knew me and knew who I was.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
And so I went in and I saw three or four of them without shirts on. And I thought, Jesus Christ, you guys, you look like 45-year-old men, you know, like breasts. Guts, it's like no one that I knew looked like that when I was 17, certainly not the bloody hockey players. And I thought, man, if the hockey players look like that, what are the rest of the kids look like?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
So something's gone seriously sideways. Okay, so you suffered from all sorts of health complications when you were a kid and then a young adult. So that's very reminiscent of my daughter, by the way, as you know. And you started perusing the scientific literature. You had a little bit of background in that because of your preparation as a debater.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
And so you had to teach yourself at least to some degree to think like a scientist, which is to contrast the evidence, to learn to read the journals as well, which is not a simple matter. Most scientists can't read the journals. So yeah, okay, okay. And so, and then you had this bout with appendicitis. And so, okay, let's continue on from there.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
And I know that people are fat and diabetic at rates that are criminal. And so even though This isn't something I ever hoped I would be interested in, even that's become necessary. Now, I went to Washington a while back at the invitation of Ron Johnson to partake in a hearing there. And I met Vani Hari at that. roundtable at that discussion. And I had a chance to talk to her today.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
Why do they do that? I mean, look, Europe is very overregulated, right? In many, many ways. And America is less so, and it's much more competitive. Right. And so excess regulation can really be a problem. And now I know that has to be differentiated, and I'm not taking issue with the case that you're making.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
But I'm also curious, it's like, if they're selling these products in Europe and in Canada, and they're free of, what would you say, chemicals that people have, whose utility people have questioned elsewhere, why do they continue to do it in the US? Like, what difference does it make fundamentally?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
She's the food babe. And she has a large following and is very interested in the pathologization of the American food system. And for personal reasons, as well as professional reasons, let's say, some of which are akin to the issues that my daughter faced. And so she came in today. And we had a chance to talk about, well, the hearing that we participated in jointly.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
So you think it's just a matter of... It's just a matter of economics.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
Yes, well, there's also utility in producing food that doesn't spoil as long as you don't poison it because spoiled food is also poisonous. So it's not like this is simple. Like I've had a lot of mixed feelings about all of this because as you pointed out too, when your parents immigrated to the US, there was the immense advantage of free and abundant, or cheap and abundant calories.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
And that's not nothing. Like not starving is a very good thing. Now, not starving and becoming obese and diabetic Well, that's not an optimal solution, and that's definitely happened too. I mean, I was shocked 25 years ago when I drove across the U.S., especially in the northern states, in the more rural areas. God, you know, we'd go into towns where...
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
and into little shops when we were driving across where Tammy would be the smallest person by a lot, including the nine-year-olds. You know, it was just unbelievable. And so I could tell at that point that something was off and it's got much worse since then.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
But these problems are so complicated because it is necessary for the fast food companies to produce something approximating a uniform product and to work against spoilage. And there is the complex problem of over-regulation that plagues the Europeans, that's for sure. But when I look at it, I try to look at the most important data first.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
So when I look at the climate change problem, for example, I think the planet is 20% greener than it was 20 years ago. That's this data point. All the other data points are this big. You just ignore them. It's like, no... semi-arid areas have got much greener. That's the end of the argument, as far as I'm concerned. And then with the health thing, it's like, well, everybody's fat and diabetic.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
Everybody, virtually. You know, for example, this is a terrible thing. So, you know, when they measure your blood sugar, they adjust the blood sugar norms by age. Well, this is a terrible thing because it means that when you're 40 and you get your blood sugar tested, you're normal. But if you were 20, you'd be diabetic. So what does that mean? It means you're diabetic, right?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
Because you shouldn't age norm that particular measurement. And so that's terrible. And you undoubtedly do know. Insulin resistance is a disaster and too much sugar is really hard on people. That's why diabetics lose their limbs. It's really bad. It's really hard on your brain. And so this is definitely bad.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
And then, you know, I came to all of this kicking and screaming to some degree because I always thought that people who were concerned about food, over-concerned about it, were neurotic and really needed to find something better to do.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
when I saw the rising rates of diabetes and obesity, and then also learned about the food pyramid, it's like, oh, I see, this is a complete bloody catastrophe and a real, like a rat's nest and a Pandora's box. And well, you found that out when you were in your 20s. All right, so what did you conclude? Like what did you just, you changed your diet and then that's a personal thing.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
Right. Well, you're a debater and extroverted, so that's not surprising.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
And then we talked about her career, how she moved from consultant to food activist and rekindled that more recently at this hearing. And we walked through a discussion of the major problems that beset the American family, let's say, especially children. Children and mothers, I would say, probably are most effective, although men are not far behind for obvious reasons.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
It's got a catchiness. It's funny with marketing. It's a tricky thing, right? Because Food Babe has the, it's a, what would you say? It isn't a serious name.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
Yeah. Well, I think. It has the advantage of popular appeal and the disadvantage that it isn't a serious name. And so those are competing advantages and disadvantages. And obviously it worked. And there's no sense talking unless people are listening. And of course, that's always the marketing conundrum. So, you know, I don't have anything more to say about it than that.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
So, okay, so that's what you started. And you started blogging.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
On what platform?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
Oh, yeah. And so when was that?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
Okay, so you're an early blogger. That's right.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
You gave up watching television?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
That's an interesting comment for everybody watching and listening. If you're looking for time to do something that you want to do, you can always give up something that's not particularly useful that you are doing regularly. And that giving up TV, that was probably good for you too.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
I've got to say, Fruit Loops should be down. No, seriously. Well, of course, right? I knew that was not a good food when I was like four.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
I'd like, so Froot Loops were fine, but really?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
With Froot Loops, for example, like, are you concerned about the fact that it's basically sugar?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
Okay, well, that's the major concern. Right, but- What is it about Froot Loops particularly that if you have to focus on what you think isn't acceptable, what aspect of it is? You talked about the chemicals, but it's also a highly processed carbohydrate. That's right. It's radically sugar-
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
Oh, yes.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
We had a chance to walk through all that and to start to puzzle out, well, the nature of the problem. tremendous rise in obesity, tremendous rise in diabetes, catastrophic consequences of the transformation of our food supply. And we talked about that and we talked about what might be done about it.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
Cheetos are very Froot Loops-like food. It's like they stain your fingers.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
Oh, yes.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
Oh, yeah. They're a pretty sketchy item as well, all things considered.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
How do you... Diving into the scientific literature in relationship to nutrition is... It's just a rat's nest. I mean, any clinical studies are... Clinical studies are impossible, right? I'm amazed that anyone ever does a clinical study on anything because it's so hard.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
And then on the nutrition side, you have the problem of an immense number of variables, right? So most of the studies that you read that the press publicizes pick one...
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
variable among a thousand and would make the claim based on a correlation that you know x causes y and the probability of that is zero most of the time as far as i'm concerned which is why there's been so much rubbish published about nutrition How do you know that you have any ability even to parse the literature? I mean, I understand your claim.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
And especially given the radical transformations that are upcoming in the new Trump administration and its surprising synergy with this Make America Healthy Again movement. So if you don't want to be fat and stupid and diabetic, This is not a bad podcast to listen to. So, Vanny, we met in D.C.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
Your claim is that, at least in part, that European countries, Canada even, have taken a different approach to the regulation of extraneous chemicals, colorings, for example, in food, and the U.S. is lagging behind that. That's an interpretation. But that's predicated on the idea that the Europeans know more about what they're doing than Americans do.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
Now, their obesity rates are quite markedly lower in Europe, which is very interesting, right? I mean, it's not obvious why either, because that's even true in places like Italy, where the diet's pretty carbohydrate-loaded. And so it's not easy to figure out exactly what's going on. And so it's possible that the differences in food constituents are contributing to that.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
How the hell you'd ever parse that out is beyond me. But you seem relatively confident in your ability to separate the wheat from the chaff. And I'm kind of wondering why, because it's really hard.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
Yes, that's another thing. See, I don't know much about that, so we should go into that a little bit too, because that's a fact that I've only stumbled on, I don't know, maybe it was only since that Senate hearing, you know? Yeah. Because that came to light there, and I thought, oh no, that can't be true. We have the food pyramid catastrophe, and...
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
So the food pyramid catastrophe is the fact that marketing people built the food pyramid, right? Not scientists. And they justified it scientifically. And their own scientists warned them, their own consultants, that they would produce an epidemic of obesity and diabetes. And they ignored that. And that was the Department of Agriculture.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
And I guess it was out of that, I hope I have this right, that subsidies that made corn syrup dirt cheap came about. And I suppose that had the advantage of cheap calories, but like everything and its dog has corn syrup in it, and that seems to be a relatively bad idea.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
So why do you trust the Europeans more than the Americans on that front?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
Well, so- One of the things that I've thought through with regards to this carnivore diet that my daughter and my wife have been instrumental in pursuing is that it radically simplifies the playing field, right?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
I mean, and I'm trying to think just strictly as a scientist in that regard, if you have a chronic illness or a set of chronic illnesses and the etiology is unspecified, which is generally the case for chronic illnesses, the first thing you might want to do is simplify the landscape, right? Now, you can't simplify it more than with a meat-only diet or a beef-only diet even.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
That's the simplest you can possibly make it because you can live on beef almost indefinitely.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
Yeah, so why don't you talk about that event a bit and how you got invited and what you thought of it and why you were there. Just tell the story.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
Yeah, right. Or the Inuit, for that matter, although they don't eat beef, but they eat meat. meat and fat fundamentally and they live on it indefinitely and you can do that and so that way you eliminate well a plethora of potential food
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
related symptoms and then all the interactions between those foods and if it works well then you can experiment slowly to see if there are particular things that you're sensitive to you know or that because what we've seen with the carnivore diet you know they say the plural of anecdote isn't data which is a cliche I really hate because the plural of anecdote is hypothesis actually if you know a thousand people tell you something it's like maybe
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
Maybe we can test it and see like something might be there. It's not proof, definitely. Proof is hard to come by, but it's the beginnings of the process of investigation. Well, it's clear to me that the carnivore diet radically reduces obesity. I mean, I had a friend who recently started it. Again, this is an anecdote, but I've seen this with many, many people. He lost 30 pounds in one month.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
He's like 35. You know, 30 pounds. How the hell do you do that? That isn't even possible.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
You know, because obviously that wasn't all fat. Right. I don't think it's even metabolically possible to do that. Maybe it is. I can't see how. But in any case, so what was that? Reduction in fluid from inflammation, maybe, at least to some degree.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
But the typical response that I've been told by people is... People seem to lose about seven pounds a month, which is still, that's a lot, man. Yeah. That's like world shaping. That's 84 pounds in a year. It's a lot.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
And so, okay. So your take is that you simplify, right? That's right. Trying to go down to more basic foods.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
Yeah, well, people say you eat around the edges of the supermarket.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
Well, that's the next thing. Okay, so this is where we're going to talk about the tobacco companies. That's right. Okay, so... Tell me what you know about the tobacco company's purchase of the food industry. And just lay that out, because I don't really understand.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
So that's a very serious allegation.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
Let's take it apart. Yeah, yeah. So it's easy to verify whether or not the tobacco companies bought the food companies, right? That's a matter of public record. But the next parts of it, like, why do you think that's true? Like, I understand that they bought the food companies. And the fact that they were tobacco companies and they bought the food companies is suspicious, right?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
But then to say after that, that they consciously planned to use their scientists to addict people to drugs fast food, let's say, or processed food. That's a different thing. So let me push back on that a little bit.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
Tell me what you know about the tobacco company's purchase of the food industry. So I've been dragged kicking and screaming into the issue of nutrition, I would say. And some of that's for personal reasons, and some of it is for intellectual reasons, let's say.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
Right. So... Okay, but how would you distinguish delicious and easy from addictive, right? Because it's not surprising that food companies would attempt... Of course, they're competing to... Now, that's the thing, is that are they competing to please you or are they competing to addict you? And then the next question is, why are those different? Like, because...
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
The hallmark of addiction is maximization of short-term pleasure. Now, it becomes pathological when the maximization of short-term pleasure interferes with medium to long-term thriving, right? That's not a good combination.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
But it's a fine line. the line between addictive and pleasurable is, that's a thin line. And so if I'm a food company and I wanna make a product that's competitive, I'm gonna try to make it as delicious as possible and as easy. And then,
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
Yes, yes. Well, and the criminal dilemma for that matter.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
38%. And the age range?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
38, yeah, that's terrible.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
Why not hold mothers responsible? Because one of the things that I think has happened too is that, and I don't know how to make heads or tails out of this, is that obviously what's happened is that food preparation has been taken out of the home and transferred to companies. Now, the advantage of that is that it's, Fast and cheap.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
Right? And easy. And there are advantages to that. Let's not forget. I mean, when people were preparing, this would be particularly true of your home country. I mean, how many hours a day would women be spending preparing Indian food in the traditional way, like in a village? Like all day. Right, right. All day. Yeah. 100% of the time. Yeah. Now, and they were using...
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
a variety of different spices and a variety of different fermentation techniques, and they're very complex. Like, I know that one of the reasons that modern bread isn't as edible as traditional bread is because we use fast-rising yeast, which speeds things up, which is a plus, because we like time, but it also...
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
It's less effective in breaking down the proteins, and so they're harder to digest, etc., etc. I mean, all these traditional ways of making food were time-tested. Fermentation, for example. Now, we've substituted industrial ease for home food preparation. Now, the upside of that is, well, that's four hours a day, five hours a day that are freed up primarily for women.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
So then why go after the companies and why not go after the home and say like... Because if you're going to solve it, you need to solve the crux of the problem.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
Yeah.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
Well, you can say the same thing about social media. Oh, totally. I know, I know. You have industry-sized enterprises focusing on maximizing short-term pleasure for commercial gain. That's right. Well, that's rough. And that is, it is like... It is a hard thing for the average family to compete with.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
It's hard.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
All right. What were the consequences for you of the Senate hearing?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
Yeah, well, you know there's nothing more corporate-friendly than the left-wing media.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
Like, how the hell did that happen? You know, it's so weird. I don't understand the current political situation at all because 20 years ago, if you stood up against the giant corporations, the left was all over you, regardless of who you were. The mere fact that you were standing up against the giant corporations was sufficient to validate you.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
And now, I can't really think of anything that should appeal more to people who are on the left than individuals standing up against gigantic corporations run by like cigarette companies. Yeah. Right. But no, that's not. Now, obviously, that has to have something to do with advertising.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
The Atlantic is done.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
The Atlantic disappeared five years ago. You know, I used to read it all the time. It was a great magazine. And then something, I think it changed ownership. It did change ownership. And I think that's what did it in. It became a propaganda magazine.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
And it was... Were you surprised that it was Ron Johnson who did this? I mean, this is the other thing that's so weird. It's like, okay, so it's the Republicans and more the traditional Republicans, not even the Trump types. The traditional Republicans are calling on food activists to go after the large food companies run by the cigarette companies. It's like, how the hell did we get there?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
Well, luckily, it's just part of their demise.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
And so- Have there been companies, I mean, you talked about Chick-fil-A and they worked with you. Have there been companies that have reached out to you other than Chick-fil-A? to improve the quality of what they're offering. I mean, I know what's happening with Robbie Starbuck.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
Now, it's quite frequently the case that when he reaches out to a company now, particularly, they make changes very quickly and adjust their... I mean, he said, when I interviewed him, he said that a lot of the executives didn't even really know what their DEI people were pushing fundamentally.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
Which doesn't surprise me in the least because what people don't know about DEI and its philosophical roots could fill many books. And one of the things about corporations that's a positive, I mean, there's many things about corporations that are positive, but they do tend to be quite responsive to the public. I mean, corporations that aren't responsive to their customers disappear quickly.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
And so you'd think there would be a pathway to cooperation on this front. And especially given, it's so weird though, eh? Obviously, the MAGA crowd have decided they're on the Make America Healthy Again side, which is weird, but it happened. And that's half the American population, at least. So you'd think there'd be a massive marketing opportunity there.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
I guess part of the problem is that likely the corporations don't know how to market except through the legacy media. And the legacy media leans left in this weird way that's pro-giant corrupt corporation, which is also impossible to understand. So, you know, how much of it is that they just don't know, that they don't know what to do?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
Oh, definitely, especially right now. Yes. Because the tide has obviously turned.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
Oh, and also to not market to half the American population, right? That's right. That's a big mistake. Big mistake. So what that also means is that companies that do pivot will have a definite advantage and quite rapidly. So, right.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
That's a good place to end this section, I would say. So for those of you who are watching and listening, you know we continue our discussion for half an hour on the Daily Wire side. And I think what we'll talk about there is what... what could be done with the new administration and the new health initiatives that are being put in place?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
I mean, the Trump administration people are sorting all of this out now, trying to figure out how to rejig the food system, for example, so that it doesn't produce the catastrophic consequences that we can see now. And so I think we'll get Fannie's
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
opinions about what she hopes the Trump team might do, like where's the biggest bang for the buck, so to speak, in terms of re-evaluating how we prepare food and eat it and what we serve to our children. So that's what we'll do on the Daily Wire side. So you could all join us for an additional half an hour there. Thank you very much for coming in today.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
Yeah, what a strange thing to have happen, eh? It wasn't anything that you'd predict in relationship to Trump.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
Came out of the blue. It's very weird.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
And so- Yeah, well, it's not obvious how much power the president actually has, right? Right. Because the system is very complex and there's weird things wrong with it that are that aren't obvious at all until you understand them. You know, like congressmen, this is something that just stunned me when I found it out. Congressmen spend about 28 hours a week fundraising.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
They can't do that in their own offices. So they have these ratty offices in the outskirts of DC. They basically act like telemarketers. That's a dismal way of spending your time. So they're spending, and if they don't do that, they're not funded by their parties. And then they spend a bunch of time campaigning because they have to be elected every two years. And then they travel.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
It's like they don't have any time to do their job. And it isn't a job I would take, you know. So that's a big problem. And it's only one of a multitude of problems. And, of course, the president's term is limited. sometimes to four years. And four years, you know, it takes two years just to figure out how to do a complicated job. Two to three years.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
So there's a lot of things that have gone sideways. Okay, so let's go into this. Your past as a food activist. Okay, so why did you do that? Like, how did that happen?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
I had reason in my own family to look at nutrition very carefully, because it turned out that my daughter, who had a very serious illness, Michaela, was reactive to a very large range of foods. And that was rather a shock to discover, you might say. And I've been experimenting with diet for quite a long time in a radical way, far more radically than I like. That's the first thing.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
So asthma was one of them?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
What made you determine or discover that your health problems as a child were food related?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
Right, right, right.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
And then I would have ever expected to do. And that's had some pretty positive consequences. And I've heard from many thousands of people positive tales about the consequence of their shift in diet. And I've interviewed people like Chris Palmer who's a psychiatrist at Harvard who's been using dietary manipulations to treat intractable psychological disorders.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
What was your educational background?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
And— Is that why you got hired as a consultant? Did you do well in university as well? I did. Because it's hard to get hired as a consultant.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
You mean like the whole center of the grocery store?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
I don't think I ever recovered from reading about the food pyramid.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
Really? It was like, really? No way. Not possible that it was... A marketing lie from beginning to end. When you first started talking, I thought, you know, I have qualms about activism as an entity. And there's a lot of, like, nutrition is such a complicated topic. It's like, there's so many ways this can go wrong. Why are we concerned about it? And then I think, people are so overweight.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
We Who Wrestle With God: In the Image of God
And then, well, the muscles are made out of cells, and they work, but I have no idea how they work, and if I was in charge of them, they wouldn't work. And so, that's just out of my purview, right? My consciousness doesn't enable me to either apprehend or to control my physiology at that level of detail. And that's only the beginning of the level of detail that I don't understand.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
We Who Wrestle With God: In the Image of God
I don't understand how the cells work. I certainly don't understand how the proteins and other molecules and sub-organs within the cells work. I don't even know what they are. And much less perceive them or control them and then those cells and the molecules they're made out of are made out of atoms and they're a mystery and then atoms are made out of
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
We Who Wrestle With God: In the Image of God
Manners in which identity could manifest itself, and it's a mystery that it's become political. Now, it has something to do with what Jonathan made reference to, is when the sacred collapses, so that's the death of God, when the highest order of things collapses, it doesn't disappear, it's as if it plummets downward. And what's happened in our society is that the sacred has become political.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
We Who Wrestle With God: In the Image of God
subatomic particles, and no one knows what in the world those things are. And so the reason I'm telling you this, there's a very specific reason, is that even if you're a reductive materialist, what you can see is that there are elements of what you do, let's say what you do is part of your identity, there are elements of your identity that shade into mystery. Right? At the material level.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
We Who Wrestle With God: In the Image of God
You can move your hands, but that's about as far down into the physiology as you get. There's all these other layers underneath that, that... Who knows how they function? It's taken the world a very long time to create something like you that can operate with that degree of unbelievable complexity, that can have some conscious control over that,
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
We Who Wrestle With God: In the Image of God
There's all that mystery underneath what we're capable of consciously apprehending. So our identities shade into the mysterious as we move down into the material realm. Okay, so that's a good way of thinking about it. We have a conscious domain that we can apprehend. There's a mystery on the material side. Okay, then you're writing down letters one by one. You're doing that to craft words.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
We Who Wrestle With God: In the Image of God
And so you choose the words carefully if you're wise. What do the words mean and why do you choose those words? Well, that's complicated because each word, no letter has a meaning, right? A letter needs to be combined with other letters before you get any meaning. Words have meaning, but the meaning is partial and context dependent.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
We Who Wrestle With God: In the Image of God
That doesn't mean words are meaningless, but it does mean that in order to understand what they mean, you have to assess them in relationship to other words. And so, a word is a unit of meaning, but barely. A phrase starts to be a little more meaningful, and a sentence is even more meaningful than a phrase, and then you understand the meaning of a sentence,
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
We Who Wrestle With God: In the Image of God
in the context of something like a paragraph, like what a paragraph should be is a collection of sentences that address an idea coherently. And if you listen to someone who's sophisticated speaking, they'll speak in paragraphs, and the sentences within the paragraphs will have some relation of meaning to one another.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
We Who Wrestle With God: In the Image of God
Otherwise, you think the person is all over the place, let's say, and could well be. And the more coherent you are as a personality, sophisticated your ability to erect structures of meaning at broader and broader levels of sophistication. And so a very sophisticated speaker or writer will pick the right word and put it in the right phrase and put that phrase in the right sentence
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
We Who Wrestle With God: In the Image of God
The sentence will be an accurate representation of the aim of the thought. It'll have a certain rhythm, a poetic rhythm. It'll have a certain beauty. It'll have the proper relationship with the other sentences that surround it. That'll make up a paragraph. Then the paragraphs themselves have...
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
We Who Wrestle With God: In the Image of God
a harmonious relationship with one another so that when you read paragraph one and then you read paragraph two, paragraph one informs paragraph two and paragraph two perversely also informs paragraph one, right? And so, Part of this is a question of where's the meaning in a text, and the answer is, well, the meaning is at multiple levels simultaneously. It's like the meaning of the world.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
We Who Wrestle With God: In the Image of God
It's not something you can exactly point to because it's everywhere in this entire hierarchy at once. Right?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
We Who Wrestle With God: In the Image of God
So now you have the paragraphs in relationship to one another, and maybe they make up something like chapters, and then the chapters are arranged into a book, and then you might think, well, the book is the unit of meaning, but that's not exactly right, because you interpret every book you read in relationship to all the other books you ever read.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
We Who Wrestle With God: In the Image of God
Thank you. Yeah, so I'm very curious about tonight's talk because I have a lot of things buzzing around in my imagination that are related to the topic of identity, and I'm very curious to see if I can weave them together. So I guess we're going to find out. It's a lot of fun to try to do something. I do a different lecture every night. I have a different question every night.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
We Who Wrestle With God: In the Image of God
And that's really bad because there's a space for the sacred and there's a space for the political. That's why you render unto Caesar what is Caesar's and unto God what is God's. And you don't want to confuse the two because if you do, then God becomes Caesar and that's not a good thing. And Caesar becomes God and that is a much worse thing. And that's the situation that we're in.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
We Who Wrestle With God: In the Image of God
And not just the other books that you've read, but all the people you've met, and all the discussions you've had, and every thought you've ever managed to create, and every word you've ever uttered. All that bears on the meaning of the book. And then, all that knowledge that you have is a reflection of, well, the sum total of human knowledge, as it's encapsulated, let's say, in words,
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
We Who Wrestle With God: In the Image of God
You will have sampled that as an encultured creature, as a speaker of your language and as a reader of the texts of your culture, and you're a partial reflection of that body of literature, and it's the interaction between you as a embodiment of that body of literature and the specific text that reveals the meaning of the text.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
We Who Wrestle With God: In the Image of God
But that's not all, that isn't where it stops, because the corpus of human knowledge insofar as it's written is a reflection of the social structure of humanity itself, the history of humanity.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
We Who Wrestle With God: In the Image of God
That's a reflection of the psychobiology of the human, and the natural order, and that's a reflection of the material order, and that's a reflection of the cosmic order, and all of that operating at the same time is, all of that is operating at the same time with every single thing that you do. And it's the relationship between all of those levels simultaneously that's your identity.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
We Who Wrestle With God: In the Image of God
And so, it's no wonder that when identity collapses, let's say, at the highest levels, that the problem is overwhelming because
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
We Who Wrestle With God: In the Image of God
In some way, in some mysterious way, everything that you do, every micro-behavior that you make manifest is a reflection of the entire order of things, all the way from the microcosmic to the macrocosmic and possibly beyond, because it's the religious presumption that even if you
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
We Who Wrestle With God: In the Image of God
stretched your identity to the further reaches of the cosmic order, that's not far enough, because the creator of the cosmic order is held to be outside of time and space itself, outside of the realm of the conceptual, and so your relationship to that ultimate transcendent element also plays a role in determining everything you do.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
We Who Wrestle With God: In the Image of God
So, well, you can see that in a sense as a religious vision because all of a sudden you can envision what you do in relationship to all of those levels and see that that's the full reality of every gesture you make, let's say. And so, that's overwhelming. But there's no reason to assume that an accurate apprehension of who you actually are would be anything other than overwhelming.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
We Who Wrestle With God: In the Image of God
I mean, you're a very complicated creature and God only knows what you're up to or who you are or what you are in the final analysis. It's not like we know. And it's certainly not the case that you're divorced in any simple sense from everything else. I mean, you're certainly not divorced from other people.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
We Who Wrestle With God: In the Image of God
And if you are, well, God help you, because it's very bitter and horrible existence to exist in isolation. And that also highlights something. It highlights the fact that whatever your identity is, it's not merely subjective identity.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
We Who Wrestle With God: In the Image of God
You know, and this is something that our culture is, we're just tearing ourselves apart about that at the moment, because the claim of the hedonistic rationalists, essentially, is that your identity is whatever you say it is, or whatever you feel it is, whatever the hell that means, or, well, it's very much akin to saying that your identity is identical to whatever whim or desire grips you at the moment.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
We Who Wrestle With God: In the Image of God
And so that means, and this is part of the conundrum that we have, You know, and maybe it's part of what Nietzsche prognosticated too, because he believed that the consequence of the death of God would be that human beings would have to create their own values. And I believe that's wrong. I don't believe we can create our own values.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
We Who Wrestle With God: In the Image of God
And that's just palpably untrue, partly for the reasons I laid out. It's like, there's a lot of things going on when you're doing anything, and what you want or what you desire or the desire that makes itself manifest within you is like one tiny little element of that, but why you would proclaim that to be your entire identity, that's merely a consequence of the fact that the
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
We Who Wrestle With God: In the Image of God
transcendent order of identity is collapsed. We're so confused in our culture that we believe that our sexual preference is our identity, for example. And that's, well, good luck with that. You know, I mean, first of all, if your sexual preference is your identity, which means in some sense that that's, what would you say, that's the That's the defining element of your character.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
We Who Wrestle With God: In the Image of God
I don't want to be anywhere near you. I mean that because what you want from other people is you want their desires to take you and the world into account, right?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
We Who Wrestle With God: In the Image of God
It can't... There's no possible way that things can work if it's not only all about you, let's say, but worse than that, it's all about whatever fragment of you, say, biological, instinctual fragment that happens to have the upper hand subjectively within you at the moment. That's just... There's no community in that, right? There's no consideration for other people. There's no future in that.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
We Who Wrestle With God: In the Image of God
There's only the immediate now, right? And so that proclamation of radical subjective identity based on desire is the reduction of that whole cosmic tree, because that's what that is, to... A fragment of you now and to hell with everything else. And I use that language very carefully because the pursuit of that subjective identity is the worship of that subjective identity.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
We Who Wrestle With God: In the Image of God
That is a pathway to hell. And the reason it's a pathway to hell is because doesn't give a damn for the future or other people.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
We Who Wrestle With God: In the Image of God
And so if we all generate identities that have no consideration for other people, or even for your future self for that matter, because you know perfectly well that if you're only ruled by your immediate subjective whim now, all you're going to do is something stupid that's going to get you in terrible trouble in a week or a month or
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
We Who Wrestle With God: In the Image of God
you know, in a year or five years down the road, if you have an iota of wisdom, everything that you do in the present is bounded by your understanding of the repercussions of that action as they... cascade into the future, and there's not much difference between that, say, taking your future self into account carefully.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
We Who Wrestle With God: In the Image of God
But to give Nietzsche his due, which is always an important thing to do, because he was a genius, it certainly... is the case that we have to rethink, it seems to be that we have to rethink what identity is from first principles. Now, can we do that successfully? We're going to find out because the culture war is a war because of the difficulty of rethinking identity from first principles.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
We Who Wrestle With God: In the Image of God
There's not a lot of difference between that and taking other people into account. You know, in a harmonious marriage, for example, presuming such a thing exists, it's something to aim for, at least, in a harmonious marriage.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
We Who Wrestle With God: In the Image of God
There isn't a lot of difference between taking care of your wife, say, or a wife taking care of her husband, and the husband taking care of himself, all things considered, or vice versa, because, well, the thing about being married to someone is, well, they're there right now, But they're also there tomorrow, and they're there next week, and they're there next month, and next year.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
We Who Wrestle With God: In the Image of God
So everything you do with them or to them, it sticks around. And so, conducting yourself so that their welfare is, let's say, your highest consideration, their genuine welfare, That's not what they want, or even exactly what they need, but their highest welfare. There's not much difference between making that highest welfare your aim and treating your future self optimally.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
We Who Wrestle With God: In the Image of God
You know, because there's, you know this perfectly well, because there's almost no hell that's more miserable than a really bad marriage, because it's so immediate, and it's right there, and it's there all the time, and so...
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
We Who Wrestle With God: In the Image of God
You know, if you conduct yourself in your own life so that it's all about you, and you're married and so your wife takes second place, the probability that your relationship is going to transform itself into something that makes all about you hell is like, it's 100%. This is also why it's so useless to be selfish. It's like, what do you mean selfish exactly?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
We Who Wrestle With God: In the Image of God
What self are you talking about when you're selfish? Right? We think, well, selfish means that it's about me. It's like, no, it's way worse than that. Because it could be about you in the higher sense, right? It could be about you in a way that took you tomorrow and you next week and next month and into the future into account. That's kind of maturity. Right?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
We Who Wrestle With God: In the Image of God
If you're mature, you're not bound to the present. And so you could be selfish in a way that was sophisticated so that you didn't do stupid things right now because they're entertaining or because they rectify a desire that would get you in trouble in the future. So when you say someone's selfish, that isn't exactly what you mean.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
We Who Wrestle With God: In the Image of God
You mean that they're bound to the present in a way that makes them only the servants of their immediate desire. And that's a form of radical immaturity. Because that's a mode of being that's characteristic, let's say, of two-year-olds before...
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
We Who Wrestle With God: In the Image of God
Well, before they have any cortical maturation at all, before they're sophisticated social agents, before they understand that the future exists, before they're able to take other people into account. And so, the notion that your identity is subjective in that narrow sense, so that only you can define it, for example, or that you should be the servant of your own desires.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
We Who Wrestle With God: In the Image of God
You're not the servant of your own desires. You're the slave of your own desires. If they're local and immediate, and you don't have the discipline or the wherewithal to control that, you're not the master of your own fate. You're not acting out your subjective self. You're just the prisoner of...
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
We Who Wrestle With God: In the Image of God
the instincts of a two-year-old, but the instincts of a warped two-year-old who should have been two when they were two and not when they were 40. Right, so this identity. So why did we get obsessed with the idea of subjective identity? Well, I think this is where You know, I thought for a long time, if I had to classify myself politically, I thought for a long time that I was a classic liberal.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
We Who Wrestle With God: In the Image of God
And to some degree, and I mean really in the classic sense, I don't mean in the progressive sense, whatever that is, that the liberal philosophy is essentially the presumption that the cardinal... level of identity in a political system should be the individual. Right? And there's some things to be said about that.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
We Who Wrestle With God: In the Image of God
What is it? Is it political? Is it ethnic? Is it racial? Is it economic? Is it desire? Jonathan pointed to that. Are you nothing but what it is that you want or what something within you wants? Is it subjective? Like is your identity only something that you control? All of those questions, that's like 10 questions.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
We Who Wrestle With God: In the Image of God
I think that a political system that shifts to the group as the locus of identity is very dangerous and unstable. So if it starts to become about race, for example, or ethnicity, or gender, sex, let's say, like we should say, sex, and If the emphasis is on the group, then you get the war of groups against groups, and that's not good.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
We Who Wrestle With God: In the Image of God
And the individual who's capable of suffering gets subjugated to the group, And groups get elevated above one another. That's a very bad solution. But the atomistic individual solution is also not good. The thing about classic liberalism, right, that insistence on the primacy of the subjective is, and the classic liberals knew this, that only works in a society, well, that's the question.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
We Who Wrestle With God: In the Image of God
When does that work? And the classic liberals, they kind of knew this. They knew that The presumption that the individual was sovereign could be treated as sovereign, and could be treated as the cardinal unit of analysis, and could be treated as the locale, let's say, of divine right, natural rights. That was only sustainable in a culture that was intrinsically moral.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
We Who Wrestle With God: In the Image of God
Right, so let's say, that's why, for example, your nation is established as one nation under God. You can pursue your individual happiness, but only, that only works if collectively and individually you're doing something like aiming up.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
We Who Wrestle With God: In the Image of God
And what that would mean is that that surround I described as characteristic of identity, right, sort of stretching up into the cosmic order, that's intact and functioning. Now I would say a society that's integrated in relationship to its religious story has that surround.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
We Who Wrestle With God: In the Image of God
And people who are acting out the ethic that might be associated with that religious surround can treat themselves as individuals. But if the surround disappears, then Every individual wars against every other individual, right? Things devolve into chaos. You need a unity of belief in the transcendent in order for the individual to be the proper unit of analysis.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
We Who Wrestle With God: In the Image of God
And then, of course, that begs the question, and that's certainly the question of our time. Well, what is that transcendent surround? How do you conceptualize that? That's another question about what constitutes identity. So let's dig into that a little bit. What beliefs, presumptions, elements of identity are necessary so that the individual can be free and sovereign? All right.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
We Who Wrestle With God: In the Image of God
I used to ask my students, for example, why they were writing an essay. Why are you bothering with this, right? What's your motivation? Well, the thoroughly indoctrinated and thoughtless students would say, well, to get a grade. And I had students who literally could not think beyond that. They had no idea that there might be some utility in
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
We Who Wrestle With God: In the Image of God
Every single one of those questions is extraordinarily difficult and we seem to be stuck with all of them. So, We're going to try tonight to see if we can take identity apart from first principles and see where we get with it. So let's start with something basic. One of the things that I thought through deeply when I was a university professor was how to evaluate someone's writing.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
We Who Wrestle With God: In the Image of God
either thinking or writing, outside of the practical consequences of getting the grade. And I'm not saying that to denigrate the students, I'm saying that to indict the education system, because these were students, this was mostly at the University of Toronto where this happened, these were very high-caliber students. So they were the beneficiaries, let's say, of 15 years of education.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
We Who Wrestle With God: In the Image of God
And many of them had no idea that thinking was useful. Right? Well, it is a bit of a mystery. It's like, why think? Well... If you think before you act, you decrease the probability that you'll do something cataclysmically stupid. So that's the issue. That's why you want your thought criticized. Because if you have a stupid idea and you act it out, then terrible things will happen to you.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
We Who Wrestle With God: In the Image of God
And maybe if you discuss your stupid idea with someone who loves you, they'll point out critically why it's stupid, which will hurt your feelings. but you won't die. Right, and so parents do that for teenagers all the time. Right, and mostly they don't die as a consequence. So, what are you doing when you're writing? Well, you're writing, why are you writing the essay?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
We Who Wrestle With God: In the Image of God
Well, let's say, on the philosophical side, to improve your thinking. Okay, I'm going to leave that aside for a moment. We'll return to that idea. I'll just walk through this a little more practically. Well, I have to complete the essay to get marked, and then I have to... Why do you care if you get a mark? Well, I can't pass the course unless I get a mark. Why do you care if you pass the course?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
We Who Wrestle With God: In the Image of God
Well, if I don't pass the course, I can't finish my year. Well, why do you care about that? Well, if I don't finish the year, then I can't get my degree. So why do you care about your degree? There's an infinite regress in questioning here. Why do you care about your degree? Students start to get uncomfortable if you push them to that point, because they often...
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
We Who Wrestle With God: In the Image of God
have been on a kind of automatic track, right? It's that, especially if they're conscientious students, they went to university because, well, that's the thing you do if you're smart once you graduate from high school, or it used to be the thing you do if you're smart. Now, I don't know what you do if you're smart. Maybe you go to Peterson Academy.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
We Who Wrestle With God: In the Image of God
So... Well, $300,000 to become an idiot, nihilistic Marxist seems like a very bad deal to me. So... I think it'd just be more fun to become a nihilist at the bar. You know, so... Be cheaper, too. Probably better for you neurologically in the final analysis. Anyways. So, you want to get your degree. Okay, well, why? Why bother? Well... Because you want to get a job.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
We Who Wrestle With God: In the Image of God
Okay, well, why do you want to get a job? Well... You need a job to keep body and soul together, but there's more to it than that, right? Maybe you want a job that piques your interest and compels you, so it's focused on something, what, something important to you, something that has some meaning to you?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
We Who Wrestle With God: In the Image of God
And then maybe if the person is wise, they're also thinking, well, you know, I need to take my place as a responsible person
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
We Who Wrestle With God: In the Image of God
social agent and if I have a job well maybe I can attract a husband or a wife and you know maybe I can provide for my children so maybe the career is nested in something like what what service to community service to family hopefully now you know that there could also be well I'd like to make a boatload of money and pursue my hedonistic whims in consequence which is a delusional dream but you know
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
We Who Wrestle With God: In the Image of God
Young people and older people can certainly have that. And then you might say, well, why do you want to grow up, let's say, if we assume that establishing some responsibility and taking care of people is part of maturation? And that's a tricky question. Why bother maturing? And so that's the question addressed in the story of Peter Pan, right? So Peter Pan is... He's Pan.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
We Who Wrestle With God: In the Image of God
Pan is the god of everything, god of the wilderness, god of wild instinct. And Peter Pan is an eternal child, right? And he's got this Pan-like nature because to be a child is to be under the sway of primordial instinct. And there is something attractive about that. It's very spontaneous. Like, there's something very attractive about little kids, right?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
We Who Wrestle With God: In the Image of God
I mean, they're terrible little barbarians and they cannot... govern themselves. Like, there are no societies of successful two-year-olds, right?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
We Who Wrestle With God: In the Image of God
So, well, this is a really important thing to understand because, you know, people are enamored of the purity and brilliance of their toddlers, and I can understand that because they are remarkable, but they're also, they're not adults, and so they're not self-governing, they're not autonomous, they can't take care of themselves, and so all that wonder is fine, but It doesn't work, right?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
We Who Wrestle With God: In the Image of God
It has to be replaced by maturity. Okay, but is the sacrifice of the spontaneity of childhood worth the burden of maturity? This is the problem that Peter Pan wrestles with. Now he has Tinkerbell, who I like to think of as the porn fairy. And so... Because she doesn't really exist. She's kind of an attractive little sprite, and enticing, and she flits around, but she's imaginary.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
We Who Wrestle With God: In the Image of God
And so she doesn't really require any real commitment. And so porn fairy works out quite nicely in that regard. And it's certainly the case that being enticed by the porn fairy is a way of... continuing a kind of pathological immaturity and foregoing a certain kind of responsibility because it means the possibility of sexual gratification with no relationship and with no adult status.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
We Who Wrestle With God: In the Image of God
When you're evaluating their writing, you're evaluating their thinking. And the purpose of evaluating their thinking is not so much to grade them, to put them in the appropriate bin, but to provide them with the corrective feedback that would enable them to become better thinkers. When you're criticizing someone, if you're doing it
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
We Who Wrestle With God: In the Image of God
And you might say, well, who the hell cares? Like, if it gratifies my immediate whim, then why not... And you'd especially believe that if your identity was that you were nothing but your immediate desire. And so, you know, pornography is like 30% of internet traffic. This is not some trivial little social detail. This is a major problem. You know, and we're so... What would you say?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
We Who Wrestle With God: In the Image of God
We're so accustomed to the pathology of pornography that we don't even notice what a cataclysmic problem it actually represents. We've just given up even being concerned about it, except, you know, on the periphery. So... That's not good, because it's an immense enticement to this sort of hedonistic immaturity that is one of the consequences of the collapse of our identity.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
We Who Wrestle With God: In the Image of God
But that isn't the only issue that Peter Pan wrestles with. Now, you may remember in the story that he makes friends with this girl, Wendy. And Wendy's an actual girl. And Wendy decides she's going to grow up and age... Right?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
We Who Wrestle With God: In the Image of God
And she gets married and she has children, and Peter Pan remains in Neverland, which is where everyone immature lives, in a land that doesn't exist, and he's king of the lost boys, which is a kind of king, but if all your subjects are lost boys, and you're the king, that kind of means you're the most hopeless of the worst, of the lost boys, not... It's like being...
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
We Who Wrestle With God: In the Image of God
the tyrant of a totalitarian state. It's like, well, are you the most successful or the least successful? And I would say, if you rule over hell, you're the least successful devil in hell, not the most successful devil. And so, that's a good thing to know about tyrants. And so...
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
We Who Wrestle With God: In the Image of God
Peter Pan maintains childhood, he refuses to move to maturity, he satisfies himself with the imaginary feminine, forgoing any relationship with a real woman, a sacrificial relationship with a real woman. Well, why sacrificial? Death of childhood, death of immaturity, the necessity to forego all other sexual opportunities, all that's sacrificial. Sacrificial in relationship to what?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
We Who Wrestle With God: In the Image of God
Maturity and responsibility. Well, why bother with that? Well, that's the dilemma that Captain Hook confronts Peter Pan with, because Captain Hook is a brutal, barbaric, power-mad, dominating tyrant, and when Peter Pan looks to adulthood and sees the face of Captain Hook. He thinks, I don't want any part of that. And Captain Hook is worse than a mere tyrant because he's a coward as well.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
We Who Wrestle With God: In the Image of God
And what's he afraid of? Well, he's afraid of death and time. And how do you know that? Well, what chases him?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
We Who Wrestle With God: In the Image of God
Well, it's a crocodile, and the crocodile is a predator, and time is the ultimate predator, and the crocodile's already got a taste of him, just like it has a taste of all of us, which is why he's missing a hand, and it has a clock in its stomach that's ticking, and so Hook is a tyrant because he's terrified of predatory time. He's terrified of his own mortality.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
We Who Wrestle With God: In the Image of God
That makes him power mad, and then Peter Pan looks at Captain Hook, and he thinks, yeah, no, that's not for me, but He thinks that's a moral decision, but really what he's doing is maintaining his own immaturity so he can stay magic and not take any responsibility. This is not a good pathway to identity.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
We Who Wrestle With God: In the Image of God
Right, and so you can see in that too that there's something, if you think that through, the way we thought it through, let's say, you can see that there's something that isn't morally relative about the idea of mature responsibility, right? It's actually a catastrophe that Peter Pan stays hedonistic and immature. It's not someone's opinion that that's not a good thing.
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We Who Wrestle With God: In the Image of God
in a sophisticated way, you're helping them separate the wheat from the chaff. And one of the things I learned as a grader of essays, let's say, was that one of the most effective things I could do to students wasn't to circle what they did wrong, which was often 95% of the essay. But seriously, like our school system does a very bad job of teaching people to write.
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We Who Wrestle With God: In the Image of God
It's not a sustainable mode of being in any way. It leads to his own pathological degeneration across time. There's implications in the Peter Pan text continually that his most likely outcome is suicide. And his refusal to mature is a form of suicide anyways because he's killing his best future self. That's what you do when you remain immature, right? Is you kill your best future self.
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We Who Wrestle With God: In the Image of God
And if you do that, then the temptation for actual suicide is eventually going to loom large because your life will be so miserable as a consequence of your isolated and unproductive loneliness that the weight of existence will become unbearable to you. And so there's nothing in that that's okay, right? It's not just an alternative pathway, that hedonistic immaturity.
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We Who Wrestle With God: In the Image of God
It's a complete bloody catastrophe. And it's not only a catastrophe subjectively, although that's not good. It's a catastrophe socially because, well, Wendy loves Peter Pan, but she doesn't get to marry him because he decides to stay in Neverland. And so that's not good for her.
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We Who Wrestle With God: In the Image of God
And so the immature hedonist, terrified of the patriarchal tyrant, let's say, not only dooms himself to a mode of behavior that culminates in something like suicidally distressed nihilism, but also violates the
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We Who Wrestle With God: In the Image of God
the order of the relationship between men and women, because he refuses to grow up to become the sort of person that a woman could establish a relationship with, and of course that demolishes any possibility of future family. And so insofar as part of what gives your life meaning across time, as my wife pointed out when she started to talk, is the fact that you have children, That you might love.
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We Who Wrestle With God: In the Image of God
So that's a good deal for you and them. And then grandchildren as well. You cut all that off. And then what the hell are you going to do when you're 40 or 50 or 60? And isolated and alone. And still terminally immature. So the probability that that's going to be a good time for you is pretty low. It's not going to be a good time for anyone that knows you. That's for sure.
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We Who Wrestle With God: In the Image of God
Because what the hell good are you? And it's worse than that. Because... the bitterness that will accrue to you as a consequence of that pathway to failure, that consequence of failing to make the right sacrifices, is that you'll become bitter and dangerous. And so, that's not good socially. And so, and none of that, there's none of that that's morally relative, right? That's as...
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We Who Wrestle With God: In the Image of God
That's as stark a fact as anything you could ever hope to run across, or maybe the starkest of facts. And so...
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We Who Wrestle With God: In the Image of God
You write the essay and you get the grade and you get your degree so you can have your career, so you can mature, so you can be useful to yourself now and your future self and so you can be useful to your wife and your children and so that you can extend yourself across time and if you do that properly then
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Well, then that isn't where it ends, because maybe you're also a model for other people, you're a mentor for other people, at least by example, and maybe by practice, right? And you establish a mode of being that if replicated by others, stabilizes the whole social order and makes it trustworthy and productive, And then everybody can trust each other and cooperate.
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We Who Wrestle With God: In the Image of God
And if they all trust each other and cooperate, then they can do impossible things together and they can make the desert bloom and everyone can thrive. And so that's a good deal. We know that one of the best predictors of long-term success from a psychological perspective is trait conscientiousness.
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We Who Wrestle With God: In the Image of God
It's not as good a predictor as native intelligence, let's say, but it's a good predictor, and you want to hire conscientious people for most jobs, and conscientious people are willing to forego immediate gratification to take care of the future. That's a sacrificial gesture. They'll let go of what they want and need right now to stabilize things in the long run and for other people.
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We Who Wrestle With God: In the Image of God
And that's the very definition of maturity. In fact, it's likely that the reason we have a cortex, let's say the top part of our brain that makes us specifically human, is so that we can replace the immediate demands for gratification of our base instincts with a long... What would you say?
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We Who Wrestle With God: In the Image of God
I had super bright kids in the fourth year of university who they were terrible at writing. And they could learn quickly because they were smart, but no one had ever taught them. That was an awful thing to see after 16 years of education. One of the things I learned was
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We Who Wrestle With God: In the Image of God
A mode of vision and action that takes not only ourselves, our narrow selves into account, but the iterating future and other people. Right? So that's what you're trying to encourage in your children when they mature so they can take turns and share and play with other children and be good sports.
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We Who Wrestle With God: In the Image of God
You know, the sort of good sports that help their teammates develop and not just them and that can share the glory in victory and can tolerate defeat with some degree of nobility. And all of that's Well, what's the alternative? That bitter, resentful, immature, temper tantrum that's the alternative? There's nothing in that that's acceptable or good, and there's nothing about that that's arbitrary.
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We Who Wrestle With God: In the Image of God
Again, those are stark facts of life. Okay, so what that implies is that at the higher levels of your identity, let's say, out in the realm of maturity, The things you're doing locally, like right now, the words you're saying, the gestures you make, they're associated with this hierarchy of value that extends out into the future and the community.
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And as you near the uppermost reaches, it's associated with something like mature responsibility. But that's not yet why be mature and responsible? Because you can ask the same question again. Well, we laid out the alternative. Immature and irresponsible, that's not going to be very good for you. It's going to cause a lot of pain and misery.
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We Who Wrestle With God: In the Image of God
It's going to culminate in hopelessness and it's going to be pretty bad for everyone else. Well, what would be the alternative to that? Let's say, well, what are you pursuing when you're pursuing mature responsibility? Well, you could think about it in terms of duty, right? Duty to the future, duty to other people. That's a kind of a conservative approach to the idea of maturation, right?
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Is that you... It stops being about you, it starts being about your family, your town, your state, your nation. Patriotism comes out of that, right? You're serving some higher order traditional structure, and it's the traditional structure that binds everyone together, if it's functioning properly. But there's more to maturity than that. There's more to it than that.
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We Who Wrestle With God: In the Image of God
Because being able to bear your duty, to bear up under your duty, and to be responsible, doesn't exhaust the realm of the possibility of your identity. And so, once we step beyond mere maturity, we start to step into the transcendent realm that touches on the religious. So, think about the story of The Hobbit. Think about an adventure story, right?
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You know, I'd be wading through a mess of cliches and second-rate thought and quasi-copying or not precisely Claudine Gay's sin, let's say, but close to it, plagiarism. And then, now and then, you know, it would be as if the student's actual genuine... intelligence popped up briefly through all the mess and they said something clear and useful.
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We Who Wrestle With God: In the Image of God
So, we're attracted to adventure stories that portray a hero. Now, a hero can be a king who is the embodiment of the stable and just state. But that's typically not a hero in a hero story. A hero in a hero story is usually an adventurer. So you see that, for example, in the Hobbit. You see that in the Lion King, because the hero of the Lion King isn't Mustafa, the father.
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We Who Wrestle With God: In the Image of God
The hero of the Lion King is Simba, who's the son. The son is the hero. That's a good way of thinking about it. That's very typical in literary representations. The father is necessary, but the son is the hero. You see that echoed in The Christian story, because Christ is the hero of the biblical corpus, at least from the Christian perspective.
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We Who Wrestle With God: In the Image of God
And that's an element of the divine, the sun, and it's the element of the divine that's associated with adventure. Okay, so let's walk through that. Let's take a more prosaic adventure story. That would be the Hobbit is a good example. Everybody knows that story. So the Hobbit is sort of nondescript, Every man. There's nothing remarkable about him in any real, in any obvious sense.
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We Who Wrestle With God: In the Image of God
He's certainly not a wizard. He's not an elf. He's not magic. He's a good, decent beginner. That's a good... That's a good way of conceptualizing him. He lives in this circumscribed area, right? So in both the Lord of the Rings and in the Hobbit, the Shire is, it's sort of like your neighborhood if it was only full of naive people.
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We Who Wrestle With God: In the Image of God
And all those naive people know that Eye of Sauron is gathering in the distance constantly. That's China, as far as I can tell. That all-seeing eye of the tyrannical state, right? That's over the horizon. That terrible dragon that has the capability of destroying everything, that's lurking out beyond what's really apprehensible. And all the ordinary people in the Shire
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We Who Wrestle With God: In the Image of God
want nothing to do with that. They want to have their circumscribed lives, and you can understand that, and one of the things that makes the Hobbit himself, let's say, attractive as a character is because he does have that pull towards tranquil domesticity, and that's not a vice. It's only a vice when you insist upon that when the times don't allow for that. Right?
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We Who Wrestle With God: In the Image of God
And it's questionable at the moment, for example, whether the times allow for that. So far, yes, but I wouldn't count on that continuing. Not unless we become more assiduous adventurers. So what happens to the hobbit? Well, he's called out by a magical agent, it's Gandalf in this case, to have an adventure. Okay, so what does that mean? What's a magical agent?
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We Who Wrestle With God: In the Image of God
A magical agent is one of those things that you encounter in your life that transforms your aim, that transforms your identity. So you can imagine that you have a stable identity, from time to time, you kind of know who you are, but then imagine that, well, fair enough, but what about the possibility of further development?
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We Who Wrestle With God: In the Image of God
Because if you were really who you could be, you wouldn't only be what you are properly, you'd also be moving towards something more. Right? And so if your character is fully developed, sort of at the outer edges of your identity, beyond mere maturity, you're not only mature and responsible, you're an agent that's transforming itself into something that's even better.
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We Who Wrestle With God: In the Image of God
And what happens in your life is there are magical occurrences that transform your aim. And sometimes those are people that you meet that are... Mentors. Or who inspire you in some way. Or sometimes it's the call of your conscience. There's something bothering you deeply. And you decide to pursue that. Sometimes it's someone you fall in love with. Or an opportunity that falls in your lap.
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We Who Wrestle With God: In the Image of God
And that requires you to sacrifice who you are. So that you can take the next step. To become who you might be. And that's what's portrayed in the story of the Hobbit. In a mythological manner. the hobbit, goes outside his zone of comfort, like Abraham in the Old Testament, and has to develop elements of his character that he had regarded as
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undesirable even, the hobbit himself has to become a thief in order to become a hero. And what does that mean? It means that you never know when you might need the darker sides of your character integrated within you in a manner that doesn't terrify you in order to take the next step forward. You know, if you're not a bit of a monster and you encounter a monster, you're going to lose.
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We Who Wrestle With God: In the Image of God
So you need to have some of the monster within you. That's what happens to Harry Potter. That's why he is able to attain ascendance over Voldemort. He has a piece of Voldemort's soul hidden inside him. You can call on the part of you that has the capacity for mayhem to protect you and those you love when mayhem comes threatening.
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We Who Wrestle With God: In the Image of God
But that has to be developed, and that's a terrifying thing morally, because it's easy to be dutiful and narrow and not allow that capacity to reveal itself, but you never know when you're going to need it, and you're definitely going to need it when the dragons come flying in. And so, well, why the dragon?
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We Who Wrestle With God: In the Image of God
Because that's what the Hobbit eventually has to confront, and that's the oldest story of mankind, the confrontation with the dragon. Literally, the oldest story we have is the Enuma Elish from Mesopotamia, and it's the story of the combat with the dragon, the hero of the Enuma Elish. confronts the cosmic dragon and makes the world out of its pieces.
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We Who Wrestle With God: In the Image of God
And you know, people do this in your relationships with them. You know, all the time is they'll offer you a kind of mishmash of what they think you want or maybe even what they think they want or what they should offer. And if you really listen, then now and then you'll hear the person say something that they really mean and that's true.
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We Who Wrestle With God: In the Image of God
Something echoed in the Old Testament stories in the representation of Jehovah as the force that triumphs over the Leviathan. So there's this idea of combat with, well, what's a dragon? A dragon's a predator. Predator as such, right? A dragon is a predatory cat, and it's a predatory bird, and it's a predatory reptile, and it's fire, which is its own form of predator, because fire is a primordial
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We Who Wrestle With God: In the Image of God
threat. And so a dragon is an amalgamation of everything terrifying into one figure. And the hero who exists at the ultimate edge of identity is the ordinary person who takes it upon himself to transform himself into the hero who can confront the dragon and prevail. And what does prevail mean? Well, it means to gain the treasure that the dragon eternally guards.
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We Who Wrestle With God: In the Image of God
And that's the next level of identity, that hero story on the outer edges of, what would you say, the cosmic reaches of human identity. But that's not the outermost limit. And you see, as you move farther out, or farther down or farther up, pick your metaphor, you wander into territory that's increasingly religious in nature.
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We Who Wrestle With God: In the Image of God
And so let me lay out a level of identity that's even beyond the mythological hero. And the easiest way to do that is to use the Christian passion as the example. What's the ultimate predator? Death and evil. So that's, what would you say, that would be an abstraction of the idea of predator, right? So death is the clock in the belly of the crocodile, right? And malevolence, well...
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We Who Wrestle With God: In the Image of God
The worst predator is the predator who isn't merely an animal that has its next meal in mind, but someone who, or something, that wants to take you out in the manner that makes you suffer most pointlessly, let's say. So there's the combination of death and malevolence is something like the ultimate challenge or the ultimate predator. And so... It's like the king of all dragons.
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We Who Wrestle With God: In the Image of God
That's a reasonable way of thinking about it. Death and malevolence itself. And so the ultimate hero is the person who determines to confront the ultimate forces of destruction voluntarily. And that's the story that's encapsulated in the Christian passion. Well, why? Well, because it's a story of... It's an ultimate story.
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We Who Wrestle With God: In the Image of God
It's the story of the ultimate exposure to the furthest reaches of mortal catastrophe. So you can just think it through, I mean rationally, not asking for any suspension of disbelief here. I'm telling you how this story of identity works. So it's a terrible thing to die. That's tragedy. It's a worse thing to die young. It's the worst thing to die after being tormented when you're young.
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We Who Wrestle With God: In the Image of God
It's the worst thing to die if you're tormented, if you're tormented at the hands of your own people, and you're betrayed by your best friend, and your own people choose to torment you even when they could have picked someone they knew to be a villain to substitute for you, even though they knew he was a villain and knew you were good.
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We Who Wrestle With God: In the Image of God
It's worse to face that fate at the hands of your own mob if behind that fate there is a foreign tyrant who occupies your land, right? The barbaric empire of Rome in the story of the Christian Passion. It's worse to have all that happen to you when you're young. It's worse to have it happen to you when you're young in front of the people who love you, particularly your mother.
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And if you reward that, because you can if you learn to listen, if you reward that, then more of that will happen. Now, that can be daunting because you've got to ask yourself if you really want to know what your wife thinks of you, for example. But in the long run, it's probably a better idea than finding out in divorce court, you know, 25 years later. So...
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We Who Wrestle With God: In the Image of God
It's worse to have all of that happen in the most unfair and torturous possible manner, which was the crucifixion, because that's why the Romans designed that punishment. And that wasn't bad enough, because crucifixion wasn't sufficient to satisfy the bloodthirst of the mob, so Christ had to undergo crucifixion a flaying before being crucified.
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We Who Wrestle With God: In the Image of God
And none of that's bad enough yet because the worst possible tragedy is all that, but not only all that, all that inflicted on the least possible deserving person. Right, so that's an ultimate tragedy. And that's not enough yet. And so we're really stretching out to the furthest possible reaches of identity.
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We Who Wrestle With God: In the Image of God
There's a Christian tradition that after Christ is crucified, because all of that's not enough, he has to descend into hell itself. And what does that mean? It means that... At the ultimate reaches of human identity, it's not only the confrontation with catastrophe and death that's required, but the full-fledged confrontation with malevolence itself.
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We Who Wrestle With God: In the Image of God
And then the ultimate hero is the person who can do that voluntarily, without being corrupted, while maintaining his upward aim. That's identity. All of that's identity, right? That's that Jacob's Ladder. That stretches up from the earth to the heavens. Right? That situates every person in the confines of a heavenly hierarchy. With that ultimate heroic sacrificial gesture at the pinnacle.
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We Who Wrestle With God: In the Image of God
Well, why? Well... The person who dares the ultimate gains the ultimate reward. Well, that's represented in the Gospel text as the resurrection. That's represented as the reconciliation of God and man, right? As the antithesis to death and evil. And it is the case that to the degree that each person is capable of voluntarily taking on the burden of being
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unto themselves and moving forward and upward despite that catastrophe that death is overcome and evil defeated. And so all of that's true, and the collapse of that truth leaves us in a situation where our entire identities are up for question.
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We Who Wrestle With God: In the Image of God
Now the alternative to that is something terrible, because the alternative is coming to understand what identity means, and coming to understand that means coming to understand what I just described, is that that's the burden that's placed on people who want to get to the bottom of what constitutes identity.
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is that you're called upon to maintain your upward aim regardless of the catastrophe of life. And the promise is that if you do that voluntarily, the spirit of the cosmic order will walk with you while you do it. Right, and that seems right because we know practically, we know psychologically that
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We Who Wrestle With God: In the Image of God
People will hide bits of wheat in the chaff, and what you do as a discriminating critic is Dispense with the chaff, but identify the wheat. This is a really important thing to know when you're mentoring people, when you're grading, but when you're communicating with people in general, what you're really looking for, if you're wise, are things to reward.
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We Who Wrestle With God: In the Image of God
You become braver and better with every decision you make to confront what obstacle terrifies and terrifies you and stops you in your tracks, right? You develop into more of what you could be by constantly confronting The things that challenge you most deeply. And there's no end to that. And in principle, there's no end to the amount of development that can emerge as a consequence of that.
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We Who Wrestle With God: In the Image of God
And that's another part of that upward spiraling Jacob's ladder that leads up into the... incomprehensible reaches of the divine itself. And then what you have in that is just as you fade into incomprehensibility on the material end of things, you fade into incomprehensibility at the transcendent end of things too.
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We Who Wrestle With God: In the Image of God
And that what your identity is, is the thing that bridges the gap between earth and heaven. And really, And that's who we are. And that's what we need to understand to set things right. And that's a much better story than you can do whatever you want whenever you want with anyone you want and to hell with the consequences. But it's a terrible burden.
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We Who Wrestle With God: In the Image of God
It's a terrible thing to realize that that adventure is your moral responsibility and that If you accept it, then you set the world right, and if you reject it, then you destroy yourself and everything around you. And we're at a state now where we need to understand all that, and not only understand it, but act it out. With every word, with every gesture, right?
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We Who Wrestle With God: In the Image of God
With every impulse, with every fiber of our being. so that we can bring the order that's good into being in the world. And that's an investigation into identity from first principles. Thank you very much.
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We Who Wrestle With God: In the Image of God
Now, you dispense with everything that's second rate, not because you want to criticize and get rid of or rise above the person that you're... criticizing morally, but because you want to get to the wheat. And it was frequently the case, for example, when my students were maybe writing the first essay of the semester, that literally 95% of what they wrote was just just painful.
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Would have been easier just to rewrite the essay than to grade it. You know, and so, seriously. But, you know, one of the things I noticed is that if I circled a couple of sentences that were genuine thought, the students were so thrilled that someone had noticed
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when they dared to put their head up above the parapet and say something they believed to be true and genuine, that the next time they wrote an essay, it'd be more like 30 or 40% that. And then if they got further reward for that, assuming they had the talent and the diligence, then perhaps by the end of the semester it would be like 90% genuine thought, genuine wheat.
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It's a lot of fun to see if I can make something coherent out of a genuine investigation. It's kind of a high wire act, but it's very entertaining. It's fun to do it with an audience too because, and I can see simultaneously if I can manage to push my thought forward in a manner that's coherent, but also in a manner that's communicable and comprehensible.
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We Who Wrestle With God: In the Image of God
And then they were thrilled about that too, because people are thrilled to have the opportunity to offer their best, especially if it's received in the right manner.
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We Who Wrestle With God: In the Image of God
People will often obfuscate and produce what's second rate because they're terrified in their heart of hearts that if they did reveal themselves genuinely, which is also a way of making yourself vulnerable because it lets people see who you really are, if they did reveal themselves genuinely, that that would be rejected.
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We Who Wrestle With God: In the Image of God
And so part of the reason that my students delivered such dross to begin with was because they had a history of... having what they offered that was good ignored or condemned.
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We Who Wrestle With God: In the Image of God
And so often they'd hide under the cliches, they'd hide under giving the professor what he wanted to hear so they would get a good grade because they had sickened of the risk of doing something genuine and having it be rejected. And that's something else to know in your relationships, man.
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You've got to be very careful not to punish the people around you that you love for doing something good because you can eradicate what's good with punishment quite rapidly. And so it's a deep thing to understand that you need to be watching the people around you all the time to see when they hit the target, and to point that out. And people love that.
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We Who Wrestle With God: In the Image of God
If you do that to people around you, they'll be so thrilled with you, you can hardly stand it, right? Because people, all people, but those who are utterly nihilistic and faithless, will risk offering something genuine from time to time in the desperate hope that it is, in fact, noticed and appreciated.
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We Who Wrestle With God: In the Image of God
And if you can transform yourself into the sort of person who notices that and rewards it, then people will bring their best to you, and that's a great deal. Now, you know, it's demanding in a sense and frightening because if you...
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We Who Wrestle With God: In the Image of God
start to encourage the best in other people, and you set that as a standard, you more or less have to apply the same criteria to yourself, and that can be daunting, and so, you know, we tend to engage in a pathological dance with other people, and they offer what second rate
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to us, and we accept it and offer one second rate to them, and we do that because we can shirk responsibility, and because it lets everybody off the hook. But, you know, there was a famous Soviet joke, typical Russian humor. They pretend to pay us, and we pretend to work. Right, right, that's a brutal joke. That's a brutal joke. That's the sort of joke that destroys everything, right?
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And did, in fact, because the Soviets were well on the way to destroying everything when they finally destroyed enough so that they fell apart. And thank God that happened without, well, without the Third World War, which we seem to be striving mightily to bring back right at the moment, by the way. Okay, so what are you doing?
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We Who Wrestle With God: In the Image of God
When I was thinking through what I was doing when I was grading an essay, I asked myself, what are you doing when you're writing? What is a student doing when he or she is writing? What are you doing when you're thinking? And it's so interesting because if you think that through deeply, there's never anything that you do even at the micro level. There's never any word that you utter.
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We Who Wrestle With God: In the Image of God
There's never any letter that you write, and I mean a single letter, that isn't infused with the spirit of your entire identity. And what that means, for example, if you're going to write an essay for a university course and you're going to do it right, it means that you have to write down the closest approximation to the truth that you can manage.
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And that's a very tricky business because to speak or to write the truth means you have to be oriented toward the truth and that you have to have made a practice of that. And there isn't anything about that that's temporary or fragmentary. It has to be... It has to be...
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We Who Wrestle With God: In the Image of God
It's a great privilege to be able to have that opportunity. So, identity. You know, we have identity politics. And that's a core element of the culture war. So identity has become political. It isn't necessarily the case that identity would be political. It could be psychological, it could be sacred, it could be patriotic, it could be national. There's lots of...
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part of your identity or maybe it has to be your identity and maybe what you're doing when you encourage people to bring their best to the table and you reward them for those offerings that are genuine is that you're encouraging their identity as upward aiming truth tellers and there's no difference between that and encouraging the manifestation of the logos, right? That's the same thing.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
We Who Wrestle With God: In the Image of God
The logos being the spirit of the word or the spirit of Christ, the spirit of God that broods on the water. the deep at the beginning of time, and that brings the created order into being. That's all the same thing. You know, and identity is a very deep, very deep phenomenon, and questions about identity are very deep problems. They go all the way to the bottom, or all the way to the top, or both.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
We Who Wrestle With God: In the Image of God
And this is the case. With every word that you write when you're writing. And this is a good thing to know when you're writing. You know, you might think that it's okay to be casual with your words. It's never okay to be casual with your words. There's a... It's part of the Judeo-Christian tradition that it is the word that brings reality itself into being out of potential. Right? And that's...
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
We Who Wrestle With God: In the Image of God
That's the truth and what that means is you bloody well better be careful with your words because every word you speak is either a manifestation of the fact that you're made in the image of God or it's a rebellion against that. And there's no such thing as trivial communication.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
We Who Wrestle With God: In the Image of God
If you're communicating trivially or you're communicating about something trivial, that just means that you've wandered off the path. That's all it means. It's just as, it's an analog of this. If you find people boring, that's you. Right, because if you listen to people, they are not boring. They are so interesting that you want to get away from them. Right, right.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
We Who Wrestle With God: In the Image of God
So there's no trivial, there's no trivial use of words. Okay, so now let's take that apart a bit as we investigate identity. We could do that. We could start the investigation with anything you do. But I'm going to use the domain of words. Because we all talk, we all communicate, we think in words. It's as good a place as any to start, or perhaps better than most.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
We Who Wrestle With God: In the Image of God
What are you doing when you're writing? Well, let's say you're using a pen. Well, you're you're drawing, you're drawing letters, you're moving the muscles of your hand, like at the kind of the highest level of resolution, at the most precise, the most precise formulation is the act of writing. It's a motor act, it's actually an action, right? And you have...
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
We Who Wrestle With God: In the Image of God
voluntary control over that, but interestingly enough, what you're doing at that high resolution level, the mechanics of writing as an act, that shades into mystery, right? Because you can control your hand, but you don't know how, right? Like, I can move my fingers, but I have no idea which individual muscles I'm moving. So that's unconscious. It's unknown and unconscious.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
511. Canada's Next Prime Minister | Pierre Poilievre
Well, as you shifted your position up the political hierarchy and are poised really likely to take the reins in Canada at some point in the next year, you've listened to all these people. And so what have you learned? And what has it made you convinced of, let's say?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
511. Canada's Next Prime Minister | Pierre Poilievre
And it appears very probable that Pierre Polyev is the heir presumptive and will be the next Prime Minister of Canada. And so I talked to Mr. Polyev two and a half years ago, which was quite shocking to me. I thought it had been more recently than that. And... A lot has transpired in the meantime. What did I talk about with Pierre?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
511. Canada's Next Prime Minister | Pierre Poilievre
And that's about the time when people think about downsizing from their house.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
511. Canada's Next Prime Minister | Pierre Poilievre
Yeah, well, there's been a real conservative swing, especially among young men. Well, no wonder, because they've been demonized for, what, 30 straight years for every aspect of their masculinity, from their play preferences to their proclivity to destroy the planet with their ambition.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
511. Canada's Next Prime Minister | Pierre Poilievre
And so there's definitely an opportunity there, and clearly your political party and you are capitalizing on that, that you have the support from... from young people increasingly right across Canada.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
511. Canada's Next Prime Minister | Pierre Poilievre
Well, I think mostly what I did was give Canadians and people on the international side a chance to see who this man is. In an hour and a half of discussion and the extra half an hour on the Daily Wire side, you have enough time to get a sense of how someone responds personally. spontaneously and emotionally and cognitively to complex and challenging questions in a manner that's not rehearsed.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
511. Canada's Next Prime Minister | Pierre Poilievre
Right. So the unhappiness that you're seeing among young people seems to me to be a consequence of the mismatch between the opportunity they see right in front of them and their frustration at the fact that that opportunity can't be capitalized on, even if they're contributing their fair share.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
511. Canada's Next Prime Minister | Pierre Poilievre
Well, when I was a kid in Alberta, I could work in the summer, and I didn't work on the rig, so I didn't have one of the high-paying jobs. I had a more, what would you say, a job that was secondarily associated with the resource economy. I could make enough money in the summer, in two months, four months, to pay for the tuition and my entire year's rent.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
511. Canada's Next Prime Minister | Pierre Poilievre
Well, that's a genuine breakdown of the social contract, right? Absolutely. Because the deal, like you said, the deal was supposed to be, if you do things right, you'll be rewarded. Yes. Right, and that's the intergenerational compact, essentially. And there isn't anything that defines hopelessness more clearly than... seeing that if you do all the right things, the pathway is paved to failure.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
511. Canada's Next Prime Minister | Pierre Poilievre
Right. Right. So that's so demoralizing. And, you know, what's even worse about that is that the people who are most demoralized by that are precisely the people who would be most productive and hardworking. Because the ones that are sponging along, they don't give a damn anyways, right? They're not losing any glorious future and they're not sacrificing for it anyways.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
511. Canada's Next Prime Minister | Pierre Poilievre
But it's really not good when your economy is set up to punish people who are entrepreneurial and hardworking.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
511. Canada's Next Prime Minister | Pierre Poilievre
Okay, so let's delve into that a little bit. So I've been tracking economic statistics in relationship to Canada and sort of left me open-mouthed in amazement at our dismal condition. So from what I've been able to understand, the richest people per capita in terms of GDP per person, gross domestic product per person, so that's total productivity, is Ontario.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
511. Canada's Next Prime Minister | Pierre Poilievre
That's the huge advantage of the podcast format. We talked about all the stories that Mr. Polyev has heard in his thousands of
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
511. Canada's Next Prime Minister | Pierre Poilievre
And Ontario inhabitants are now poorer per capita than inhabitants of Mississippi, and that's the poorest American state. So the inhabitants of Canada's richest province are poorer than the inhabitants of the United States' poorest state. And that's actually occurred primarily In the last 10 years. Yes. And because we were basically at parity before that. Yes.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
511. Canada's Next Prime Minister | Pierre Poilievre
And had historically been not quite as rich as the Americans with some, you know, blips above them, but pretty much tracking them one-to-one. Yeah. And now it's, 60%, something like that. And that's not all the bad news because it's 60% in terms of absolute wealth and a real estate market that's twice as expensive approximately on average.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
511. Canada's Next Prime Minister | Pierre Poilievre
Right, so now- It's really bad.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
511. Canada's Next Prime Minister | Pierre Poilievre
event interactions with Canadians in industrial settings, in manufacturing settings, in academic settings, so that he could inform himself about the true situation that's facing Canadians struggling to make ends meet despite their best efforts now, which is a dismal reality in Canada with its excessive housing prices and diminishing economy. Most importantly, perhaps,
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
511. Canada's Next Prime Minister | Pierre Poilievre
This is per capita?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
511. Canada's Next Prime Minister | Pierre Poilievre
So how is the Canadian worker- That's investment in future productivity?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
511. Canada's Next Prime Minister | Pierre Poilievre
There's a real, real- It's a pretty stark and easily comprehensible statistic. Yeah. I mean, if you work and you produce $80 worth of goods and services in an hour, compared to working and producing 50, obviously that's a substantial shortfall. And is there a starker indicator of the economic disparity between the US and Canada than that? Or do you think that's the primary statistic?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
511. Canada's Next Prime Minister | Pierre Poilievre
Yeah. And we're paying more. We're paying more by a lot. Yeah. Right, and most of that's transpired in the last 10 years.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
511. Canada's Next Prime Minister | Pierre Poilievre
What is his vision of the future that both threatens and provides opportunity for Canadians? How is it possible for the citizens of this great country to dig themselves out of the malaise and pit that has been dug for them and by them over the last nine years? And what could be done to
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
511. Canada's Next Prime Minister | Pierre Poilievre
Okay, so that's another problem. So that's the inflationary problem. Now, the problem with inflation, there's many problems with inflation, but one of them is that it particularly punishes people who are thrifty and who save.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
511. Canada's Next Prime Minister | Pierre Poilievre
Right, right. So inflation punishes the people who forego gratification to invest in the future.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
511. Canada's Next Prime Minister | Pierre Poilievre
Right, so that's a very bad idea.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
511. Canada's Next Prime Minister | Pierre Poilievre
So the socialist policies that, provide goods and services to Canadians, let's say, or denizens of other countries by printing money actually punish the poor brutally in consequence of the inflation that they generate.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
511. Canada's Next Prime Minister | Pierre Poilievre
Okay, so what...
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
511. Canada's Next Prime Minister | Pierre Poilievre
Remove the impediments such that this country could become the dynamic industrial powerhouse that it certainly could easily become. So, join us for all that. So, sir, it's been almost two and a half years since we sat down to talk the time before. So, I guess the first thing I'd like to know is, what have you been doing during that time? I'd like to hear...
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
511. Canada's Next Prime Minister | Pierre Poilievre
Okay. So what would you do to, to stop inflation?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
511. Canada's Next Prime Minister | Pierre Poilievre
Define the deficit, yeah, for people.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
511. Canada's Next Prime Minister | Pierre Poilievre
It's usually calculated on a yearly basis. That's right. And the debt?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
511. Canada's Next Prime Minister | Pierre Poilievre
I thought it had a ceiling of... 41 billion, yeah. Wasn't that a ceiling? Guess not, eh?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
511. Canada's Next Prime Minister | Pierre Poilievre
And you have a plan for that in principle?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
511. Canada's Next Prime Minister | Pierre Poilievre
And the percentage of a new house price that's a consequence of government taxation and regulation?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
511. Canada's Next Prime Minister | Pierre Poilievre
Now, does that include the land and the house?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
511. Canada's Next Prime Minister | Pierre Poilievre
I'd like to hear about your day-to-day schedule and your week-to-week schedule, like lay out your job.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
511. Canada's Next Prime Minister | Pierre Poilievre
You mean like to Germany and Japan, even when they ask? Exactly. And are offering multi-decade supply contracts at at at distressed prices because they're so desperate for energy right and we can't make a business case for that famously yes this is i think that was perhaps the single stupidest thing i ever heard a politician say and that's a really hard contest to win
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
511. Canada's Next Prime Minister | Pierre Poilievre
And you figured out a way to monetize cold weather.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
511. Canada's Next Prime Minister | Pierre Poilievre
It's a very difficult thing to do.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
511. Canada's Next Prime Minister | Pierre Poilievre
Right. The thing about human brains is it turns out that the remarkable thing about human brains is how smart they are for how little energy they use.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
511. Canada's Next Prime Minister | Pierre Poilievre
Right. Whereas we're building machines that are super intelligent, but they're very energy hungry.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
511. Canada's Next Prime Minister | Pierre Poilievre
Well, yeah, the tech companies are absolutely desperate for it.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
511. Canada's Next Prime Minister | Pierre Poilievre
And Microsoft revitalized Three Mile Island.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
511. Canada's Next Prime Minister | Pierre Poilievre
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And they bought all the power that it's going to generate.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
511. Canada's Next Prime Minister | Pierre Poilievre
We can try to organize things so that energy superpower wasn't an insulting phrase.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
511. Canada's Next Prime Minister | Pierre Poilievre
Well, that's obviously the moral thing to do with regards to the alleviation of absolute poverty as well. Because there's an environmental case to be made for that too, which I learned about about 15 years ago. If you...
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
511. Canada's Next Prime Minister | Pierre Poilievre
if you alleviate absolute poverty the people who are now comparatively wealthy so say starting to move into the middle class take a much longer term view of their lives and their children's lives and their grandchildren's lives which are now relatively assured and they're much more likely to take environmental action at the local level so it looks like the fastest pathway to a genuinely green and sustainable future
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
511. Canada's Next Prime Minister | Pierre Poilievre
is through the eradication of absolute poverty. Right. And the most effective route to that is cheap energy. Right. Absolutely. So it looks like we could have a green future and eat our cake too, so to speak. And Canada could definitely be at the forefront of that.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
511. Canada's Next Prime Minister | Pierre Poilievre
Okay, so I want to turn back to some numbers. The deficit this year was $61 billion.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
511. Canada's Next Prime Minister | Pierre Poilievre
Sorry, last year, last year. And there's 40 million people in Canada. So that's $1,500 billion. Per person, federal overspending, and that's $6,000 essentially per family. So just for everybody watching and listening, your federal government spent $6,000 of your family's money last year going over their budget. That's just what they spent in excess of what they had originally budgeted.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
511. Canada's Next Prime Minister | Pierre Poilievre
Okay, so it's also the case that we haven't gone into diagnostics yet, but it's also the case that the Trudeau administration has increased the federal bureaucracy 40%? In bodies, yes. In bodies, since its inception, right? Yeah. But despite that, they've also radically increased the amount of money that they're spending on consultants. Yes.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
511. Canada's Next Prime Minister | Pierre Poilievre
Who are about as expensive, they're as expensive as employees go. Oh, they're way more expensive. Yeah, as any employee you could ever possibly have, right? $600 an hour, something like that. Right, so they've massively increased the size of the federal bureaucracy. Right. but also massively increase the degree to which they outsource the work that hypothetically the bureaucrats should be doing.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
511. Canada's Next Prime Minister | Pierre Poilievre
I think that was perhaps the single stupidest thing I ever heard a politician say. Your federal government spent $6,000 of your family's money going over their budget.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
511. Canada's Next Prime Minister | Pierre Poilievre
Right. Immigration, poorest border. I think our per capita immigration rate exceeds that of the U.S., even given the U.S. open southern border.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
511. Canada's Next Prime Minister | Pierre Poilievre
With what was the approximation of a public apology.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
511. Canada's Next Prime Minister | Pierre Poilievre
Okay, so that's a lot of... I just talked to Terry Glavin, a Canadian journalist this week too, and he did about a five-dimensional analysis of the trouble that Canada was in. It was blackly comic in some ways because we realized at the end of the conversation or near the end of it that we hadn't even discussed the ever-present threat of the Quebec separatists.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
511. Canada's Next Prime Minister | Pierre Poilievre
And I was thinking, oh my God, like Canada's in a pretty dismal state when... the threat of Quebec separatism is number sixth on the list of threats to the integrity of the country. Yes. Right?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
511. Canada's Next Prime Minister | Pierre Poilievre
Yeah, I know, I know.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
511. Canada's Next Prime Minister | Pierre Poilievre
And ironically... A more out of desperation than anything else.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
511. Canada's Next Prime Minister | Pierre Poilievre
Okay, so this has really transpired in large part over the nine- to ten-year period that Trudeau has been governing. And so when you... are trying to put your finger on what went so wrong, so calamitously wrong. What do you think the major contributors were?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
511. Canada's Next Prime Minister | Pierre Poilievre
I mean, there's a lot of hydras whose heads we're encountering at the moment, and I imagine it's relatively difficult to trace a causal pathway, but what did we do wrong as a country?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
511. Canada's Next Prime Minister | Pierre Poilievre
Right, that have demonstrated themselves as disastrous continuously throughout the 20th century.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
511. Canada's Next Prime Minister | Pierre Poilievre
Okay, so one of the things that I think is particularly striking, I saw Stephen Guilbeault, who's probably the minister in Trudeau's cabinet, who's most fervently Yeah, he describes himself as a socialist. Well, this is the thing. So he described himself as a socialist.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
511. Canada's Next Prime Minister | Pierre Poilievre
And so for all you international people listening, Canada has always had a socialist party, and that's the New Democratic Party, the NDP, which is currently run by Jagmeet Singh, who's propping up Trudeau, all his protestations to the contrary. And Canadians have always been, about 20% of Canadians have protested
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
511. Canada's Next Prime Minister | Pierre Poilievre
Stably supported the socialists, the NDP in Canada, and that's been true since about 1962 or something when they first popped up as a federal party. Now, the Liberals, and that's Trudeau's party, have been a centrist party, historically speaking, and they were the home of the classic Liberals. all things considered.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
511. Canada's Next Prime Minister | Pierre Poilievre
And they like to steal good ideas from the left and from the right and chart Canada's course down the middle. The thing about Trudeau's liberals is they're not liberals, is they're far-left socialists. And they came to power in the guise of liberals, and that meant that they're bloody. Their government was fraudulent. technically speaking, from the beginning.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
511. Canada's Next Prime Minister | Pierre Poilievre
Because Guilbault, for example, obviously should have been a member of the NDP and not the classic traditional Canadian liberals. But he didn't care because he knew that had he run for the socialists, he would have ended up with 20% of the vote because that's what they always do and never had any clear pathway to power. And so Trudeau brought a bunch of people in who were so radically left that...
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
511. Canada's Next Prime Minister | Pierre Poilievre
that they left the NDP in the dust, essentially. And they've been running the country on false pretenses for nine years. And if you ally that with the fact that Trudeau is clearly, he clearly has narcissistic personality characteristics and runs the country, I think as a testament to his own grandeur, it's something like that.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
511. Canada's Next Prime Minister | Pierre Poilievre
And one of your caucus members recently stood up in the House and I think listed something approximating 60 scandals. I mean, I've been scandalized by that because my observation, I've been watching the Canadian political landscape for, you know, five decades, and the Trudeau government has skated through at least,
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
511. Canada's Next Prime Minister | Pierre Poilievre
And you said 600 events. You made illusion when we were driving over here that the weekends are particularly packed, that you'll do like 10 events on Saturday or Sunday.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
511. Canada's Next Prime Minister | Pierre Poilievre
a half a dozen scandals that under normal circumstances would have provoked an honorable government to resign. And then that doesn't count the other 54. And so at the moment, Trudeau's grip on authority is very shaky. His deputy prime minister resigned last week in a cloud of catastrophic surreal manipulation. He shuffled his cabinet this week. At least a third of his caucus doesn't,
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
511. Canada's Next Prime Minister | Pierre Poilievre
have any confidence in him, but he's being propped up by the socialists, Jagmeet Singh in particular, who also continually proclaims publicly that he is an opponent of the Trudeau government and is standing up against him while refusing categorically to do anything to do the thing that's actually in his power to bring down the government. So do you want to, I just can't understand this at all.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
511. Canada's Next Prime Minister | Pierre Poilievre
So do you want to walk us through this?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
511. Canada's Next Prime Minister | Pierre Poilievre
As the NDP themselves admit, the previous leaders of the NDP.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
511. Canada's Next Prime Minister | Pierre Poilievre
And so what A typical event, what do you enjoy about the events? Why are they useful, and what do you learn?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
511. Canada's Next Prime Minister | Pierre Poilievre
But I will remind people... How do you account for that from a motivational perspective? I mean, the scuttlebutt in the Canadian press is that Singh is propping up the government for personal reasons, say, regarding his pension. Now, you're making a much more political case.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
511. Canada's Next Prime Minister | Pierre Poilievre
But I can't understand how he can reconcile himself to himself because what he does is so at odds with what he says that it couldn't be more different. Like... If he allied him... The other thing I can't figure out, maybe you can shed some light on this, is like, when Singh agreed to act as Trudeau's support, why the hell didn't he negotiate a cabinet seat?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
511. Canada's Next Prime Minister | Pierre Poilievre
I mean, why didn't he make it into a formal coalition? I know that's not... a traditional Canadian move, but it could happen. And so he sold his soul to Trudeau fundamentally, decimated his own party, and gained nothing in return, including what he could have gained had he bargained properly. That's how it looks to me. And what do you think about that?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
511. Canada's Next Prime Minister | Pierre Poilievre
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
511. Canada's Next Prime Minister | Pierre Poilievre
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Okay, so what do you see on the horizon in the upcoming year? I want to talk about two things. What do you think is going to unfold, well, even in January, I mean, once Parliament reconvenes, and what you expect from Trudeau in terms of his political action, then what you expect...
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
511. Canada's Next Prime Minister | Pierre Poilievre
As the Liberal Party tries to reformulate itself, like I can't imagine a scenario, not really, where Trudeau leads Liberals into the next election. That seems to me highly improbable. It wouldn't surprise me if he has to be removed kicking and screaming, so to speak. But I'd like to hear your thoughts on what are Canadians to expect in the upcoming months?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
511. Canada's Next Prime Minister | Pierre Poilievre
When does his pension kick in?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
511. Canada's Next Prime Minister | Pierre Poilievre
Okay, so that problem's off. That's right. So March is the earliest, as far as you can see, that election could be called.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
511. Canada's Next Prime Minister | Pierre Poilievre
God knows how long that would drag on for during- You think approximately in March, no earlier than March, as far as you can foresee.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
511. Canada's Next Prime Minister | Pierre Poilievre
And so who do you see as contenders on the liberal side? I mean, Freeland, I think, is going to make a run for it. But Carney, do you think he's going to throw his hat in the ring? Now, he famously rejected the opportunity to become Trudeau's finance minister.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
511. Canada's Next Prime Minister | Pierre Poilievre
Why would have he decided to take that job to begin with?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
511. Canada's Next Prime Minister | Pierre Poilievre
Well, God, you can't imagine stepping into a more thankless role.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
511. Canada's Next Prime Minister | Pierre Poilievre
Well, Carney already has a reputation. It seems to me that if he has prime ministerial ambitions, he'd just wait for the Trudeau liberals to cataclysmically degenerate even further and then step in as the savior.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
511. Canada's Next Prime Minister | Pierre Poilievre
Yeah, I want to turn to that in some detail. Let me ask you about the parliamentary side too, because I think it'd be useful for people to know how you prepare for what you do in parliament and It isn't obvious to me that people exactly understand the business of being in opposition at a really practical level. What do you see as your major function?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
511. Canada's Next Prime Minister | Pierre Poilievre
Okay, okay. So what do you see? Let's do this. I want to know what you see as, like... Frankly speaking, I don't envy you your job. Or the people, by the way, in the Trump administration, because it's very glamorous at the moment for them. But if they're going to cut government inefficiency in a serious manner, they're going to be doing hard administrative labor. for a very long period of time.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
511. Canada's Next Prime Minister | Pierre Poilievre
Now, you're going to take the helm of Canada when there are five dimensions of trouble brewing. And serious, more serious trouble on all of those dimensions than I've ever seen plague Canada in my entire life as a Canadian. And it's worse than that because I suspect that the true picture is a lot more dismal than we know.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
511. Canada's Next Prime Minister | Pierre Poilievre
Okay, so that's going to be dumped on you sometime in the next year. And so... How are you going to deal with that?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
511. Canada's Next Prime Minister | Pierre Poilievre
Like, how are you going to deal with the fact that the easiest thing to do for Canadians and for the remnants of the legacy media will be to wait until the Trudeau government collapses completely, dumps the economic mess on your shoulders, and then two months later proclaim that it's your fault?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
511. Canada's Next Prime Minister | Pierre Poilievre
Well, and it will be your responsibility at that point. And so, like...
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
511. Canada's Next Prime Minister | Pierre Poilievre
Oh, you definitely are going to get the hangover. There's no doubt about that. And that's a formidable set of problems. Now, as we've already pointed out, Canada has a tremendous number of natural and cultural advantages. But still, like, there's a lot of... Now, you have a Senate that's packed with liberal progressives. Let's call them by their proper name.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
511. Canada's Next Prime Minister | Pierre Poilievre
You have a Senate that's packed with progressives. You have a judiciary that's packed with progressives. You have municipalities all across the country that are progressive. Even once you win, there's going to be a lot of opposition to your movement forward, and you're going to inherit all these problems. So, like...
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
511. Canada's Next Prime Minister | Pierre Poilievre
It's rough, man. And so, I mean, I want to know why you think you're ready. It's been two and a half years since we've had this conversation like this. And what's your plan? And who are the people you have in positions to implement your plan? And why should Canadians have confidence in them?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
511. Canada's Next Prime Minister | Pierre Poilievre
I know you're there to push back against the government and to question and criticize, but it isn't obvious how you go about preparing for that or how you decide what issues you're going to focus on and how you distribute the responsibilities among your caucus and your broader team.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
511. Canada's Next Prime Minister | Pierre Poilievre
And are there businesses that you're talking to? These are larger businesses, I presume. Do they understand your concerns? Are they on board with your suggestions?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
511. Canada's Next Prime Minister | Pierre Poilievre
Well, the energy companies have been towing the green line, which seems to me to be a very bad strategy.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
511. Canada's Next Prime Minister | Pierre Poilievre
Mm-hmm. So one of the remarkable things that transpired on the American front, and rather precipitously in the last three months of the election, was that a remarkable team of people aggregated themselves around Trump.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
511. Canada's Next Prime Minister | Pierre Poilievre
And that, well, that was heartening because each of those people had their own track record of stellar accomplishment, but it also helped decrease people's concern about Trump as a individualistic autocrat, let's say. Now, you're very well known in Canada, I would say, and increasingly internationally. I'd say that's less true of your team.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
511. Canada's Next Prime Minister | Pierre Poilievre
And so could you tell us, like, can you point to some people who will be key in your administration and highlight their, I'd like to know what you think their strengths are. So let's walk through the core elements of your team. And also, I'd like to hear a little bit about where you think you guys still need to learn and might need further development.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
511. Canada's Next Prime Minister | Pierre Poilievre
It's worse than that because I suspect that the true picture is a lot more dismal than we know. Okay, so that's going to be dumped on you sometime in the next year.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
511. Canada's Next Prime Minister | Pierre Poilievre
Who do you have on the energy side, federally?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
511. Canada's Next Prime Minister | Pierre Poilievre
Okay, so your fundamental plan is to eliminate obstacles, let's say, bureaucratic obstacles, procedure obstacles, and to facilitate growth out of Canada's current malaise.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
511. Canada's Next Prime Minister | Pierre Poilievre
And you see that... A lot of what you've talked about today is on the resource front. And you have premiers who are going to back that. Canada is also a sophisticated nation. We're more than hewers of wood, let's say, and drawers of water and purveyors of energy.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
511. Canada's Next Prime Minister | Pierre Poilievre
Why don't you talk a little bit about... Let's presume, for the sake of argument, that you have two terms, eight years, let's say, which is not an... I think that that's a reasonable prognostication if things go at least moderately well, right? And so eight years from now, what is the candidate that you are planning to lead? What does it look like?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
511. Canada's Next Prime Minister | Pierre Poilievre
It's a place where... So that's the best rejoinder to the Americans, I would say. Fundamentally, for Canadians who are concerned about undue American influence on Canada, the best possible rejoinder would be to make Canada a place so welcome to entrepreneurs that the U.S. would pale in comparison.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
511. Canada's Next Prime Minister | Pierre Poilievre
That's a tall order because the Americans are deeply entrepreneurial and have a very business-friendly society. At every level, they reward entrepreneurial activity.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
511. Canada's Next Prime Minister | Pierre Poilievre
Right. So that's like $40,000 per Canadian, something like that.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
511. Canada's Next Prime Minister | Pierre Poilievre
So we can bring that back. $20,000 per Canadian, $80,000 per family.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
511. Canada's Next Prime Minister | Pierre Poilievre
You know, I've heard great things about the tech graduates from the University of Waterloo. They're phenomenal. The people I know in Silicon Valley. Yeah, yeah.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
511. Canada's Next Prime Minister | Pierre Poilievre
Yeah, well, they feel that they're the equivalent, at least, of the graduates of the Indian Institute of Technology. I mean, the Indians have had a massive influence in Silicon Valley. Yeah. Canadians, well, that's only one place where Canadians are not making nearly the use of their resources that they could. That's on the human resource front with regard to engineers.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
511. Canada's Next Prime Minister | Pierre Poilievre
Okay, so what are you going to do when you take office? What does that look like practically? So what could Canadians watch you do in the first months of your administration that would help reassure them that this is going to happen?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
511. Canada's Next Prime Minister | Pierre Poilievre
And what will that look like, a crackdown on crime?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
511. Canada's Next Prime Minister | Pierre Poilievre
Right, right. 1% of the criminals commit 65% of the crimes. Right. Is that right? Yes. I didn't know that. Yes. Well, criminals specialize just like everyone else, right? And the best predictor of offense in the future is repeat offense in the past.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
511. Canada's Next Prime Minister | Pierre Poilievre
Yeah, well, that's exactly a consequence of that specialization. Right.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
511. Canada's Next Prime Minister | Pierre Poilievre
Okay, so what's your evidence for that?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
511. Canada's Next Prime Minister | Pierre Poilievre
Yeah, the best deterrent turns out to be probability of conviction rather than length of sentence.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
511. Canada's Next Prime Minister | Pierre Poilievre
So it doesn't matter.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
511. Canada's Next Prime Minister | Pierre Poilievre
Well, Canada historically had a very effective immigration policy.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
511. Canada's Next Prime Minister | Pierre Poilievre
Yeah, it was clearly viewed as a net benefit by the immigrants and by Canadians. Absolutely.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
511. Canada's Next Prime Minister | Pierre Poilievre
That's the shadow side of multiculturalism.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
511. Canada's Next Prime Minister | Pierre Poilievre
Right, so we can abandon the post-nationalist state rhetoric and presume that Canada does have a Western identity founded on the a priori principles of Western democracies and that that is a uniting ethos for the people that come here.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
511. Canada's Next Prime Minister | Pierre Poilievre
Right, so people are positive in consequence of that. So it's a lot easier to lead an organization when it's successful. Obviously, people are much more enthusiastic. Why do you think you're in that position? What's going on that's setting the stage for that? And I don't just mean the failures on the Trudeau side. I mean, what do you think you guys are doing right now?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
511. Canada's Next Prime Minister | Pierre Poilievre
reinserted well invented even invented in many ways when i moved to toronto it was as race blind as any country as any city could be right right and that's flipped and it's flipped because of that obsessive concern with race right that was something we 100 did not need in canada right it's we we basically what would you say imported and invented racism in canada Right, as a consequence of policy.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
511. Canada's Next Prime Minister | Pierre Poilievre
All right. So we started the conversation with a description of the manner in which the intergenerational compact that makes up the nation had started to become violated or frayed, right? You said that young people in particular, you talked about middle-aged people and business people as well, but you said young people felt that
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
511. Canada's Next Prime Minister | Pierre Poilievre
even if they did act responsibly, and even if they did undertake the adventure of their life, the entrepreneurial adventure of their life, that the probability that they would be successful, even in the centrist, middle-class manner that Canadians had become accustomed to, that had become an unlikely possibility. That had become an unlikely outcome.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
511. Canada's Next Prime Minister | Pierre Poilievre
And so your vision, it sounds to me, is to at minimum restore that social contract so that young people who are interested in adopting responsibility and taking some risk can be assured that that will meet with success. And you think that you have the team that's in place that can make that possible. Yeah. So what have you... Let's close with this.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
511. Canada's Next Prime Minister | Pierre Poilievre
How are you a different person than you were two and a half years ago?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
511. Canada's Next Prime Minister | Pierre Poilievre
Right, right. So that hasn't demoralized you?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
511. Canada's Next Prime Minister | Pierre Poilievre
Right, right. All right, well, thank you, sir. It's very good to talk to you. Hopefully it won't be two and a half years before we speak again. No, we should do it more often. Yeah, well, it's a very good forum for apprising people of your plans and your progress.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
511. Canada's Next Prime Minister | Pierre Poilievre
Well, thank you, sir. It's been a privilege, far more than a price, definitely. And it continues to be that way. All right, so for everybody watching and listening, I'm going to talk to Mr. Polyev for another half an hour on the Daily Wire side, as you know. And I think probably what we'll do there is drill down a little bit on Canada-U.S. relations. The DW audience is... very American-oriented.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
511. Canada's Next Prime Minister | Pierre Poilievre
And so that seems to be perfectly appropriate. And it's something that we didn't cover in any great detail on this side of the conversation. And it seems particularly apropos, given that Trump has been making jokes about Trudeau being the governor of the 51st state and has also threatened to put 25% tariffs on Canada.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
511. Canada's Next Prime Minister | Pierre Poilievre
Eight years from now, what does it look like? Hello, everybody. I had the opportunity and the privilege today to speak with Mr. Pierre Poliev, who is the leader of Canada's Federal Conservative Party, but also, barring catastrophe and God willing, Canada's next Prime Minister, a transition in power in this country. is likely to take place sometime between March and October or November of 2025.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
511. Canada's Next Prime Minister | Pierre Poilievre
which I think is more of a ploy than a genuine threat, but it's definitely something that needs to be discussed. And so we'll talk about the trials for Canada of having the Americans as their southern neighbor, but also the immense opportunities that go along with that. Well, we occupy the same continent, so it'd probably be best if we got along, you know, swimmingly.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
511. Canada's Next Prime Minister | Pierre Poilievre
So that's what we'll discuss on the Daily Wire side. So be more than welcome to join us there. Thank you again, sir.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
511. Canada's Next Prime Minister | Pierre Poilievre
So every day when I'm in Parliament... So that's a very local vision in a sense, right? It doesn't have the grandiosity of an international utopian vision, for example. It's very down-to-earth.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
511. Canada's Next Prime Minister | Pierre Poilievre
Despite producing all that nasty carbon dioxide.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
511. Canada's Next Prime Minister | Pierre Poilievre
Okay, so there's a lot of distrust, generally speaking, in relationship to, I would say, establishment organizations and political elites all across the West. A lot of that well-earned. Why should Canadians believe that the vision that you just laid out is something that you hold personally dear and not merely, what would you say, a set of carefully calculated campaign slogans?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
511. Canada's Next Prime Minister | Pierre Poilievre
Okay, so one of the things that's been very distressing to observe, I would say, and I'm going to use the UK as an example. I mean, the UK had 14 straight years of conservative government. Yeah. And, you know, as far as I'm concerned, thank God for that, because it could have been labor.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
511. Canada's Next Prime Minister | Pierre Poilievre
But having said that, they fell 100% prey to the blandishments of the net zero types and brought forward really a catastrophic energy policy. And the UK is suffering dreadfully for that. And their immigration policy, I mean, Keir Starmer apologized for it, which was something remarkable to behold. And so did Kemi Badenoch, who now runs the Conservatives in the UK.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
511. Canada's Next Prime Minister | Pierre Poilievre
Now, the reason I'm bringing them up as an example is because, Well, they were a conservative government, and they certainly didn't govern by anything approximating conservative principles.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
511. Canada's Next Prime Minister | Pierre Poilievre
And so how do you feel about the probability that if the conservatives in Canada take power, that they'll be enticed into this global utopian delusion that seems to have enveloped so many leaders, kind of regardless of their political stripe? What do you think, if anything, can inoculate you or has inoculated you against that?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
511. Canada's Next Prime Minister | Pierre Poilievre
Well, elaborate. What do you mean?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
511. Canada's Next Prime Minister | Pierre Poilievre
Well, you can see the temptation. I mean, I think many leaders fall prey to the temptation to shine on the international stage, right? I mean, I can't remember who it was in the UK. I believe it was the previous Labour Party leader who said that decisions in Westminster were essentially irrelevant because all the important things were happening internationally, right? And so...
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
511. Canada's Next Prime Minister | Pierre Poilievre
if people are involved in status climbing and they hit the national pinnacle, as always, then there's the international world to, you know, what would you say, to dominate or to impress. And that's, I think, that the power of that temptation or even of that peer pressure can't be underestimated.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
511. Canada's Next Prime Minister | Pierre Poilievre
Okay, so now you've been, these events, these 600 events that you've gone to, so let's say that's something approximating 1,000 to 1,200 since we last talked. You spent a lot of time speaking to, and I presume listening to, ordinary Canadians. I heard you made a speech in the...
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
511. Canada's Next Prime Minister | Pierre Poilievre
I heard you make a speech in the House of Commons that went viral in the last couple of weeks, and you spoke very persuasively on behalf of working class Canadians. And so tell us what you've learned, what you've heard over the last couple of years, and how that's shaped you and changed you, let's say, as you've moved from...
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
508. Anti-Semitism and the Fall of Trudeau's Canada | Terry Glavin
Well, the Democrats didn't exactly cover themselves in glory with regards to their support for Israel after October 7th. Quite so. So, you know, I think the Israelis understand more clearly because of necessity which side their bread is buttered on, let's say. Yeah. But, like, this really is... It's really a pernicious twist, right? Because...
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
508. Anti-Semitism and the Fall of Trudeau's Canada | Terry Glavin
I do see the victimizer-victim narrative driving this radical increase in left-wing antisemitism. And I don't see any way... That's one way of understanding it.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
508. Anti-Semitism and the Fall of Trudeau's Canada | Terry Glavin
So there's that.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
508. Anti-Semitism and the Fall of Trudeau's Canada | Terry Glavin
Four hours later, Barry Weiss wrote to me and said, you should talk to Terry Glavin about his recent article. And I thought, well, she thinks so too. And so, well, so we did that.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
508. Anti-Semitism and the Fall of Trudeau's Canada | Terry Glavin
Yes, and also the fact that when you describe the trajectory of the left, you're also now describing the trajectory of the federal liberals, which wouldn't have necessarily been the case for the last 10 years. Well, here's how it goes. Okay, lay it out.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
508. Anti-Semitism and the Fall of Trudeau's Canada | Terry Glavin
With the collapse?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
508. Anti-Semitism and the Fall of Trudeau's Canada | Terry Glavin
And Terry probably made me more pessimistic about Canada's future than I was, which is really saying something because after nine years of the unmitigated catastrophic disaster of the Trudeau administration, I was already plenty pessimistic. But he detailed out, for example, the pernicious effect of the Chinese Communist Party on the political situation federally in Canada.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
508. Anti-Semitism and the Fall of Trudeau's Canada | Terry Glavin
So how do you see that in parallel with the politicization of Israel like the pro-Hamas movements in Canada. There's things running in parallel here. We talked about the victim-victimizer narrative. We talked about the, what would you say, the alliance between the progressive left and the claim that Zionism is part of the colonial movement, which includes Canada and the U.S.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
508. Anti-Semitism and the Fall of Trudeau's Canada | Terry Glavin
Now you've introduced Canada's role in the U.N. and our historical allegiance with the U.N. How do you see those tangling together?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
508. Anti-Semitism and the Fall of Trudeau's Canada | Terry Glavin
And I was less cognizant of the depth of that than I was after the podcast. So you can listen and weep if you're Canadian. But, you know, again, that is also something with international implications, because it's not as if the Chinese are only... producing their machinations to the detriment of the West in Canada. It's a threat to the West in general.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
508. Anti-Semitism and the Fall of Trudeau's Canada | Terry Glavin
So Canada's historical alliance... It becomes susceptible to it.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
508. Anti-Semitism and the Fall of Trudeau's Canada | Terry Glavin
Okay, so let me summarize that and tell me if I've got it right. So we've seen the rise of this progressive insistence that projects like Canada and the United States, et cetera, and Israel are part of this colonial, capitalist, oppressive enterprise. Now, that's permeated Canadian society to some degree, but it's also permeated the UN.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
508. Anti-Semitism and the Fall of Trudeau's Canada | Terry Glavin
And Canada has been historically aligned with the UN, and our foreign policy has been determined by that alliance for a very long time. Well, influenced then, if not determined, influenced. And that was a matter of pride in Canada when the UN was a quasi-functional organization, let's say. But so you see the emergence of that post...
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
508. Anti-Semitism and the Fall of Trudeau's Canada | Terry Glavin
Soviet Union Marxist-inspired colonial rhetoric in the UN and in Canada, and the fact that Canada's been allied with the UN has also shaped our foreign policy in a rather unthinking manner, especially under Trudeau, who has no, what would you say, has what? No knowledge, no imagination for, like, how do you explain?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
508. Anti-Semitism and the Fall of Trudeau's Canada | Terry Glavin
He was the poster boy for the... He is the poster boy for the progressive movement internationally, I would say.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
508. Anti-Semitism and the Fall of Trudeau's Canada | Terry Glavin
And he is the... Well, and the narcissism element, you know, you talked about him to some degree as an empty drum, let's say, and I have made reference to him as a narcissist. I mean, my observation in that regard was driven by the manner in which he adopted the leadership of the Liberal Party, because I felt at the... I'd like your opinion about this...
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
508. Anti-Semitism and the Fall of Trudeau's Canada | Terry Glavin
When he emerged, I thought, I kind of had two... I was of two opinions, right? People went to him and made the case that he would be a credible and popular leader of the Liberals, not least because of his name-brand recognition. And I can imagine...
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
508. Anti-Semitism and the Fall of Trudeau's Canada | Terry Glavin
being in that position, let's say, and thinking, OK, this is a risky enterprise because I don't have the CV that would indicate that I'm capable of running a G7 country. But if I don't run, then the conservatives who were my father's foes, let's say, and aren't aligned with me politically, have a really good crack at victory. And if I put my name forward, maybe we can forestall that.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
508. Anti-Semitism and the Fall of Trudeau's Canada | Terry Glavin
And then maybe I could put my nose to the grindstone, and I could learn. I could surround myself with high-level experts, and I could learn to play the part if I was open to that kind of learning. Okay. That's an unlikely scenario, that one. But he did, in fact, adopt it. But he didn't do any of that, right?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
508. Anti-Semitism and the Fall of Trudeau's Canada | Terry Glavin
And so Canada is a strange canary in the coal mine. We talked about, well, the pro-Hamas protesters in Canada, the absolute devastation of Canadian universities, the terror that Canadian Jews are feeling, tiny minority of Canada's population, much smaller, by the way, than the Muslim population, which is relevant in this instance, given what's happened in Palestine.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
508. Anti-Semitism and the Fall of Trudeau's Canada | Terry Glavin
Yes, well, he's charming, and he's elegant, and he's good-looking, and he knows how to behave in public, and he's got an easy smile, and women find him essentially irresistible. Very photogenic, very charming, as you say. Well, and he's been in that milieu his whole life, and he's been groomed for that.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
508. Anti-Semitism and the Fall of Trudeau's Canada | Terry Glavin
Tell that story for the viewers.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
508. Anti-Semitism and the Fall of Trudeau's Canada | Terry Glavin
He was a Harvard professor at the time when they invited him back to Canada. He'd been down in Massachusetts for like 20 years, something like that. Yeah, and a lot of people said, well, you're not really a Canadian. He'd been out for quite a while.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
508. Anti-Semitism and the Fall of Trudeau's Canada | Terry Glavin
Well, he's certainly much more credible as a leader of a G7 country than Justin Trudeau, at least on the basis of his... Yeah, what we've got basically, you know, it's so difficult to explain this to people from away.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
508. Anti-Semitism and the Fall of Trudeau's Canada | Terry Glavin
Under whose advisement did he bring in McKinsey? Do you know? Like, was that his idea? I don't imagine. Well, it is a small town.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
508. Anti-Semitism and the Fall of Trudeau's Canada | Terry Glavin
We talked about, well, our sorrow as older Canadians to see our country descend into this kind of 1930s-like Kristallnacht demonstrating that characterized Toronto and Montreal and Vancouver and Calgary and things we never saw, never thought would happen in Canada, and the threats to Canada's integrity economically, politically and ethically in general.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
508. Anti-Semitism and the Fall of Trudeau's Canada | Terry Glavin
You know what I mean?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
508. Anti-Semitism and the Fall of Trudeau's Canada | Terry Glavin
It's just the Chinese Communists. You know, what they kill, 100 million people. Exactly.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
508. Anti-Semitism and the Fall of Trudeau's Canada | Terry Glavin
Well, people were optimistic. Because he was so glamorous, right? We were also optimistic, I think, in the West for a reasonable amount of time that if China integrated itself into the Western economy, that they would liberalize across time. Some of us were. Well, it was a case you could put forward if you were aware with all due caution of the potential risks.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
508. Anti-Semitism and the Fall of Trudeau's Canada | Terry Glavin
Right, but... Yeah, that's what I'm told. Look, I'm trying to give the devil his due here.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
508. Anti-Semitism and the Fall of Trudeau's Canada | Terry Glavin
Okay, so now we've got three things operating here. We've got the rise of this kind of neo-Marxism. We've got the UN influence, and now we have the China nexus, right? This is all shaping what's happening in Canada.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
508. Anti-Semitism and the Fall of Trudeau's Canada | Terry Glavin
Right, and there's background rumors about a number of liberal MPs being unduly influenced on the financial side.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
508. Anti-Semitism and the Fall of Trudeau's Canada | Terry Glavin
Yes, well, that was evident in many of his pre-election utterances.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
508. Anti-Semitism and the Fall of Trudeau's Canada | Terry Glavin
With no identity.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
508. Anti-Semitism and the Fall of Trudeau's Canada | Terry Glavin
Terry's Substack is available at The Real Story on the Substack site, and that's something that should be of substantial interest, well, not only to Canadians, but to people in general. So check that out. And, well, welcome to a relatively dismal discussion of the situation in Canada, and by implication, the rest of the West. Well, as you know, I reached out to you for a variety of reasons.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
508. Anti-Semitism and the Fall of Trudeau's Canada | Terry Glavin
Ah, okay.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
508. Anti-Semitism and the Fall of Trudeau's Canada | Terry Glavin
How do you do nationalists? Where do you get that idea, like Trudeau? Because, first of all, it's an idea. So it's surprising he had it at all.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
508. Anti-Semitism and the Fall of Trudeau's Canada | Terry Glavin
Anyway, where were we? Okay, well, we're weaving a web here.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
508. Anti-Semitism and the Fall of Trudeau's Canada | Terry Glavin
There's no national interest by definition.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
508. Anti-Semitism and the Fall of Trudeau's Canada | Terry Glavin
Yeah, definitely. They're the canaries in the coal mine. They are, and that's very true.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
508. Anti-Semitism and the Fall of Trudeau's Canada | Terry Glavin
It was unbelievable.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
508. Anti-Semitism and the Fall of Trudeau's Canada | Terry Glavin
Oh, I didn't know that twist on the story.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
508. Anti-Semitism and the Fall of Trudeau's Canada | Terry Glavin
But the most compelling, I would say, and immediate was the article that you just wrote in the Free Press, which is, I would say, a rather damning screed, all things considered. And I'm very interested in that particular issue. And I'm very much looking forward to discussing that with you and the sorry state of Canada in general. So maybe you could start by just outlining, well, how...
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
508. Anti-Semitism and the Fall of Trudeau's Canada | Terry Glavin
How do you understand the relationship between, okay, so now we have a lot of balls in the air. We have the post-national state. We have the idea of the colonialist state. We have the perversion of the UN. We have the rise of neo-Marxism in Canada. we have the pernicious influence of the Chinese communists on Trudeau's campaign and his worldview right from the beginning, stemming from his father.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
508. Anti-Semitism and the Fall of Trudeau's Canada | Terry Glavin
Okay, so now we have to take all that, and we have to tie it back to this rise in anti-Semitism. Now, the nexus there, at least in part, is the colonial, the ideology of colonialist state.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
508. Anti-Semitism and the Fall of Trudeau's Canada | Terry Glavin
Yeah.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
508. Anti-Semitism and the Fall of Trudeau's Canada | Terry Glavin
Turtle Island being the name for Canada.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
508. Anti-Semitism and the Fall of Trudeau's Canada | Terry Glavin
Yes, I'm sure that it has like nothing to do with indigenous.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
508. Anti-Semitism and the Fall of Trudeau's Canada | Terry Glavin
What article I'm referring to and why you wrote it, and then let's go into the content of the article.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
508. Anti-Semitism and the Fall of Trudeau's Canada | Terry Glavin
Right, because we need another dimension of complexity.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
508. Anti-Semitism and the Fall of Trudeau's Canada | Terry Glavin
Wasn't it Melanie Jolie who commented that people have to pay attention to the ethnic makeup of her writing?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
508. Anti-Semitism and the Fall of Trudeau's Canada | Terry Glavin
Former leader of the federal New Democrats, the Socialist Party of Canada.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
508. Anti-Semitism and the Fall of Trudeau's Canada | Terry Glavin
And I have, actually. A stunning response. Yeah. A stunning, amazing she would say that. Yeah. You know, I mean, first of all, it's reprehensible that that's the case. But the fact that she would be so blatant as to say it is really quite the miracle.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
508. Anti-Semitism and the Fall of Trudeau's Canada | Terry Glavin
Yes, it's done that a number of times without him actually disappearing. No, I understand. I understand. For everybody watching and listening, his deputy prime minister resigned yesterday, also his minister of finance, and like the fifth powerful woman, so to speak, in his feminist cabinet that has had to abscond because, well, for a variety of reasons.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
508. Anti-Semitism and the Fall of Trudeau's Canada | Terry Glavin
One of them apparently being that Justin Trudeau finds it impossible to deal with women who have anything approximating their own opinions.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
508. Anti-Semitism and the Fall of Trudeau's Canada | Terry Glavin
The Yanks would have a lot of fun with that. You don't think being Trudeau's babysitter qualifies him to be finance minister of a G7? Just wondering, just wondering. I don't know. Yeah, well, that also speaks to this weird... We could throw this into the mix, too. I don't know what you think about this, but...
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
508. Anti-Semitism and the Fall of Trudeau's Canada | Terry Glavin
It seems to me as well that the way that Canada is constituted, especially with its emphasis on bilingualism, that it dooms the entire country to domination by the 13% of French-Canadian bilingualism.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
508. Anti-Semitism and the Fall of Trudeau's Canada | Terry Glavin
Yes, under something approximating a national identity. That's right.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
508. Anti-Semitism and the Fall of Trudeau's Canada | Terry Glavin
Right, right. Or maybe even just the desire to keep the country together and functioning.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
508. Anti-Semitism and the Fall of Trudeau's Canada | Terry Glavin
If we couldn't go all the way out for passion.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
508. Anti-Semitism and the Fall of Trudeau's Canada | Terry Glavin
Well, we've had more than half a million come in.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
508. Anti-Semitism and the Fall of Trudeau's Canada | Terry Glavin
Yeah, by a substantial number.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
508. Anti-Semitism and the Fall of Trudeau's Canada | Terry Glavin
Well, the whole world's upside down, so that's not surprising. So what the hell... Whatever the classic political distinctions were 15 years ago, whatever they are now bears no relationship to what they were 15 years ago.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
508. Anti-Semitism and the Fall of Trudeau's Canada | Terry Glavin
Well, I don't know if he can comprehend it. I mean, I regard myself as a moderately sophisticated political observer, and you've made me more pessimistic today. Sorry. Well, I was already very concerned about the state of Canada because I think that... Well, I'll give you an example, and you probably know this already, but before Justin took office...
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
508. Anti-Semitism and the Fall of Trudeau's Canada | Terry Glavin
for barry weiss and the free press i've had dealings with barry complex dealings with barry for quite a long time and i read terry's piece on the rise of anti-semitism and all of the associated what would you say pathological political and quasi-political movements that accompany by necessity, a rise in antisemitism.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
508. Anti-Semitism and the Fall of Trudeau's Canada | Terry Glavin
GDP per capita in Canada was approximately at parity with the U.S. Okay, now our richest province, Ontario, the inhabitants of our richest province by per capita GDP are poorer than the average inhabitant of Mississippi.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
508. Anti-Semitism and the Fall of Trudeau's Canada | Terry Glavin
Last thing I... The people in our richest province are poorer than the people in the US poorest state, right? That's a nine-year decline. It's an absolute bloody catastrophe. And we know Trudeau just announced a $62 billion deficit yesterday, which was $22 billion higher than the pessimistic estimate that his finance minister had come up with a few months ago.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
508. Anti-Semitism and the Fall of Trudeau's Canada | Terry Glavin
Whatever state we think the country is in, is nowhere near as grim as the state the country's actually in. And what my fear for Polyev is that he's going to take power in October, because I think Trudeau will hang on to them, but maybe not. We'll see. And things will be revealed to be demonstrably worse than they are on multiple dimensions. You've outlined like six in our discussion today.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
508. Anti-Semitism and the Fall of Trudeau's Canada | Terry Glavin
And he will be saddled with the blame. And so he'll have a four-year term while he muddles through the absolute bloody nightmare that Trudeau has left. And then the liberals are connived their way back into power.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
508. Anti-Semitism and the Fall of Trudeau's Canada | Terry Glavin
Okay, so you're less pessimistic on that front than me.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
508. Anti-Semitism and the Fall of Trudeau's Canada | Terry Glavin
Yes, well, yeah, I think the probability, like the most likely outcome in an October election in 2025 is that the Liberals are essentially decimated.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
508. Anti-Semitism and the Fall of Trudeau's Canada | Terry Glavin
I mean, they could remember after Mulroney After the Mulroney government collapsed, essentially, I think the progressive conservatives were reduced to three seats federally, right? That could easily happen.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
508. Anti-Semitism and the Fall of Trudeau's Canada | Terry Glavin
Yeah, that's also happening in the UK. You know that... Farage fashioned his party after the Reform Party in Canada.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
508. Anti-Semitism and the Fall of Trudeau's Canada | Terry Glavin
Oh, definitely not, yes.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
508. Anti-Semitism and the Fall of Trudeau's Canada | Terry Glavin
Oh, yes.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
508. Anti-Semitism and the Fall of Trudeau's Canada | Terry Glavin
Yeah, another hate crime.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
508. Anti-Semitism and the Fall of Trudeau's Canada | Terry Glavin
Yeah. You define that sort of thing after the fact.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
508. Anti-Semitism and the Fall of Trudeau's Canada | Terry Glavin
It's not liberal. So let's return to the beginning of our conversation and the topic that we had begun to investigate, because I'm curious about what it was over the last year. Tell me the story of your engagement with the rise in anti-Semitism. phenomenon by phenomenon, you know? I mean, the things that leaped out for me were the riots in Montreal. I mean, I just hate to see that.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
508. Anti-Semitism and the Fall of Trudeau's Canada | Terry Glavin
I lived in Montreal for seven years. I loved Montreal. It was a great city. It was safe. Like, you could walk... A woman could walk anywhere in Montreal at three in the morning with no problem. There was no poor areas. And it had an unbelievably rich nightlife and culture and... It was a wonderful place to live, extremely peaceful, and it was diverse in the most positive possible manner.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
508. Anti-Semitism and the Fall of Trudeau's Canada | Terry Glavin
And to see riots, to see the sorts of things that are happening in Concordia, the sorts of things that are happening on the streets in Montreal, it's just, it's appalling beyond belief. And then, of course, I was embarrassed as a former, well, a current, I suppose, professor at the University of Toronto. to see the encampments there and the encampments at McGill.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
508. Anti-Semitism and the Fall of Trudeau's Canada | Terry Glavin
I got my doctoral degree at McGill, and I loved McGill, and it was a great university. And so there's terrible things afoot in Canada that I would have never dreamed of occurring here. And, you know, I have a particular and personal animus against the Trudeau government for a What you've seen, like, I don't even know how politically aligned you and I are.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
508. Anti-Semitism and the Fall of Trudeau's Canada | Terry Glavin
Funny coincidence, that wouldn't happen to line up with Trudeau's... Strange how that works, isn't it? Yeah, yeah. With Trudeau's reign, economic catastrophe.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
508. Anti-Semitism and the Fall of Trudeau's Canada | Terry Glavin
I mean, that's a complicated thing in today's world. But you're obviously very disturbed by what you're observing. And we have a lot of international listeners and viewers on this show. And so what have you seen emerge in Canada today?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
508. Anti-Semitism and the Fall of Trudeau's Canada | Terry Glavin
And in the court of public opinion as well, not just legally or electorally.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
508. Anti-Semitism and the Fall of Trudeau's Canada | Terry Glavin
How much knowledge do you think typical Canadians have about what's going on? Very, very little. And why do you think that is?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
508. Anti-Semitism and the Fall of Trudeau's Canada | Terry Glavin
Well, the conservatives in the UK weren't very conservative for the 14 years they governed. Well, yeah, I mean... And we'll see what happens in Canada.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
508. Anti-Semitism and the Fall of Trudeau's Canada | Terry Glavin
Well, you know, one of the things our discussion is sort of highlighting, I think, is that Let's say you adopt the narrative that the center is corrupt and patriarchal and oppressive and Canada's destiny is post-national. Okay, now... One hypothetical problem with that is, well, what rises to take the place of the center?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
508. Anti-Semitism and the Fall of Trudeau's Canada | Terry Glavin
And you've pointed to all sorts of things, like a demented kind of neo-Marxism, the rise of an authoritarian UN on the foreign policy front, the dire and dismal influence of the Chinese Communist Party, the rise of the Islamist faction of the increasingly large Muslim population.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
508. Anti-Semitism and the Fall of Trudeau's Canada | Terry Glavin
And then, well, okay, that's for, and then the rise, and the associated rise of the, yeah, yeah, the colonialist narrative that casts Israel as king of the oppressive states, right? Well, so it's this fractionation, you know, once that center collapses, instead of everybody becoming free, you get this absurd fractionation, and then a war between different nations.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
508. Anti-Semitism and the Fall of Trudeau's Canada | Terry Glavin
what would you say, centers of power. And we're trying to flesh out the pattern of that. I mean, you pointed to a lot of things that are going wrong simultaneously, and there's some thread that unites them, but some of it's just emblematic of a kind of chaotic collapse of identity, right? And so, and Trudeau's going to step out of this, leaving us in Canada in a terrible mess.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
508. Anti-Semitism and the Fall of Trudeau's Canada | Terry Glavin
Let's talk about Polyev a little bit. I mean, I know him, and what I've seen so far, I'm happy about. I mean, I've been talking to Conservatives in Canada ever since 2016, really, when I sort of burst onto the scene in my opposition to Bill C-16. And the Conservatives that I talked to eight years ago were a much more timid bunch than the Conservatives that are emerging in Canada now.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
508. Anti-Semitism and the Fall of Trudeau's Canada | Terry Glavin
And so, Polyev and Daniel Smith, they're both tough people. And so, that's heartening as far as I'm concerned. Whether Polyev is in a position to right the ship that Trudeau has inverted, that's a whole different question. I mean, I wish him well, but I'm also pleased in a, what would you say, personal sense that I don't have his job.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
508. Anti-Semitism and the Fall of Trudeau's Canada | Terry Glavin
Because, I mean, I look at Canada with a kind of horror at the moment because... We are in very bad shape economically. And, I mean, just the fact that just Canadians now make 60% as much as the average American, and our real estate is twice as expensive. Yeah, and the trajectory is downward, right? And I think it was, was it World Economic Forum or the World Bank? I don't remember which agency.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
508. Anti-Semitism and the Fall of Trudeau's Canada | Terry Glavin
their projection for Canada was worst performing economy over the next 30 years in the G7. Well, and that's on top of the fact That's adjacent to the fact that if Canada had its act together in anything approximating a realistic manner, at least the West could be rich beyond belief, because it's definitely the case that the world is dying, fighting for our natural resources.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
508. Anti-Semitism and the Fall of Trudeau's Canada | Terry Glavin
And I mean, you saw the fact that the German chancellor and the Japanese prime minister came cap in hand to Trudeau and said, Give us natural gas. How about some natural gas for your friends there, buddy? And his argument was, I can't make a business case for that. And the thing is, that was before Canadians re-elected him. And they just re-elected the NDP and British Columbia.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
508. Anti-Semitism and the Fall of Trudeau's Canada | Terry Glavin
And so I look at Canada and I think, we're in serious trouble and we have by no means even begun to learn our lesson. And that's a relatively terrifying prospect.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
508. Anti-Semitism and the Fall of Trudeau's Canada | Terry Glavin
Because there's another dimension of complexity that tears Canada apart, which Canada is in such bad shape that when we're talking about threats to Canada, we didn't even mention the separatists. Yeah, right.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
508. Anti-Semitism and the Fall of Trudeau's Canada | Terry Glavin
And, yeah, I mean, I... Well, the Canadian, or the Quebec independence movement would never regard itself as post-national. Right. I mean, far from it. Far from it.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
508. Anti-Semitism and the Fall of Trudeau's Canada | Terry Glavin
Okay, so now, why did you feel compelled to shed light on rising anti-Semitism? Why is that something... Like, you talked about a lot of things today that could have... occupied your attention and obviously have.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
508. Anti-Semitism and the Fall of Trudeau's Canada | Terry Glavin
Now, you and Barry at the Free Press put a lot of time and effort into this particular article, and it's a pretty hard-hitting article, and it's quite distressing, if you have any sense at all. Why is it the phenomenon of rising anti-Semitism, or is it even anti-Semitism? Is it the dominance of the pro-Hamas movement? Is it the rise of the radical left? Is it like, where...
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
508. Anti-Semitism and the Fall of Trudeau's Canada | Terry Glavin
Why did you focus on antisemitism per se, given the range of your concerns about Canada? Why did you bring that to international attention, let's say?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
508. Anti-Semitism and the Fall of Trudeau's Canada | Terry Glavin
Okay, now, and do you see that as a canary in a coal mine phenomenon? Yeah, you could put it that way. I know you said that that's not all of it, and fair enough.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
508. Anti-Semitism and the Fall of Trudeau's Canada | Terry Glavin
Yeah, yeah. Well, tell me, it's funny, you know, because I read your article, because I follow the Free Press, and I've had some dealings with Barry Weiss, and positive dealings with Barry Weiss. Complex, but positive dealings with Barry Weiss. And I read your article and I thought, I should probably talk to Terry about this article. and maybe Barry too.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
508. Anti-Semitism and the Fall of Trudeau's Canada | Terry Glavin
And then like four hours later, she wrote me and she said, you know, I really think you should talk to Terry about this article. And so, you know, that was propitious, as was the fact that I'm out on the West Coast here so I can talk to you directly.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
508. Anti-Semitism and the Fall of Trudeau's Canada | Terry Glavin
Yeah, well, I'm shocked by what's happened to Canada. I mean, one of the precipitating factors in my recent move to the United States was Bill C-63. I don't know if you've managed to delve into the weeds with regards to Bill C-63, but it's a bill that's so awful that every time I read it, I think, because I'm not a lawyer, I think, there's no way I'm understanding this properly.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
508. Anti-Semitism and the Fall of Trudeau's Canada | Terry Glavin
You know, and then I read it again and I think, yeah, well, you know, usually I can understand what I'm reading. And this is I mean, it's such a dense web of stunning, incompetent malevolence because it starts with these pronouncements about predicting children from online education. exploitation and pornography.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
508. Anti-Semitism and the Fall of Trudeau's Canada | Terry Glavin
Simultaneously, of course, the biggest pornography network in the world operates out of Canada, right? That's Pornhub, which operates out of Montreal. To call it a despicable organization is to barely scrape the surface. Trudeau and his minions were the least bit serious about protecting children from online pornography. There's a lot better places they can start than Bill C-63.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
508. Anti-Semitism and the Fall of Trudeau's Canada | Terry Glavin
But virtue signaling at the beginning, virtue signaling at the end, we're protecting children. It's like, yeah, I don't think you are. But then in the middle, there's all these clauses detailing out first the construction of a bureaucracy, which as far as I can tell, would have unlimited power All the power of the court and the power of unlimited growth.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
508. Anti-Semitism and the Fall of Trudeau's Canada | Terry Glavin
And it says right in the bill that that court system, a new parallel court system, would not be bound by the traditional standards of evidence. That's right. I read that and I thought, what?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
508. Anti-Semitism and the Fall of Trudeau's Canada | Terry Glavin
Well, they'd succeeded with me. Well, you haven't shut up. No, but I really thought through Bill C-63. Like I've already had my fair share of trouble with the Ontario College of Psychologists because they have weaponized, they have allowed activists to weaponize their complaint process.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
508. Anti-Semitism and the Fall of Trudeau's Canada | Terry Glavin
And what could be done to be under the auspices of Bill C-63 make what happened with the college, who I've managed to successfully battle off so far, look like nothing.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
508. Anti-Semitism and the Fall of Trudeau's Canada | Terry Glavin
Yeah, that's perfectly in keeping with the way they... And this is all about just shutting people up.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
508. Anti-Semitism and the Fall of Trudeau's Canada | Terry Glavin
Yes.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
508. Anti-Semitism and the Fall of Trudeau's Canada | Terry Glavin
So that would include support for the fact of Israel's existence? The mere support for the fact of Israel's existence as a Jewish sovereignty in the Holy Land.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
508. Anti-Semitism and the Fall of Trudeau's Canada | Terry Glavin
Let's tie that into Bill C-63. Yeah, well, there it is. Well, so in Bill C-63, there's a provision, which I've read several times, that if...
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
508. Anti-Semitism and the Fall of Trudeau's Canada | Terry Glavin
I am afraid, because that's the language in the bill, that Terry might utter something hateful in the next year, so let's say that would be your support for the existence of Israel, then I can bring you in front of a provincial magistrate, and he can fit you with an electronic bracelet, and you can be confined to your home for a year.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
508. Anti-Semitism and the Fall of Trudeau's Canada | Terry Glavin
And all of your social media posting will be disallowed, and whoever you see will be regulated. And, and this is something I just can't figure out at all, it's so preposterous that it beggars belief, you will be required to donate body fluid on a regular basis to your physician to have it monitored on a daily basis. I wasn't aware of this.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
508. Anti-Semitism and the Fall of Trudeau's Canada | Terry Glavin
Absolutely, to make sure that you're not consuming anything illegal or anything intoxicating. Now, I think what happened... Okay, that is beyond the pale.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
508. Anti-Semitism and the Fall of Trudeau's Canada | Terry Glavin
Well, I think the reason is... I'm going out to get a gun license. Where the hell did they get this? But I think probably where they got it from was legislation on domestic abuse.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
508. Anti-Semitism and the Fall of Trudeau's Canada | Terry Glavin
Because if you want to protect a... If you want to mitigate the probability of domestic abuse, limiting the abuser's alcohol consumption is actually a logical move. I'm not claiming that on ethical or legal grounds. I just mean that alcohol does increase the probability of abuse substantively. And I can't imagine where else they would have got the idea. But that's in that bill in black and white.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
508. Anti-Semitism and the Fall of Trudeau's Canada | Terry Glavin
So we have not only hate crime—
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
508. Anti-Semitism and the Fall of Trudeau's Canada | Terry Glavin
Yeah, well, I have many other reasons for being there, but— You see, I wonder about that, because my experience with the Ontario College of Psychologists, I would say, suggests otherwise. Because none of my professional colleagues, including physicians, with pretty much zero exception, have stood up publicly and said that what's happened to me is wrong. And I know why. Are they afraid?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
508. Anti-Semitism and the Fall of Trudeau's Canada | Terry Glavin
Of course, they come to me privately. And why are they afraid? Well, it's very, very simple. They're afraid because the professional colleges have unlimited power of regulation over the over the members of regulated professions, which is pretty much what my Supreme Court challenge denial indicated.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
508. Anti-Semitism and the Fall of Trudeau's Canada | Terry Glavin
And if a professional is brought to task, let's say, by their professional college and loses their license then, They're terrified.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
508. Anti-Semitism and the Fall of Trudeau's Canada | Terry Glavin
And I looked at C63 carefully, and it would produce a parallel bureaucracy, a bureaucracy that would regulate the speech and conduct of all Canadians in almost precisely the same way that the professional colleges regulate the speech and conduct of regulated professionals. I don't think Canadians would stand up. I've seen no evidence that they will.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
508. Anti-Semitism and the Fall of Trudeau's Canada | Terry Glavin
So, now, I do understand that Trudeau's on his way out.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
508. Anti-Semitism and the Fall of Trudeau's Canada | Terry Glavin
Well, I think we've seen the answer to that question. I'm not saying this with any... I'm not happy about this. There's no pride in this. I think it's appalling. And I've talked to many physicians in particular, because it's mostly physicians I've talked to who are terrified of the Ontario College of Physicians, for example, because they'll... make their life.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
508. Anti-Semitism and the Fall of Trudeau's Canada | Terry Glavin
I mean, this bloody court cases for me has gone on eight years. It's eight years. It's cost me like $600,000. And it's not like I'm winning. Like they can't take me out because I have independent sources of income and a reasonable public voice. But You have to be in a pretty unique position to be able to withstand that sort of lawfare for that amount of time.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
508. Anti-Semitism and the Fall of Trudeau's Canada | Terry Glavin
Anti-Zionist?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
508. Anti-Semitism and the Fall of Trudeau's Canada | Terry Glavin
Like I don't practice as a clinical psychologist anymore. And that became impossible in like 2017, just like being a professor became impossible. So like these, the forces that can be brought to bear against you if you dare open your mouth are more than most people can or will bear. And I can see why. You know, I had three sources of income. when I opposed Bill C-16 and I lost two of them.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
508. Anti-Semitism and the Fall of Trudeau's Canada | Terry Glavin
Right, the third one was entrepreneurial and it was under my control, but two was a lot and three would have been, well, catastrophic. And so if you only have one and that's your professional practice, well, it's not surprising that people are cowed and intimidated into silence. And so, okay, well, we have to wrap up on the YouTube side.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
508. Anti-Semitism and the Fall of Trudeau's Canada | Terry Glavin
And I think what we'll do on the Daily Wire side is, well, we'll continue our discussion about Canada. I'm curious about your thoughts about, well, the Conservatives under Pierre Polyev. I want to know what you think about him. You said that you're habitually an optimist and that you're still optimistic about Canada in general. And there are reasons to be optimistic.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
508. Anti-Semitism and the Fall of Trudeau's Canada | Terry Glavin
I mean, Canada is a remarkable country and... The run-of-the-mill Canadian is a decent and law-abiding, orderly, trustworthy person. And that's not trivial. But there are some serious cracks in the foundation, more than I've ever seen in my lifetime by a lot. I mean, you named five of them. And as we said, we deprioritized the Quebec sovereignists, right? So you can see how...
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
508. Anti-Semitism and the Fall of Trudeau's Canada | Terry Glavin
And they've been a fundamental threat to Canadian integrity for like 40 years. So on the Daily Wire side, let's turn our attention to Canada's future, dire and positive, you know, because we can flesh out both alternatives.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
508. Anti-Semitism and the Fall of Trudeau's Canada | Terry Glavin
And I think for you international people who are listening, you know, the reason to be concerned about Canadian politics, which have actually become of some interest internationally in the last nine years, is because...
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
508. Anti-Semitism and the Fall of Trudeau's Canada | Terry Glavin
Like the Jews in Canada and in the U.S., maybe in the West worldwide, Canada is also a canary in the coal mine because Justin Trudeau is a poster boy for the progressives worldwide. And whatever strange political tangents we're
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
508. Anti-Semitism and the Fall of Trudeau's Canada | Terry Glavin
meandering down in Canada are isomorphic with the political threats that exist in the UK and the United States, although now less to some degree, Australia, New Zealand, the West in general. And so delving into what's happening here and how that might be rectified is an enterprise that might be worthwhile on the international front as well.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
508. Anti-Semitism and the Fall of Trudeau's Canada | Terry Glavin
So join us on the Daily Wire side if you're inclined to do that. Terry, thank you very much. It was a pleasure. Yeah, really nice reading you. I suppose, very nice to meet you too. Thank you very much. Yeah, and I certainly appreciate the article in the Free Press. I've been writing about What would you say? Pathological group conflict for a very long period of time.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
508. Anti-Semitism and the Fall of Trudeau's Canada | Terry Glavin
And it's a terrible thing to see it rear its head in Canada. It's a terrible thing. And it's very useful to draw attention to it. And you did that very effectively internationally. And it was very good of Barrie to publish it as well. And hopefully it'll clue more Canadians into what's going on and into the seriousness of that.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
508. Anti-Semitism and the Fall of Trudeau's Canada | Terry Glavin
for the Jews, which is not trivial, as he pointed out, in and of itself, but also as a bellwether for just exactly where we're headed. All right, sir.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
508. Anti-Semitism and the Fall of Trudeau's Canada | Terry Glavin
He detailed that out quite extensively in this Free Press article, which is notable not only for its description of a relatively radically transformed Canada on the social front, on the political front, the ethical front, but also because Terry was pointing to a phenomenon, the rise of antisemitism in the West in general after the atrocities of October 7th.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
508. Anti-Semitism and the Fall of Trudeau's Canada | Terry Glavin
I want to read something from your article, Kay, that's directly relevant to that. It's from a section called It Was Like a Dam Burst. And so this is right after October 7th. And these are comments by Robert Krell, who's the former director of postgraduate education in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of British Columbia.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
508. Anti-Semitism and the Fall of Trudeau's Canada | Terry Glavin
The impression that the violence unfolding around them is somehow invisible to the state responsible for their protection has overwhelmed not only relative newcomers to Canada, like Rugheimer, man you discussed, but also Jews who have lived in Canada for decades. Then you refer to Robert Krell. And next section is,
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
508. Anti-Semitism and the Fall of Trudeau's Canada | Terry Glavin
Almost none of these verbal or physical assaults, okay, so we're talking about repeated demonstrations, for example, all across the country, long-term occupations of the university campuses, most particularly at McGill and at the University of Toronto, with like sporadic outbursts at Concordia, which is its own kind of rat hole, and then in a variety of other places across Canada, right?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
508. Anti-Semitism and the Fall of Trudeau's Canada | Terry Glavin
Riots in Montreal as well, downtown demonstrations in Toronto. Almost none of these verbal or physical assaults are coming from white supremacists, a very rare breed in Canada, or anti-Semites of the right-wing variety. Now, those people exist. I mean, when I joined forces with the Daily Wire, one of whose...
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
508. Anti-Semitism and the Fall of Trudeau's Canada | Terry Glavin
lead spokespeople, let's say, is Ben Shapiro, who's probably the most well-known Orthodox Jew, American Orthodox Jew in the world. The right-wing anti-Semites came after me in droves, and they had been doing that for years for a variety of reasons. So those people exist, and they're entirely detestable in 15 different dimensions.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
508. Anti-Semitism and the Fall of Trudeau's Canada | Terry Glavin
But they're not organized in the same manner as these left-wing anti-Semites, and they don't pose anywhere near the danger. And, well, this is what you describe in your article. They are being carried out by self-described progressives, Arabs, and often recent immigrants who are operating inside an ideological framework of settler colonialism.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
508. Anti-Semitism and the Fall of Trudeau's Canada | Terry Glavin
which casts Canada, the US, Australia, and most of all Israel, as irredeemably illegitimate constructs of imperialism, capitalism, genocide, and racism. It's an ideology that has found a comfortable home in Trudeau's Canada. Okay, so let's zero in on this a little bit. So I wrote an article about Jewish support for the Democrats about three months ago for a UK publication.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
508. Anti-Semitism and the Fall of Trudeau's Canada | Terry Glavin
Hey, everybody. I had a chance today to sit down and speak in person with Terry Glavin, who's one of Canada's premier journalists. And I've been following his work for quite a long time, as has many Canadians. But there was a particular reason for talking to him now, and that was that he penned a piece called
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
508. Anti-Semitism and the Fall of Trudeau's Canada | Terry Glavin
It was, I tried to publish it at the National Post and at the Telegraph, and they'll usually pretty much take whatever I send them, but they found this one too contentious. That's odd. Yeah, you saw it. No, I say that's odd. Where did it appear finally? It appeared in, oh, let's see. I can't, you know, it escapes me momentarily.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
508. Anti-Semitism and the Fall of Trudeau's Canada | Terry Glavin
And so not only is it a detailed analysis of something particular that's happening in a particular place and country, Canada, it's also a broader description of a movement that threatens the integrity of the West in a fundamental way, much more broadly. And so I was very interested in the article. And when I read it, I thought I should really talk to Terry and maybe to Barry on my podcast.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
508. Anti-Semitism and the Fall of Trudeau's Canada | Terry Glavin
I'll send it to you. But let me just tell you, it's just, because in the U.S., the support among Jews for the Democrats is very high. It historically runs 75 to 80 percent. Now, you draw some relationships in your article, which I think are very much worth drawing, because
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
508. Anti-Semitism and the Fall of Trudeau's Canada | Terry Glavin
I don't know, maybe this took the Jewish liberal community by surprise, but it's completely unsurprising if you understand the progressive ideological agenda that the Palestinians were cast as victims. And if people are going to play out a victim-victimizer narrative, which is a progressive narrative, the Jews are always going to be cast as victimizers because they are
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
508. Anti-Semitism and the Fall of Trudeau's Canada | Terry Glavin
overrepresented in positions of authority and preeminence, radically so. And now, my interpretation of that is that the competent rise to the top, and there's a variety of reasons for excessive Jewish competence. And it's marked, for example, in the fact that the Jews have produced an overwhelmingly disproportionate number, let's say, of Nobel laureates. And so it's a culture that produces
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
508. Anti-Semitism and the Fall of Trudeau's Canada | Terry Glavin
places tremendous emphasis on intellectual ability, and there's more to it than that. But the alternative hypothesis is that it's a cabal, and it's a cabal that dominates, and it's a worldwide cabal, and... If you buy the victim-izer-victim narrative, which is key to the progressive agenda, then the Jews are going to be at the top of the list.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
508. Anti-Semitism and the Fall of Trudeau's Canada | Terry Glavin
Well, if the rule is, if your ethnic group is overrepresented statistically, you're an oppressor. then that puts the Jews at the top of the oppressor hierarchy. Okay, so now, one of the things I'm curious about, I'd like your thoughts about this, is that I don't exactly understand why the Jewish community didn't see this coming. Because this is a logical consequence of that.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
508. Anti-Semitism and the Fall of Trudeau's Canada | Terry Glavin
Yeah, well, I think that's true for many people. They didn't vote for Trump.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
512. Time, Space, and the Miraculous | Dr. Brian Keating
The first in that series, 10-part series, released on December 1st, so you could go check that out as well. We're pretty excited about it.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
512. Time, Space, and the Miraculous | Dr. Brian Keating
embeddedness in the story. But my experience has been that with enough concentration on both, then you can unite them and you can have the embeddedness in the experience and the deeper understanding at the same time. And that's actually better. That's the goal.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
512. Time, Space, and the Miraculous | Dr. Brian Keating
It seems to be performing a little better than the Exodus seminar did, which is saying quite something, because I think that was the most popular offering that The Daily Wire produced, apart from Matt Walsh's movies, which is pretty good, given that it's so, you know, they're actually...
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
512. Time, Space, and the Miraculous | Dr. Brian Keating
Or worse, you know, they subordinate their search for- beauty and truth to victory in one of the finite games, right? And that's like the equivalent of propaganda in the arts. You're putting the cart before the horse, and that's a very big mistake. You know, one of the things I learned In graduate school, I wouldn't say that I'm particularly mathematically minded.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
512. Time, Space, and the Miraculous | Dr. Brian Keating
You know, it's not something that comes with great ease to me. I had some students who had that proclivity, and I could certainly see how different they were from me in that regard, although I could learn it if I put my mind to it. I probably had more trouble with statistics in my career as a psychological researcher learning it as a graduate student than anything else.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
512. Time, Space, and the Miraculous | Dr. Brian Keating
until I started doing my own studies and then statistics became it became as much fun as gambling like slot machine gambling because If you were doing a study you were interested in, there was a moment in the statistical analysis where you pulled the lever, so to speak, and you could see if you discovered something or not, or if all your work was for naught, if it was going to move you forward.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
512. Time, Space, and the Miraculous | Dr. Brian Keating
intellectually complex and somewhat arcane and the fact they have this public appeal is really something terrific. So that's the announcements for the time being. I had the privilege today of speaking with Dr. Brian Keating, one of the world's leading cosmologists. Dr. Keating has been a guest on my podcast before and that was plenty of fun and
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
512. Time, Space, and the Miraculous | Dr. Brian Keating
And so the thing that's interesting about the infinite game element of that is that It's like a bricklayer who's laying one of 50,000 bricks when he's building a cathedral. If you just think of the next brick, that's a pretty damn dismal occupation. But if you understand that each of the incremental steps you're taking forward is in relationship to this infinite whole, then...
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
512. Time, Space, and the Miraculous | Dr. Brian Keating
the significance of the whole imbues the part. And if you're pursuing science properly, you have to do it that way. So it's interesting, you know, the conception of the divine that's laid forth in the story of Jacob's ladder is an infinite game in the same regard, because Jacob has a vision of a ladder ascending upward with no pinnacle, right?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
512. Time, Space, and the Miraculous | Dr. Brian Keating
And God is at the top of the spiraling ladder with no pinnacle. Sure, but... But it is a vision of finite and infinite games, I think, but in relationship to the moral domain rather than the scientific. Those probably overlap, though, and that overlap, I think, is what we're talking about, right?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
512. Time, Space, and the Miraculous | Dr. Brian Keating
It's the call of beauty and truth as the fundamental motivation, not only the fundamental motivation of the scientific inquiry, in that it's the pursuit that saturates all the sub-elements with meaning, but it's also the ethical pursuit that makes science possible, because unless you're very strongly aligned in your belief
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
512. Time, Space, and the Miraculous | Dr. Brian Keating
With your belief in the truth, you can't be a scientist because you'll put your career first. And then the whole bloody thing collapses. Because, you know, another thing you win as a scientist is evidence that you're an idiot and you were wrong. Right? Because every time you discover anything that's actually a discovery. Right.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
512. Time, Space, and the Miraculous | Dr. Brian Keating
Well, that's right. Exactly.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
512. Time, Space, and the Miraculous | Dr. Brian Keating
Hey, everybody, some announcements today before my description of the podcast with Dr. Brian Keating. So the first is I just published this book, We Who Wrestle With God, and it hit number one on the New York Times bestseller list. So I'm kind of happy for five different reasons about that. There's a tour associated with it, some of it in December.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
512. Time, Space, and the Miraculous | Dr. Brian Keating
But it's also a relationship.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
512. Time, Space, and the Miraculous | Dr. Brian Keating
And so you'll find people— what you might describe as ethical orientation as psychometrically measured into IQ. There's no correlation between IQ and work ethic, for example. That just shocked me when I first discovered it. It's like, what do you mean there's no correlation? You mean zero? Really? Like zero? You'd ex...
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
512. Time, Space, and the Miraculous | Dr. Brian Keating
We had an opportunity to continue our ongoing conversations. We talked a fair bit about his lecturing for Peterson Academy. He has a couple of courses on astronomy and cosmology there. We discussed the utility of the opportunity to bring high-quality mass education everywhere at very low cost, very well produced and at low cost.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
512. Time, Space, and the Miraculous | Dr. Brian Keating
You'd expect just maybe on the basis of something like neurological integrity that people with higher RQs might be able to dedicate themselves to tasks over the long run more assiduously. Nope. Nope. No correlation whatsoever. Yeah. Yeah, so that's... And it's also the case, you know, and this has been laid forward in the mythological representations forever, mythological characterizations that...
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
512. Time, Space, and the Miraculous | Dr. Brian Keating
There's nothing—there's no sin greater than the prideful sin of the intellect, right? Because it's extremely powerful and very, very inclined to worship itself and its own creations, right? Very bad idea. That is the serpent, right? Exactly.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
512. Time, Space, and the Miraculous | Dr. Brian Keating
It's completely correct. I agree with that. You know, one of the things I've been trying to work out conceptually, and I tried to talk to Richard Dawkins about this, I wouldn't say with a tremendous amount of success. Science can't be at the bottom of human endeavor.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
512. Time, Space, and the Miraculous | Dr. Brian Keating
It can't constitute the foundation of human endeavor because science itself has to be embedded in an a priori moral framework that is not itself science.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
512. Time, Space, and the Miraculous | Dr. Brian Keating
I don't think you can do it, because the problem is—and you're pointing to this—is it a defining characteristic of science that it serves the benefit, at least in intent, let's say— It serves the benefit of life more abundant. That would be a good way of thinking about it. It's human-centered, life more abundant.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
512. Time, Space, and the Miraculous | Dr. Brian Keating
See, I read a book at one point that was written by an ex-KGB officer who claimed that before the Berlin Wall collapsed, the Soviets had put together a biolab in Siberia that was working on a hybrid between Ebola and smallpox that could be aerosolized. Right, now that's science. Yeah.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
512. Time, Space, and the Miraculous | Dr. Brian Keating
Right, because if you accept the proposition that science is value-free and that all facts are equal because that's what value-free means, both of those are like very untenable philosophical propositions, but people do accept them, then... Well, were the scientific experiments that were done by Unit 731 in Japan, in China, by the Japanese, was that science? Fritz Haber. The data's being used. Yep.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
512. Time, Space, and the Miraculous | Dr. Brian Keating
and so you know that was gratifying as far as i was concerned because that project has been quite a stellar success we have about 40 000 students and uh dr keating's offerings are very popular and deservedly so so you can follow us on the scientific side more intensely there we talked about
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
512. Time, Space, and the Miraculous | Dr. Brian Keating
And so if the exploratory endeavor is not motivated by the proper ethical striving, you're not a scientist. And then I think that actually works out practically, too. Like, I was fortunate... In my graduate advisor, who's still alive, I still work with him, Robert Peel, who is a very, he was a scientist. And most scientists aren't, right? Most scientists are journeymen.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
512. Time, Space, and the Miraculous | Dr. Brian Keating
And I'm actually not even criticizing that because for there to be any exceptional people or any exceptional things, there has to be a lot of run-of-the-mill things, like even scientific research. A lot of the publications are going to be the first publication of someone who doesn't know what they're doing. They're incremental. Yeah, and they're not likely to be correct or useful.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
512. Time, Space, and the Miraculous | Dr. Brian Keating
Right, right, right. But that doesn't mean you have to dispense with them. No, no, no. Okay, so... Bob's insistence in the lab was, don't publish things that you know to be wrong. Even if you're tempted, because you will be tempted, because maybe you work on an experiment for a year, and that's your master's thesis, and it doesn't work out. It's like, well, then what?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
512. Time, Space, and the Miraculous | Dr. Brian Keating
Well, that's a year, and it's supposed to take you a year. So that's a big problem. And you have to mentor someone in your lab to put the search for truth before... their short-term career orientation. And you can do that practically, because you can say, look, if you allow yourself to take liberties with your statistical analysis, and you discover and publish something that isn't true,
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
512. Time, Space, and the Miraculous | Dr. Brian Keating
You're going to believe it, and maybe you'll pursue it for the next 15 years, and you're chasing a chimera. And not only that, so that will happen to your students and everyone that your research influences. Is that what you want? Maybe you'll get your postdoc because of the publication, but... You've destroyed your credibility and your career and your soul. And your integrity. Absolutely.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
512. Time, Space, and the Miraculous | Dr. Brian Keating
The relationship between science and ethics is a very tricky thing to tease out because the empirical presumption is that we build our representations of the world as a consequence of our experience of the facts of the world. That doesn't appear to be correct, precisely. That doesn't mean there are no facts. It means that the issue of what the relevant facts are is an important issue.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
512. Time, Space, and the Miraculous | Dr. Brian Keating
The public. Well, it's worse than that, isn't it? Because... If the public wants to do their own research online, they'll find that most of it, despite the fact that it's publicly funded, is behind not only a paywall, but an appallingly expensive and inaccessible paywall. $50 for 24-hour access to a single article.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
512. Time, Space, and the Miraculous | Dr. Brian Keating
But I think— Like you're pointing to, though, a lot of that's a consequence of practice. It's practice. That's what I'm getting at. Like, I stopped lecturing with notes. Right. 30 years ago. That's right.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
512. Time, Space, and the Miraculous | Dr. Brian Keating
And when I first started, especially when I was lecturing about things that I hadn't thoroughly mastered, which is the case when you first start lecturing, I used PowerPoint and I used fairly detailed notes, but my intent was to dispense with that, and that was incremental improvement over a substantial amount of time. Yeah. And you can see it.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
512. Time, Space, and the Miraculous | Dr. Brian Keating
Maybe they should spend 20% of their time because the thing is, well, it also forces you to put your thoughts in order. Yes. You know, I develop a lot of my ideas in consequence of lecturing. I agree. I would say the majority of them, right? But that's also because...
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
512. Time, Space, and the Miraculous | Dr. Brian Keating
You see, people also lecture very oddly because people generally conceive of a lecture as the reading of a text or something like that. And it's not. A lecture is a performance. And I've thought about this for a long time. It's a lecture theater after all. So what are you doing in a lecture? Well, you're eliciting enthusiasm by demonstrating your love of the topic. That's partly what you're doing.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
512. Time, Space, and the Miraculous | Dr. Brian Keating
And you're embodying that. So you're a model. You're telling a story. You're telling a story. I've really thought through explicitly what I do in my public lectures, and now I really know what I do. I mean, I have a question in mind that's related to a long-term pursuit, so it's an issue I've been interested in forever.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
512. Time, Space, and the Miraculous | Dr. Brian Keating
Before I do a public lecture, I formulate the question that seems, from a set of potential questions that seems to be relevant and at hand for that day, And then I try to get farther in the answer than I have before. And so what I'm modeling is the process. I'm engaging in the process of intellectual exploration. And so that's thought. Question.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
512. Time, Space, and the Miraculous | Dr. Brian Keating
hypothesis which is something akin to revelation by the way it's like question potential answer critical analysis iteration yep exactly exactly and so i think that has the same structure by the way as the mythological quest yeah right you specify a treasure of unknown magnitude okay yeah exactly and then you think well how do we make our way there and you know there's a
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
512. Time, Space, and the Miraculous | Dr. Brian Keating
Juggling element to that, keeping the plates in the air, or a high wire act, that's another way of thinking about it. Because if it's a real quest, you don't know if it's going to be successful. That's right. So if I go on stage with a question in mind and I'm trying to push myself farther than I've got before, I don't know if that's going to happen.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
512. Time, Space, and the Miraculous | Dr. Brian Keating
Now, everyone in the audience and me are extremely happy if, as a consequence of this event, quest-like exploration, there's a punchline at the end, right?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
512. Time, Space, and the Miraculous | Dr. Brian Keating
And I think I've got better at ensuring that that will happen as I practice this, but it's also a blast, you know? And there's no reason you can't practice that, you know? And you're right that it's a travesty that people who will be university lecturers aren't trained to do that.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
512. Time, Space, and the Miraculous | Dr. Brian Keating
And the determination of what facts are relevant and why is actually part of the enterprise that we describe as ethical. That's the definition of the ethical enterprise. And so we tried to...
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
512. Time, Space, and the Miraculous | Dr. Brian Keating
Yeah, so let's investigate that a little bit. So, I mean, part of the reason that we established Peterson Academy. There was a bunch of reasons. One was I have access to an endless supply of great thinkers. So that's convenient, like super convenient and fun. And then we could see no reason why the best lectures in the world couldn't be identified
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
512. Time, Space, and the Miraculous | Dr. Brian Keating
given a public platform and offered the opportunity to lecture about what they love in a manner that's extremely professionally produced. And I'm extremely, very, very happy about the way the lectures have turned out. I mean, my daughter, Michaela, and her husband, Jordan Fuller, have taken the lead in the production side of Peterson Academy. And I think they've just knocked it out of the park.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
512. Time, Space, and the Miraculous | Dr. Brian Keating
bandy back and forth various concepts of the relationship between the ethical and the scientific, or maybe even more particularly, the fact that for science to exist, it has to not only be embedded in an a priori ethical framework, but that the scientists who are practicing science have to be oriented by that ethic to be scientists.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
512. Time, Space, and the Miraculous | Dr. Brian Keating
Well, the surprise, the thing is, is that... If you lay out a prediction in keeping with your understanding of the world and something else occurs, you have no idea what you've discovered. Now, what you might have discovered is that your reputation is now shot and your future is looking gloomy, right? But you also have no idea.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
512. Time, Space, and the Miraculous | Dr. Brian Keating
That's a reservoir of unrevealed truth of indeterminate magnitude, right? And so the proper response, and I did learn this in the lab that I trained in, the proper response to... your error as an experimental scientist is, I probably just stumbled across something that was even more important than what I was investigating. That's right. If I can just figure out what the hell it is.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
512. Time, Space, and the Miraculous | Dr. Brian Keating
You have to put your pursuit of the truth and beauty, which is another topic we touched on. You have to put your pursuit of truth and beauty in the service of humanity ahead of all other considerations. That's an ethical decision, not a scientific decision.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
512. Time, Space, and the Miraculous | Dr. Brian Keating
So far less than a rounding error.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
512. Time, Space, and the Miraculous | Dr. Brian Keating
I just was on his podcast yesterday. Oh, you were? Okay.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
512. Time, Space, and the Miraculous | Dr. Brian Keating
It's a hot topic these days. It is. Yeah.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
512. Time, Space, and the Miraculous | Dr. Brian Keating
And it's the ethical decision upon which all science that's genuine in its most abstract and glorious formulations and in its most practical elements is predicated. And so that constituted the bulk of our conversation. And there were many more things that we could have and would have liked to discuss, but that was plenty of grist for the mill. So join us for that.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
512. Time, Space, and the Miraculous | Dr. Brian Keating
Well, that's what I've often found that often what would you say, have come to the conclusion, I don't like arguments from design as proofs for the existence of God. And there's a variety of reasons for that. I'd like your opinion about one of them.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
512. Time, Space, and the Miraculous | Dr. Brian Keating
I mean, the fine-tuning argument I find specious, and maybe I'm wrong about this, because I think that you can obliviate its unlikelihood with an evolutionary argument. It's like, well...
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
512. Time, Space, and the Miraculous | Dr. Brian Keating
if life evolved under these conditions, it's not surprising that there's a tight tuning between what's necessary for life and the conditions of the universe, no matter how improbable they are, because this form of life wouldn't exist without that form of material reality constituting the substrate.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
512. Time, Space, and the Miraculous | Dr. Brian Keating
And so, if something has adapted to something unlikely, the unlikeliness of what it's adapted to doesn't presume a designer. I think there are more powerful arguments. I'm going to give you this book right now. So, this is the new book I wrote, We Who Wrestle With God. It's a good time to give this to you because I've made other arguments
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
512. Time, Space, and the Miraculous | Dr. Brian Keating
about the relationship between science and the divine, let's say, in this book. I tried in this book not to put forward any propositions that I couldn't justify scientifically, but I'm not making a scientific case for God. I think the case, I think the rapprochement between science and religion is not going to be found in use of materialist reductionism to prove the existence of a designer.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
512. Time, Space, and the Miraculous | Dr. Brian Keating
I think it's going to be more a consequence of us coming to understand what it means that science itself is not science without maintaining its embeddedness in an underlying upward striving ethos. So, for example, Cardinal Newman, a famous Catholic theologian, His existence proof for God wasn't an argument from design, which is an argument that's been around for a long time.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
512. Time, Space, and the Miraculous | Dr. Brian Keating
It was much more akin to something that's laid out in a sequence of Old Testament stories. There's an identity proclaimed in the story of Elijah and the story of Jonah, Job as well, to some degree. One of the manifestations of God is the voice of conscience. And I really like that argument. But more it's a definition, you see, not so much an argument.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
512. Time, Space, and the Miraculous | Dr. Brian Keating
Because before you talk about the existence of God, you have to say what the hell it is that you're... That's right.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
512. Time, Space, and the Miraculous | Dr. Brian Keating
So it's got to be more than a year since we talked, eh?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
512. Time, Space, and the Miraculous | Dr. Brian Keating
If we're dark adaptive, one photon, yeah, it's amazing.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
512. Time, Space, and the Miraculous | Dr. Brian Keating
It's a relational system, and that is— Well, I think the great comparative investigators of religion, Mircea Eliade, probably foremost among them, he was part of Jung's broad school and maybe played a role equivalent to that of Jung. They're—I— They certainly identified the same kind of patterns in profound religious thinking that you can see characterizing literature.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
512. Time, Space, and the Miraculous | Dr. Brian Keating
remote podcast together right a couple months after right right right yeah well it's always it's always uh good to have a chance to talk to somebody from the scientific community i can plague you with my uh preposterous questions about cosmology i have a preposterous question for you today i can't wait that's what i'm here we'll get to that i want to ask you first about the course you did for peterson academy yeah
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
512. Time, Space, and the Miraculous | Dr. Brian Keating
I mean, literature, stories are identifiable because they are manifestations of an underlying pattern. And I think you can make that case in the religious domain. I would make that case biologically in part by... This is the way I conceptualize it, is that... There's a virtually infinite number of ways that you can interact with someone.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
512. Time, Space, and the Miraculous | Dr. Brian Keating
But there's a finite number of ways, extremely restricted and finite number of ways that you can interact with someone in a manner they and you approve of simultaneously. Like a father, right? Like a parent, right? Or two kids playing a game. Now, see, Jean Piaget, the developmental psychologist, he thought of that as the origin of morality.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
512. Time, Space, and the Miraculous | Dr. Brian Keating
And Piaget's goal was actually a rapprochement between science and religion.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
512. Time, Space, and the Miraculous | Dr. Brian Keating
play as the origin of that in part that was very very smart okay so now there's many ways that we can interact yeah some of them will will jointly appreciate okay in consequence of that appreciation we'll want to continue them that's the establishment of a relationship okay so now imagine there's a smaller subset of those games that will maintain their value across time
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
512. Time, Space, and the Miraculous | Dr. Brian Keating
and stay voluntarily desirable or improve. Now that's an even smaller number of potential games. Well, those games are gonna have a pattern and it's the pattern of human interaction, sustainable human interaction. My suspicion is that conscience as an instinct indicates a violation of the rules of that game. And I suspect further that that's universal. Now out of that,
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
512. Time, Space, and the Miraculous | Dr. Brian Keating
a realm of story is going to emerge. There's going to be representations of games that deteriorate and games that have a tragic end and games that are sustainable where everyone lives happily ever after. Or incomprehensible games. Those are going to have a universality across cultures. Cultures are going to vary in the sophistication with which they represent those games.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
512. Time, Space, and the Miraculous | Dr. Brian Keating
But there's a, it's sort of like, it's almost like making the same claim that obviously all languages are the same because they're identifiable as languages and they're structured well and they're characteristic of human beings.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
512. Time, Space, and the Miraculous | Dr. Brian Keating
But within the family of languages, there's commonality still, grammatical structure, there's nouns and verbs, like there's tremendous commonality, but there's also tremendous variability. So I think that religious domain is analogous to that. My sense, I've done a fair bit of study of comparative religion, is my sense that the Judeo-Christian endeavor
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
512. Time, Space, and the Miraculous | Dr. Brian Keating
proceeded farther along the line of explicit representation than any other religious system. Now, we could debate that, but you know, that's not much different than saying that Western cultures are the most literate, which is, that's the case. So, yeah, definitely.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
512. Time, Space, and the Miraculous | Dr. Brian Keating
I'm going to be in Texas with my wife, our accompanying musician. And then from January through April, running through the United States. If you want more information about that, go to jordanbpeterson.com. The content of the tour...
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
512. Time, Space, and the Miraculous | Dr. Brian Keating
Well, the thing that's odd about Sam, too, in that regard, is that he's drifted into a kind of a visionary Buddhism. Yeah. And I think I understand why. Yeah. One of the characteristics of the meditative tradition that Sam is partaking in is that the God of that meditative tradition is extraordinarily ineffable, not defined and also not concretized into ritual or story.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
512. Time, Space, and the Miraculous | Dr. Brian Keating
Now, the advantage to that is that you can't criticize it intellectually. You can't falsify it, right. Well, that's exactly right. You know, and I see that in the Christian tradition, the Orthodox Church has been the most resistant to woke, partly because it's so embedded in non-propositional tradition, right, liturgy and ritual, that, well, how are you going to criticize?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
512. Time, Space, and the Miraculous | Dr. Brian Keating
It's like criticizing dance, or music.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
512. Time, Space, and the Miraculous | Dr. Brian Keating
idea about this it's also the case that like first of all the entire story of exodus is about the movement from slavery and tyranny to freedom so and that's like that that's a major part of the biblical library um and then even more importantly the metaphysical insistence is that If you're not a slave to God, let's say, so to speak, there's something that you're a slave to.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
512. Time, Space, and the Miraculous | Dr. Brian Keating
You might be a slave to yourself. And that's not appropriate. Or a slave to your whims. Your work. And that's what hedonistic self-gratification is. It's like, I'm free. It's like, no, you're not. You're a slave to your whips.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
512. Time, Space, and the Miraculous | Dr. Brian Keating
It's great gratitude is also the opposite of resentment. Exactly. And resentment is the most bitter and destructive of emotions.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
512. Time, Space, and the Miraculous | Dr. Brian Keating
It's the revelation of a child. It's terror.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
512. Time, Space, and the Miraculous | Dr. Brian Keating
Do you know one of the things I discovered that— Every audience I've discussed this with goes silent. There's no difference between obligation and adventure. You know, because you think of an obligation as something that you're involuntarily shouldering, right? That's an obligation. It's like, well, if you get rid of the involuntary part of that,
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
512. Time, Space, and the Miraculous | Dr. Brian Keating
and you make it voluntary, now you're voluntarily shouldering a great weight. It's like, well, that's an adventure. When you go see a movie about a great adventurer, a secret agent, say, the thing that characterizes his journey that you find so compelling is that he's doing something impossibly difficult voluntarily. It's like, so...
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
512. Time, Space, and the Miraculous | Dr. Brian Keating
People don't want an obligation, but that's because they have the wrong attitude towards obligation. It's like, no, you actually want a stellar obligation.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
512. Time, Space, and the Miraculous | Dr. Brian Keating
One of the things I've learned about the atheist community, so to speak, though, that's a mitigating factor, I would say, there's a subset of them that are just Luciferian rationalists, and they're not fun. They're not fun. They know everything. They're bitter, they're resentful, and they're seriously underappreciated for their genius. Okay, but then there's a very large subset of atheists.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
512. Time, Space, and the Miraculous | Dr. Brian Keating
Atheists who are relieved at their atheism because they were brutalized by Pharisaic religious pretenders, right? That's Richard, right? Well, it might even be Richard Dawkins because he's made the odd illusion. Yeah, he's made the odd illusion. And I've met lots of people who were very badly hurt by fundamentalist types.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
512. Time, Space, and the Miraculous | Dr. Brian Keating
Well, we're also surrounded by Pharisees and scribes and lawyers. That's awesome.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
512. Time, Space, and the Miraculous | Dr. Brian Keating
Yeah, that's exactly the problem. Because that's also a very weird definition of self. It's like they have the self— That's without tradition. Okay, so that means, fundamentally, it means without discipline. It means without rich moral knowledge. It means without community. It means without the necessity of foregoing immediate gratification for a higher purpose. That's a major loss.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
512. Time, Space, and the Miraculous | Dr. Brian Keating
Like, you'd only think... that the child-stripped of tradition has himself in the untrammeled sense, if you believe that the self that was the true self had no relationship whatsoever with the surrounding community. Well, that's a... That's a lonely person. It is.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
512. Time, Space, and the Miraculous | Dr. Brian Keating
Well, and also maybe narcissistic and self-serving. Because if it's all about you, independent of anyone else, then, well, it's all about you. That's right. So one of the things I discovered in this book, and I outlined this in painful detail, you might say, is that the postmodern types were correct and the scientists wrong, or the empiricists at least incorrect.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
512. Time, Space, and the Miraculous | Dr. Brian Keating
The postmodernists were correct in their proclamation that we see the world through a story. A description of the structure through which we perceive the value of the world is a story. When you go see a movie, you're looking at the consequences of the value structure of the protagonist. And you want to know that because it orients you in their direction so you can try that out. Right.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
512. Time, Space, and the Miraculous | Dr. Brian Keating
Once you understand that, the question that necessarily arises is, what story? And it could be non-nihilism. It could be hedonism, which is whim possession, essentially. It could be power. And the problem with the postmodernists is that they were all Marxists, virtually, and they turned to power as an explanation immediately.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
512. Time, Space, and the Miraculous | Dr. Brian Keating
Now, the problem with that hypothesis is it's actually wrong, because power is not an effective unifying motivation. That's why the ring of power in the Lord of the Rings is... It's the ring of Satan himself. It's very attractive power. I can force unity. But it doesn't iterate well. It doesn't unite well.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
512. Time, Space, and the Miraculous | Dr. Brian Keating
The biblical library is predicated on the idea that the foundation of community is voluntary self-sacrifice. And that's right. And it's actually self-evident because... when you engage in a social relationship, what you're doing is you're giving up the primacy of your immediate desire for the benefit of the relationship. It's definitional.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
512. Time, Space, and the Miraculous | Dr. Brian Keating
So we can think about Piaget, that developmental psychologist. His proposition was that if we wanted to understand ethics scientifically, we'd look at their precursors. And he thought we'd find that in the behavior of children as they became socialized. Very smart hypothesis. That's why he got so interested in games. Well, when a child makes the transition from two-year-old egotist...
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
512. Time, Space, and the Miraculous | Dr. Brian Keating
to three-year-old social creature, because that's when that occurs, one of the hallmarks of that development is taking turns. Well, taking turns is a sacrifice. It's like, it's not my turn now. I sacrifice my turn to you. Okay, if I do that, then we play. If you want to keep playing with me, then we're friends. Well, that's the... Contract that's that's that's the social contract, right?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
512. Time, Space, and the Miraculous | Dr. Brian Keating
It's not imposed tyrannically from above something else PSA pointed out is that the stable social contract is Voluntarily created and accepted. That's way different than Freud's superego or Foucault's power games It's way different way different and I think I think there's all the evidence in the world that it's true and so the idea that
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
512. Time, Space, and the Miraculous | Dr. Brian Keating
See, we're acting out, this is something else I realized, is the typical European town, Christian town, let's say, has a cathedral or church at its center. And then there's a periphery, which is the town and then the countryside. Center, periphery, or center, surround, periphery. center is the sacred place, and the reason for that is the center is the sacred place. That's definitional.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
512. Time, Space, and the Miraculous | Dr. Brian Keating
Then in the center of the center, there's an altar where sacrifices are being made, right? And the drama that's enacted is the community is founded on the principle of sacrifice. It's like, well, yeah, obviously. Right. Well, obviously. Because that's the definition of community in some sense, is that the individual is brought into relationship with others. That's right.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
512. Time, Space, and the Miraculous | Dr. Brian Keating
Well, that's obviously a sacrifice of individual primacy. Exactly. Well, what's the gain? Well... It's the gain of maturity. That's a major gain. Now you're taking care of the future and not just the present. So that's a major gain. Because maturity is the sacrifice of the present for the future, right? And a relationship is sacrifice of your whims for the benefit of the relationship.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
512. Time, Space, and the Miraculous | Dr. Brian Keating
So it's all sacrifice. And perception is sacrificial because you could be attending to a lot of other things. Instead, you're attending to the one thing you're attending to.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
512. Time, Space, and the Miraculous | Dr. Brian Keating
It wasn't yes, right? That's the magic word, man.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
512. Time, Space, and the Miraculous | Dr. Brian Keating
Two years old. At two years old, you're playing the battle of no. Yes. And that is exactly how much is for me, which is what no means, and how much has to be sacrificed to the collective.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
512. Time, Space, and the Miraculous | Dr. Brian Keating
There's also none of that in the biblical focus. None of that. No, it's not. There is in the artistic representations. That's right. But they're images, and everyone understands that. And there's also constant warnings in the biblical texts about confusing the image with the image. Ineffable, right? That's right. And there's been huge battles in the Christian church.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
512. Time, Space, and the Miraculous | Dr. Brian Keating
The iconoclasts were people who believed that icons had the danger of concreteness, which is exactly the danger that, say, Dawkins has fallen prey to when he concretizes a metaphor. Infantile, right.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
512. Time, Space, and the Miraculous | Dr. Brian Keating
or the approach of the tour will be similar to my previous tours in that I'm taking abstract concepts, in this case, concepts associated with the realm of story, particularly the stories of the Old Testament. I'm explaining their conceptual significance, but I'm also extracting out the practical implications of that understanding for attention and for behavior. And so it's always my goal to make
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
512. Time, Space, and the Miraculous | Dr. Brian Keating
Well, and even in that analysis, you're pointing to an a priori distinction between the things that made them truly great scientists and in that necessarily ethical sense, and all the flaws that are part and parcel of being a human, but aren't in the same category. That's right. And you can't— Yeah, yeah.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
512. Time, Space, and the Miraculous | Dr. Brian Keating
Rule for monetary exchange. By means of these same arithmetic lines, we can change every kind of currency into any other in a very easy and speedy way. This is done by first setting the instrument, taking lengthwise the price in the money we want to exchange, and fitting this crosswise to the price in the money into which the exchange is to be made.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
512. Time, Space, and the Miraculous | Dr. Brian Keating
We shall illustrate this by an example so that everything is clearly understood.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
512. Time, Space, and the Miraculous | Dr. Brian Keating
Florentine gold scudi into Venetian ducats.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
512. Time, Space, and the Miraculous | Dr. Brian Keating
Well, it's very seductive for scientists to want to prioritize the intellectual. Because how else do we get more immortality? Well, they're also smart. Yeah. Well, of course you're going to do that because it's in your obvious self-interest to prioritize in importance your most outstanding trait. That's also the deadliness of worship of the intellect per se. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
512. Time, Space, and the Miraculous | Dr. Brian Keating
Well, I'll be interested in your response to this book.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
512. Time, Space, and the Miraculous | Dr. Brian Keating
Yeah, it's a weird fact really, isn't it? I mean, you wonder about it biologically because that exposure to the night sky, day sky too for that matter, is also an at-hand experience of awe. And I've wondered often from the psychological perspective what it has meant for people and their existential positioning to have less access to the night sky than they once did.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
512. Time, Space, and the Miraculous | Dr. Brian Keating
Well, and people then, of course, they started to intuit the fact that there was a... This is when astrology and astronomy were still rightly intermediated, because the ancient people discovered that there was a relationship between the events of the heaven and the transformations on Earth, right? The movement of the seasons. And that was obviously of critical importance.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
512. Time, Space, and the Miraculous | Dr. Brian Keating
This is going to predict the movement of animals, for example, or when your crops should be planted. But just that concordance of the cosmic with the practical. Right. That's an... Well, it's an unbelievable fact of nature to begin with.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
512. Time, Space, and the Miraculous | Dr. Brian Keating
I mean, these are both now supplanting the need for— Well, and atheists get all their religion from science fiction. Right. Right, right. I'm dead serious about that. Really? Oh, sure, because the mythological pattern of science fiction stories is crystal clear. I mean, Star Wars was predicated on Joseph Campbell's analysis of hero culture. Hero's journey, right. Sure, of course.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
512. Time, Space, and the Miraculous | Dr. Brian Keating
That is true, yeah. I haven't thought about it. Definitely.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
512. Time, Space, and the Miraculous | Dr. Brian Keating
Oh, I never thought about that particular. I don't have that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that's a good one. So you get all the advantages of the assumption of advanced intelligence with none of the moral requirements. Right.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
512. Time, Space, and the Miraculous | Dr. Brian Keating
Because there's a lot of people who never see the full cosmic landscape because of light pollution. It's not a good way of conceptualizing it, but because the light interferes with the night sky, right? And it is something I remember growing up in northern Alberta. I mean, we were a long way from any major urban center. And the night sky there was very impressive.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
512. Time, Space, and the Miraculous | Dr. Brian Keating
You wrote about UFOs. Really? Yes, yes. Wow. And he noted – because – The belief in UFOs historically cycles, and it tends to make itself manifest more frequently in times of crisis. And he probably describes in his book on UFOs the answer to the question that you're posing. Really? Because what you're really asking about is the metaphysics of materialist atheism, right?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
512. Time, Space, and the Miraculous | Dr. Brian Keating
The mythological metaphysics of materialist atheism. The whole impulse, the urge, yes. Well, the materialist atheists might say we have no religion. It's like, yeah, you're wrong. Right, right. You have an unrecognized religion.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
512. Time, Space, and the Miraculous | Dr. Brian Keating
Well, then you're laying out some of the trappings that tend to come along with that. It's because you can't. Organize your existence in life without imposing a story on the world. There's no way of doing it Your life is a story in the world.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
512. Time, Space, and the Miraculous | Dr. Brian Keating
technically is a response to ambiguity, right? That's technically anxiety signals the emergence of entropy, right? And positive emotion, I learned this from Carl Friston, because I didn't know this, positive emotion signifies a reduction in entropy in relationship to a goal. A structure, yes. And anxiety itself signals the sudden emergence of entropy, right? So there's a way actually of aligning.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
512. Time, Space, and the Miraculous | Dr. Brian Keating
This is so cool, something we could talk about for a long time. There's actually a place where the thermodynamics and emotion can be what would you say, brought into concordance? Yeah, I've thought about that. We have to stop on this part of the podcast. And that's too bad for all you people watching on YouTube, because we're actually going to continue this on the Daily Wire side.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
512. Time, Space, and the Miraculous | Dr. Brian Keating
And obviously, we could talk for an endless number of hours and would love to. One of the things that means is that the burning question is, that I wanted to ask Dr. Keating has to wait for the Daily Wire side and what that means for you poor people on YouTube is that in order to hear that part of the podcast, you actually have to have a subscription to the Daily Wire.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
512. Time, Space, and the Miraculous | Dr. Brian Keating
And that sleight of hand, you might say, wasn't done by design. It's just how it worked out. But you might want to think about throwing the Daily Wire some support. There we go. Thank you for talking about Peterson Academy today. We have 40,000 students now, eh? Wonderful.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
512. Time, Space, and the Miraculous | Dr. Brian Keating
You could see the Milky Way fully. And very frequently, we had aurora borealis and pretty spectacular displays. And when it's 40 below and the air is dry, there's very little humidity. And so the night sky is very stark. And it was dark by 6 o'clock at night. So even when I used to do my paper route,
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
512. Time, Space, and the Miraculous | Dr. Brian Keating
We are pretty damn happy with the way things are going. The social media interactions on the site are extremely positive. They're all idea-focused. They're upward-aiming. Community. There's no trolls. Yeah, yeah.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
512. Time, Space, and the Miraculous | Dr. Brian Keating
Yeah, yeah. Well, we'll work out the details of that as we progress, too. So for everybody watching on the YouTube side, do join us on the Daily Wire side. We're going to continue this conversation, and I'm looking forward to that. Thanks very much for coming into Scottsdale today.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
512. Time, Space, and the Miraculous | Dr. Brian Keating
Friends, we spent a lot of time looking up at the night sky, watching for falling stars, watching for satellites. But it's interesting, eh, that observing the sky is a primary pleasure that's strange biologically. It's like, what the hell's going on there? That it produces that experience of awe. And awe is a weird emotion too, because it's a very sophisticated emotion, but it's also very primal.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
512. Time, Space, and the Miraculous | Dr. Brian Keating
One of the... concomitance of awe is pile of erection right that feeling of your hair standing on end and that's actually the same reflex that manifests itself when a cat for example puffs itself up at the sight of a predator like a dog but it's trying to make itself more impressive so it's it's that sense of awe we have is associated biologically with our response to predation.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
512. Time, Space, and the Miraculous | Dr. Brian Keating
But it's also, as you pointed out, see, I've thought about it. It's like when the cat's hair stands on end, it's becoming more than it is, right? It's trying to display itself in the most impressive manner possible. And there's a call to higher being that's part and parcel of the experience of awe that seems like like the psychological equivalent of that, right?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
512. Time, Space, and the Miraculous | Dr. Brian Keating
You look up at the night sky and it fills you with a sense of wonder and a sense of your remoteness and finiteness, but at the same time, it also kind of compels you to be more than you are, evokes curiosity. That's right. It's very complex, eh, to see that happen.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
512. Time, Space, and the Miraculous | Dr. Brian Keating
what I'm discussing applicable immediately in the real world, and that continues in this lecture series. We've released a new seminar series for Daily Wire+, featuring the same players with a few substitutions, as partook in the Exodus seminar, which was very popular, this time devoted to explication of the Gospels, and so that released on
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
512. Time, Space, and the Miraculous | Dr. Brian Keating
It calls it, it marks it and makes you notice. That's right. Well, there are... I suspect if your eyes were open, as they should be, possibly, you'd see that all the time. That's right. And you suggested something that's very interesting. We know... neurophysiologically that knowledge and memory inhibit perception.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
512. Time, Space, and the Miraculous | Dr. Brian Keating
Because what happens when you learn to perceive something, when you're familiar with it, is you replace your presumption with the perception. You replace the perception with your presumption. That makes you super efficient because you see what you know, but it distances you from the phenomena. That's right. Phenomena means to shine forth, right? It distances you from that.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
512. Time, Space, and the Miraculous | Dr. Brian Keating
And so then you gain efficiency at the cost of wonder. That's part of the reason it's so nice to be around little kids. Yes. Because they're not efficient.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
512. Time, Space, and the Miraculous | Dr. Brian Keating
That's for sure.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
512. Time, Space, and the Miraculous | Dr. Brian Keating
But everything's new, exactly. That's right.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
512. Time, Space, and the Miraculous | Dr. Brian Keating
Well, you know, I've had the same experience in some ways teaching my students about, let's say, analysis of dreams and stories. You know, if you're a naive movie attender, moviegoer, you don't really think about the movie, right? You certainly don't think about it as an artifact. You don't think about the direction. You don't think about the cinematography. You're just in the story. And
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
512. Time, Space, and the Miraculous | Dr. Brian Keating
In a way, that's where the most enjoyable capture takes place. And then when you become critically minded and you start to see the subtexts and to see the technology and to see the skill or lack thereof, then it distances you from that. And that is a gain in that you're a more sophisticated observer and probably less susceptible to manipulation. But it's a loss in that you lose that ability
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
510. The Greatest Hits
And Birbelsingh students ace the standardized tests, despite the fact that most of them are from, you know, oppressed minority backgrounds, to use the horrible progressive parlance. And You know, we need like a hundred of her. A hundred Catherine Birbelsings and the whole education system would be revolutionized. She is a force of nature and tough as a boot.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
510. The Greatest Hits
And the cancel mob has come for her like dozens of times and coming for Catherine Birbelsings. That's a very bad idea. So she'll chew you up and spit you out in no time flat. And it was a privilege to go to her school. And more power to her. And again, she pulled off the same thing this year.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
510. The Greatest Hits
And one, I thought, fairly entertaining tweet suggesting that this is the tweet that people online are saying you were inciting suicide, which honestly, I think you'd have to have the IQ of a beetle in order to think that. But anyway, you responded to someone who thought the world's population was too high and suggested that he should include himself in the depopulation he was already suggesting.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
510. The Greatest Hits
And got almost no credit for it from the idiot Labour Party in the UK, despite the fact that she's actually doing... what they promised to do. That's why they're so annoyed with her because she's actually showed that it's possible and she can do it efficiently and inexpensively and in a manner that would scale. And of course,
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
510. The Greatest Hits
That's not happening because people would, especially the radical progressive types, they'd far rather moralize about a problem endlessly than actually solve it. So yeah, Catherine Birbelsingh, two thumbs up for her. That's for sure. Check her out. The Michaela School in the UK. Man, if every school was like that, every kid would be a killer.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
510. The Greatest Hits
These are adult problems that haven't been dealt with because people aren't allowed to speak. And now children are at the brunt of it.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
510. The Greatest Hits
My wife, Tammy, interviewed Tommy with me. Tommy is the most reviled man in the UK, I would say. That's an honest assessment. He was a whistleblower with regard to the gangs in the UK. And if you want to investigate an ugly story, wander down that rabbit hole for a week or two. There were thousands of young women who were
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
510. The Greatest Hits
in the United Kingdom by organized gangs and the authorities work to, still work to cover it up. And many working class towns, many. And well, Tommy Robinson's cousin was one of the girls who got tangled up in that catastrophic mess. And Tommy has been reviled as a right wing provocateur, you know, next door to a Nazi. And he's paid a major league price for that.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
510. The Greatest Hits
uh he's in prison right now in the uk for contempt of court he had left the uk after our interviews and went to i believe he was in spain but he came back to face the music and they they put him in prison and in a rough prison too even though it was a civil charge and even people i regard as sensible in the uk are ambivalent with regards to tommy because he really is He's from the streets.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
510. The Greatest Hits
He's a working class guy. He's tough as a boot. And he's he's not he's got the background you'd expect from someone like that. Like, but he's super smart and he's super dedicated and he's he's amazingly intelligent and he's unstoppable.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
510. The Greatest Hits
Hopefully this next prison bout isn't gonna do him in or he isn't killed in prison because that's a real possibility in the UK is gonna have to the the leadership of the Conservatives and the Reform Party are gonna have to reconcile themselves with the people that Tommy represents the genuine working class in Britain because they deserve a voice and need one and certainly Tommy is one of the few people who've provided that and
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
510. The Greatest Hits
The gist of it is it looks like your license is getting taken away.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
510. The Greatest Hits
And Tommy isn't of the right class, you know, and that's a problem in the UK. But he's extremely brave. And the gang story in the UK is the only thing, the only story I know that's indicative of the state of disrepair of the West, let's say, that's approximately as horrific as the gang story is the surgery and mutilation story.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
510. The Greatest Hits
I think probably the most comical element of this absolute charade is that the College of Psychologists and Behavior Analysts, because that's what they call themselves now in Ontario, convenient name change, they received perhaps, I don't know for sure, 15 complaints about me.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
510. The Greatest Hits
And, you know, we should be ashamed of ourselves deeply for like five decades for both of those things. And yet Tommy has been persecuted intensely and continually and now for being brave enough to point to the fact of these, of the existence of these gangs and for his role in identifying the true, not only the true perpetrators, but also the cowards and liars
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
510. The Greatest Hits
and enablers who've covered this all up for literally for decades it's an ugly business now you know this was the most contentious podcast riskiest podcast maybe that i ever did and i did it in part at the insistence of my wife who'd been following tommy as i have been for many many years And he conducted himself extremely well. We got very little blowback for the podcast.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
510. The Greatest Hits
We did two of them, which is really remarkable because Tommy Robinson is a red hot, he's a red hot piece of iron that you grasp at your peril. But he comported himself extremely well. He was really, really nervous in the studio. Because he knew what was at stake. And I certainly believe that the consequence of this was that he came out with his reputation much enhanced. He's someone I admire.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
510. The Greatest Hits
can't stop him and he's paid a major price for it him and his family like a price higher than i would say anyone else i know even maybe including ayan hirsi ali who's another person the left detests who's so brave and so upright it's so honorable that it's like it's a it's a it's painful to meet them you know they're the sort of people you kind of feel shame in their presence because
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
510. The Greatest Hits
They have the kind of courage you could have if you weren't such a bloody coward. So I hope Tommy manages to keep his head together, given what's facing him at the moment. I think they put him in prison for nine months for showing a movie about another scandal in the UK, for showing a movie after the court had told him that he wasn't allowed to show it.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
510. The Greatest Hits
He regarded that as an extension of his activity as a journalist. And I believe Elon Musk shared the movie, even if Elon didn't, because I might be wrong about that, although I know Elon has shared some of Tommy's material.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
510. The Greatest Hits
from people who, as Michaela pointed out, weren't my clients or even knew my clients or had anything to do with them, complaining about things that I said that were true and that needed to be said. So, for example, with the Joe Rogan transcript, which was submitted in its totality as a complaint, I pointed out that stacking extremely unwieldy economic models
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
510. The Greatest Hits
Well, you understood it well enough to have an existential crisis when you were 11 or 12.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
510. The Greatest Hits
Yeah, so there was a couple of cardinal moments in that Elon Musk interview. I mean, the whole thing was... A real privilege. We went out to his Cybertruck factory, which is just an absolutely amazing building. It's immense. It's like five airports big. And he built it in no time flat. And then he's making these preposterous, powerful...
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
510. The Greatest Hits
Electric vehicles that actually function despite government opposition, despite the fact that the government is pushing electric vehicles. So, you know, that's a small part of Elon Musk's story. And two things really happened in this interview that were worthy of note, I would say, especially given what's transpired in relationship to Elon Musk. and the and the new Trump administration.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
510. The Greatest Hits
The first one was this clip here, because see, Elon pointed to something very important in that discussion. He said that he had a profound existential crisis questioning the meaning of life, you know, when he was well, when he was very young teenager. And it's not that rare for a really hyper intelligent
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
510. The Greatest Hits
teenagers and he said that the way he resolved that essentially was to start to envision his life as a quest right that he found deep meaning in pushing the limits well and you can see that for example in his his ambitions to go to Mars in the ambitions that drive all of his companies and
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
510. The Greatest Hits
to push the limits and to explore and to ask questions and to investigate and that in that process of investigation and exploration and production, meaning itself is to be found. And that's...
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
510. The Greatest Hits
Well, that was a sufficiently profound realization for Elon that it did solve his, it did quell the storms of his existential crisis and put him on the pathway that he's been walking ever since in this radically successful manner. And so that was very interesting to hear and to work through from a psychological perspective.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
510. The Greatest Hits
But the other thing that happened in that interview was that Musk talked a little bit about His experiences as a father whose child fell prey to the ideological machinations of the butchers and their lying enablers, which at the moment includes virtually all psychologists and a large proportion of the medical establishment. Absolutely unforgivable in my estimation.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
510. The Greatest Hits
And in his, you know, it's clear to me that part of Elon's determination to be the most formidable of enemies possible in relationship to the woke mob was in no little consequence of the fact that he had been brutally lied to when he was in serious trouble with one of his children, who did in fact transition, and who is alienated from him.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
510. The Greatest Hits
projecting out 100 years into the future on top of climate models that are in themselves unwieldy was not anything approximating settled and genuine science, which is absolutely 100% the truth. And you may have noticed, if you were paying attention, that the Democrats under Kamala Harris said nothing about climate in the last election. And so that narrative has turned.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
510. The Greatest Hits
You know, the typical physician, the typical psychologist, I say this to my own great shame, being a member of the profession of psychologist, is
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
510. The Greatest Hits
to tell parents whose children are manifesting the kind of gender dysphoria, bodily dysmorphia, let's say, that's actually quite common in early adolescence, especially among women, to tell them that that has to be rectified with puberty blockers and the most barbaric of experimental surgery. It's so awful, that surgery, that you can't read it without... It's like it's silence of the lambs bad.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
510. The Greatest Hits
It's inexcusable what's being done. And part of the way that parents are talked into that is that the lying therapists tell them that if they don't participate in this stunningly brutal thing, medical process that their children will commit suicide. That is the biggest lie that I've ever heard members of my profession utter. There's absolutely no evidence whatsoever that that's true.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
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There never has been any evidence of that sort. And anyone reasonably well trained as a psychologist knows it. And silence on this front is
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
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inexcusable and well musk you might say what could you say about elon he's decided not to be silent right and so he's not i would he's not the person that you would choose to go to war against if you had a choice but that choice has already been made and he's not the least bit happy that he lost one of his kids and he revealed that in some real detail on the podcast really uh It's awful.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
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And I know other families who've been affected in the same way. All of us should be deeply ashamed of the fact that we're complicit by our silence in this insane, devastating, deceitful, ideologically ridden, fetishistic, sexually hedonistic, catastrophe. Thankfully, many places are waking up.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
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Even the Labour Party in the UK, a party of whom virtually nothing good can or should be said, had enough sense to extend the ban on puberty blockers to minors throughout the UK. So the Europeans are waking up. Americans not yet, although many states, many states at the state level, there has been
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
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increasing pushback thank god for that canada of course is still completely captured by the butchering woke ideologues and their you know pied piper leader trudeau so yeah the musk interview was really something i probably talked too much during it and that's too bad but uh it was a real privilege to talk to him and uh you know to see his mind in action he's a remarkable person
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
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You're going to go back to the UK, you said, if I got this right, near the end of October to face the music. That's the plan.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
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And in the meantime, I presume your strategy so far has been certainly not to involve yourself in the demonstrations and so forth that have been occurring in the UK over the last few weeks, except you also said that you were correcting certain misapprehensions about what's been said about you and also the information that's been spread around. So you're going to, your plan is to
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
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stay out of the, to let the events unfold as they will, but that you're going to go back to the UK and face the music. That's the plan?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
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Anyways, they're still pursuing me. Hypothetically, they found someone who doesn't know what planet they live on to serve as my re-education agent, even though we're squabbling over the details of that. They don't want any of it made public, and that's not going to happen. They've received 25,000 complaints about their own behavior. And they admitted that.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
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The film that Tommy Robinson is talking about is called Silenced, in case you want to watch it. And Tommy did do exactly what he said he was going to do. He went back to face the judiciary in the UK, and he didn't have to. And he thought they'd put him in prison for two years. And the last time he was in prison, he was in solitary for a fair bit of that. Now, you have to understand that
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
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He was imprisoned after this interview for a civil matter. And they put him in a prison for very, very, very serious offenders, despite the fact that that isn't how they treat civil offenders. And he was imprisoned for showing this film when the court told him that he couldn't. And so I hope he emerges well alive and also... intact. We'll see what happens.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
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You might want to keep your eye on that story, especially because the UK right now is a very unstable place. You know, Keir Starmer, the UK labor leader, he came out like three weeks ago and said, I couldn't believe this. I thought it was like an AI fake. He basically said that the
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
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immigration policy that has characterized the uk let's say for the last 10 years something like that was planned it was an open border plan experiment to see what would happen if the uk opened its borders just like the right-wing conspiracy theorists had suggested and that when people pointed that out they were gaslighted
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
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They were told they were conspiracy theorists and liars, and that that was all a dreadful mistake for which Starmer is now apologizing. And I couldn't believe that when he said it. I mean, that was a Prime Minister of Britain said, the Prime Minister of Great Britain said that.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
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And then the new leader of the Conservative Party, a lot of these policies came into play under the Conservatives, not the Labour Party. And so the conservatives, so to speak, and the new leader of the conservative party, Kemi Badnok, basically said the same thing the next day. And so I don't know even what to say about the situation in the UK. It's dreadful. You know.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
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They have electricity prices now, by the way, like Germany, that are five times higher than the, this is prices for the electricity that runs all of the industrial infrastructure of, say, the UK and Germany. It's five times as expensive in the UK as it is in Germany. as it is in the United States. How's that going to work? It's obvious what the consequences that will be.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
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There's no difference between cheap energy and a prospering economy. Those are the same thing because energy is work. And when you make work expensive, well, you don't have to be a genius to figure out what that means. So the UK has a massive immigration problem and no one has any idea what to do about it. Stop the immigration process would be the first thing.
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And they're actually bound by their own rules, which they never pay any attention to anyways, to investigate all those complaints and to find out if they're justified. And so it's just a complete bloody nightmare. And in principle, I am still scheduled to be reeducated by some social media expert, whatever the hell that is, so that I conduct myself more appropriately on social media.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
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and their industrial infrastructure is collapsing and the country is extremely divided, we'll see. We'll keep our eye on that very carefully. You know, and Tommy Robinson, when he emerges from prison, assuming that he does, which is not a foregone conclusion, it'd be very convenient for the authorities if something happened to happen to Tommy in prison.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
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And he got beat up really badly the last time he was in prison, because they put him in prison with people who were in prison, in the same prison, for conspiring to kill him. That's the prison they put him in. So, and then he got beat up really, really badly when he was in prison, lost a few teeth, and So he could easily not come out. Anyways, we'll be following that and we'll keep you informed.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
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And that's part of what's coming up in the next year. You recently taught a course for Peterson Academy. And so thank you very much for that. I thought I could update you a little bit about what's going on, just so you know, and so everybody else knows. We have about 30,000 students now. Wow. And so, yeah, it took off like mad. So we did a pre-enrollment for three weeks.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
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And so that was the enrollment so far. So we're thrilled about that. Now, people seem very happy with the course offerings. And, you know, we've set up the social media platform on Peterson Academy to have a goal. The goal is for people to be able to exchange information related to their self-improvement on the educational side. And so far, it's functioning that way.
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And the fact that people have to pay essentially $500 a year to join also keeps the trolls and the bots and the bad corporate actors pretty much down to zero. So we launched Peterson Academy this year, a couple of months ago, and we now have about 40,000 students. So, and that's continuing to climb. We have, I'm really happy with the way it's gone. And so are the people who are on the Academy.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
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So it's already a very large educational institution, and there's no reason at all to assume that that's not just going to continue. By January of 2025, we'll be releasing four new eight-hour courses a month. We have all the professors lined up.
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Michaela, my daughter, who's been spearheading this along with her husband, Jordan Fuller, they have a full curriculum sketched out for the next four years, and we have the capital and the professors in place to, and the studio, everything is in place to make that a reality. So that's definitely going to happen. We're in active negotiations about accreditation. So I think we'll crack that problem.
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And it looks like we can bring the best professors in the world because we have them. to the widest possible audience that's available in multiple languages for a cost that all the people who have been participating regard as probably too low, fundamentally. And if we're going to make a mistake, that's a good side to err on. And so I've taught... four or five courses for Peterson Academy.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
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They're not all released, but many of them are. One on the Gospels, one on personality, one on Nietzsche, one on Piaget, one on personal planning and self-development. That'll all be coming out. All the professors who are participating are thrilled. We've had offers from many of them to quit their jobs and work for us.
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And that's going to happen with some of them because we want to have some professors who are engaged in direct student-to-student contact. And so that's petersonacademy.com and it's thriving. I made mention of the social media element of it. We took the best elements of the most popular social media platforms and integrated them into the app and the participants use it
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And so God only knows how that's going to turn out. It's annoying and blackly comical at the same time. So we'll keep you posted on that front. Okay, so how did we get from protecting vulnerable children from online sexual exploitation with a gigantic unnamed bureaucracy with indefinite rights and virtually no responsibility to whatever the hell hateful speech is,
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
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continually, and it's extremely positive. Troll-free, bot-free, very, very positive and productive. So, yeah, it's firing on all cylinders. And so, you know, if you want to educate yourself, there's no reason not to join the Academy.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
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Because one of the things you've done that I think is unprecedented and that's become perhaps more part of the public discussion since you've teamed up with Trump is to make public health a political issue. And so you talked about the public health crisis and maybe you could lay out the dimensions of that crisis. I mean, I know there's an obesity epidemic, there's a diabetes epidemic.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
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These are very, very serious problems. And so, but you've concentrated on that in a way that just isn't characteristic of anybody on the political landscape at all. Now it's become an issue that's front and center. And so I'd like to hear more about your thoughts, why you think that's such a fundamental priority, you know, compared to, say, free speech and war and peace. Why health?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
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And what you see lay out the landscape of the problem and also the landscape of potential solution.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
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Yeah, well, so one of the things that's really worth contemplating in retrospect is just how revolutionary this year has been. And it's really been something to watch personally because so many of the people that I've interacted with on this podcast and personally now have key roles in the new American administration.
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And so, you know, I watched that with some trepidation because there are many difficult jobs that need to be done to set things right. It's so remarkable watching Kennedy make public health a political issue. Really single-handedly, that's something that he accomplished. That's quite an accomplishment. Now he's in a position, along with Mehmet Oz, to... Do something about it.
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So now, you know, there's the opportunity to put your money where your mouth is, so to speak. And they have an unparalleled opportunity with Trump and the public goodwill that surrounds the new administration to make some real changes. It was interesting, too, to see what's transpired with regards to the Democrats.
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You know, when I first interviewed RFK in the interview that YouTube took down, which I thought was utterly reprehensible interference with a presidential campaign, I asked him when the left went too far. Because I always ask Democrats that question and they never answer it, ever. And he didn't answer it. He said, I'm not running that kind of divisive campaign.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
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In this interview, I asked him the same question. And I think it's fair to say that in the aftermath of Kennedy's truncated run for presidency, he's never stopped talking about when the left goes too far. Right. And the Democrats are really going to have to contend with that because they made a large number of extremely large errors.
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And I'm hoping they have enough residual expertise in leadership somewhere in the ranks of the party to reconstitute themselves. Because happy as I am that this remarkable band of Avengers has assembled themselves around Trump, We know perfectly well from our long history in democratic countries that the good guys need an opposition too.
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Because if they don't have an opposition, they quickly turn into the bad guys. And it's highly probable that happens to everyone. Because power is an extraordinarily tempting elixir, you might say. And so I'm hoping that the Democrats... transform themselves back into a party that could serve as intelligent opposition to the Trump crowd.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
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You know, the Democrats have been whining madly and publicly about the fact that the sneaky conservatives captured the new media, you know, and which I think is absolutely hilarious because there was no capture. There were just people like Rogan and the other podcasters who sort of assembled in his wake, myself included, who just started enterprises on a shoestring and said,
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I mean, first of all, we might ask ourselves, and Constantine, you can weigh in here too, is like the whole notion of hateful speech, that's a troublesome one for me because there's an obvious element of subjective judgment in it, like a clearly obvious one.
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what we believe to be the truth and interviewed people without any tricks. And the Democrats could have had a part of that. Because a bunch of us, and I do believe that included Rogan at the time, but it certainly included many of the other major podcast figures. We invited all the Democrats to come and talk to us multiple times.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
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We got to them all through channels that they were communicating with, because I knew people who were integrally situated within the Democrat hierarchy. And we repeatedly offered to talk to them. And the offers are genuine. And in some ways risk-free. Like, if you come on my podcast and you don't like the outcome, you can just scrap the podcast.
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Like, no one's ever done that, but that is a genuine offer I make to my guests. And if they say something they regret, I also tell them, well, we're not here to play some gotcha game. If you say something the day later you think it was stupid, tell us. And, you know, if you want us to remove 40 things, it's like, that's not going to happen. We'll just scrap the podcast.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
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But if it's one or two things that you, you know, misspoke about, well, then we'll take them out. Now, I believe only one person has taken us up on that offer about one thing they said, but it's a genuine offer. The Democrats would talk to me behind the scenes, the senators and the congressmen whom I've met, and that's many of them, but they've never talked to me publicly. And so, you know what?
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I heard someone on CNN say, well, the Democrats, they said, we need our own Rogan. And I thought you guys had Rogan, you dimwits. Joe Rogan is not your father's Republican. He interviewed Bernie Sanders like four years ago because he voted for Bernie. That's not a Republican thing to do in case he hadn't noticed.
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And both Rogan and Sanders himself got nothing but pilloried by the woke council mob for doing that. And so the Democrat failure on the new social media front is 100% there. Their fault. Not only their fault, but their fault in the face of repeated offers and repeated warnings.
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And even now, you know, I have people scouring behind the scenes to find Democratic leadership hopefuls who will come and talk. And it's even now they're loathe to do it. They're loathe to do it. It's like... Hey, have it your way. You know, your legacy media allies have radically done themselves in, as you noticed.
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And you have nowhere to turn except to your own media infrastructure, which doesn't exist, or to the podcast mob. But their invitation is open and you refuse it. So don't be whining about the fact that the new media was captured by the conservatives. Jesus, you handed it to them on a silver platter. So, and you still haven't learned. Look at it this way.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
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So for example, in this conversation, you know this to be the case, there's various ways that this conversation could go sideways, right? Seriously. Either of us could try to win. Either of us could try to demonstrate our intellectual superiority, right? Each of us could misrepresent the other.
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Or we could both try, and I do think we are in fact trying that, and I think Alex is helping along with that just fine. We could try to follow the thread of the exploratory truth and see if we could get somewhere. Now, I don't think there is any difference between that, by the way, and what's expressed in the biblical texts as the spirit of the logos. That's why we have dialogue.
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Yeah, there was a lot of cardinal conversations this year, and certainly the one with Dawkins was one of them. There were four main players in the so-called Four Horsemen of the Atheist Movement, right? There was Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris and Daniel Dennett and Richard Dawkins. And I've talked to three of them publicly, Sam Harris a number of times.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
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I had a very good conversation with Daniel Dennett. And then, you know, I had a conversation a while back with Dawkins that was made public, audio only, and I was very much looking forward to this conversation, which I felt was very productive. By the end of the conversation, Dr. Dawkins was excited about the idea that genetic transformation could occur
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at the human level in consequence of the cultural transformation that the spread of memes might produce. And I would say those would include religious ideas. And so we actually got somewhere scientifically on the hypothesis front. The conversation had its stuttering moments.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
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I think part of the problem you see is that there's a whole literature on the emergence of religious ideation that Dr. Dawkins and the atheist types, they just don't know. And that's a big problem because it's a deep and profound literature. The foremost exponent of that school was either Carl Jung or Mircea Eliade, who was the world's greatest historian of religions.
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and a true genius with ideas that are rich with biological implications. And that was part of what I wanted to discuss with Dawkins. Now, I think one of the things that's interesting in the broader cultural context is that the atheist movement that those four gentlemen spearheaded, the air has really gone out of it.
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And I think it's partly because it doesn't offer anything positive on the existential front. It's merely critical. And look, terrible things need to be criticized, but something has to arise to replace them.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
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Now, even Dawkins can see that part of what's risen to replace these dreadful superstitions once they collapsed is superstitions like, say, on the woke ideological side that are far worse than anything dreamt of by the mere Christians. And that's had a devastating effect on not only the universities, but on the scientific enterprise. And
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
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there's no doubt that dr dawkins is like keenly aware of that so that's a major problem for the for the atheist crowd and it's also the case that the there are elements of religious thinking that are much more sophisticated than the superstition that's parodied by the by the atheist thought leaders i mean even harris i mean
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
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So that's all in reference to this absolutely and utterly insane bill in Canada, C-63, which is grinding its way through the legislative process in Canada as we speak. As was alluded to in the clip, it purports to be a bill that does nothing but save the children from online predators, particularly, let's say, of the sexual type.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
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Harris has moved out of the public realm into the realm of the meditative. He's basically become a Buddhist, and that's a pretty strange landing point for someone who was a standard-bearer for a kind of militant atheism. Now, Harris might debate about whether or not he believes in God, so to speak, but the God of the Old Testament is ineffable, like the Buddhist...
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like the divine that's represented in Buddhism. And so that's a semantic issue rather than a substantive issue. The truth of the matter still is that Sam found his home in the contemplative world. So, you know, and... As I said, the steam has gone out of the atheist movement.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
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And many of the people who were associated with that movement, I wouldn't say peripherally, quite directly, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Neil Ferguson, Douglas Murray, they've come to radically rethink their stance. And that's going to continue. That's absolutely going to continue. That's something we'll keep an eye on in this podcast. The revitalization of the Judeo-Christian underpinnings of the West.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
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Well, it's also, there's two things there that are interesting. The first is, well, we landed on the moon and for Dawkins, the fact that that's remarkable is self-evident. It's like for a psychologist, it's like, that's not self-evident, buddy. There's lots of things we could have done and had been doing for a very long period of time before we landed on the moon. So it's something like,
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
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Star Trek, right? To boldly go where no one has gone before.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
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Well, that's what we did on the moon. And the flag, that's the staff of Moses. It signifies the new center, right? It's the center of identity.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
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Yeah, so that was Jonathan Paggio. And everything Jonathan Paggio says is worth listening to. And that's something you can't say of most people. and deeply worth listening to. So Paggio has done many projects with me now. He has his own podcast, The Symbolic World, and he's a very accomplished artist. He's worked with me on the documentary series on Western civilization that's on The Daily Wire.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
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We journeyed through Jerusalem and went to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and walked the Via Dolorosa, right? The road of the 12-stop road of Christ's journey to the crucifixion. And so that was absolutely remarkable. And then Pajot was also, I would say in many ways, the lead participant in the Exodus seminar that The Daily Wire produced.
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which was about a 30-hour walk through the great story of Moses and the Israelites leaving the land of tyranny for the promised land across the desert of despair. And, you know, Paggio's commentary on those stories was unbelievably illuminating. I would say it's really the case. I was just talking to Greg Hurwitz, a friend of mine who was also a participant in the Exodus seminar yesterday.
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And it's like, you know, it's pretty hard to mount an argument against that as a name, but sandwiched in between the clauses that describe attempts to... accomplish that end badly, I would say, because there's much more effective ways of doing it, are these insane clauses that deal with speech that would be hateful towards protected groups.
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And in the gospel seminar, which we just released on Daily Wire beginning in December, all the episodes of that aren't even out yet. Greg participated, like Jonathan, in both the Exodus seminar and the gospel seminar. And I asked him the other day, you know, what the consequence of that participation was. And he said very straightforwardly that it really transformed his life.
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And Greg was already a very knowledgeable person, right? And who had many accomplishments under his belt and had thought many things through deeply. And I think that that was the effect of those seminars on all the participants. And they were all very accomplished men.
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And so and then we had the great privilege of being able to bring them to a wide audience and with the full support of Daily Wire, which was really quite remarkable because it was a unlikely enterprise, right, to gather nine academics, reputable academics around a table and have them do nothing but talk to one another as they walk through these foundational stories.
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I think it was 34 hours for the Exodus seminar. something like 25 for the gospels um and well we're going to continue with that endeavor as we move forward into the future we're we're planning a series on the book of revelation which will be quite the trip so to speak and uh The Daily Wire has been an unbelievably good partner in these endeavors, these unlikely endeavors.
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And Jonathan, I learned so much from talking to him about these old stories. It's, you know, it's like you have parts of you that are fragmented. They don't exactly have their place. And they're pieces of stories that have been broken. If you encounter a great storyteller and interpreter like Pajot, then he brings all those things together and everything that you see transforms in consequence.
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And he's a magician in that regard. Well, it was a privilege to talk to him about the Dawkins interview, because the formulations that Jonathan is generating, along with John Vervaeke, for example, both of whom lecture for Peterson Academy, by the way, they're the future, as far as I can see. They are the structure of interpretation that's going to replace...
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I would say in some ways the standard approach to these stories that has been promoted by, would I say traditional Christianity? Depends on the tradition, because there are deep traditions in Christian interpretation. Populist Christianity replaced the interpretations of popular Christianity. and supplant both the postmodern theoretical stance and the atheist materialist deterministic stance.
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And that's happening, and it's going to continue to unfold as the West comes to a more conscious understanding of its foundations. And hopefully this podcast will play a role in that, and the work I'm doing with Daily Wire, the work that's being undertaken by Peterson Academy,
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The work of ARC, the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship, this hybrid political philosophical organization that's being organized in London. We have our next conference in February. It's become the go-to place for classic liberals and conservatives from all across the West. And so all of those enterprises are moving in the same direction.
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what we're hoping for is a revitalized, a revitalized understanding of the meaning of the foundational stories of the West and an understanding the steep enough to be practically applicable in the daily lives of the people who have developed that understanding. And I can see that unfolding and it's a lovely thing to watch. It's the thing we're pursuing with the tour.
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Like I'm on a pretty continual tour with my wife, Tammy, We're touring all through the United States from January through April. You can find out about that at jordanbpeterson.com. And then through Europe in May and June. And it's the same enterprise, right? The telling of these old stories. My new book, We Who Wrestle With God, is part of that enterprise.
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Now you have to understand in Canada, since Bill C-16, in Canada, since Bill C-16, one of the protected classes, I don't even understand how this functions legally, is gender expression. And it's literally the case that gender expression is fashion. And so I just can't believe that any of this is true.
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And so we'll have the opportunity over the next year to watch as that continues to unfold. So and Paggio, he's going to play a key role in that. Do it for the lulz. Don't talk about it. Don't talk about it. Don't talk about it. No. Sorry. No. Mom, I don't want to wear that.
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Babies look like they're always on psilocybin mushrooms because they're... They're like this. I don't really believe in lesbians, by the way. Exploding miniature penises. Zero is a very low number. Okay?
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You know, when I watch something like that, the first thing that really strikes me as a miracle is that I still have a wife. So because I don't know how anybody can actually put up with me that actually has to live with me. So, you know, I watched a bit of that compilation earlier and it made me turn red and it's done exactly the same thing again. You know, I don't know.
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I don't believe in lesbians. I think that's a really funny. That's a really funny line. It's also it's also mostly true, by the way. So I apologize for all of those things that I said. I apologize. And for many of the other things that I said that are equally, I don't know what, unforgivable. I probably apologize for them too. But if you want more of it... you know which podcast to go to.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
510. The Greatest Hits
And thank you all for your support over the last year. The YouTube channel continues to grow. We're gathering about 100,000 people a month. So that's, you know, major progress. And we're on a kind of wave on the alternative social media side, because even the legacy media has admitted that they've been supplanted, which is, you know, a remarkable thing to, to be part of.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
510. The Greatest Hits
And the Instagram channel grows and the Facebook channel grows and the TikTok channel grows at zero subscribers on TikTok two years ago. And there's two and a half million now. And, uh, I've got new book deal by the looks of things for the next two books. And, uh,
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
510. The Greatest Hits
One of them will be a continuation of this line of argumentation that I started with We Who Wrestle With God that'll focus on the story of Job and the Gospels, like the Gospel Seminar at Daily Wire. I also did a course on... The Sermon on the Mount for Peterson Academy. So no doubt I'll continue to say like absurd and provocative things as we move forward into the future.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
510. The Greatest Hits
And thanks again for putting up with it. It's as remarkable as all this has been. I suspect that there's greater things, more remarkable things, more adventurous things happening.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
510. The Greatest Hits
yet to come and i would also like to say in closing like thank you to my crew to my producer joy it's been unbelievably helpful to the daily wire enterprise all together uh for all the people around me my my logistics people and security people to my wife and my family it's a team endeavor that's for sure and i have a great team and that makes all this possible and thank you to all who've been watching and listening your time and attention is much appreciated
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
510. The Greatest Hits
It's the case that criticizing someone's fashion choice in Canada could be construed as hate speech. Now, then you might ask, well, what's the punishment for that? Well, this is where things get far past the worst nightmares of both Kafka and George Orwell.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
510. The Greatest Hits
In this bill, there is a provision so that people who are afraid that someone they know might commit a hate crime can take that person in front of a provincial magistrate. And if the magistrate agrees that there is a possibility that this person's fear is warranted,
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
510. The Greatest Hits
whatever that means, I suppose that would be based on past behavior, perhaps, God only knows, then that person can be fitted with an ankle bracelet and confined to their own quarters for periods of up to a year, which is completely insane, obviously, and
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
510. The Greatest Hits
Starting from the beginning, the College of Psychologists of Ontario, a regulatory board that was formed to monitor psychologists' relationships with their clients mainly, has been after you for, is it three years or is it longer than that?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
510. The Greatest Hits
be subject to the continual monitoring of their bodily fluids on a daily basis, I guess, so that, what, they're not supposed to consume alcohol, that would be part of it, or any other illicit drug, including the marijuana, that the liberals themselves have made legal in a successful attempt to bribe the voters. And that's one little section of this Bill C-63.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
510. The Greatest Hits
Now, it's a long ways through the legislative process in Canada already. And there's some real possibility that the head narcissist of Canada, and that's Justin Trudeau and his band of minion supporters, that would be Jagmeet Singh, who is the worst possible leader for the working class that you could imagine with his...
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
510. The Greatest Hits
bespoke suits and his rolexes now i have bespoke suits and a rolex too and you might think well that's pretty damn hypocritical it's like yeah i'm not a socialist who's claiming to be a champion of the working class so uh that's very different uh cup of tea you might say
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
510. The Greatest Hits
In any case, it's highly probable that Trudeau, before he disappears into the perdition that he so richly deserves, as his Liberal Party, will be eliminated as a political entity in Canada in the next election because of the absolute catastrophe of his nine years of rule, during which Canada went from a country whose average, whose per capita gross domestic product approximated that of the United States, so a country as rich as the United States,
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
510. The Greatest Hits
Now, the inhabitants of whose richest province, per capita, that would be Ontario, are poorer than the inhabitants of the United States' poorest state, that would be Mississippi. That's Justin Trudeau for us. And so, I was discussing Bill C-63 with Bruce Party, who's a remarkable and courageous professor of law,
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
510. The Greatest Hits
There's actually one of those that exists, a remarkable and courageous Canadian professor of law. That's Bruce Party and Constantine Kissin. And we were discussing that in the broader context of these
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
510. The Greatest Hits
It depends on the waves, but for this issue, it's been three or four years, yeah.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
510. The Greatest Hits
ridiculously authoritarian laws that are popping up, not only in Canada, because maybe it wouldn't be of all that interesting if it was only Canada, but particularly in the UK under the new Labour government and also in Australia, which is a country that's gone just completely out of its mind. And so we discussed all that in the context of
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
510. The Greatest Hits
broader threat to free speech that's emerging pretty much everywhere except the United States. So we'll see how that goes. C 63 could easily be law in Canada. Now I recently moved to the United States.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
510. The Greatest Hits
Part of the reason for that was bill C 63 because the other thing it does is it enables informants of the same type, for example, who had a great, the great thrill of turning me into the college of psychologists to go over the
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
510. The Greatest Hits
all the public utterances you've ever made on any social media platform to find anything that might be regarded as indicative of hate, defined in the broadest possible manner, so that they can turn you over to these new governmental agencies that can investigate you. And the punishments are extremely draconian.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
510. The Greatest Hits
And you know, in the UK, where similar legislation has already been implemented, there are thousands of people who are being...
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
510. The Greatest Hits
So working professionals like doctors, lawyers, massage therapists even, are all overseen by regulatory boards. What regulatory boards are supposed to do is give clients who've been basically abused by working professionals a place to go to to complain to.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
510. The Greatest Hits
um prosecuted for you know twitter crimes or facebook crimes the police are hell-bent on what do they call them non-crime hate incidents in the uk and they're not precisely criminal although they would be much more criminal in canada if this legislation passed dreadful dreadful and so and trudeau is going to be the prime minister of canada in all likelihood in till October of 2025.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
510. The Greatest Hits
So he's got a whole year to wreak havoc on the country that's turned its back on him in the miserable fashion that, what would you say, wounded narcissists are particularly expert at carrying out. So, you know, he believes that he's God's gift to Canada, that's for sure. And now that Canadians have turned their back on him, and justly so,
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
510. The Greatest Hits
Hello, everybody. So, as you no doubt are aware, 2024, one of the most preposterous years possible is coming to a close, and it's been quite a trip, as I'm sure next year will be. And what we have for you today is a compilation of highlight clips from the last year. It'll be a trip down memory lane for all of us. And... You know, welcome to the reminiscences.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
510. The Greatest Hits
He's going to have precisely the attitude of the wounded narcissist who presumes that, well, everyone in the country didn't deserve anyone as remarkable as him. And that's a great platform upon which you would develop vengeful legislative moves.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
510. The Greatest Hits
So we're going to see a lot of that in Canada in the next, in the next nine months before the liberals disappear into the pit that they've dug for themselves.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
510. The Greatest Hits
What happened to you is a bunch of people who weren't your clients, random people online from all over the world, complained about a number of your tweets as well as comments you made on Joe Rogan.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
510. The Greatest Hits
Any of you billionaires out there listening who have spare money, it's like you should... Give Catherine Birbelsingh a call because we could use about a hundred of her. So that was Catherine Birbelsingh that you just heard. She runs a school in the UK called the Michaela School, which it was reported just recently.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
510. The Greatest Hits
Once again, top the charts in the UK for the educational achievement of her students. Now, you remember in the UK, there are a multitude of very high quality, private, very expensive private schools. Now, Catherine runs a state school and she doesn't select her incoming students. So her school is in what you would call. Describe as working inner city working class London.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
510. The Greatest Hits
It's a rough place the neighborhood and she has to take all comers and she places more of her students by percentage in top universities in the UK when they graduate she has a very high graduation rate by the way than any other school and And the left, the radical leftist utopians who love children, hate her. They hate her because she's, what does she describe herself as?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
510. The Greatest Hits
The sorry not beautiful tweet in reference to a extremely obese swimsuit model, a tweet criticizing the government of Canada, a tweet saying that physicians removing women's breasts for being trans was criminal,
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
510. The Greatest Hits
The UK's strictest headmistress, which is kind of a joke. You know what I mean? It's a bit of self-parody. Tammy, my wife and I went to the Michaela School and watched her.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
510. The Greatest Hits
operation and it was just it'd bring a tear to your eye man it was so it was something to see all these kids they're in their uniforms they're disciplined there's no talking in the hallways for example they're making a beeline to the next class and then when you walk into the class with your little group none of the students even look at you when you walk in they're so focused on the teacher that their attention isn't broken for a minute now that's a that's completely
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
510. The Greatest Hits
unprecedented and the teachers too they're just and they're teaching those kids so fast that it's like it's higher intensity teaching and receiving than i saw in the best graduate seminars that i've ever seen it was something to see and the kids we talked to a lot of the kids they love it there because a lot of them came from really rough schools where they were especially if they had any pretensions to academic achievement
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
510. The Greatest Hits
They're being pounded flat on a regular basis, you know, and it's a terrible thing when you're a kid to go to a school that's dominated by bullies of the ideological type, which would be the teachers, and then of the physical type, which would be the bullies that the ideological teachers are too damn cowardly to regulate.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
510. The Greatest Hits
And so those kids, they came from rough schools, and they're so happy to be in this school where they were... literally safe and being educated, and where all the teachers, who were great, by the way, and I'm not saying that lightly, were really devoted to offering the opportunity to these children to become everything they could be.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
The Birth of Christ | Biblical Series: The Gospels
Donald Trump's surrogates were out in full force and humiliation over the weekend. They were out there humiliating themselves, humiliating the country. The whole thing was utterly embarrassing. You had them all kind of doing a cosplay thing like Trump literally has them like dress up in costume and they show up in their cowboy hats or whatever. The whole thing is so utterly pathetic.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
The Birth of Christ | Biblical Series: The Gospels
I want to show you what went down. I'll show you the MAGA Republicans and what they were doing on these weekend shows. I'll show you what the Democrats were doing in response. Some good forceful comebacks by Democrats like Jasmine Crockett, Bernie Sanders, Senator Tim Kaine of Virginia. Let's just take a look at what went down.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
The Birth of Christ | Biblical Series: The Gospels
So this is Kristi Noem back on January 11th, 2019 from the Argus leader. She's the former governor of South Dakota. She's now the
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
The Birth of Christ | Biblical Series: The Gospels
secretary of homeland security this was an op-ed she wrote back in 2019 before she went full trumpian and mar-a-lago but she was heading in that direction so we've been talking about how she like would do cosplay dress up as like a ranger and cosplay dress up as a ice police officer with the bulletproof vest while over the weekend she was wearing the cowboy hat inside because of course you need to
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
The Birth of Christ | Biblical Series: The Gospels
protect yourself from the sun and lots of sun in those eyes. So you needed that cowboy hat. This is her latest costume that she was dressing up in. Very nice costume, Kristi Noem. And here she is. Again, one of the things that she was talking about over the weekend is that she's going to be okay with rounding up mothers and children and putting them into concentration camps in Guantanamo Bay.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
The Birth of Christ | Biblical Series: The Gospels
Here, play this clip.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
The Birth of Christ | Biblical Series: The Gospels
So over here, you now have Donald Trump's made-for-TV head of the Department of Transportation. His name is Sean Duffy. He's the one who oversees the FAA. Remember, the former FAA head was pushed out by Elon Musk. All of the Federal Aviation Administration leadership was pretty much pushed out before the horrific plane crash over Washington, D.C. Now, Sean Duffy right here,
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
The Birth of Christ | Biblical Series: The Gospels
became famous on the Real World Road Rules Challenge. He was one of the cast members of The Real World, which makes him perfect for Donald Trump's reality TV idiocracy fascist regime that he's compiled. Here's Sean Duffy suggesting that if you change the names from cockpit to flight deck, that's one of the causes of the plane crash, and that's something that he's powerfully looking into.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
The Birth of Christ | Biblical Series: The Gospels
Here, play this clip.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
The Birth of Christ | Biblical Series: The Gospels
I mean, so utterly ridiculous. Here is Bernie Sanders, senator from Vermont, talking about the oligarchy. Let's play this clip right here.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
The Birth of Christ | Biblical Series: The Gospels
I have a bunch of other clips I want to share with you. I want to talk briefly, though, about one of my research tactics that I use. I do this with a sponsor called Ground News. Let me just tell you a little bit about them and let me tell you why it's interesting. how I use them with respect to my research on Trump's tariffs and the trade war.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
The Birth of Christ | Biblical Series: The Gospels
We're digging deep always to uncover the real deal behind the headlines. And let's be real when it comes to corporate media. They're not giving it to you, honestly. So there's this thing called Ground News. You can finally see through the spin. It's like having x-ray vision for news bias. It helps you boost your media literacy. So one of the things it does is it like rates the article.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
The Birth of Christ | Biblical Series: The Gospels
Is this like... coming from a left-wing source, a center source, or a right-wing source. And so what I'll do is I'll go to Ground News. I'll take a look at it. And for me, I'm curious what's being said in the right-wing echo chamber. I specifically want to focus on that to see how they are messaging and talking about these things. I want to see how they're brainwashing people.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
The Birth of Christ | Biblical Series: The Gospels
So that's actually how I use the sponsor, Ground News. Here's the deal. Head over to ground.news. slash MTN or just scan the QR code and you'll snag a whopping 40% off on their top-notch Vantage plan. That's unlimited access to all the features I just spilled the beans on and then some. Check it out now. Ground dot news slash MTN or scan the QR code.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
The Birth of Christ | Biblical Series: The Gospels
That's ground dot news slash MTN or scan the QR code. Back to our programming here. Democratic Senator Mark Warner. Here's what he had to say. Play this clip.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
The Birth of Christ | Biblical Series: The Gospels
Democratic Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett. Let's play this clip.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
The Birth of Christ | Biblical Series: The Gospels
Here is what Brian Mast, MAGA Republican Congress member who leads the Foreign Affairs Committee, he's talking about leading a purge of the State Department. Have you spoken to Marco Rubio about that? Although we all know Rubio doesn't have any power at all. Rubio, though, was sent to Panama to demand that he seize the Panama Canal back. But anyway, let's play this clip of Congress member Mast.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
The Birth of Christ | Biblical Series: The Gospels
Here we have J.D. Vance, vice president, talking about conquering Greenland. Let's show you that clip.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
The Birth of Christ | Biblical Series: The Gospels
Here is Tim Kaine, Democratic senator from Virginia, spitting common sense right here, talking about how, wait a minute. So Donald Trump signed an emergency order saying that we desperately need energy, but now he's going to be imposing sanctions on Canada in the form of tariffs to get that energy. Play this clip.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
The Birth of Christ | Biblical Series: The Gospels
But I do. All right. Well, there you have it, folks. Let me know what you think. Hit subscribe and let's get to. 4 million subscribers. Thanks for watching. Appreciate you.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
It's very unlikely that you went to the University of Chicago Medical School. That's really hard. And to follow that up with Stanford Medical School, like, is there anyone else who's done that?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
And you can't just read the research literature and think that because it's published, it's true, because it's not true. And that's not surprising, right? Because it's actually hard to discover something new. But...
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
I was struck by the fact that that, you know, because the lay public, and this is partly why I'm pursuing this line of questioning, the lay public don't know how to distinguish between physician and scientist. And physicians also don't know that and presume that they're scientists. But generally speaking, well, most scientists aren't scientists and damn few physicians are.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
And partly it's a consequence of not being able to, not being taught to think critically. Now you learned that in law school and you enjoyed that. Right, and yeah, and you enjoyed that in a way that you didn't enjoy medical school, is that fair?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
That's also a major problem on the diagnostic front, because part of being a good diagnostician really is thinking like a scientist. It's like, here's the presenting problem. Well, maybe, like, have we fleshed it out enough? What are the potential contributing factors?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
All of them, you know, if you go to diagnosis and then you have algorithmic treatment, well, that's fine if you got the diagnosis right. But getting the diagnosis right tends to be an extraordinarily difficult thing.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
A friend of mine drove off the road and broke her arm as a consequence of that, a Hawaiian physician that I know, radiologist. Yeah, for sure. There's something bordering on sadistic about that.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
And so, what did we talk about today? Well, we talked about physician training and its positive elements and its inadequacies. We talked about the stunning lack of curiosity that Dr. Gold emerged among her colleagues when COVID made itself manifest on the public scene.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
Right, right, right. It's very unlike clinical psychology practice where that wouldn't necessarily be, that wouldn't be necessary.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
So there's a diffusion of responsibility. Diffusion of responsibility. Yeah, that's a...
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
That's the iron law of unintended consequences.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
Right. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Okay. So let's, well, let's go back to law school. So now you really enjoyed that. And what, what would you, how would you say shaped your thinking about medicine? and also about your future as a physician lawyer. So you had a completely different kind of training. So now you're looking at the medical profession from a different perspective.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
We talked about her experiences attempting to share her knowledge with regards to hydroxychloroquine and its effectiveness as a antiviral treatment, particularly with viruses of the sort that COVID was we talked about the consequences of her training in law.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
Now you go back and you do another internship. What this time, is another emergency room?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
You moonlighted as a doctor?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
How'd you do in law school?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
Oh, yes, okay. Well, this is, yeah, well, okay. Well, so yeah, that's very difficult, what you did, to go to Stanford Law School and to do well at Stanford Law School and to work simultaneously as a doctor. I took- Yeah, that's hard. So, you know, kudos to you for what that's worth from me, because I know how difficult that is.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
So, okay, so, but now you come out of law school, but you decide to continue as a physician.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
Why did you do it then? If you didn't have a destination in mind, and as you said, those are very different forms of academic pursuit. What do you think it was that was driving you in both of those directions simultaneously? Now, you said something earlier about, a dream, a vague dream of fixing the healthcare system, which is a very vague dream and also a very grand dream and ill-formed.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
But I suspect that that ambition has something to do with what motivated you in both directions simultaneously.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
Okay, place that in your academic career.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
And that was before your internship? Correct. Okay, and how long did you work for the Surgeon General? Just three months. And that was in D.C.? Mm-hmm. Okay, so you got a taste of that. Mm-hmm. Okay.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
Yeah, right. So policy, law and medicine, fundamentally.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
We talked about January 6th and the events there and the particulars of her so-called participation and then the details of the FBI's pursuit of her. In the aftermath of that event, 20 of them dressed in their full gear, broke down her apartment door and hauled her away. And she was imprisoned for 60 days for plea bargaining down to a misdemeanor, trespassing misdemeanor.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
Okay, so you had two doses of being involved in the policy world. Correct. The second time that you got involved, you just said that you felt it was too complex. You said dirty, though.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
Arguably, if you're not a coal miner, you're not necessarily old at 65.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
Right, right.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
Rich people are pesky, but they're scarce too.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
Right, American Association of Retired Persons?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
Those people vote.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
Yeah, well, this is a diagnosis problem. Again, you know, you think you know how a system works until you... till you actually investigate it and try to change it. And then you find out that the problems you thought were the problems aren't the problems. And the solutions that you think are solutions won't work for reasons you didn't know. Correct.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
Right, and that's actually part and parcel of starting to think like a scientist. It's like... I read this great book years ago called Systematics, which I would highly recommend to anyone watching and listening. It's a cult classic, and it consists of about 100 axioms that you have to adopt if you're going to learn how a system works.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
And one of the axioms I never forgot, which I think is absolutely brilliant, is the system does not do what its name says it does. Right, and so you have to approach a complex system like you're approaching an organism that you know nothing about. And it'll have a name, but that's not what it does.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
You can figure out quite quickly what it actually does by looking at what it spends most of its time on or its money. So I learned this in Alberta. I worked for Alberta Social Services when I was like, I don't know, 18, something like that. I had a summer job that turned into a year-long internship. That's when I got some policy experience. And...
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
Alberta Social Services at that time did not have sufficient data gathering capacity to answer the question, how much of the money that we spend is spent on the end user? Well, the answer was very little, because like with most charities, almost all the money spent by social services was spent on the administrators of the social service program.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
And so, you know, your first-pass diagnosis of a system like that is that, well, it's clearly there to employ the people on whom it spends the bulk of the money. Now, a side effect might be the delivery of some services, maybe, but... If they're not even collecting data about whether those services are administered, you know exactly how low on the priority list that service actually is.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
And so like any one of those stories is enough to occupy two hours and we managed to cover all of them. And so if you want to take a trip through the labyrinth of law and medicine and the judiciary in the United States and with a side trip into the, what would you say, the complexities of the prison system, then join us and we'll walk through all that. So Dr. Gold, when you trained as a physician,
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
And so you were looking at a system purely from the perspective of logic, I suppose, something like that, and very unidimensionally, not understanding, for example, that the AARP is not to be messed with, no matter what. Right, right, right. Why don't they just raise the age a month, a year? Like, would that cause too much, is that too administratively complex?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
Well, see, that's a problem too, isn't it? You chase out the good people. Well, yeah. To say something on the side of the politicians here, just momentarily, like congressmen in the United States, they spend a tremendous amount of their time traveling back and forth between D.C. and their home constituency. They are running for election almost all the time, right?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
So it's like, that's hard, that's hard, right? Because what, they're on a two-year cycle? I mean, they're just campaigning all the time. And then they spend, if I remember correctly, they spend 28 hours a week fundraising, right? And they can't do that in their offices because that's illegal.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
So they have these ratty, horrible offices instead with drop ceilings and fluorescent lights, and they're full of mold, and that doesn't help them out at all. And they're on the bloody phone for 28 hours a week, basically acting as telemarketers for the parties. Well, God, how demoralizing is that? And then, so you have that 28 hours a week, you have your travel, you have your...
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
Well, and that's completely independent of the fact that you have way too much to learn about absolutely everything. So now you're entirely dependent on your staff. All of that's demoralizing, and the consequence of that demoralization is, particularly because they're campaigning all the time, they can't take a long-term view, and everybody who can leaves.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
Well, so then what the hell do you do about that? I mean, you can throw up your hands and leave, and you said, well, you go back to medicine because it's honorable. But it is a real problem when the most competent people can't involve themselves in the government because it would mean it would mean, looks like it's the sacrifice of something potentially more productive and useful.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
Okay, so that is why you decided. You decided to go back to medicine. Okay, so you left the policy field. And what was your conclusion at that point? You were gonna stay away from the political? That didn't work out, by the way.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
Is that a consequence of bureaucratic complexification? I mean, what's the essential problem? You know, I mean, I love being a clinical psychologist when you could still do that and tell the truth, which wasn't that long ago. But there were no intermediaries.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
100%.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
Or in Canada, you just can't get a physician. One in five now with no physician in Canada.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
Yes, it's a series of catastrophic miracles.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
Yeah, well, and we've substituted dying for pain, right?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
Yeah.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
Well, yeah, right. That's what you want.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
did you foresee in any way that you would be like legally entangled and politically active? I did not. Well, so let's go back to when you started your academic training. Where did you train as a physician?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
I mean, you should have a relationship with your patients. Right.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
Well, if the patient isn't in charge of their own decisions, they're not going to comply with the recommendations of the physicians anyways. Compliance is a big problem, and you don't get compliance from patients unless they trust you.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
And that's a hard thing to build, especially when people are in crisis. So one of the last things I did in preparing for this discussion was read your Wikipedia page. Yeah, I know. It's really something. But this is worth highlighting because I've noticed this before. It's very easy to damage someone's reputation. It's very, very easy.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
And I think the reason for that is that, you know, each of us can in potential interact with a very wide range of people, very large number of people. And so if you ever read anything or hear anything about someone that isn't above board, the cost, the apparent cost of writing that person off is basically zero because there's so many other people you can turn to.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
The downside of that is that it's unbelievably easy to destroy someone's reputation. Now, when I read your Wikipedia page, it's just like a never-ending stream of assaults on your character, essentially. And there's a reason I'm highlighting that. It's because, and it's also partly why I took the route into talking to you today the way I did, because...
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
Even though I know that people's reputations are savaged continually. I've seen that firsthand. I know dozens of people who are qualified to whom that's happened. I know that as well as anyone could know it, I would say. It's still effective. It's still effective, you know? Because I thought when I read that, I thought, well, just who is this woman?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
And like, why are all these terrible things being written about her? And does she know what she's talking about? And so part of the reason I wanted to... inquire into your academic history was to find out, well, you know, what's your base level of qualification? And so it's very interesting to note that your base level of qualification is extremely high, right?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
It's very unlikely that you went to the University of Chicago Medical School. That's really hard, particularly given how young you were. And to follow that up with Stanford Medical School, like, is there anyone else who's done that? Right, but that also makes you unique in another way.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
Like one of the things that marks people out for peculiar destinies is that they operate at the intersection of two rare skill sets, right? Because you're rare as a physician because there are not that many physicians, and you're rare as a lawyer because there aren't that many lawyers, but physician lawyers, it's like how many of them are there?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
Right, right, right. So that's a very rare intersection. And then you have the public policy experience as well, right? So at some point, this is intersectionality on the academic side, you get enough intersections. So there's like one of you, right? Then you're poised if you're competent to make a real qualitatively distinct contribution because There isn't anyone else who knows what you know.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
Well, everybody who's watching and listening should pay careful attention to that.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
Okay, so let's move from your background, which we've delved into in some depth, to... Well, let's tell us what happens next, and let's move towards... COVID and everything that transpired around that. So you spent three years in an internship in emergency, internal medicine?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
Right, that was three years. Okay, okay. And then now you're an ER physician. Correct. Okay, and so how long are you, and where, where are you?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
Okay, but it's all in California. Correct. Why do you make the fateful decision to move to California? You were at Stanford.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
Okay. Yeah. Okay. And you spent 20 years. Okay. And how does that go? I had a perfect reputation. Okay. So detail that. Let's talk about that. What does that mean? So among your patients, any complaints?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
Yes, that's exactly why I'm investigating that. Because the default is that you're going to get nailed by, well, you'll come across a nice psychopath at least once during your practice who will take you to task and make your life miserable.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
Well, things can go very wrong. Things can go very wrong. No doubt often do, since it's an emergency and all that.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
So your patients didn't complain? Nope. Your colleagues? Loved me. Nurses? Loved me. That's particularly telling, right? It's
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
Right, right. I had the same experience in university. And so it's useful to have that kind of background, although it's not necessarily enough to defend you, but it's a start.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
Right, prior to 2020.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
Right, right. Okay, well, so let's move to July. So you have a perfectly... And are you happy?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
Right, right, right. Any pull toward the political during those times, apart from the policy?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
How did you get into medical school when you were 19? That's hard. That's a good medical school or great medical school even. So how do you manage that?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
Did you do any work at the systemic level when you were an ER physician or were you mostly concentrating on patient care? Yeah.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
Yeah, I don't know. So tell me if it works the same way in large hospitals. I suspect so. When I first went to the University of Toronto, the first year I was there, the chair asked me to serve on the psychology departments. We had a position on the planning committee for that faculty. and they were making a five-year plan.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
And I thought they wanted to make a five-year plan, so I actually worked on it a lot, and I consulted with a lot of my colleagues, and we came up with a list of recommendations that were appropriate and implementable and well-designed, and they ...
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
Not only did they ignore all of them in their final report, which was quite remarkable to actually ignore all of them, despite asking for input, continually input. As soon as you hear that word, you should be wary. It's like, we want input. That's like content in the legacy media. And then, they put forward their own plan.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
And then the plan they implemented bore no relationship whatsoever to the plan they produced. And then, but there was more to it too, because part of the reason for that was that many administrative positions changed hands quickly.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
And so even if you have established an arrangement with someone that's genuine, the probability that it'll be implemented over say a three year period or a four year period is very low because well, if they're competent, they're going to be promoted upward, and if they're incompetent, it's not going to be implemented anyways.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
And so you get to a point where you can't plan over more than a certain time range because the system itself is so fluid that nothing's going to happen. And people also... This is something else I learned very painfully. It took me a long time to understand this, even psychologically, is... the typical person is far more risk averse than opportunity hungry.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
And so the general attitude, especially for a career bureaucrat or a middle manager is not, will this do any good? It's, Is there any way my name could be associated with this under any conditions if anything ever went wrong? Right, risk minimization.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
That was the last planning committee.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
I thought, oh. Yes. Okay, I see. This was a colossal waste of time. Correct. That's not going to happen again.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
But then you can see what happens there, too, is the committees get occupied by people who have nothing else they would rather be doing than wasting time. Right. Right.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
Right, and so you graduated from medical school at 23, and that's when you started your internships, your residencies?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
Yeah, well, it seems kind of self-evident when you put it that way.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
Okay, so you objected to that. And what happened as a consequence of you objecting?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
Did that do anything to your reputation?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
Yeah, okay, okay.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
But that was a foreshadowing of things to come.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
Uh-huh, okay. Okay, well, let's fast forward to July 27th, 2020. Okay, tell us about July 27th.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
I still talk about it. How did you know that by that point? I mean, what was revealed to you with that new information that you hadn't seen before?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
It's local as well.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
Draw the connection between those viruses again.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
Okay, so tell me about that. You said that from a very early age, you were inclined in the medical direction. And why law? And that you went to Stanford Medical, Stanford Law School. That's also very difficult. Yes. So where did you do your undergraduate?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
Yeah.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
Yeah.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
That's a good question.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
And it was a coronavirus. How much overlap between- 78% identical. Yeah, and with the typical coronavirus, cause coronavirus is- Oh, I'm not sure. I don't have a precise- But they're in the same cap, so they must be, they must overlap substantively.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
So is that a market characteristic of yours, not to panic? Yes. So I'm curious about that psychologically. Like low anxiety?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
But you don't panic? I don't panic. Why not?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
Yeah.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
Yeah, okay. That's a good answer. So you think you can figure it out. That's your presumption.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
Yeah, I'm more curious about your implicit presumption that if a problem comes your way, you can figure it out. Because that's not a presumption that most people share. It's relatively rare. Now, that's a very effective presumption if you also happen to be the sort of person who can figure things out. But most people can do more of that than they think. Okay, so you're excited about this.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
You're keeping up with the cutting-edge research. You conclude, and you're not even doubtful about it, that hydroxychloroquine works. And there's reason to presume that. The literature shows it. But there's also more compelling reason, which is, well, we've seen this before. Right.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
Yeah, well, that's that sensitivity to, what would you say, reputation salvaging. It's contagious, right? If you associate with someone whose reputation is being damaged, then it affects you.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
Why did the world come down against hydroxychloroquine?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
Let's lay that out just briefly and then we'll return to the story.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
Oh, yeah. So that's the damning clause right there. If anything else worked, it had been pre-approved, you couldn't do it.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
So what's the campaign then from the pharmaceutical companies? What orders go out to make hydroxychloroquine verboten?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
And it takes a long time.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
And those are career-making publications.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
So what's the effect on you?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
But with Breitbart, you're going to get the right wing tag instantly too.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
Your life's over.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
Yeah, okay, so I'll walk us through that.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
And you had a reputation, a good reputation.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
They still exist.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
Like something approximating a BSC?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
So I... Right, so people couldn't even refer to it. I wonder if Zuckerberg had been instructed specifically by the Biden White House to dispense with that.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
Oh, and? We do know that now. Was that a direct order?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
Right, right. And so from there to medical school at the University of Chicago, and you did your internship, what did you specialize in your internship?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
Defamation lawsuits, they're very difficult.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
You know, you can't go to work as a... So how did you end up... Okay, so talk to me about that transition, okay? So now you have... 100,000 followers on Twitter. And you observe in that mess an opportunity. So tell me how you negotiated your way forward and how you put yourself back on relatively stable financial footing, assuming that you did. And how long did it take you to...
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
Did you think you were a conservative at that point? How would have you classified yourself politically?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
Okay, so you're a centrist.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
And did you believe that at that point as well? Yeah, I did, yeah. Okay, okay.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
But mostly you were working as an emergency.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
Right, right.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
I don't process it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I was thinking back then. I know things have shifted so bizarrely now that there's no telling.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
Do you see an opportunity that quickly? Or is that desperation as well?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
Right, that's for sure.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
The journals were lying. Journals were lying, science were lying. That's the worst, I think.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
Oh yeah, it's so bad.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
Right. I'll talk to people who will listen.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
So why was that more important? You kind of alluded to it. You made some allusion to, well, your father's circumstance. And you said something that we bounced over very quickly. You know, you said that the catastrophe that enveloped the people around your father was a consequence of lying. See, that isn't something that everybody knows, right?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
Because people think, well, the really naive people think that if you see a dictatorship, you have a dictator and his henchmen, and they're oppressing a whole mass of freedom-loving people. And if you just take out the dictator, well, then democracy will bloom. What they don't understand is that What would you say? The dictator is just the biggest devil in hell.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
And in a really totalitarian state, every single person is lying about absolutely everything they say and do all the time to themselves and everyone. And the totalitarian state is actually the grip of the lie. The dictator is just the face of the lie, that's all. But every time someone in that totalitarian state lies, they're participating in their own demise.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
In Solzhenitsyn, detailed out, I thought this was so remarkable that there were nowhere near enough committed communists to run the gulags. The prisoners had to run them. Right, right. There's a totalitarian state for you. It's an inmate-run prison, and the prison is lives. Right, so why did you know that?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
No, it's worse. It's worse than death. That's hell. Hell is worse than death. Right. That's a hard thing to understand. I had to. But I'm very curious about why you knew this. It's very telling because that makes your willingness to seek opportunity and your desire to be able to keep speaking, that explains why that's paramount.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
Now, the reason I'm making a case of that is because, well, I don't know how many physicians leapt to your side, but I've seen how many psychologists in Canada have leapt to mine, and it's basically zero, right? Zero is a very low number.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
And so even though what has been done to me, although not particularly successfully yet, could easily be done to psychologists, and they're all being compelled to lie in Canada, as are the physicians, but people won't speak up. So now you did, and you wanted to, and you put that before... even your concern about what you were going to do economically after your jobs disappeared.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
Okay, so that's weird, right? And you tied it a bit to what had happened to your father. But I don't understand how you knew this.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
Yeah, like hundreds of thousands of them.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
Yeah, if they haven't corrupted their soul.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
I felt the same way about Bill C-16 in Canada.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
I have to call a woman a man. Well, maybe I would just to be polite, but I have to? It's like, no, I don't think so. What do you mean have to? Exactly.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
Yeah. Okay.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
Okay. So now you're developing a career as a public speaker. Now you have some financial backing. Yeah. So you're a little more solid. What happened?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
So I worked with physicians on the research front. Well, and I taught physicians clinical psychology. for a while as well. But I worked with physicians on the research front, and one of the discoveries I made was that physicians and scientists were not the same creatures. And you just made allusion to that, I think, in that when you were in medical school,
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
Yeah, and what possible justification was there for that?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
Well, one of the... Part of the reason I presume that you were so terrified of the mandates, apart from the sociological effects that you described, is that enforced medical treatment, well, first of all, that violates the Geneva Convention in a major way, and for good reason. But it's worse than that, and we haven't seen this all play out yet. Like...
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
Typical people whose eyes are open no longer trust physicians for public health. That's a catastrophe. Because it means, to the degree that that was a viable enterprise, which was quite substantive for quite a long time, that's... All that trust has to be reestablished, and I suspect it probably won't be. Because... And so... I have no idea what the consequence of that's going to be.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
In fact, by the CDC's own numbers, children... Well, it still says on your Wikipedia page that you're spreading misinformation about the fact that children don't die from COVID. And yet they don't. And that's very well established. Very well established. It's as risky for a child as the typical cold, I presume. Correct. Those are basically the numbers.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
And what the average person who died from COVID had like five major comorbidities and was older than the average age of death. Right.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
And we were- Yeah, that was inexcusable.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
So why would you leap to Marxism as an explanation for that? Because that's a big leap. I'm not disputing it, but it's a very big leap.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
you characterized it as an extension of grade school, essentially, that there was a lot of memorization, a lot of facts thrown at you that you needed to know and that you could ask the approved questions, right? That's very unlike training to be a scientist, because you have to learn to think critically above all.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
Well, the kids there were invited to inform on their parents, too. And it's part of classic Marxist doctrine that the familial structure should be decimated and that it's fine for... The Russians made heroes of children who informed on their parents. So how... But... but to see that playing out in the United States and to attribute that.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
On the ground and obviously being prepared for moves like that.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
I know that because one of our best lawsuits... Well, they're not accustomed to having to adjudicate disputes between, like, profound disputes between credible physicians, right? I mean, you can't expect judges to be able... You know what I mean? The judgments are going to stay intact as long as the physicians are basically playing a straight game.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
And all of a sudden, now, everything's thrown up in the air. You can't even trust the damn journals anymore.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
Yes, well, depends on the judge.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
And I trained as a clinical psychologist and the model for clinical psychology was the Boulder model, Colorado, Boulder, Colorado model. And that was scientist practitioner, but scientist first. And that meant critical thinking because science is in large part an adversarial enterprise, like law in that regard.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
So that'll have effect there, too.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
Okay, so we're nearing the normal closing time, but I still want to talk to you about J6, so we'll go a little longer. And then I think on the Daily Wire side, for all of you who are watching and listening, I think we'll talk about your vision, your opinion of...
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
the new administration and what's going to happen when Trump takes office and what your hopes are and what should happen, what role you might play there. At least, I don't know how associated you are with the new people who are coming in. So we'll do that on the dailyware side, but I would like to Well, there's still places we haven't gone.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
And I'd like to hear about January 6th as well, because there's a huge story there that we haven't even delved into. So is it reasonable to leap to that? Pretty much. Okay, let's do that.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
Hello, everybody. I had the opportunity today to talk to Dr. Simone Gold, and she had quite a story to tell. Interweaving medicine. She's a physician, emergency room physician for 20 years, a lawyer, a graduate of Stanford Law School, and she was one of the youngest physicians physicians who ever graduated in the United States, and then also went to Stanford Law School.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
That you couldn't speak?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
So how would you characterize the difference in your experience at medical school and at law school with regard to your ability to think critically? Because you didn't say anything about learning to think critically at medical school, but you definitely said, well, that adversarial training is... you're always looking for like five sides to an argument, right?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
And learning how to make the case for every side simultaneously. A necessary thing if you're going to think scientifically, right? So can you contrast that and characterize also what you think now about medical education, not only given your experience in medical school and in law school, but also given everything else that happened to you afterward?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
Right, right, right.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
This is at your home?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
So the emergency room training came in handy then. Mm-hmm.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
Oh, yeah. So that's the point of the theater.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
Right. Right. Okay, now you went to trial for this. Yes.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
Oh, I see. That was the biggest club they could wield.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
That would have been your presumption.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
Right, right.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
Really? Mm-hmm.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
Yeah. Well, everybody who's watching and listening should pay careful attention to that.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
Wow. It's really scary. So like. What was going on in your mind when you heard that? I mean, were you in a state of disbelief again?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
Was it the sentence or the fact that this had happened? I mean, obviously, both.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
So you've talked about a couple of things that have happened to you that you couldn't believe. Has that left you with any post-traumatic stress disorder? Do you know? Because that derealization, you know, that sense of this can't possibly be happening, that's a good predictor of post-traumatic stress, right?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
Because that means you've been affected at a level that's so fundamental that it's easier to believe that things aren't real than to assume that what's happening is happening, right?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
So the implicit presumption there is that what you're taught is correct. Absolutely. And your job is to learn it and then demonstrate that you have that knowledge. Exactly.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
Nightmares or anything like that?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
Realistic? Yeah, well, it's a tough one, right?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
like that, right? Well, we'll turn to that on the Daily Wire side. So one final question to close this off is like, how do you do in prison?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
And so, well, tell me about that. How'd that work for you?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
And so what did isolation mean? Did that mean solitary?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
Oh, yeah. And why'd they do that?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
Well, solitary is bad enough so that you can punish the most antisocial people with it, right? I mean, that's how social human beings are, is that you can take the most antisocial people there are and punish them by isolating them, right? Yeah. It was terrible. Okay, so let's just close this with an ending to the story, although we're going to continue it on the Daily Wire side.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
When did you, did you serve the full 60 days? You did. They kept you in the full 60 days, okay. When were you released? September 22. Okay. And in a relatively brief period of time, what have you been doing? since then and what are you planning to do?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
How big is the organization now?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
How come you're not beaten down? Or are you? Like, you don't appear to be at all. Like, your demeanor is very positive. I don't really see any signs of anything like depression. No. Yeah, well, that's a lot, right? I mean, your life was thrown up in a variety of different ways, and then you were hit hard after that.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
My experience with people who've been hurt is the best way to hurt someone is to hurt them, and then just when they're getting up, hurt them again. And then if you can do that twice, that often finishes people. But you seem to be cruising along...
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
Right. So your fundamental belief has remained intact, right, at the lowest or the most profound possible level. Right. Great.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
Well, that's a good segue to the next part of this conversation, which will continue on the Daily Wire side, because I'll talk to you about your, well, your future plans and your feelings about your thoughts about this new administration and what you can see and why you remain hopeful in the face of that situation. a lot in the face of all of that, right?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
So for everybody watching and listening, join us on the Daily Wire side. And so thank you very much for coming to Toronto and, well, telling that story, which is quite the story. Is it rare? It's a lot less rare than it was 20 years ago, unfortunately. Right, right. And, you know, maybe things will turn around. And I guess we'll talk about that on the Daily Wire side. Very nice to talk.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
Thank you so much. Yeah, you bet. And to the film crew here in Toronto, thanks very much for arranging this. And to the Daily Wire for making this possible. Well, and to all of you watching and listening for your support. It's much appreciated your time and attention. Yeah. Ciao.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
Well, if what you're being taught is correct, then learning the algorithm is the right thing. But the problem is, is that often what you're being taught is not correct, either diagnostically or with regard to treatment. And that can be a major problem.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
So you were not... That means you're also multiplying the probability of false positives.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
Yeah, yeah, it's making sense. Okay, so with regards to So most of the physicians that I interacted with were psychiatrists because there was some overlap in our research orientation. And one of the things also I saw was that the psychiatrists who did research tended to outsource their statistics. And you can't do that, right?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
That's not an acceptable means of doing research because statistics aren't algorithmic. They're an investigative tool. And unless you do your own statistics, you don't know your data and you have no idea what you've discovered. And so that was, but also, it was also the case that like learning to analyze scientific research, that's a very difficult skill to master.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
And I would say it's probably something more akin to law than medicine because you have to think extraordinarily critically. And it wasn't obvious to me at all that the physicians that I interacted with had been trained in the least to really critically assess the relevant research literature. Now, is that too harsh, or what do you think about that?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
So those are stellar accomplishments. And I say that to establish her credentials because she has been profoundly pilloried as a quack, in her own words, because of her stance on COVID, the COVID mandates on hydroxychloroquine more particularly, but the mandates really more broadly, and has... also served time in prison in consequence of her appearance on January 6th.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
That's a problem because most research is bad.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
The problem is, is it's hard to learn to be skeptical enough. I mean, psychology has gone through what the psychologists like to describe as a replication crisis, which is their discovery mostly by social psychologists who dreadfully deserved their replication crisis, that at least 50 percent of what's published is simply not true.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Courage in Controversy: Medical Tyranny & Jan 6th Riots | Dr. Simone Gold
Now, that never shocked me, because I presume fundamentally that if five percent of what we publish was actually true and original, that's a five percent improvement in knowledge. in the total knowledge base on the research side per year. That's a stellar accomplishment, but it does mean that 95% of it's chaff and not wheat. And that's a very, very hard distinction to draw.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
524. Why Russell Brand Abandoned Hedonism
Well, you know, I just did an interview with Pierre Poliev. who's going to be the next Prime Minister of Canada in all likelihood. And he chose to speak with me in depth instead of talking to the legacy media, let's say.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
524. Why Russell Brand Abandoned Hedonism
And it was actually rather comical from my perspective because all the legacy media outlets in Canada had to play catch-up, which I contemplated with some degree of inappropriate satisfaction. But there's something... So we had to talk about that because... Polyev had expressed some doubts about his performance in the discussion. He said there were many topics he didn't get to.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
524. Why Russell Brand Abandoned Hedonism
And so we talked about that, and I said, well, you know, the long-form podcast format can't be
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
524. Why Russell Brand Abandoned Hedonism
manipulated a priori successfully because if you come to the podcast with a set of talking points and you stick to your script you're going to get first of all no one will watch you and i've seen this with political figures this isn't a guess i know this is the case no one will watch you and all the comments will be negative you have to come there knowing where you stand but ready to
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
524. Why Russell Brand Abandoned Hedonism
follow the thread of the conversation wherever it goes. And to do that, you have to sacrifice the pre-planning. Okay, so then we might look into that more deeply and we might say, well, now that video is predominating, let's say over the written word, That might mean the reemergence of something like spontaneity over propaganda.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
524. Why Russell Brand Abandoned Hedonism
That could be the case because the new media forms do prioritize spontaneity instead of preparation. Now, you can see that as a technological shift. Back when bandwidth was... staggeringly expensive and every second on broadcast media cost a fortune, you could imagine that risk minimization was the name of the game and that every second had to be controlled.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
524. Why Russell Brand Abandoned Hedonism
But that restriction is no longer present, even at all. And so what that should mean, what that might mean, and that's what you're referring to, is that an entirely new form of political discourse might emerge and that people who are capable of
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
524. Why Russell Brand Abandoned Hedonism
generating a certain degree of perspicacity and wisdom spontaneously are going to be prioritized over those who have a bent towards incentivized or instrumental manipulation. I mean, Polyev could do that, right? He had a conversation with me. He got no questions ahead of time, none. And he was willing to go along with that. But it is really a completely different way of...
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
524. Why Russell Brand Abandoned Hedonism
Now, we've been talking to Democrats, too, trying to get them on the podcast circuit. And the resistance so far has been the utter inability and unwillingness of people on the Democrat side to forego their pre-planned agenda with regards to a conversation.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
524. Why Russell Brand Abandoned Hedonism
And that it's, as I said, it's terminally willfully blind to assume that there are any principles other than the Hobbesian battle of all against all. Well, is there an alternative to that? Well, the...
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
524. Why Russell Brand Abandoned Hedonism
Yeah, I agree. Well, it was Socrates who decried that, if I remember correctly, right? He was afraid that... if the written took primacy, that the concretization of thought would eliminate. I mean, I think Foucault wrote about that as a matter of fact, in favor of Socrates' proposition that the spoken should take priority over the written.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
524. Why Russell Brand Abandoned Hedonism
But it does have something to do with this paradoxical relationship between propagandizing and pre-preparation. And see, it isn't obvious to me that you can lie effectively, spontaneously in a conversation.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
524. Why Russell Brand Abandoned Hedonism
Discernment is the right word there because that's what discernment is for. Discernment is to find the path where the sacred manifests itself in each moment. Yeah, to detect or divine.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
524. Why Russell Brand Abandoned Hedonism
The Western alternative, the Judeo-Christian alternative, has been, forever been, something like the proposition that an ethos of voluntary self-sacrifice is the alternative to nihilism and to power.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
524. Why Russell Brand Abandoned Hedonism
Well, Polyev, for example, Polyev, I think, has been he's certainly been the most effective Canadian politician on this front, but he might be the most effective politician in the Western world at the moment in using new media. So one of the things he's done, for example, is. write and produce 10-minute documentaries to educate Canadians about economic reality. He's done that very effectively.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
524. Why Russell Brand Abandoned Hedonism
They're very high-quality documentaries, and he told me that he writes them and narrates them, which is, you know, quite an interesting skill set, because that's quite divorced from typical politicking. But it is... The thing is, is the intermediaries, in some ways, the intermediaries are no longer necessary between the leaders and the populace.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
524. Why Russell Brand Abandoned Hedonism
This is something that the MAGA and the MAHA types are trying to work out right now from a strategic perspective. It's like, oh, We now have the opportunity to communicate directly to the public at indefinite length, right? Because also the technological constraints that made everything compressed into a 30-second soundbite, that's gone.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
524. Why Russell Brand Abandoned Hedonism
And, well, we tried to sort that out and to clarify that more particularly, to investigate that claim and to see what it means in the context of relatively formal religious beliefs, say, specifically belief in Christianity, And with regards to the alternatives, we're definitely at something approximating the end of the Enlightenment. That's partly what the culture war is about.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
524. Why Russell Brand Abandoned Hedonism
And so then Polyev has been very effective at just talking directly to the Canadian public. And that's why he won the Conservative leadership. And it's part of the reason... along with Trudeau's catastrophic failure, that he's going to be the next prime minister. But it is a sea change, and it is driven, in large part, by this technological transformation.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
524. Why Russell Brand Abandoned Hedonism
Now, you've been down... I've got two questions for you. I want to go in two directions. The first is... regarding the question I opened our conversation with in relationship to Christianity. You're a very open person, and your interests flash all over. And do you have any faith in the stability of what you've newly found, or do you...
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
524. Why Russell Brand Abandoned Hedonism
Do you think that there's a risk or a possibility of your attention, given your open nature, shifting to something else? Or do you feel that you found a kind of bedrock that's qualitatively different from the sorts of orientations that you've had previously?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
524. Why Russell Brand Abandoned Hedonism
Now, it was very deliberate. That center should be replaced.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
524. Why Russell Brand Abandoned Hedonism
The rationalists and empiricists, their account of the world was insufficient. The postmodernists challenged it with a high degree of success, although they turned to power. And that was a dreadful mistake. Well, everyone is, what would you say, feeling out what the alternative might be. And the discussion we had today is an attempt to further that process. So join us for that.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
524. Why Russell Brand Abandoned Hedonism
Okay, so this, I want to take apart this idea, two things here. I want to take apart this idea of the self.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
524. Why Russell Brand Abandoned Hedonism
And like the narcissistic self, let's say. And then I want to contrast that with this alternative self that's a consequence of the acceptance of something like voluntary self-sacrifice. And I kind of want to do that technically because I've been trying to work through the relationship between power and hedonism.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
524. Why Russell Brand Abandoned Hedonism
So as far as I can tell, there's not much point in power apart from the sadism without hedonism because power needs to serve desire because why else have it? Okay, so then the question is, you might say, well, the power serves my desires. But then there's a problem there. Nietzsche pointed to this, by the way, back in the mid-1800s.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
524. Why Russell Brand Abandoned Hedonism
He said, well, when you say my or when you say I, you're assuming some sort of a priori unity that's transcendent, that isn't self-evident, even though you think it is. So you might say, well, I want my desires to be requited. And that's a focus on me. But what you're doing is you're identifying the I or the me with the desire.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
524. Why Russell Brand Abandoned Hedonism
And what that means inadvertently is that you're replacing I or me with the desire. And what that means is you're actually possessed by the desire. And so what narcissism actually means, and I think this is true clinically, Narcissism means subjugation to a series of possession by fragmented whim. And then people say, well, I'm getting what I want. It's like there's no I there.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
524. Why Russell Brand Abandoned Hedonism
If you lose your individual relationship with divine guidance, the only thing that can possibly emerge is either chaos or despotic force.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
524. Why Russell Brand Abandoned Hedonism
You're a battlefield of whims. And then you might say, well, if your whims are being met successfully, why is that a problem? And it seems to me that the fundamental problem is it's actually self-defeating. Like one of the things we know about psychopaths, for example, is... Don't touch me when you say psychopaths. Some people think you think I'm one. I'm actually very compassionate.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
524. Why Russell Brand Abandoned Hedonism
No, I was thinking about you being one of the people who are talking about psychopaths. Yeah, yeah, that's a very important distinction. So... Psychopaths betray themselves as badly as they betray other people. So psychopaths are completely unable to learn from experience, which seems to mean that they don't give any consideration whatsoever to their future self.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
524. Why Russell Brand Abandoned Hedonism
So they give no more consideration to their future self than they give to other people. And then you might say, well, what's the problem with that? And the problem is you gratify whim in the present at the cost of yourself and others in the future. And that's not a sustainable game. So now I've been trying, the postmodernists essentially presumed that the only uniting story was one of power.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
524. Why Russell Brand Abandoned Hedonism
Okay, so then you might say, well, what's the alternative to that conceptualization that still allows for the possibility of union? Because you could have nihilism versus power, for example. Well, I think what the biblical stories are pointing to is an ethos of voluntary self-sacrifice, right? And that is actually the antithesis of power.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
524. Why Russell Brand Abandoned Hedonism
And then you might say, well, there's a relationship between accepting that as a valid proposition and reconfiguring the notion of the self. Because... When my wife, when Tammy had Michaela, we took our daughter up to Northern Saskatchewan when she was about a year old. And there's a bunch of old people there and they're all just watching this baby like mad, like she was on fire.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
524. Why Russell Brand Abandoned Hedonism
They're all 65, 70, 75. And they're so thrilled that this little creature is around and they're watching her intently. And Tammy said to me that it was such a relief to her not to be the center of attention, that something had become more important to her and that calmed her down and it gave her purpose.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
524. Why Russell Brand Abandoned Hedonism
And so then you might think the true self rather than the hedonistic self-defeating self, which we axiomatically assume as the self, the true self is actually found in the consequences of voluntary self-sacrifice because then you get You sacrifice, you get to be married. You sacrifice, you get to have friends.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
524. Why Russell Brand Abandoned Hedonism
You sacrifice, you get to have colleagues and people who are voluntarily participating in your endeavors. You multiply your force. And then the self becomes like it's the short-term psychopathic and manipulative whims that are sacrificed, that you reflexively identify with the self. And what that's replaced with is harmony across all the levels of being simultaneously.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
524. Why Russell Brand Abandoned Hedonism
from individual, like couple, family, town, society, state, and then all the way up Jacob's ladder, right? So, and that's based on, the argument would be, that's inevitably based on something like the acceptance of voluntary self-sacrifice as an existential necessity. And that seems to be- That's the pattern of Christ's life, clearly.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
524. Why Russell Brand Abandoned Hedonism
And I tried to take that apart because that's a story, for example, that the atheists like Dawkins point to as indicative of the sadism of God. But I think what it means is that Of course you offer your children to God because you can't protect them and you don't want them to be nihilistic.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
524. Why Russell Brand Abandoned Hedonism
And so what you do is you say their service as tools in the hands of the divine takes priority over everything. They're not yours, they're his.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
524. Why Russell Brand Abandoned Hedonism
Well, and remember, Abraham gets him back. And there's a lesson there. It's like, if you're willing to devote your children to what's highest, they return to you.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
524. Why Russell Brand Abandoned Hedonism
That makes you a slave to the desire.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
524. Why Russell Brand Abandoned Hedonism
Oh, you read that? Oh, great.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
524. Why Russell Brand Abandoned Hedonism
not maximum short-term fulfillment of desire. The promise is still something approximating life more abundant, right?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
524. Why Russell Brand Abandoned Hedonism
Well, it's that immediate element of it too, though.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
524. Why Russell Brand Abandoned Hedonism
You've annihilated time. That's what it means to participate in life eternal. I mean, part of the reason that Christ is the provider of endless loaves and fishes is because- There is no more stable economic covenant than one that's founded on the principle of voluntary self-sacrifice.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
524. Why Russell Brand Abandoned Hedonism
So if you found your wholesome, see, we have a very skewed notion in the West of what constitutes natural resource, because there's such a thing as the resource curse, right? So if you look economically at countries that are blessed with natural resources, they're not rich, not by and large, they're corrupt and poor. And that's because the idea of natural resource is wrong.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
524. Why Russell Brand Abandoned Hedonism
The only natural resource, the only true natural resource is the principle that the covenant of cooperative social productivity is predicated on. And that's the ethos of voluntary self-sacrifice. If you have that, everything becomes a resource. Everything, that's why Christ is the miraculous provider of the loaves and the fishes and the water that never runs dry.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
524. Why Russell Brand Abandoned Hedonism
Because if you organize your society on the principle of voluntary self-sacrifice, then everything is abundant always. It's not immediate gratification of whim. It's something much more sustained and productive and communal and upward serving. Amen.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
524. Why Russell Brand Abandoned Hedonism
Jung prophesied that at the end of World War II. He said that the logical conclusion of Protestantism would be that everybody was their own church. Right, because there's no end to the fragmentation, right? And that's associated with, let's say, the worship of diversity for its own sake.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
524. Why Russell Brand Abandoned Hedonism
But the problem with that is fragmentation and entropy and also the narcissism that goes along with every single person being the center of the world. And
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
524. Why Russell Brand Abandoned Hedonism
You know, one of the complex problems that's associated with that is exactly the question of, well, if it's not you that's the center, once you understand that the you that you presume is actually an aggregation of immature whims in its default form, then what is the you that should be paramount? Now, Jung knew this. This is why he regarded Christ as a symbol of the self, right?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
524. Why Russell Brand Abandoned Hedonism
He believed that the... He believed that the central unity of spirit that would in some ways naturally emerge as these underlying complexes or motivational states aggregated would take on the appearance of the self-sacrificial passion. And it has to be that way. I believe because if you're going to orient yourself towards the future, you have to sacrifice the present.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
524. Why Russell Brand Abandoned Hedonism
Like obviously, and if you're gonna orient yourself towards other people in a communal relationship, you have to sacrifice the immediate demand for the gratification of your whims. That's what kids learn between two and four. Like they learn to, for example, when they learn to take turns, which is like a predicate for having friends, right?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
524. Why Russell Brand Abandoned Hedonism
Because sometimes it's you and sometimes it's me, otherwise we're not gonna get along. That's obviously sacrificial because to do that, you have to sacrifice you, taking the first turn every time. And so I don't see any way out of the argument that a mature future orientation is sacrificial and mature future oriented communal orientation is self-sacrificial.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
524. Why Russell Brand Abandoned Hedonism
And then you'd say, well, what's the pattern of that? And Christ's insistence, right, is that he embodied the pattern of the prophets and the law that was already extant in the Old Testament and embodied it. And that embodiment is the ultimate demonstration of voluntary self-sacrifice. I can't argue my way out of that. It just seems like, that just seems, I can't see an alternative to that view.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
524. Why Russell Brand Abandoned Hedonism
Well, that is what you do to some degree if you're a reasonable parent of adolescents, for example. Yes. One of the things you do is say, go make some mistakes and find out for yourself. It is required. I suppose that's the, well, you would associate that theologically with the granting of free will. Like, right, why not make everyone just into a slave of divine command?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
524. Why Russell Brand Abandoned Hedonism
Right, so you're saying that it can't just be grounded in a more enlightened form of self, of what would say self-service. Yeah, okay, so... It's not happening. Yep, got it, got it, got it. So, well, some of the things that were occurring to me when you said that. So, there's a dream that...
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
524. Why Russell Brand Abandoned Hedonism
Tolstoy had and recounted at the end of his confession, he was in a kind of suicidal despair and he had a dream that he was suspended on a bed and he was looking down like in immensely high above the earth. And he was looking down into this abyss that he could fall into. And then he looked up and he could see a rope that connected him to heaven, but he couldn't see what it was attached to.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
524. Why Russell Brand Abandoned Hedonism
But he understood that that rope that disappeared into the ineffable was what was protecting him from like eternally, so to speak, from plunging into the abyss. And one of the things you're making reference to is the fact that because you're finite, let's say, and not omniscient, that your conceptualizations are always going to ground themselves out in something that is truly ineffable.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
524. Why Russell Brand Abandoned Hedonism
Now, the same problem obtains in science, right? Because if you pursue... If you pursue your investigations into the micro world, you ground out in the quantum world, which no one understands. And then if you pursue your investigation temporally and you encounter the Big Bang, you're stuck with a miracle at the beginning of time. And I think part of the...
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
524. Why Russell Brand Abandoned Hedonism
Part of it is, and Jung made some reference to this, is like if you're finite and bounded in your intelligence and your apprehension, there's a cloud of mystery that surrounds that that's dreamlike, and then there's something that's akin to the miraculous around that, and that's the buffer between the finite and the infinite.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
524. Why Russell Brand Abandoned Hedonism
And I think you're making reference to that when you talk about the danger of reducing religious faith to the rational, even if you're... assuming future orientation and communal orientation as a better rational orientation than present whim gratification. And I think that's right.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
524. Why Russell Brand Abandoned Hedonism
I mean, that's partly, I think, why Orthodox Christianity is exerting a fairly powerful attraction on people at the moment, because it's quite good at using architecture and ritual and and sound to fill the gap between the rational and the irrational, right? And it's not argumentation any more than ballet is argumentation or fine art is argumentation.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
524. Why Russell Brand Abandoned Hedonism
It's more like it's a phenomena that, and that means to shine forth, right? It's a phenomena that indicates that there's something beyond what you normally apprehend that's there and that a relationship with that is necessary. And I do think that's... Now, you associated that discovery in you with despair. So... Like, can you fill in the gaps between the despair and the discovery of that?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
524. Why Russell Brand Abandoned Hedonism
You want agreement in principle, which is very different than like conscious and what would you say, incentivized coordination. So this beginner's mind. So I did a course for Peterson Academy on the Sermon on the Mount. And so I thought I would... mentioned something about that in relationship to this idea of like every moment being born anew, let's say.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
524. Why Russell Brand Abandoned Hedonism
What would you say? It's partly humility. It's partly apprehension of the necessity of accepting things that are beyond your rational reductionism.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
524. Why Russell Brand Abandoned Hedonism
It's selfishness replete with the most sophisticated of all possible rationalizations. So it's the, what would you say, supreme intellect as handmaiden of the passions. Right, right, right, right. So it's that grip of instantaneous motivation allied with, this is Foucault to a T as far as I'm concerned. He put his entire intellect at the service of his passion. Warped passion. Diabolical.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
524. Why Russell Brand Abandoned Hedonism
Yeah, diabolical. And he's very good at it. Like, he's very smart. He's very smart. Great sophistry in this. Marx did the same thing. Marx did the same thing.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
524. Why Russell Brand Abandoned Hedonism
So in the Sermon on the Mount, Christ says to focus your attention on what's most high. And so you could think about that, even if you don't exactly know what that means, you could think about that as the attempt to get your intent right. So insofar as you can conceptualize what the good is, even in your ignorance, that's what you're trying to put first and foremost.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
524. Why Russell Brand Abandoned Hedonism
One of the strange things I think about your situation is that You know, you were, God, maybe this is probably right, is that you were, just like Richard Dawkins is the exemplar of the atheistic enlightenment, you're kind of the success story of the hedonistic liberal, right? I mean, you got, like, assuming that would work, What you got, was it working?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
524. Why Russell Brand Abandoned Hedonism
Okay, so then the question is, well, if you get what you asked for, like if it's magically granted to you as it was in your case, what's the consequence of that? And you're outlining the consequence. So you said, well, there were practical consequences that it inverted on you.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
524. Why Russell Brand Abandoned Hedonism
So you do that first, and then you attend to the moment. And so then you get the advantage of a kind of a distal view, which is associated with life eternal, you might say, and what's important at the pinnacle of all things. But then you get that hyper attention on the moment that makes everything born anew.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
524. Why Russell Brand Abandoned Hedonism
But I'm also interested in the psychological consequences, you know, because the question, well, why not take pleasure-enhancing drugs like cocaine? Why not sleep with everyone who presents themselves as an opportunity? Like, that's an actual question, right?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
524. Why Russell Brand Abandoned Hedonism
Generally, the reason is, well, generally the reason is, well, you can't, right? You just don't have the opportunity. But then let's assume that, well, you can. You actually can. I did it. Okay, okay. But why, can you be more specific about why that didn't work psychologically?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
524. Why Russell Brand Abandoned Hedonism
Are you hopeful? And what are your concerns? So I had the opportunity today to once again sit down with Russell Brand. We've talked quite a bit, and we're getting to know each other quite well, which makes the discussions even more interesting and faster-paced. And we started out with a discussion of Christianity, and it's—what would you say—
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
524. Why Russell Brand Abandoned Hedonism
And, you know, psychologists have cottoned onto that to some degree with their discussion of concepts like flow. Because if you've got your act together and you're oriented upward and you're conversing or you're engaged in an activity, that sense of unity with things does emerge, and that involves a lack of self-consciousness and the ability to focus in a very intense way.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
524. Why Russell Brand Abandoned Hedonism
well that's the pharaoh and the slaves and the consequence of that is the plagues like yes absolutely that's what happens the more dissolute the society the more the unconscious longing for top-down what imposition of structure the more the top-down stubborn imposition of structure the more likely that that response to crisis will be pathologized and that the
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
524. Why Russell Brand Abandoned Hedonism
Yeah, but absolutely, there's no doubt that power is a unifying force. I mean, that's why in the Lord of the Rings, it's the ring of power that unites all the rings. If you're not united, let's say, by responsibility and by voluntary self-sacrifice, you will be united by power, right? That's the rule.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
524. Why Russell Brand Abandoned Hedonism
And that's why, you know, even the Israelites who are slaves under Pharaoh, like they're part of a dynamic. Sure, the Pharaohs are tyrant, but they're slaves. And they're calling out for the tyrant. And so if you call out for the tyrant, power will emerge as the uniting force. And then you might say, well, why not? And the answer is, well, it's self-defeating.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
524. Why Russell Brand Abandoned Hedonism
It's too rigid to be adaptive, and it's fundamentally self-defeating. And so that's why not. I mean, there's more to it, as you pointed out, because there's the fact that the imposition of the king is a violation of the principle of the divine, right?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
524. Why Russell Brand Abandoned Hedonism
Because if you're following the divine, you don't bloody well need a king, which is what God tells the Israelites over and over when they're clamoring for a king. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. All right, Russell, I think we're going to stop on this side.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
524. Why Russell Brand Abandoned Hedonism
I think what we're going to do on the Daily Wire side is talk about, you've been down in Florida and you've been having some association with the MAGA and the MAHA types, strangely enough. And so I'd like to delve into that a little bit and tell me what you've seen, what your hopes are and what you're concerned about. Because, you know, you're a strange character in this milieu too. No, thanks.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
524. Why Russell Brand Abandoned Hedonism
And I think that's associated, by the way, there's an insistence in the Old Testament that the firstborn is to be sanctified to God. And I think what that means is that you imagine that your life is made out of episodes, which is how you would recount your day, let's say. First this happened, then this, and then there'd be a conclusion, then there'd be another event.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
524. Why Russell Brand Abandoned Hedonism
Well, you come at it from the left and from the liberal side. And now you're watching these people who are part of this more conservative movement, kind of conservative libertarian movement. And I'd be very curious to hear, you know, what you've concluded as a consequence of your observations. Okay. So obviously you've been made welcome, which is extremely interesting and bizarre.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
524. Why Russell Brand Abandoned Hedonism
So yes, it's so preposterous. It's all so preposterous. So let's do that on the Daily Wire side. Anyways, thank you all for your time and attention. Thanks, Russell. It's always a pleasure talking to you.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
524. Why Russell Brand Abandoned Hedonism
The question is, what attitude should you use to frame each new event? And the attitude that's put forward as optimized in the Sermon on the Mount is that when anything new begins, you want to reorient yourself to what's highest. So you think, well, how can I make of this opportunity the best possible event? How can I orient myself so that I would be participating in that?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
524. Why Russell Brand Abandoned Hedonism
And you do that every time there's a transformation of viewpoint. Yeah, that way you get to have your cake and eat it too, you might say.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
524. Why Russell Brand Abandoned Hedonism
If you're not united by responsibility and by voluntary self-sacrifice, you will be united by power.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
524. Why Russell Brand Abandoned Hedonism
Well, we've been, for this Ark enterprise, we've been trying to wrestle exactly with that issue. And I think your comments about no, Elon, let's say, as a globalist force that isn't exactly akin to the previous globalist force. It's like, well, maybe we've tried to distinguish this technically in our discussions at ARC. Okay, so here's some principles. Tell me what you think about them.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
524. Why Russell Brand Abandoned Hedonism
Policy that requires force and fear is indicative of, it's at least suboptimal and it's probably tyrannical. So that one of the ways you determine whether a policy is acceptable is whether or not it's invitational. Right. And so it'd be like I make you an offer and hopefully you're on board voluntarily, which would make you a much more efficient participant as well.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
524. Why Russell Brand Abandoned Hedonism
And even if you're not fully enthusiastic about it, you can't think of a better alternative that you would lay claim to. Right. So it's like You can imagine if we're going to negotiate reasonably, we might say, well, we're going to be duty bound to accept the best offer we can conceive of, right? I mean, hopefully it'll be one that also fills you with enthusiasm.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
524. Why Russell Brand Abandoned Hedonism
But in the absence of that, at least you won't be able to think of a better alternative. So no power, no force, no fear, right? And then the other thing that we've toyed with, let's say, or played with is the idea that
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
524. Why Russell Brand Abandoned Hedonism
not only does the vision of the future have to be invitational, there has to be an element of play about it because like I studied play fairly deeply neurophysiologically and play is a really interesting motivational state because it's very fragile. It can be disrupted by almost any other motivational state. So the sense of play, which is like,
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
524. Why Russell Brand Abandoned Hedonism
direction with variability right because that's play is direction with variability that only emerges when the situation say of communication and cooperation has been optimized so then you might say another way that you can tell if the venture is proceeding well is that if everybody engaged in it can engage in a sense of play and i like the play idea partly because it's voluntary obviously but also because play implies a fair bit of tolerance for
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
524. Why Russell Brand Abandoned Hedonism
you know, for deviation along the path.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
524. Why Russell Brand Abandoned Hedonism
the challenge that it poses in its fundamental elements to the doctrines of dissolution, so you could say that on the nihilistic side, and to the insistence that the only proper centralizing and unifying force is power. And so... Well, both of those are very powerful arguments.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
524. Why Russell Brand Abandoned Hedonism
One, the nihilistic argument is that everything is fundamentally meaningless and fragmented and that all unity of any sort is an illusion in this veil of tears, entropy-ridden veil of tears. And the contrary position to that on the side of power is that Only the naive believe that unifying forces are anything but the imposition of compulsion and power.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
I think the most effective way of countering that is likely that if you're not charting your own destiny, then you are a slave.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
And that's not accurate. But they do, like, well, they're lost in the desert because that's part of what happens on the way to freedom, so to speak. They do get whiny as hell. Oh, hell yeah. They pine for the days when the tyrant... told them what to do, they said, well, at least we had like a variety. They're getting manna from heaven, right?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
They said, well, we don't have onions and garlic anymore, even though they're getting heavenly food. So they do revert to that slave, what would you say, that longing for slavery. And I do agree that that is... I mean, part of the reason, this is something that I think is really worth discussing with you.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
Part of the reason that people are wage slaves, let's say, is because they don't want to take on the responsibility of charting their own course. Now, I think people often also don't know how. Like our school systems, for example, were set up to not teach people to do that.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
Well, you know that it was the school systems were established in accordance with the Prussian military model.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
And that the goal there was to make obedient soldiers and really literally to crush out any proclivity towards individual striving.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
I was shocked at the degree of... Well, my conclusion observing Toronto during the COVID was that 70% of Canadians would have worn a mask for the rest of their life. And I would say... 30% of them would have worn that mask happily if they could have continued informing on their neighbors.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well... We did get rid of Trudeau today.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
We talked about Camille Pelliat, who's a hero of Michael's, the brilliant female literary critic, unpredictable and sparkling. And Michael's request to me that I broker an invitation, which I could do, I suppose, with some degree of success probability. And we surveyed the landscape closely.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
Yeah. Hey, man, Canadians voted for him. And I would say that the default Canadian candidate if presented with his policies, one by one, would still agree with virtually all of them. Yeah, and that's true of the Conservatives as well. Yes, of course, yes. You know, the malaise is very, very deep. Yeah, okay, so back to this. I still want to dig in a little further into this. Your dream, so...
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
We have this program online called Future Authoring that helps people lay out a plan for the future. Oh, what a great title. Okay, I love that. Yeah, well, it has almost a miraculous effect. It's really quite stunning. And I'm still... I still find this difficult to believe because psychological interventions usually don't work.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
And they often, if they work, they don't have the results that you intend, which is partly because if something's kind of working well, it's really hard to improve it. It's way easier to buck it up in ways you don't understand. Okay, so the Future Authoring Program asks you to, okay, so you make a contract with yourself, like a covenant. So the covenant is something like this.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
if you could have what you wanted in five years. And so what you wanted would be, you'd be satisfied with that or thrilled with it even. And things would be going well enough for you so that you weren't swamped by misery, which is really what people want. They want to not be swamped by misery. They don't want to be happy. Okay. Right, right.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
It's a very good distinction.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
So then, can you imagine anything that would satisfy you? So this is like a pretend game that a kid would play, you know, like it's fantasy. It's like, okay, you get to have what you want now, but there's a condition here. You actually have to be taking care of yourself like someone you care for. Okay, so now you posit yourself as someone you care for. Now you get to have what you want.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
What would satisfy you? But you have to specify it. Sure. Okay, so then we have people write just for 15 minutes with no real self-criticism. What might that be like? And then we have them criticize it a bit because you have to make it into a strategy and then differentiate. It's like, well... What would you want for a relationship?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
What would you want with regard to your family, your career, your education, your care of yourself, your service to the community, your mental and physical health? And again, same rules apply. You get to have what you want. Okay, so now, We had young people do this when they came to college on their orientation day. 90 minutes, that's all they wrote.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
They either wrote for 90 minutes or they wrote about what they did for the last two weeks for 90 minutes. So it was a randomized study. The kids who did the self-authoring program were 50% less likely to drop out the first year. 50%, yeah. Yeah, and even the... Even the college where we did this, it's stunning for a 90-minute intervention.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
Even the college that we did the intervention in wouldn't implement the program. We got zero takers on the university side, which is very telling as far as I'm concerned.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
That's the perfect word, telling.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
But the reason I brought it up is because The alternative to being a slave, let's say, which would be the alternative to self-actualization is charting your own course. But then this is the question I have for you. Like you were doing that when you had these dreams of writing. But why did you identify writing with yourself and why were you motivated to pursue it?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
Fundamentally, what we did was survey the landscape of counterproductive moralizing and analyzed its effect on psychological and political behavior. And it was great fun. So join us for that. I suppose you think this should be a national holiday. Well, kind of. Don't you? We took down Trudeau. That's the spirit of January 6th. Put her there, man. Right? Thank God.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
Right, so that, a blessing. Yes, I don't take it for granted.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
So, you know, when God comes to Abraham, he comes as the voice of adventure. And what he tells Abraham is that if he follows that voice, his life will be a blessing to himself. Right. There's other aspects of the deal, but that's one of them. His life will be a blessing to him. You set out the preconditions for what your life would be like if it was a blessing. Yes. You said...
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
So you're very high in openness, so you didn't want any small talk. You wanted to get to the heart of the matter.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
Get to the depths right away.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
Right, right, so you're an evening person. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, that's often associated with openness.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
Yeah, yeah, there's actually the person... There are morning people and evening people, and they have different temperaments. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So... You wanted to, not to have to engage in pointless small talk, right? You said you wanted to set your own temporal rhythm. Right. Right. Although, is it disciplined or is it erratic? Or do you just get up at the same time, but later in the day?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
It's organic. You just get up.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
And that's okay. It's the best. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Yeah. It's better for me psychologically if I get up at a regular time. But that is regular time. It's 11. Yeah. Oh, but that's what I asked. You get up at 11. Yes. Okay, so it's stable, but it's your choice.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
Right, so that means it's not, what would you say, it's not undisciplined.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
Yeah, okay, so you wanted not to have to engage in trivial interactions.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
You wanted to get up on your rhythm.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
So that's part of the small talk thing. Why do you distinguish them then? You wanted to not have small talk and you also wanted not to talk to anybody you didn't want to talk to.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
Right. So you really wanted to choose the parameters of your social. That's all you wanted.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
Yes, yes. Well, so that's, There's a specific reason I wanted to bring this up. So when I was writing, We Who Wrestle With God, I was looking at their characterizations of the divine. That was gonna be the subtitle. We used perceptions instead, but it doesn't matter.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
What the stories do, as far as I am concerned, or at least one of their functions, is to figure out what principle should be superordinate. Now, you did that. You had three parameters for your superordinate principle, and you identified that with yourself. That would satisfy me. So the divine in the Abrahamic encounter is the voice of adventure.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
And so God's covenant, his contract there, because it's put in contractual form. If you follow this voice, then the following things will happen. You'd be a blessing to yourself. Your name will become known among other people justly.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
Right. So that's a good author. That's a good offer, right? Because people want social standing and that can be gamed and it can be falsified, but it can also be genuine. Yes. Right. Okay. You'll do something of lasting significance. So that's cool. That would be probably for you. Maybe your work on anti-totalitarianism, right?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
You know, I watched his resignation speech today. Apparently, the wind blew it away just a couple of minutes before his actual speech, so he had to wing it. And you can tell. And you know what I really found fascinating about it was, and I think it's perfectly in keeping with his essential narcissism, is the first statements he made were about him.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
And then you'll do it in a way that will be a blessing to everyone else. It'll multiply the pie instead of... Okay, and then the association of the promised land with that is that if you follow that call... then the world turns into a field of unpredictable opportunity. Yes. And so that's also an adventure because you don't know what's going to happen. I know, it is true.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
to sit down and talk, play really with Michael Malice. And that's always fun. Michael's a, he's a genuine delight to have a conversation with. You never know what direction it's gonna go in. Many directions, all of which have a certain coherence. He's got a great sense of humor and irony and is extremely sharp and unpredictable. So that's ridiculously fun.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
There's also another way of dealing with the Pareto distribution problem. which is just so everybody listening is clear, is that the bulk of the rewards go to a small minority of people in any field. Now, a small minority of people in every field do the productive work too, so let's not forget.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
But one of the ways that a sophisticated society deals with that is just by generating an indefinite number of games. Here's a cool thing that I've noticed about people. Imagine that you're kind of out on the Pareto distribution in one dimension. It's like, you know, so you've got specialized knowledge. There's quite a few of you.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
But if you have specialized knowledge in two areas that are distinct, there's hardly any of you. And if there's three, it's like you're that person. You're the only person playing that game. So that's a good thing for everybody who's watching and listening to know. It's like, get really good at something.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
And then that makes you exceptional and you're going to be somewhat successful just because of that. But then if you add another distant skill to that and you overlap them, it's like you're pretty rare. And three, no one's like you.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
Oh, that's easy, really. They were people that I encountered in books. Oh, like who? Definitely. Well, I would say, like I read a lot and some books had a massive effect on me. Like my pattern for reading was I had a problem I was always trying to solve. I was trying to solve the, I was trying to understand evil. That's been like my motivation since I was like 13.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
And then now and then I'd run across an author and I'd think, oh, this person knows something I don't, seriously. And then I'd just read everything they read, wrote, and then I'd find out who influenced them and I'd read that. And so, you know, the cardinal people who influenced me were Carl Jung, for sure, Nietzsche.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
Carl Rogers was a pretty big influence. There was some biological psychologists, Jeffrey Gray. I learned a lot about the brain from Jeffrey Gray.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
He said something like, well, you all know I'm a leader, or I'm a fighter. You all know I'm a fighter, and I don't quit. It's like, well, this isn't about you. I can't believe that, I can't envision saying something like that about myself. Can you imagine going out in front of a national audience and saying, I'm a fighter?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
Okay. The reason it worked for me likely is because I had a unique lecturing style. Yeah, but lots of people have unique lecturing styles. And even if you... Yeah, but they usually use notes. Okay. See, I trained myself pretty much from the beginning of my career to speak without notes. And then when I... So my classes were very popular.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
The combination of speaking without notes and then dealing with this major existential issue made my classes very popular. And that happened to translate to YouTube. And I would say at the time, I experimented with YouTube just as an experiment, basically. Like, I was doing some... outreach on media.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
A producer came to me 20 years ago for a little television station, kind of like an NPR, Canada's equivalent, TV Ontario, and asked to film one of my classes. And so we did a 13-part series. And my classes were very popular. And so I had a taste of popular success as a professor and then sort of a little bit on that TV.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
No. No, interesting. No, I can tell what I was doing. Well, if you're really speaking to an audience, you know this likely as a standup and as a speaker. If you're really speaking to an audience, they tell you.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
And the most telling part of the feedback is silence. Yeah.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
They're not moving, which means it's so interesting, because what that means neurophysiologically is there's all these competing motivations in someone, right? And what happens if you decide to do something, the thing you're doing wins a Darwinian competition over all the other things you could be doing and suppresses them and inhibits them. And the more powerful the central motivational state,
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
the more complete the inhibition. And so what I'm trying to appeal to people in lecture is like the lecture is a journey. It's a quest. I'm answering a question. It's a quest. So I'm taking people on a quest. And if the quest is successful, they're dead silent, right? They're just, they're... They're tangled right into the discussion. There isn't anything more fun than that.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
Well, I like your conceptualization. It goes along with your stance as an anarchist, right? Well, look, this is one of the principles that we're using to guide the development of this Alliance for Responsible Citizenship. Here's the rule. Policies that require fear and force are bad policies. Yes, that's right, yeah. Right, now...
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
It's tricky when it comes to the regulation of criminal behavior, right? Because the really psychopathic antisocial people, they don't play a social game.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
I mean, psychopaths are notorious for not learning from experience.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I suspect that you're... This is a tough one. I was going to ask you when you were talking about, you know, your decision to become a writer. I mean, you're blessed with an extremely high level of verbal intelligence. Sure. And that's like, that's an a priori gift.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
But then, but, but... There's quite a correlation between intelligence and socioeconomic status. It's pretty high. It's the best predictor, right? And the second best predictor is conscientiousness. Is that right?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
It's much weaker. It's about one-fifth as powerful. Okay. Or on the entrepreneurial space, it's openness, right?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
Well, the managerial types tend to be intelligent and conscientious. The entrepreneurial types tend to be intelligent and open.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
So there's a pathway to, like it's likely that a serial entrepreneur is going to be high in openness.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
Like an open person is switching games all the time. Right. Whereas like a more managerial person picks a game and gets really good at it. And that works great if the game is working. But it works terribly when the game stops working, which is why you need some entrepreneurs in your organization. So, yeah, so I was wondering about this adventure issue. You know, intelligence predicts success.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
And so then you might say, well... what's your probability for success as an adventure if you're not as intelligent? But my suspicions are that strength of character will do the trick. You know, because one of the pathways to success in a functional society is that people can really rely on you.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
Well, the other thing too, see, if you're reliable, this is why honesty is the best policy. If you're reliable, and you already pointed this out, you're low entropy. Right, right, yeah, yeah, right. Right, it's like... I can reduce you to one pixel. You will do what you said. Box. Shelf.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
Well, but when we talked to you, when we talked about anarchy before, you stressed the voluntary element of it, right? And that strikes me as, well, that's why we made that a principle for our policy discussion, so to speak, at ARC. It's like, if you can't offer people an invitational vision So they say, yeah, yeah, I would do that. I would be enthusiastic about doing that.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
Then there's something wrong with your policy. So I think like a cardinal way of identifying tyrants is they use fear and compulsion.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And so this is a good also for you people to know who are watching and listening is if you're listening to a politician and they're trying to motivate you fundamentally with fear or they're proposing the use of compulsion, you know, say in the case of an emergency, it's like, yeah, probably you're a tyrant. Probably you're a tyrant. Even in an emergency, right? Oh, yeah.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
Well, there's an interesting corollary to that. Statistical analysis of language, kind of using something approximating early large language models was just factor analysis, but it's analogous, showed that there's no difference between being self-conscious... and being miserable. They're so tightly associated that you can't distinguish them.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
Well, that's exactly the problem is that, well, the emergency is pretty convenient for you if you happen to be a tyrant and... Part of the reason the idea of the apocalypse is archetypal is because there's always an emergency. Of course. Right? It's like you're going to die. Everything's going to come to an end. So you can conjure up an emergency at a moment's notice.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
So I don't know whether I should look at the blue eye or the red eye. So you taught for Peterson Academy.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
I could send her a note and tell her who you are. Well, tell me exactly what you want.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
Yeah, but... Yeah, I know who Klaus Nomi is. He's got a stunning and striking voice. Yes. Yeah. So why do you have one of his tuxedos?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
Okay, so what you should do is you should write me a paragraph about what you have to offer, and about what you want, and about... I would also recommend guarantees. Like, I went and talked to Palia, and it was hard.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
Well, she was very apprehensive, because she's been abused and used by all sorts of people and journalists, and so she's very... skeptical. She was extremely hospitable once we got there, my wife and I, and she knew that we were up to no tricks. She just flipped and she was extremely inviting, but she's got a wall and it's a protective wall.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
So I think one of the things you'd have to do in the paragraph is Reassure her. You need invitation plus reassurance.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
And then, yes, I could contact her.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
It would make my life. My dream for Camille Paglia is to have her talk to Ben Shapiro because they're both machine guns. And so I'd love to see that just as a spectacle. And speed up the tape. Yeah, I'd love to see that. I can imagine even better maybe would be Russell Brand, Ben Shapiro, and Pelleya. Those are the three most verbally fluent people I've ever seen in my life.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
Wow, that would be quite a troika. Yeah, it would be. It'd really be something. So why do you have Klaus Nomi's tuxedo? And who is Candy Darling? And why do you want to talk to Pelleya?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
You know, so one of the things I've learned to do in lectures is before I go on stage, I have a question. It's like, it's a question that matters to me, which is also something you should do when you write, by the way. It matters to me, and I don't know enough about it yet, and I'd like to get farther in my thinking.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
And so then what I'm trying to do on stage is get farther in my thinking, and maybe to come to a conclusion. If I can do that, then that's like the punchline, right? That's very satisfying, but... But in some ways it doesn't matter because the journey is what matters.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
I think what you're pointing out is that there are certain kinds of intellectuals whose thought quality is so rich that the journey is worth the- And so entertaining to listen to.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
So the default reality is that if you prioritize yourself, the associated emotion is negative. So narcissists are in a game that just can't possibly be won.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
Yeah, you know, I've been thinking about the function of religious texts in exactly that manner. I think partly, so it looks very much like a description of the structure through which we see the world is a story.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
So there's an infinite number of facts, but they have to be sequenced and prioritized. And the way someone sequences and prioritizes is their story. Yes. Okay, so... Yeah, people don't want truth, people want narratives. That's because narrative structure are true.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
So I think that what a core, what core stories do, so this would be say the fairy tales would do this or any stories that are shared broadly across a culture is they actually, you just pointed to this, I think it's true. You know how it is. A book has a different effect on you depending on when you read it.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
So, and it's definitely the case that books you read, let's say in your mid-adolescence likely, it's like they set the stage, right? And I think that's actually true. I think what happens is the story that strikes you provides a framework for memory and then you slot everything else into that. And so it actually becomes the foundation. And I think that part of the problem with books
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
moving away from broad knowledge of the biblical stories is that the foundation of our perceptions is no longer unified. And when that's the case, I mean, some variation is good because you don't want everybody thinking exactly the same thing. But if there's too much variation, you can't even talk to each other. But don't you think that's happening now? I think it's happened.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
So I've been working on trying to conceptualize why that happens, particularly with Jonathan Paggio. We've been drawing, and John Vervaeke, we've been drawing a bunch of different sources trying to understand the structure of a concept or a perception. So I think this is how it works. This is also the same structure as the tabernacle, by the way, in architectural form.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
So every concept has a center. Okay, that's what Moses' staff... establishes, that's what a flag establishes when you move to a new territory. There's a center, okay? And the center is the ideal. That's a good way of thinking about it. Or the center is the place that looks upward, okay? And then around the center, there are margins.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
Hello, everybody. I had the opportunity today...
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
Well, the self is a funny thing, Michael. This is something we might as well talk about this. You know, a human being is something that's organized on many levels, right? So if you think about it neurobiologically, for example, I'll give you an example. If you take a cat, a female that works better on female cats, partly because their sexual behavior is a little less complex to organize.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
And the farther away you get from the center, the less like the center the phenomena is, and they start to multiply. So now a concept that's only center is too rigid. And the concept that's only margin is too profuse and diffuse. And so what we need is a balance between the center and the margin.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
Your proclivity would be, I think, because you're open, would be to deprioritize the center in favor of the margin. Yeah, that's what open people do. But you just said you realized that if you, the margin's fine. The margin of the margin, it's like, oh, that's less fun.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
Right, well, it also mimics creativity. So you can wear that. So, well, here's a mythological take on that. This is very cool. So the center is a phallus, right? It's unitary and solid. Say that's archetypal masculinity, that ideal center. Okay, when it collapses... A hydra emerges, right? And a hydra has an indefinite number of heads.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
Well, the mere fact that they're multiplicitous is already a problem because it's an entropy problem. It's like... What am I going to do with all this?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
You know, you want... You know, if you have a toddler who's, say, three, and he has a closet or she has a closet full of clothes, say, 20, 30 outfits, you open the door and you say, what do you want to wear today? It's like, all you do is make the kid anxious. You take three outfits and lay them on the bed, and you say, well, which one do you want? Then they're happy. And it's because...
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
You know, this is actually being figured out technically. It was figured out by, uh-oh, I'm going to forget his name, Friston, Carl Friston. He's a neuroscientist, and he did some work on entropy. And I did some work like this in my lab. We were trying to tie the idea of anxiety to entropy, to make it physical. Anxiety signifies a multiplicity of pathways, right?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
And you might say, well, that's diversity, that's creativity, that's what the left thinks. It's like, yeah, but... What if it's too much? Well, then that's what the hydro paralyzes you when you look at it. It's too much entropy. You don't want to make a hundred decisions. We know this from the consumer literature. So if you go to a store, imagine there's, try buying a printer.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
You've run into this right away. I want to buy the best printer. It's like, there's 500 printers. By the time you go through all 500, Most of the models have changed, right? You're never going to optimize. And so what that means is if you have 500 printers and you have to choose the best one, you're going to fail.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
So you actually want to go to a store where there are four printers, because like one printer that they're making you buy that printer. Four, so you can see, right? I mean, it makes perfect sense too, right? You don't want totalitarian centrality, but you don't want indefinite amorphousness. This would be... I don't know if that's a critique of all-out anarchism.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
You can take out the whole, almost the whole brain of a female cat, the whole cortex and most of the centers of emotion and leave it only with the hypothalamus, which is just a cap on the top of the spinal cord. And that cat in a, in a relatively unchanging environment can function. Oh, my God. It can eat, it can mate, it can defend itself, it can drink, it can regulate its temperature.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
Right, right. I remember the speech.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
You've picked it from the bottom of a 10 hierarchy. Right. 10 rung social hierarchy that you're at the bottom of and you don't even know it.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
And you're dismissive of it.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
Unless you're like... Well, that's the trade-off problem. You could spend a year finding the best printer, but then you could have spent that year doing a lot of other things.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
Well, there's an economist, Simon, great economist. He was the guy who had the bet with Paul Ehrlich about... Julian Simon.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
Okay, let me just... Please, please. Simon came up with a concept called satisficing. Okay. And satisficing is a reflection of exactly what you just described. It's like you don't... With most decisions, you don't go for the best. You have something like a threshold. And once you hit that threshold, you say that. That's what people do with their mates.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
One of your problems is to find someone who can stand you out. So yeah, that's a big problem. You were talking about Simon. You had a story about him.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
Like, it's functional. And this is the weirdest thing. It's hyper-exploratory. So think about that. A cat with no brain is hyper-exploratory. Okay, so the hypothalamus regulates basic motivational states like lust and hunger and thirst and temperature regulation, defensive aggression, right? And so it's like a... It's the first place where reflexes transform into something like personalities.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
You think that sinister people can use joy? I mean, look at Officer Harris. Did she use it or did she... Fair enough, fair enough. But I guess my skepticism is that it's... Okay. To use joy or to manipulate it... Well, I mean, what's the... Well, I think kind of the difference maybe is the voluntary element.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
Like, look, I figured out... I had this weird kind of obsession when I was teaching in Boston because I was teaching about horrible things, terrible things, like the Holocaust and the gulag and, like, the depths of depravity, right? And... I got this voice in my head that kept saying, if you could master this, you'd do that with a light touch. And I thought, really?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
Like, how the hell am I going to talk about these topics that are
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
Oh, I haven't seen Veep. He did Veep.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
But there's a set of them, right? Like, you know, a cat that's involved in defensive rage isn't a cat that's in the mood for mating, right? So it swaps between these fundamental motivational states. Well, each of those motivational states has a self. And Nietzsche pointed this out back in an unrelated investigation, in a sense, but he said every drive philosophizes in its spirit.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Well, I was obsessed with the idea of evil clowns for a while because I started to figure out what it meant. The evil clowns have classic horror trope, right? It's weird. Like Stephen King wrote this strange book called It about this clown who is an alien, so a sky god that lived in the sewer. So in the underworld...
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
So it's evil clown in the underworld, and it's an evil clown of cosmic significance who lives within. And as soon as I figured out the archetypal understructure, I thought, oh, I get this. But it's partly because, like, there's this old idea in traditional Christianity that... Lucifer, the devil, that Satan can't produce anything original. Everything's a parody. Everything's a parody, right?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
And there is this evil clown element to totalitarian states. It was really captured very well in that death of Stalin. And in North Korea today. Well, and in your book, exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
Right. Yeah, well, the comical element, I think, comes in the preposterousness of the lies, right? Right. And this is also partly why the gender thing bothers me so much. I mean, there's many reasons why it bothers me. The brutal surgery being not least among them. But I believe that there is no more fundamental perceptual axiom than the capacity to distinguish between male and female.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
I'm thinking about this biologically. Creatures could distinguish between the sexes for hundreds of millions of years before there were nervous systems. Right. So it's like, this is fundamental. And obviously, because if you can't distinguish between male and female at some level, you don't reproduce. Well, except for the cuttlefish.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
Right. Well, so they still know.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
Yeah, yeah. So the problem with that, the gender-bending... foolishness, and I think it's part of this like evil clown pathology. It's more than foolish. Yes, that's for sure. If you can get people to accept the lie that a man can be a woman, all other lies are trivial in comparison, right? The lie is then paramount. There's a weird...
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
sub-narrative, sorry, I'm obsessed with biblical references because I've been immersing myself in it for quite a while, but there's a biblical idea that's a strange one, that when the abomination of desolation is raised to the highest place, put on the altar, it's time to head for the hills. And that's what it is. It's a statement that when the thing that
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
When the order is perverted 100%, when the worst possible thing is elevated to the highest possible position, things have deteriorated to such a point that you better take appropriate steps.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
So these underlying motivational states, like they're not just drives like reflexes, they come with perceptions, thoughts, attitudes, political opinions, like they come fully fledged. But imagine if you're really immature, badly socialized, they just operate in sequence. That's like a toddler. Well, when people talk about their self,
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
Okay. So in the story of Cain and Abel, I'm bringing it up because it's the first biblical story about real people. And it's a murderer and his target. So that's not fun. That's the first thing that happens in the profane world. Okay, so Cain, he's working away, hypothetically. And he's not getting anywhere. Okay, and there's two reasons for that, possibly.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
One is that he's doing something wrong, and the other is the cosmos is constituted improperly. Sure. And he decides that the cosmos is constituted improperly. So he's doing what he can, and everyone should know it, and he's working himself to death, and it ain't working. And so something's broken. Whereas his brother... Like the sun shines wherever he goes. Everyone loves him.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
So it's Cain's failing, trying hard, failing, making sacrifices, failing. Abel, no effort at all. It's just Satan through life. That's Cain's position. So Cain decides he's going to go and have it out with God because it's not his fault, obviously. And so he says to God that... Abel, everything's going well for him. And here I am suffering away, nothing's working for me.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
And I'm bitter and miserable and resentful and no wonder. And God says, well, you got a couple of things wrong with your theory there, buddy. The first theory that's wrong is that your failure is not what's making you miserable. And God says, Abel, There's an intermediary figure playing a role here that you don't understand.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
He says, sin crouches at your door like a sexually aroused predatory animal and you invited it in to have its way with you. So you engaged in a creative dialogue with the figure of evil because you felt you were justified, because you're resentful, because you're failing. Now, while you were failing, you could have learned
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
You could have decided it was your problem, but no, it's God's fault. And so God tells Cain, I don't think it's my fault, I think it's your fault. If you did well, you would be accepted. Yeah. All right? So Cain listens, but he doesn't hear. And he goes away, and then he invites his brother to go do something with him, like in good faith, and then he kills him with the rock. Why?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
To get revenge against God. That's the motive. Right, because... Cain is existentially wounded because his sacrifices are being rejected. So he takes God's ideal and he sullies it. Right. That's what they're doing with kids. You take the most innocent possible creature and you do the worst possible thing to them. Yeah, that's what it is.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
It's like core demonic. Well, that's why it's so alien. Christ says in the gospels that the people who sully children, he says something like it would be better for them if a heavy weight was wrapped around their neck and they were thrown into the ocean. It's the worst sin. That's why they're doing it. That's why they're doing it. It's the ultimate middle finger to reality and being.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
Usually they talk about something like possession by one of those lower states. Now then you could imagine that could be integrated. And that's what happens when you mature. But then that integration and being social are almost exactly the same thing. Like, you know, if I was a solitary animal living in the woods, I could just cycle through my underlying motivational states.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
It's like, you fuck with me, I'm going to fuck with you. Right? And so, and then there's that perverse delight that's, there's a novelty edge to that too. So you get sexual gratification for a multitude of reasons. One reason is just sort of reflexive, like sexual activity in itself is pleasurable, but you can put a novelty spin on that. And
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
That's partly what motivates diverse creatures to seek out multiple sexual partners. And you can game that in all sorts of ways. When people start watching pornography, they start with the sorts of things that you described, like attractive nude pictures of lithe women. But then after 10,000 of those, it's like, well, maybe a little variation. And that's that inviting that spirit in.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
You can chase that edge, right? Serial killers do that. They chase that edge right to the logical conclusion. The logical conclusion is a long, long, long way down. And people don't want to understand this. It's worse even than this, Michael. It's worse than this because, see, one of the things God tells Cain is that he invited this spirit in to have its way with him. It's very specific wording.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
There's a whole sequence of mythological stories around it. For someone to do something like shoot up an elementary school, they fantasized about it for like 5,000 hours. Like there's a devil in them, so to speak. You might as well call it that because for all intents and purposes, that's what it is. They've invited it in and it's taken possession of them.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
And it's fantasizing in that spirit, what's the worst thing I could do?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
Yeah, but this is an adult killing children. I was specifically referring to Sandy Hook in that case. Yeah, yeah. I would say in terms of level of sin, You know, I'm annoyed at my classmates. Right, right, yeah. That's more comprehensible.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
Yeah, definitely. Although, you know, there's a darkness in that. Well, we don't even have to say that. It's extraordinarily deep. No, no, the desolation of the innocent. That's the thrill in and of itself. Like, it's the... And there's more to it. It's like... Because this is why it's Luciferian. So Lucifer is the usurper, technically speaking, right?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
So he's often the intellect, by the way, that wants to put itself in the highest place. Well, there's nothing more that makes you the commanding officer of the cosmos than to take the most profound moral rule imaginable and to invert it. That's how much you can get away with. I know what people like this are like. They also think, I'm so smart, no one will ever catch me.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
And I can toy with people too, because I can hint at this, because they're so stupid, they won't even notice. That's often why they get caught. That's what happens to Raskolnikov in Crime and Punishment, right? And the prosecutor does a brilliant job of toying with him.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
There'd be no real reason to regulate or integrate them. But as you mature, You integrate them so that they take the future into account and other people into account. So then the self starts to become, well, reflexes, basic motivational states, integrated personality, but then it's integrated into a relationship and a family and a community and a society and everything.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
Well, part of the reason in the UK is that... Well, the UK is a racial thing. Partly. Well, yeah, but they're covering it up. Right. Yeah, but, well, yeah, yeah, there's the racial thing, and there's fear associated with that, and people are afraid that they're going to be targeted by the woke mob. If they stand up, they're going to be called Nazis and neo-Nazis.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
And he always has something useful to say. So what did we talk about today? Well, we talked about the terrible attractiveness of the kind of virtue signaling that other people make sacrifices for. Motivation for deep evil. Michael has studied totalitarian evil. He was curious about the more mundane forms of pathology.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
That's all right. That's one element of it. The other element is the elite... Look... You want to elevate your social status. Now, if you're a good person, you do that by being useful. Okay. Okay, but you can game the system. Narcissists and psychopaths game the reputational system. That's their niche. Sure. And they do that successfully often.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
Often successfully enough to be attractive, you know, especially if they're men. Sure. Because naive young women are attracted to psychopaths because they game the system so effectively. Okay, but that proclivity to game the reputational system is a very deep... Temptation. One of the commandments, I think it's the third, but it might be the fourth, is to not use God's name in vain.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
And people think that means don't swear. I don't know, maybe. I can never remember the order. It doesn't mean that. It means do not claim divine inspiration for pursuing your own agenda. It's like the worst thing you can do. I'm doing something low and terrible for the best possible reasons. That's the Stalinist situation, right?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
I'm exercising all my sadistic desires like Beria, and I'm doing this for the benefit of the poor. Okay, so... You don't ever want to underestimate the attractiveness of moral posturing, especially if someone else is paying for it. So in the UK, it's like, I'm tolerant, I'm cosmopolitan, I'm open to diversity. We can welcome immigrants of all stripes in.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
And if the cost for me displaying my cosmopolitan sophistication is that 10,000 working class women get raped, girls, well, no skin off my nose. And so that's the other part of it. I mean, they're afraid. They're afraid of being called Nazis. They are afraid of being prejudiced, you know, because it's easy once there's a pool of bad actors in a given identifiable group to tar the whole group.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
And when you should do that, when you shouldn't is not a simple question. There's lots of complex reasons, but one of them is There's no limit to the degree that people will elevate their own moral status falsely, especially if someone else pays the price.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
Well, part of it too, Michael, I think is just that people don't... Like, you didn't like my explanation for the child. No, I did not. Right, right. But you're not a naive person.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
It isn't obvious at all which of those takes priority. And one of the things I've been thinking about is that our definitions of mental health are, and this is partly psychologists' fault, are really badly flawed because we think of sanity as... a characteristic of the self, but it's probably something like harmony between all these, simultaneous harmony between all these levels.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
Okay, so Michael Schellenberger, when he broke the WPATH files, I interviewed him and I asked him, well, we talked about it, and he said that he first got wind of this... Butchery because I did an interview with Abigail Shrier Shire Shire. She's great.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
She is great and very very brave and I did that just as I was Recovering and it just made me so nervous like I was barely functioning and it was such a terrible interview to do It was really early in the in the trans Butchery cycle and I knew we'd get pilloried for it. I thought it might sink me and I thought you know, we're going ahead with this and
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
she laid out, as you know, the absolute travesty of this entire catastrophe. Now, Schellenberger watched that, and he said he couldn't believe it. He couldn't believe it. It wasn't until two years later that he started... You know, it was in his mind, but I think that's so telling because Schellenberger's not naive.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
Now, he tilted towards the left, and so he's going to have the kind of temperament that's inclined to think the best of people. Right. Which is a great inclination. Is it? Except when... Not when you're dealing with psychopaths. Right. In which case, it's exactly the wrong attitude. Right. And the problem with the left often is they have no imagination for evil.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
And some of that's naivety and some of it's like willful blindness. It's like, you don't want to know. You know, you don't want to know. You don't want to know what sort of snakes are in people's minds. A guy studied...
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
sociological evil and psychological evil for 40 years right trying to get to the bottom of it i had some pretty bad actors in my clinical practice and saw some things all the way to the i wouldn't say all the way to the bottom hell's a bottomless pit for a reason sure right lies get so deep that you literally can't get to the bottom of them you you scrape something away and you think finally it's like no just another layer of lies well you know that from studying totalitarianism
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
So imagine that you say you're married and you hit a sequence of conflicts with your wife and they repeat. Okay, so there's a hole there in your relationship. And so usually people just walk around those and they try to like not delve into it. Partly because when you start delving into it, the person's going to accuse you and get angry and then they're going to cry.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
And that'll stop 90% of people. But if you go past the anger and you go past the tears and you delve in, you go down Dante's hell. And at the bottom you find betrayal. And then there's trauma there. And then the person has to like really cry and really reconfigure. admit to, God, sometimes it didn't even happen to them.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
Sometimes they're carrying the burden of something that happened to their mother. And you have to go all the way to the bottom to exercise that. And if you do that, it changes your view of human nature. It's like you said, you get these, oh, I don't know, some guys attracted to 16-year-old girls. And you think, well, low, within the realm of human comprehension, low. Right.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
And then you think, you're just like, you're in the first circle there, buddy.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
Because they're after power.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
You want my Lamborghini? I want my Lamborghini. It's just a matter of difference of approach.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
I learned what iniquity meant the other day.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
Aiming down. What? So imagine that, you know, you make a moral error. Sure. Like, that would be like stealing a car. Right. Well, you want the car. You want to go places. It's like, fair enough. You made this error of stealing it. It's like, no, you steal the car and then you burn it. That's the Joker in Batman. Right. It's like, I didn't want that money. I just wanted to steal it. Right.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
And now I'm going to burn it. And he's the guy that terrifies all the criminals. It's like... Because the criminals, it's not iniquity for the typical criminal. It's just a matter of strategy. They buy the whole capitalist thing. They want the house and the yard. Maybe they even want education for their kids. So 90% of them, they're like you. They're aiming up crooked way.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
And I'm not trying to rationalize. It's like they're not aiming at... Well, part of them is, but... There are people who are aiming at down. So there's a book, Panzram. You ever read Panzram? No. Oh my God. So the book starts out, it's this guy who's in prison. It's a novel or a real book? It's an autobiography.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
And he's sitting in a corner, he's all beat to hell. He's a very tough looking guy. And a prison psychiatrist goes and gives him a cigarette. And Panzram, the guy who wrote the autobiography, said that's the only nice thing anybody ever did for him in his whole life. Now, whether or not that's true, that's not the point, but it's close enough to true.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
And so the psychiatrist starts to interview this Panzram character who's like, I think he raped 240 men. He killed like 50. His dying words to the hangman were, hurry up you, who's your bastard? I could kill 12 men in the time it's taking you to knot that rope. Right, and he meant it. And Panzram was brutalized when he was a child, like just beyond belief.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
And he decided that he was going to aim down. for his whole life. And so he almost started a war between Great Britain and the United States. He wanted to burn everything to the ground, everything. And that's his autobiography. He even told us, the psychiatrist asked him to write his autobiography. It's called Panzram, and so that's what he did.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
He told the psychiatrist never to turn his back on him. Because he thought, even though he liked the psychiatrist insofar as Panzram could like anyone, he thought, give me an opportunity, buddy.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
Yeah, well, that is different. There's some overlap with political psychopathology with people like Beria and Stalin as well. God only knows what those people are up to, especially someone like Beria.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
Yeah, right. Right. Yeah, exactly. Well, it's funny. Those little details matter.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
I read Theodore Dalrymple's account of going to North Korea, which is brilliant. He's such a brilliant essayist. He went into the big department store there where everyone's an actor and all the artifacts aren't real. And he bought a pen. He was like the only person who actually bought something in the store because no one buys anything. And he detailed out the ways the pen didn't work.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
Well, I think you hit the target dead center by bringing up self-actualization. Okay, so this idea emerged in the late 1950s and the 1960s, right? First of all, with the existential... psychologists and psychoanalysts, and then with the humanists like Maslow and Rogers. And it was kind of a substitute for religious pursuit. Like it'd be the secular substitute for religious pursuit.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
Like you just have no idea how many ways a pen could not work. The little... pocket clip can come off, the ball doesn't work, the ink is watery and runs. For a pen to work, a hundred things have to be not lies. In that kind of totalitarian state, absolutely everything is a lie.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
Right, right, right. Sure, sure. Yeah, yeah. the bottom of things. Yeah, well, it's a very long way down. And that is part of the problem with the marginal. So, you know, we were talking about the center and the margin. It's like Jonathan Paggio explained this to me. I didn't know this. So in sacred architecture, the architecture of cathedrals, there was often monsters on the periphery, right?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
Like the gargoyles. Sure. And the monsters are because as you move farther and farther away from the center, you get into the world of monstrous forms. Now, by the definition of the center, granted, but this is the case for every conceptual scheme or every perception. Ideal at the center, like circles of approximation. Right. drifting out into the marginal and then the monstrous.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
And this is the problem with the, part of the problem with the postmodernist ethos. It's like, center the marginal. It's like, oh yeah? How about the monstrous? Well, they're just victims. It's like, wait till there's one under your bed. Right. Right. Because they're marginal for a reason. Oh yeah. Hopefully. Hopefully.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
Hopefully. You know, for Foucault, all the people who were in
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
prison were victims it's like all of them right right really miss you saw this since what brought down the scottish government the scottish prime minister remember she put this in the women's prison yeah yeah it's like oh they're men they're they're women no she didn't know what to say she was asking she was stammering right well that's right that's right but but that was bad enough yeah it's like oh i see so every man who says so is a woman
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
Yeah, well, you remember, who was the comedian that was wrestling women, Man on the Moon?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
He knew that was coming, eh? He knew that there was part of him, his evil little soul, that knew that was coming.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
No, not at all. No, no, he was very intuitive, prophetic.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
Yeah, exactly, exactly. And you have that about you.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
Well, Jung said the trickster is the precursor to the savior.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
Right, right, right. So that's, well, that's because... He said that, really? You bet. He's a marginal character, but the trickster is a psychopomp. Okay, so... You want to answer this?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
Okay, so we'll go right from first principles. So here's how the world works. You set a name. Okay, that means you elevate something. Yeah. You prioritize it. You celebrate it. You worship it. Those are all the same thing. You set it as a name. Okay, now your perceptual systems are navigation tools. Okay, so you set the aim. You see a pathway. This is actually how the world appears to you.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
You see pathways. Okay. Tools, they move you forward. Obstacles, they get in your way. Friends, they're tools in the social world. Foes, okay, that's the dramatic landscape. One more. Agents of magical transformation, like wizards. What do they do? They reset the aim. A trickster is an agent of magical transformation. Now, is he good or bad?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
There was this idea that there was a self, which is something like the liberal project, I would say, the liberal individualistic project, and then that that could be actualized. But there's a real problem with that because... Look, I had a neighbor say to me once, no mother is any happier than her most unhappy child. Okay. Right. Which, you know, strikes me as highly plausible.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
You don't know because a trickster is... So imagine you're playing game A, right? But there's someone who's playing game D and they come to visit, right? Okay, now they're a trickster because they're not playing by the same rules. They're not in the same world. And when you interact with them, it's magical because they're emblematic of another way of being.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
Well, that could be a descent into the abyss, or it could be an ascent to a higher game. You don't know. And the thing is, is that in all likelihood, you're going to be afraid. So when Gandalf, for example, when Gandalf comes to visit The hobbits. They're kind of in awe of him, but they're also afraid and distrustful. And even Bilbo is the same.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
Like, he knows there's something to this guy, but... And the Strider, too. Aragorn kind of plays the same role. He's ambivalent. Well, why? Because he's a game changer. Well, your game could fall apart, in which case the trickster is like, he's opened the portal to hell. But your game could be elevated, in which case he's... A harbinger, he's a psychopomp. He's someone who lives on the edge.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
He's a messenger of the gods, right? And so tricksters introduce the possibility of a new game. You know, and even comedians do that all the time because what they're doing, a joke is often, here we are in this world. And then, no, it's actually this world. And everybody laughs, you know, and that's the punchline. And so the comedian is a trickster. And he's a world shifter.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
And so the tricksters, now, the trickster and the fool are similar archetypal creatures. And the fool is also the precursor to the savior because when you play a new game, you're a fool to beginner, right?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
So you have to accept the fool. You have to accept the trickster and the fool to play a new game. Right, right. And so certainly comedians play that role all the time. And that's partly, what do they do exactly? They're jokes. Well, a joke is something like an introduction to a new, it's an introduction to a new way of perceiving. So, you know, it's a micro, it's a micro transformation.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
So I don't know. I think part of the way that you distinguish the positive tricksters from the negative tricksters is the positive tricksters use play and humor and invitation, right? So it's a game. It's, you want to play a new game. That's the invitation. That's the right, that's definitely the right basis for policy. What about the bad kind of trickster? Make your question more specific.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
Well, as you said, that could be manipulated.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
So you can get campaigns of false joy. Well, the Soviets did that all the time. We're so enthusiastic for Stalin, right?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
Well, there's the trickster component that we talked about with regards to the black comedy.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
Well, Stalin, Solzhenitsyn did a pretty good job of detailing out Stalin's attitude towards everyone around him. He thought everyone around him was contemptible and lied all the time and couldn't be trusted. Right, yeah. 100% right.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
Right, and so you can see the spiral he was in. It's like, right, you start to betray. People get afraid. They become contemptible. You're more likely to betray them, and they lie, and it just goes, you know, it just spirals completely out of control. Yeah. I mean, you can think of Stalin as a rational actor in some ways.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
It's like, what would you be like if every single person around you did nothing but suck up and lie to you 100% of the time?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
So because if you're socialized, you're in a nexus of relationships. Right. And if those relationships aren't harmonious, voluntary, playful, you're miserable. And that means that the self-actualization isn't It's more like conducting yourself in a manner that enables harmony to exist, like a musical harmony at all these levels simultaneously. So you have to conduct yourself.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
to see if people are like, ah, ha, ha, ha.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
Absolutely, absolutely. That's definitely the danger of, I mean, danger of celebrity. I mean, my impulse throughout my life was to, especially in professional settings, like at the university, to take people at their face value. And that worked quite well, but partly the reason it worked is because I was in very rarefied environments.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
I was at McGill when McGill was functional, then I was at Harvard when Harvard was functional, and the University of Toronto. And so the typical person who came my way was playing mostly a straight game. Well, as... I became more known, let's say, the percentage of bad actors who present themselves increases.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
And so you become more skeptical that way too. And so there's more, so, and you can imagine, well, that's one of obviously the dangers of power. Why is power dangerous? No one gives you any feedback.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
Yeah, yeah. Well, people... i think that's that's not an atypical game for people who are sort of comedically oriented and playful it's like when little kids come to a playground they start interacting with each other in a immature way like if they're four they'll sort of start off at two-year-old level and then they ratchet up and see if the other
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
child can play the same game now you know four-year-olds can play with two-year-olds but for a play partner they want someone who's going to push them sure so they do this they ratchet up to see if they're at the same level with regards to the game yeah this is you know one of the things that you might think about with regards to small talk that's what people that's partly what people are doing
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
Right? So when they meet socially, to begin with.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
Yeah, yeah. They want to offer their little offerings to get the exchange going. Now, part of what you're likely objecting to is that people who aren't high in openness won't take the conversation seriously.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
That's why I love being a clinical psychologist.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
People, if you get people actually telling you what they're like, they're unbearably interesting. Yeah, I can imagine. Yeah, this is true even for simple people, because there are no simple people. The ones who are less intellectual are less articulate, and it's harder to get their stories out of them.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
Well, then their ideas tend to be dull, but that doesn't mean they are. Okay. Right? You've got to get them off their... There's nothing worse than a dull ideologue.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
It's like, I've heard it all before, but if you get people talking about what they know, and they're often very hesitant to do that because they don't want to... No one's ever listened to them. Sure. And they're afraid, like the guinea pig breeder, that they'll just be laughed at if they let people know what they're really like. But people are unbelievably interesting if you can get them talking.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
If you're going to not be swamped by negative emotion, this goes back to Trudeau. If I only think about my local self now and maximizing that. You might say, well, I get exactly what I want or something in me does. Why wouldn't I be happy? Well, part of the reason is I'm sacrificing the future because I'm being impulsive.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
All right, we should stop. We should go to the Daily Wire side. We should talk about the current political situation. Let's do it. Let's do that on the Daily Wire side. Yeah, okay, good, good. So always a pleasure talking to you and seeing you. I had no idea what we were going to talk about. And we didn't talk about any of the things really that I thought we might talk about.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
But that's entertaining, very entertaining. So, and hopefully everybody else found that it was so too. And write me that paragraph.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
And I will. Send an introduction and we'll see. I'd like to go talk to her again, too. Oh, God. The best. Yeah. Oh, yeah. It was fun talking. She's a blast. She's a blast. And she's so smart.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
It's a blast. Have you talked to Russell Brand? I have not. Russell Brand is fun.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
He's fun in that way. He's got that...
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
Yeah, well, the thing about Pelley is she is that good. Right.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
So that's good. That's good. All right, sir. Great pleasure, Jordan. Good to see you, man. Yeah, yeah. And thank you, everybody, for watching and listening and to the film crew here today in Scottsdale for setting up this crazy show. site. And join us on the Daily Wire side, because I didn't talk to Michael at all about the strange political situation that we happen to be in now.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
And I want to get his feelings about, well, about Musk and about the strange group of people who've aggregated themselves around Trump and about what he thinks is going to happen in the next year and what he hopes is going to happen. And so join us on the Daily Wire side for that.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
And also, if it's all about me, who the hell is going to want to be around me?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
So Carl Jung talked about something akin to that. And I think that's partly the source of the ideas. So he believed that there was a core self, but Jung believed that the core self, this is something we can talk about in great detail, but Jung identified the core self. Like he thought that Christ was an archetype of the core self. There was a technical reason for that.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
And then he thought the self was, guarded in a sense by persona, which is exactly what you're wearing. You've got a mask on. And so the persona would be the tool that you use to, this is one way of thinking about it, the tool that you use to manipulate the social environment so that you don't cause undue stress and so that you get what you want. Now,
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
Jung, like you, apparently, would presume that if you're well-constituted, there's no real division between the persona and the self. Now, it can be a bit more complicated than that because one of the things Jung pointed out was that there are times when you want a persona. Like, you want to put out a shallow version of yourself in a way.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
So imagine, for example, that you go into a bank and you're just going to do a business transaction with the teller. You don't want Whether you want the teller's full self there or not is a matter of dispute. Really what you want is a pretty generic transaction.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
the sorts of things that motivate not only pedophilia, but extreme sadistic pedophilia, let's say. So that always makes for a enjoyable conversation. We talked about Michael shifting views with regards to the marginal, let's say, as a creative anarchist by personality and political inclination.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
So there are times when you need to know when you present a generic version of yourself.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
You know, okay, so let's, I've been thinking about an idea akin to that in relationship to the Exodus story.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
No, so the Exodus story presents kind of an archetypal landscape of human destiny. And you might say one of the ways of interpreting it is that everybody starts out as a slave. And that would be, I think, akin to your idea that the bank teller, for example, isn't in a position to be self-actualized, right?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
Because they're so constrained by the demands of the situation that there's no room for what?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
Okay, so let's take apart that idea of your time, because the way you phrased that, for example, there's an implicit assumption there that's underlying our discussion. There's a distinction between your time and company time.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
Okay, so I want to hit that from two perspectives. One would be, well, they're both your time because you decided to go work for the company, right? So that's a voluntary choice, just like it is to pursue...
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
what's your time so then the question would be why what is it in you that you were serving when it was your time specifically rather than company time you know what i mean it's like how do you because you did both of them voluntarily but i didn't do both of them for free right okay so one of the distinctions would be the the top the thing that you're doing when you spend your time
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
the time you characterize as my time, that's something you would do for free. Right. Okay, why?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
Future. Right. Yeah, okay. So that's an interesting aspect of that. So would we say that... it was easy for you and maybe it's easy for people in general to assume that what they're doing is having their time if what they're doing with that time is investing in their future. I don't think they were thinking about the future. No, you.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
When you were doing your writing, was the fact that it was motivationally relevant to you directly associated with the fact that it was an investment in the future. Like, why was your writing, why did your writing take precedent? And why did you identify the time you spent writing as serving you? Like, I'm after a definition of you.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
Michael is prone to presume that the different against the same or the, what would you say, exceptional against the normal is admirable, but he's also come to recognize that the center can be dissolved in a manner that's cataclysmic, and the diverse and the creative can degenerate into the monstrous and dangerous. And so we talked about that technically, psychologically, sociologically.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
Right, okay, so then I would say that's akin to the distinction between slave and sojourner, let's say, in the Exodus story.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
516. Michael Malice: A Clinical Analysis
So, you know, there's this, one of the elements that underlies the general critique of capitalism is that people are wage slaves. Right, of course. Right, now... you can criticize that in that, well, slaves can't quit. And the critic would say, well, I can quit one job, but if I don't get another one, I'll starve. So like I'm in a slavery position, so to speak. Now,
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
514. How to Solve All of America’s Energy Problems | Alex Epstein
There's much more practical things that we can do to keep people safe from climate change, let's say, than making everybody poor by making fossil fuels impossible to access.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
514. How to Solve All of America’s Energy Problems | Alex Epstein
the big tech companies in the United States returned to their own narrow self-interest and made the right bloody decisions. Yes, really, it's really something to see.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
514. How to Solve All of America’s Energy Problems | Alex Epstein
Well, one of the scandalous elements of that is that there's no single town on the planet that runs entirely on renewables. There's no micro-projects, proof of concept.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
514. How to Solve All of America’s Energy Problems | Alex Epstein
Yeah, well, right. But they don't really run.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
514. How to Solve All of America’s Energy Problems | Alex Epstein
They more die. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And the fact that electricity prices spike toward the infinite as the wind stops blowing and it's nighttime, which turns out to be a real problem if you happen to be, like, in the winter. Yeah, yeah. You know, so, yeah, yeah. And then you need the parallel. The thing that's so bloody peculiar about that is that because these renewable...
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
514. How to Solve All of America’s Energy Problems | Alex Epstein
sources are sporadic and unreliable, you have to have a backup system that has the same capacity as the renewable system when it falls to zero. And so what you have is a new system built on top of the old system, being particularly catastrophic in Germany, right, where they shut off their nuclear plants and now use lignite-fired coal plants to augment their Unreliable renewable.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
514. How to Solve All of America’s Energy Problems | Alex Epstein
I mean, it's complete insanity.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
514. How to Solve All of America’s Energy Problems | Alex Epstein
and simultaneously increasing our dependency on, let's say, dictatorial governments, is not really very wise policy, all things considered. And Alex has been an icebreaker in that regard, pointing out to everyone who will listen and listen carefully that...
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
514. How to Solve All of America’s Energy Problems | Alex Epstein
Yeah, right.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
514. How to Solve All of America’s Energy Problems | Alex Epstein
And do you think there's any utility in the renewable energy sources? I mean— Yeah. You do.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
514. How to Solve All of America’s Energy Problems | Alex Epstein
fossil fuels all things considered are obviously and overwhelmingly a net good and that if we want to move forward into a future of abundance that it's necessary to get that straight in our minds and stop playing foolish games and we had an opportunity to continue that conversation today and to deepen it because alex has spent the last several years
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
514. How to Solve All of America’s Energy Problems | Alex Epstein
Yeah, well, the fundamental question under that has got to be something like, well, why would we take... off the table any potential source of innovation that would make energy more plentiful and more reliable. Right. Because we need it. We wouldn't.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
514. How to Solve All of America’s Energy Problems | Alex Epstein
Okay, so we talked at the beginning here when we were trying to structure this conversation. I noted, remembered that, you know, you had written these two books, A Moral Case for Fossil Fuels and then Fossil Future. And I asked you if you were writing another book. And you said, you kind of, you sort of said kind of, but you're not. You're focusing on energy policy per se.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
514. How to Solve All of America’s Energy Problems | Alex Epstein
And you wanted to step through the, you have five points. Yeah, five kind of big objectives. Well, so let's. I'd like you to go through those. And one of the things I want to return to at some point, because I don't want to forget about it, is how you view the role of nuclear power in this.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
514. How to Solve All of America’s Energy Problems | Alex Epstein
making his knowledge about the energy environment nexus more and more detailed at the practical level in a manner that enables policymakers to move towards an energy-rich, abundant, pro-human future. And so he laid out those ideas today in our podcast in a manner that
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
514. How to Solve All of America’s Energy Problems | Alex Epstein
Yeah, exactly.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
514. How to Solve All of America’s Energy Problems | Alex Epstein
Way more plants, as a matter of fact. Right, right.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
514. How to Solve All of America’s Energy Problems | Alex Epstein
Yeah. Well, just get rid of the bears. Exactly.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
514. How to Solve All of America’s Energy Problems | Alex Epstein
Yes, yes, yes.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
514. How to Solve All of America’s Energy Problems | Alex Epstein
is at least illustrative of the wealth of knowledge that he has that could be brought to bear for policymakers who are interested in developing exactly that kind of policy framework. And so join us for that. Well, I thought we might as well begin this by briefly evaluating the change in the conceptual landscape since 2022. I mean, I would say two years ago,
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
514. How to Solve All of America’s Energy Problems | Alex Epstein
Yeah, and God only knows how much that'll be augmented by this electricity demanding AI.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
514. How to Solve All of America’s Energy Problems | Alex Epstein
Right, well, there's a good practical lesson embedded in what you just said that everyone should listen to very carefully when they're considering negotiating. Like, if you want things to move in a particular direction, make it very easy for people to move in that direction. You want to do a lot of the work A priority that would be necessary to help them move in that direction.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
514. How to Solve All of America’s Energy Problems | Alex Epstein
If you go to your boss with a problem, it's very useful to accompany that with a solution that's thought through and already ready to implement. It's much more likely to occur.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
514. How to Solve All of America’s Energy Problems | Alex Epstein
Yes. Yes, yes, yes. Well, and if you have some idea about what a solution might be desirable for you, coming armed with the strategy that would make that simply implementable and some indication that you've thought through the consequences radically improves your chances of success. Otherwise, you're just a pain, the kind of messenger that gets shot at.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
514. How to Solve All of America’s Energy Problems | Alex Epstein
Well, why would we take off the table any potential source of innovation that would make energy more plentiful and more reliable.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
514. How to Solve All of America’s Energy Problems | Alex Epstein
the stance that you had been promoting, like a positive stance towards fossil fuel, was not only, what would you say, controversial, but could we say fringe? And I don't think that's the case now. And I think that has a fair bit to do with you, actually, which is quite cool. And so... That's my sense, broadly speaking.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
514. How to Solve All of America’s Energy Problems | Alex Epstein
Well, I really like your emphasis on the nexus between... energy provision and human flourishing.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
514. How to Solve All of America’s Energy Problems | Alex Epstein
I mean, partly, you can make a pretty blunt case for that from an environmental perspective, even if you're rather radically environmentally oriented, in that if you realize that you impoverish, if you impoverish people, which you certainly will do if you make energy expensive, if you impoverish people, you make them desperate. And desperate people are not investing in a green future.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
514. How to Solve All of America’s Energy Problems | Alex Epstein
That's for sure. They're going to rampage through whatever resources are available to them in very short order. And so I got convinced of this. well, probably 15, 20 years ago, when I started to understand the statistical data indicating that if you got people's GDP up, average GDP up above $5,000 a year in US dollars, that they started taking a long-term view of the future ecologically.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
514. How to Solve All of America’s Energy Problems | Alex Epstein
It's like, Well, of course that's the case. And then I thought, that's so cool. That means that you could work really hard to make energy inexpensive and people rich. And one of the consequences of that would be that people would be much more attendant to genuine ecological concerns locally and over time.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
514. How to Solve All of America’s Energy Problems | Alex Epstein
Yes, yes.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
514. How to Solve All of America’s Energy Problems | Alex Epstein
Correction gratefully accepted.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
514. How to Solve All of America’s Energy Problems | Alex Epstein
It's not like there still isn't all sorts of work to do to make the case for fossil fuels. But how are you feeling about, you know, if you evaluate the landscape over the last two years, how are you feeling about it?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
514. How to Solve All of America’s Energy Problems | Alex Epstein
And that's also a concern that is in many ways importantly separate from the issue of nuclear power anyways.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
514. How to Solve All of America’s Energy Problems | Alex Epstein
Like a lot of these politicians want to do... Well, someone might just come along and capitalize politically on your ideas. That's certainly a possibility. But they need to be
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
514. How to Solve All of America’s Energy Problems | Alex Epstein
But we had this thing— Well, you've definitely broken the ice for those arguments. Yeah. At minimum, right? At bare minimum. Yeah.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
514. How to Solve All of America’s Energy Problems | Alex Epstein
Yep.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
514. How to Solve All of America’s Energy Problems | Alex Epstein
And then just ask questions and interrupts. Absolutely.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
514. How to Solve All of America’s Energy Problems | Alex Epstein
Right, right, right. In the world of- Because of IT.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
514. How to Solve All of America’s Energy Problems | Alex Epstein
Well, what you see in Canada, as far as I can tell, to the degree that there's anything remotely like logic driving this, is that, well, Canada has a responsibility to set the kind of moral example that other countries like China could follow, and do not, in the least, follow.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
514. How to Solve All of America’s Energy Problems | Alex Epstein
And the same with India and their economies that are of such a scale compared to, say, the Canadian economy, that that example is essentially irrelevant. Now, you know, you could argue that the Canadian fossil fuel industry is comparatively clean in its approach, and maybe there's some benefit in that.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
514. How to Solve All of America’s Energy Problems | Alex Epstein
But the idea that if Canada sets a moral standard, China is going to fall suit is, it's egotistical beyond belief, and it's utterly preposterous. Plus, there's no evidence that it's happening. So that's a major problem.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
514. How to Solve All of America’s Energy Problems | Alex Epstein
That's only valid if you take that pro-human perspective that you described to begin with. Yes, yes. There's much more practical things that we can do to keep people safe from climate change, let's say, than making everybody poor by making fossil fuels impossible to access.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
514. How to Solve All of America’s Energy Problems | Alex Epstein
Right.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
514. How to Solve All of America’s Energy Problems | Alex Epstein
Oh, I think we might as well just go through them in order. I think they're all extremely interesting, and you can go into them in as much detail as you see fit.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
514. How to Solve All of America’s Energy Problems | Alex Epstein
Are the AI systems helping you? Yes. No?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
514. How to Solve All of America’s Energy Problems | Alex Epstein
So it's preposterous economically. And that's on top of the fact that the... what would you say, a detached analysis of the cost benefits in relationship to carbon emission has not been conducted properly.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
514. How to Solve All of America’s Energy Problems | Alex Epstein
One of the things I just can't figure out, and then we'll get back to these five points, is like, I've spent a lot of time looking at scientific data, and there's a pattern to doing that that works to some degree across disciplines. It's hard to know the details of the discipline if you're not an expert in it, but the pattern of evaluation is similar.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
514. How to Solve All of America’s Energy Problems | Alex Epstein
When I look at the carbon dioxide data as a whole, and I think, well, what stands out to me in this mess of consequences of carbon dioxide? I would say the thing that stands out to me most is the magnitude of global greening. It's overwhelming. And then I think, and it's not only overwhelming in terms of its magnitude, right? So immense areas have greened.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
514. How to Solve All of America’s Energy Problems | Alex Epstein
It's also the case that the areas that have greened tend to be semi-arid areas. And so when I look at that, I think, well, if you were looking at this neutrally, at least the question of whether or not that's a net good should arise. Yeah, the CO2 on its own, leaving aside the energy that's coupled with it. Yeah, just the CO2, right, exactly.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
514. How to Solve All of America’s Energy Problems | Alex Epstein
And that's being accompanied by about a 13% increase in crop productivity in consequence of the additional CO2 emissions. Right. Well, that's just an example of the preposterousness of the claim that carbon dioxide sequestration is something that makes sense. It's like, well, actually, that stuff might be useful. Plus, it's really, really expensive to sequester it.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
514. How to Solve All of America’s Energy Problems | Alex Epstein
Like, you already made the economic case. That's devastating by any reasonable standard.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
514. How to Solve All of America’s Energy Problems | Alex Epstein
Right, of course.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
514. How to Solve All of America’s Energy Problems | Alex Epstein
I think you're pointing to the fact that there isn't a better medium to long-term strategy than the truth.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
514. How to Solve All of America’s Energy Problems | Alex Epstein
Right.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
514. How to Solve All of America’s Energy Problems | Alex Epstein
I don't endorse anybody. It's very important because what you did was you focused on addressing the problem. Yes. Right. And that was the focus and not the consequences of that. And you're pointing out that the medium to long-term consequences of that really couldn't have possibly been more positive. It took a long time. It's a long-term investment strategy.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
514. How to Solve All of America’s Energy Problems | Alex Epstein
But yeah, I found exactly the same thing. It's exactly the same.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
514. How to Solve All of America’s Energy Problems | Alex Epstein
It doesn't even mean that you're right. But it does mean you can be trusted.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
514. How to Solve All of America’s Energy Problems | Alex Epstein
Yes. Yes.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
514. How to Solve All of America’s Energy Problems | Alex Epstein
Yeah.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
514. How to Solve All of America’s Energy Problems | Alex Epstein
Yeah.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
514. How to Solve All of America’s Energy Problems | Alex Epstein
Oh yeah, well, let's return to that for one second before we go back through. So a point you made very early is that energy transformed into work has substituted for labor. And so we trade energy for labor. And now we're trading energy for intelligence. And intelligence itself is a labor multiplier. Yeah, exactly. So the question is, well, is trading energy for intelligence a good trade?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
514. How to Solve All of America’s Energy Problems | Alex Epstein
It's like, well, that's what we do. That's what human beings do.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
514. How to Solve All of America’s Energy Problems | Alex Epstein
Well, it's a good thing for every individual who buys it, so in the aggregate, it's probably going to be pretty good. Yes, yes. Well, and it's what you want to do when you hire someone to do a complex job. You're going to pay for intelligence.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
514. How to Solve All of America’s Energy Problems | Alex Epstein
Although not the people who are demanding more energy so that they can make faster artificial intelligence systems. They're not underestimating it. And that's what they're driven to do.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
514. How to Solve All of America’s Energy Problems | Alex Epstein
Poor ones do, they run on wood and metal.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
514. How to Solve All of America’s Energy Problems | Alex Epstein
It helped me a lot when I was writing my last book. Oh, interesting. I used the AI systems a lot. Yeah, yeah, yeah. To sketch out research domains, you have to check the references, you have to make sure it's not lying to you. Yeah, yeah. But you can do that. You have to be careful with it and you have to, you know, interact with it intelligently.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
514. How to Solve All of America’s Energy Problems | Alex Epstein
But yeah, and we've built specialized AI systems too that some of them based on my work that I consult because, well, that's an extension of my thinking and that's been extremely helpful. And so...
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
514. How to Solve All of America’s Energy Problems | Alex Epstein
That's alexepstein.ai.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
514. How to Solve All of America’s Energy Problems | Alex Epstein
Oh, yeah.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
514. How to Solve All of America’s Energy Problems | Alex Epstein
So it'll question the premise. Yes, exactly. That's very funny. Yeah, but that's one thing we had to change. That means it accurately reflects you. Yes, yes, exactly. It's just as annoying in some circumstances.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
514. How to Solve All of America’s Energy Problems | Alex Epstein
If you had put your five points here into one of these AI systems, could you ask it, for example, if we were moving in this conceptual direction, what policy changes should be implemented, prioritized by their benefit to cost?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
514. How to Solve All of America’s Energy Problems | Alex Epstein
Before people mucked around with them.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
514. How to Solve All of America’s Energy Problems | Alex Epstein
Yeah, yeah. Because it's a Pareto distribution issue, right? There's going to be a couple of things you could change. They're going to have a disproportionately positive effect.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
514. How to Solve All of America’s Energy Problems | Alex Epstein
Yeah, that's exactly my point. Yes, definitely.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
514. How to Solve All of America’s Energy Problems | Alex Epstein
Okay, I'm going to guide you through these one at a time. So I think what we should do is let's go through them one at a time, and you can hit the highest point that you can think of for each. And then we can go back if we still have additional time.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
514. How to Solve All of America’s Energy Problems | Alex Epstein
Right, so that's a red tape reduction process.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
514. How to Solve All of America’s Energy Problems | Alex Epstein
Yeah, okay, okay, okay. Got it. Because it produces this infinite, exponentially expanding network of litigation in the aftermath of the review. Right, so activist groups can weaponize it. Yeah, have. It's their weapon, yeah. Right, okay, great. The renewal subsidy issue.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
514. How to Solve All of America’s Energy Problems | Alex Epstein
and secondarily cost. That's a real conceptual switch.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
514. How to Solve All of America’s Energy Problems | Alex Epstein
that I think it's related to the point that you made earlier is that there's going to be criteria for acceptable sources of power. And one of the fundamental criteria is going to be reliability.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
514. How to Solve All of America’s Energy Problems | Alex Epstein
Assuming it's reliability.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
514. How to Solve All of America’s Energy Problems | Alex Epstein
And compromise the reliability of the grid across time in a degenerating way.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
514. How to Solve All of America’s Energy Problems | Alex Epstein
It's a terrible thing for an Albertan to think about.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
514. How to Solve All of America’s Energy Problems | Alex Epstein
You just can't support any industry, which means your country becomes more... Especially the kinds of industries that depend on being on 100% of the time.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
514. How to Solve All of America’s Energy Problems | Alex Epstein
Environmental quality cost-benefit analysis.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
514. How to Solve All of America’s Energy Problems | Alex Epstein
What would you replace that with? Can you tie that back to the energy issue that we're focusing on? You're making the case that the basic cost-benefit assumptions underneath many of the current policies are radically wrong and counterproductive. Yeah, so what would you replace it with?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
514. How to Solve All of America’s Energy Problems | Alex Epstein
Serious risks, not like the risk of having- Like driving to work, for example.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
514. How to Solve All of America’s Energy Problems | Alex Epstein
Yes, exactly. The storage is just so prohibitive. Norway's having a fit at the moment, right? Because they're having to export their electricity because of the treaties they've signed. And their power supply is so unreliable that they're having spot price hikes of up to $1,000 per kilowatt hour, something like that.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
514. How to Solve All of America’s Energy Problems | Alex Epstein
To give you a sense, there's a really— So you're basically making the claim, if I understand it properly, that the— The thorny problem of how to calculate the value of a life in economic terms is just to turn to productivity. What you basically say is, well, the typical person has a productivity level of this amount, and that's how we're going to value their life.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
514. How to Solve All of America’s Energy Problems | Alex Epstein
That doesn't mean that's what their life is worth.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
514. How to Solve All of America’s Energy Problems | Alex Epstein
It's the same issue. It's their life-sustaining ability. Yeah, well, you can't translate that into economics.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
514. How to Solve All of America’s Energy Problems | Alex Epstein
Right, right.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
514. How to Solve All of America’s Energy Problems | Alex Epstein
That's the economics. That's the economist's repose to the Malthusian biologist. It's not a zero-sum game because if you free up time for innovation, you transform the territory that would otherwise be zero-sum.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
514. How to Solve All of America’s Energy Problems | Alex Epstein
Yes, right. Yes, yes.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
514. How to Solve All of America’s Energy Problems | Alex Epstein
Yeah, well, you can see why the approach that you're taking is difficult because as you cascade down the levels of abstraction to the detail, the details multiply. Yeah. And the complexity multiplies, right?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
514. How to Solve All of America’s Energy Problems | Alex Epstein
I really like your emphasis on the nexus between energy provision and human flourishing. So I had the good fortune to speak again today with Alex Epstein, who I spoke with two years ago, almost to the day. Alex is the author of two influential books. One, the first one, The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels, and the second one, Fossil Future. And Alex has been beating the pro-human era.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
514. How to Solve All of America’s Energy Problems | Alex Epstein
Right, right, that's a big flaw.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
514. How to Solve All of America’s Energy Problems | Alex Epstein
So we don't want to program an AI with the Clean Air Act.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
514. How to Solve All of America’s Energy Problems | Alex Epstein
Yeah, right, no kidding.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
514. How to Solve All of America’s Energy Problems | Alex Epstein
It's a desert. Yeah. And it's really nice to live there because there's water.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
514. How to Solve All of America’s Energy Problems | Alex Epstein
Or endless sunshine in the desert for solar panels.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
514. How to Solve All of America’s Energy Problems | Alex Epstein
We learned that in Canada when Jasper, the town of Jasper, burnt to the ground. Because people ignored the federal government. They ignored the fuel load that was gathering around the town, despite repeated warnings.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
514. How to Solve All of America’s Energy Problems | Alex Epstein
Well, or even to the forest itself. I mean, one of the problems as far as I've been able to tell is that if
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
514. How to Solve All of America’s Energy Problems | Alex Epstein
forests are managed in such a way that that undergrowth builds up and builds up when they do burn which they will they can burn so hot that they burn the topsoil out yeah right so that's obviously not good for the long-term viability of the of the forest itself yeah i mean this question but when you're thinking like what exactly does that mean like who's the forest is just a collection of things so it's not like the forest is like one little right it's like not a forest being but yeah in terms of the forest for any purpose you would want it for
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
514. How to Solve All of America’s Energy Problems | Alex Epstein
It's a purity violation.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
514. How to Solve All of America’s Energy Problems | Alex Epstein
If they were in it, they would die, too.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
514. How to Solve All of America’s Energy Problems | Alex Epstein
Yeah, quickly. Okay, so let's close with comments on nuclear.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
514. How to Solve All of America’s Energy Problems | Alex Epstein
Like exposure to immunological... agents in childhood.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
514. How to Solve All of America’s Energy Problems | Alex Epstein
Oh, yeah.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
514. How to Solve All of America’s Energy Problems | Alex Epstein
So... So what's interesting about talking to you? Well, I think, first of all, it's a sense of relief, I would say, because it's quite remarkable watching you delve into the details. You know, you differentiated the energy problem into five major tranches. And then you've developed this very detailed knowledge of each of those tranches.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
514. How to Solve All of America’s Energy Problems | Alex Epstein
And it was obvious that we were just scraping the surface there. And it's like, you can understand, it's easy to understand and consequently, of talking to someone who's developed the kind of detailed knowledge that you've developed, just exactly why it is that so much public policy fails, right? There's a lot of work to be done at the level of detail.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
514. How to Solve All of America’s Energy Problems | Alex Epstein
It's very, very difficult to understand exactly what the obstacles are. And it's very, attractive intellectually and morally to hand wave at the highest level of abstraction possible, right? And that hand waving is part of the problem that causes all the impediments, that produces all the impediments that you've been describing. So now, you're hoping... Just one quick comment on this.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
514. How to Solve All of America’s Energy Problems | Alex Epstein
And Apple gets credit.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
514. How to Solve All of America’s Energy Problems | Alex Epstein
I see, I see.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
514. How to Solve All of America’s Energy Problems | Alex Epstein
Yeah, well, you're straddling this weird divide between public notoriety, which is one skill set, and your ability to delve into the details of policy at a micro level. That's a very rare combination of interest and ability.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
514. How to Solve All of America’s Energy Problems | Alex Epstein
Right. They don't have the public face.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
514. How to Solve All of America’s Energy Problems | Alex Epstein
Why do they pay it?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
514. How to Solve All of America’s Energy Problems | Alex Epstein
Right, right. Okay, so let's review it for the people who are just going to be listening on audio. Tell me again the right places of contact, your email address, and then the other proper places of further investigation online.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
514. How to Solve All of America’s Energy Problems | Alex Epstein
So, okay, so for everybody who's watching and listening, we're going to switch over to the Daily Wire side now. As most of you know, that's going to happen. That's another 30 minutes. I'm going to talk to Alex about some things that are more personal.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
514. How to Solve All of America’s Energy Problems | Alex Epstein
I want to talk to him about how he learned to be an effective public speaker, because when he started doing this and started envisioning it, he was absolutely terrified by that proposition. And so I'm very interested in how he... how and why he overcame those initial hesitancies and inadequacies, let's say, or inabilities. We want to talk about how to improve your information diet.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
514. How to Solve All of America’s Energy Problems | Alex Epstein
So I suppose that's something that Alex introduced to me, that idea, just before we started the podcast, and I presume that's a way of strategically approaching the problem of what sources of information you expose yourself to online and elsewhere.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
514. How to Solve All of America’s Energy Problems | Alex Epstein
And we're going to talk about parenthood as well, and how maybe you balance that with a productive career, because Alex has recently become a new father. So if you want to join us on the Daily Wire side for that, we've got another half an hour to spend with Alex Epstein. And in the meantime, Thank you, sir. Thank you. It was a lot more fun to do it in person. Yes, definitely, definitely.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
514. How to Solve All of America’s Energy Problems | Alex Epstein
It was, yeah. Well, I'm also struck, you know, like I really enjoyed talking to you the last time we talked, and I've enjoyed talking to you every time we've met, but, you know, you seem to be operating at a... another plane of analysis at the moment, and it's really quite something to see.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
514. How to Solve All of America’s Energy Problems | Alex Epstein
I mean, you're a wealth of information that's not only very well thought through from the perspective of first principles on the philosophical side, But all of that's integrated with all this wealth of detailed information that you have at hand.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
514. How to Solve All of America’s Energy Problems | Alex Epstein
And that should be an invaluable resource for public policy makers who actually want to make a difference in this pro-human direction that you've described, which is crucially important to everyone, crucially important to everyone.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
514. How to Solve All of America’s Energy Problems | Alex Epstein
Behavioral psychotherapy in particular.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
514. How to Solve All of America’s Energy Problems | Alex Epstein
Yeah, well, there's something to be said for clarifying things conceptually, and there's something else to be said for differentiating the conceptual into the behavioral. Here's something you could actually do that will serve these ends. Yes. Yeah, that's kind of an optimized approach, isn't it? Because you clear up the conceptual and you lay the groundwork for a practical movement.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
514. How to Solve All of America’s Energy Problems | Alex Epstein
That's the shit. So can you walk everybody through what's at the base of the demand for the IT? I know it's associated with artificial intelligence and these massive banks of computational banks they're producing, but I'm unclear about the details. What is it that's drawing such immense resources of power?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
514. How to Solve All of America’s Energy Problems | Alex Epstein
Yeah, right, which is meaningful action. Yes, exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Good to see you, man. Likewise. Yeah, yeah, great talking to you. Yeah, and great listening, for sure. Yeah. Anyways, thank you, everybody, for your time and attention today. And check out the web resources that Alex described.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
514. How to Solve All of America’s Energy Problems | Alex Epstein
You can, especially if you're politically minded and in a position of political authority, because there's a tremendous amount of work to be done in the domain that Alex is describing that could have nothing but, you know, an endless stream of positive benefits. So we want to get right on that.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
514. How to Solve All of America’s Energy Problems | Alex Epstein
energy slash environment drum for some 17 years. And with increasing effectiveness, I would say he's one of the people at the forefront of the dawning realization that impoverishing humanity and destroying the industrial infrastructure of the West while making energy spectacularly expensive and unreliable
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
514. How to Solve All of America’s Energy Problems | Alex Epstein
Yeah, right.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Jordan Peterson on Pathological Masculinity, Alarming Political Gender Gap Among Young Voters, and Snow White | Ep. 1035
I taught at Harvard, let's say, in 1995. I was there from 92 to 98. And it was the most effective and admirable institution I'd ever been associated with by a lot. It was the students were super bright. A third of them were so smart, they'd catch on to anything you told them on first exposure. And the bottom third, who probably were geniuses at some other subject,
The Megyn Kelly Show
Jordan Peterson on Pathological Masculinity, Alarming Political Gender Gap Among Young Voters, and Snow White | Ep. 1035
they'd catch on with a little work. The senior faculty were great. The junior faculty were top rate and hardworking. It was really a good place. And it had a well-deserved reputation, which it had built up over decades by strenuously selecting only virtually only on the basis of merit.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Jordan Peterson on Pathological Masculinity, Alarming Political Gender Gap Among Young Voters, and Snow White | Ep. 1035
There was also some selection in terms of family history, but that didn't overall that didn't produce a decrement in student quality. And since 2010, There were some signs of rot in the 1990s because some of the departments, like English, had already become pretty politically correct. And I had my run-ins with the Department of... of English when I was at Harvard, minor things, but helling.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Jordan Peterson on Pathological Masculinity, Alarming Political Gender Gap Among Young Voters, and Snow White | Ep. 1035
But by about 2010, that whole reality, it just doesn't exist anymore. That's partly why we built Peterson Academy, because my sense, I've also been involved with Ralston College in Georgia, we are attempting there to build another bricks and mortar institution. And that's been quite successful. We've graduated three top rate master's classes at Ralston college.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Jordan Peterson on Pathological Masculinity, Alarming Political Gender Gap Among Young Voters, and Snow White | Ep. 1035
So, but it's, it's very, it's a very expensive enterprise. Whereas online, the price is well for Peterson Academy, the tuition is $600 a year. And so it's, Now we're not accredited yet. And that's partly because the accreditation agencies are also captured by the woke mob.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Jordan Peterson on Pathological Masculinity, Alarming Political Gender Gap Among Young Voters, and Snow White | Ep. 1035
And so part of what your parents have to do is they have to understand that it's not 1995 and that you're not doing your children a service by sending them to Especially the boys. Well, I wouldn't even say that. It might even be worse for the girls now. And we could get into that if you'd like. Because I didn't purposely focus my attention on boys.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Jordan Peterson on Pathological Masculinity, Alarming Political Gender Gap Among Young Voters, and Snow White | Ep. 1035
It's just that when I started my YouTube channel, 80% of YouTube viewers and listeners are male. And so I picked up a big male audience. But it's not like the girls are in better shape. I would say arguably... on the psychological side, they're in worse shape.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Jordan Peterson on Pathological Masculinity, Alarming Political Gender Gap Among Young Voters, and Snow White | Ep. 1035
It's more than 50% of young women 18 to 34 who profess liberal political proclivity also self-report at least one diagnosed mental illness and rates of depression and anxiety In that population, 18 to 34-year-old young women have skyrocketed.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Jordan Peterson on Pathological Masculinity, Alarming Political Gender Gap Among Young Voters, and Snow White | Ep. 1035
And we should also point out that the entire progressive enterprise would collapse if young women weren't being propagandized in a massive manner, not only by the universities, but by bad actors at the international level on platforms like TikTok, which what's happening to young women on TikTok is absolutely reprehensible. I've documented that with some of the people I'm working with.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Jordan Peterson on Pathological Masculinity, Alarming Political Gender Gap Among Young Voters, and Snow White | Ep. 1035
And yeah, it's, and it's been terrible. Well, obviously, you can't demoralize young men without simultaneously terribly affecting young women, because what's harmful to one sex is going to be immediately harmful to the other. And so all this hand-waving on the part of the Democrats, it's too little too late.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Jordan Peterson on Pathological Masculinity, Alarming Political Gender Gap Among Young Voters, and Snow White | Ep. 1035
And it's also, I'm certain that they don't have the wherewithal to do this properly because virtually everything they've set their foundations on is rotten to the core. As you can tell, everyone knows. That's why, what are the Democrats running at now in terms of popularity in the U.S.? Something like 27%.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Jordan Peterson on Pathological Masculinity, Alarming Political Gender Gap Among Young Voters, and Snow White | Ep. 1035
It's really good to see you.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Jordan Peterson on Pathological Masculinity, Alarming Political Gender Gap Among Young Voters, and Snow White | Ep. 1035
Yeah, well, that's more indication of just how deep the rot goes. I seriously can't see, and I don't say this with any satisfaction. You know, I really like McGill University in Montreal. I had a great graduate education there. I had a great advisor and I love teaching at Harvard.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Jordan Peterson on Pathological Masculinity, Alarming Political Gender Gap Among Young Voters, and Snow White | Ep. 1035
And I really enjoyed the University of Toronto for the 20 years I was there before everything fell apart in about 2017. And I'm not the least bit happy to be pointing my finger at these institutions and say that they've not only lost their way, but that they're perverting and all of our young people and all of our institutions and that they're clearly not salvageable.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Jordan Peterson on Pathological Masculinity, Alarming Political Gender Gap Among Young Voters, and Snow White | Ep. 1035
And I know why they're not salvageable. So the first reason is that they became absurdly administratively top heavy. And that happened pretty much from the 60s onward, where all the extra money that was devoted to education essentially went not to students and certainly not to professors or researchers, but to an ever expanding administration.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Jordan Peterson on Pathological Masculinity, Alarming Political Gender Gap Among Young Voters, and Snow White | Ep. 1035
And that probably peaked around in terms of just administration. That probably peaked around 2010. And then the woke mob took over the administration. And so now that's who runs the universities. And you can get them to forego their DEI and equity terminology, but all they'll do is camouflage their same machinations under different headings. They already think this way.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Jordan Peterson on Pathological Masculinity, Alarming Political Gender Gap Among Young Voters, and Snow White | Ep. 1035
Those are fundamental differences. They're not surface. They're not going to retool their epistemological commitments. They're not going to become different philosophically. They're not going to learn their lesson. And then on the faculty side, especially in the last 10 years, say, when you literally couldn't get hired at a university.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Jordan Peterson on Pathological Masculinity, Alarming Political Gender Gap Among Young Voters, and Snow White | Ep. 1035
Well, first of all, if you were male and Caucasian, you could just take that off the table. But also if you didn't write a diversity statement that indicated your submission to or fervent advocacy of the radical progressive ideology. I swear allegiance to it. Absolutely.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Jordan Peterson on Pathological Masculinity, Alarming Political Gender Gap Among Young Voters, and Snow White | Ep. 1035
Well, the goal was to bring university education into the 21st century and more specifically to find the best professors in the world and to bring them to everyone at the lowest possible price. And I'm in a fortunate position because I have interviewed and met thousands of people and I have a very large connection among academics and thinkers in general. and a reasonable reputation among them.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Jordan Peterson on Pathological Masculinity, Alarming Political Gender Gap Among Young Voters, and Snow White | Ep. 1035
In the University of California system, which was a great system for a long time, especially on the scientific side, 80% of candidates were knocked out of the running for beginning positions as assistant professors in the scientific realms because their diversity statements were inadequate. This was before their research dossiers were evaluated.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Jordan Peterson on Pathological Masculinity, Alarming Political Gender Gap Among Young Voters, and Snow White | Ep. 1035
Now, you just can't imagine, unless you're a scientist, can't imagine what that means.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Jordan Peterson on Pathological Masculinity, Alarming Political Gender Gap Among Young Voters, and Snow White | Ep. 1035
The only thing that matters with regards to the prediction of your ability as a researcher, and this is statistically speaking, the best predictor of your future success as a researcher is the number of publications you had as a graduate student, because that's actually a direct index of how well you did your job.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Jordan Peterson on Pathological Masculinity, Alarming Political Gender Gap Among Young Voters, and Snow White | Ep. 1035
And so to take that off the table in favor of racial categories and political belief means that the scientific endeavor is just dead in the water at the universities.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Jordan Peterson on Pathological Masculinity, Alarming Political Gender Gap Among Young Voters, and Snow White | Ep. 1035
Yeah, well, so the reason the Ivy League diploma became so valuable is that from about 1960 onward, the universities made a concerted effort to select essentially on the basis of intellectual capacity, general cognitive ability. And that's a measure that differs widely between people, as everyone who's ever gone to school knows.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Jordan Peterson on Pathological Masculinity, Alarming Political Gender Gap Among Young Voters, and Snow White | Ep. 1035
you know perfectly well that in the average class of 30 kids, there's three kids that are outstanding academic performers. And there's three kids who just can't be taught even the basics without a tremendous amount of extra effort. Everyone knows that. And what the universities as a whole did, especially after World War II,
The Megyn Kelly Show
Jordan Peterson on Pathological Masculinity, Alarming Political Gender Gap Among Young Voters, and Snow White | Ep. 1035
but it really got going in the sixties was radically select on the basis of intelligence. And what that meant was that an Ivy league degree was a stamp of extreme intellectual competence. And that's why the brand value went through the roof. Now the effective intelligence on performance, isn't linear. It's exponential.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Jordan Peterson on Pathological Masculinity, Alarming Political Gender Gap Among Young Voters, and Snow White | Ep. 1035
And so if you can select selectively for extremely intelligent people, you get a non-linear return in terms of enhanced productivity in consequence of doing that. And so the universities did that, especially with the SATs and the GREs and the LSATs and the MCATs, which, although there's a lot of noise around this, are fundamentally intelligence tests.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Jordan Peterson on Pathological Masculinity, Alarming Political Gender Gap Among Young Voters, and Snow White | Ep. 1035
And so now if you can stamp your graduates with the assurance that they're in the 99th percentile for intelligence, then it makes perfect sense for every employer worth his salt to line up to hire them. Okay, but now what happened was the universities produced a brand that was of unbelievable economic value because of their selection technologies.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Jordan Peterson on Pathological Masculinity, Alarming Political Gender Gap Among Young Voters, and Snow White | Ep. 1035
And then that got gamed by the progressives and the radicals. So they can destroy the universities by filling them with progressives, let's say, who are selected for reasons other than their intellectual prowess, to put it mildly. And there'll be some lag before everybody figures out that the degrees have lost their value. Now that's already starting to happen.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Jordan Peterson on Pathological Masculinity, Alarming Political Gender Gap Among Young Voters, and Snow White | Ep. 1035
And so if I talk to them about Peterson Academy and invite them to lecture about whatever they would love to lecture about, they're very likely to do that. And we have an extremely efficient team. So we like to joke that we're 10 times the quality at 120th the price. And I actually think that's about right because at the typical large university, regardless of its reputation,
The Megyn Kelly Show
Jordan Peterson on Pathological Masculinity, Alarming Political Gender Gap Among Young Voters, and Snow White | Ep. 1035
A lot of the tech companies are moving toward their own selection because the universities are no longer viable as screening institutions. But these parents you talk about, like I said, especially in places like New York that are still democratic to the core, they still think it's 1995 and it's not even 2000 anymore. Like it's seriously not 1995.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Jordan Peterson on Pathological Masculinity, Alarming Political Gender Gap Among Young Voters, and Snow White | Ep. 1035
Things have changed a lot and they're going to change more. We hope with Peterson Academy that we can keep our students on the cutting edge of learning and that we'll leverage all the new learning technologies to make that possible and be able to do that, as I said, radically, radically less expensively. We already have 50,000 students who've taken us up on the offer. And so...
The Megyn Kelly Show
Jordan Peterson on Pathological Masculinity, Alarming Political Gender Gap Among Young Voters, and Snow White | Ep. 1035
I can't, I really can't see, Megan, I'm really dead serious about this. You know, like I said, I was involved, am involved with Ralston College. I've had conversations with the University of Austin folks. If the universities were salvageable, that would be a lovely thing. But here's a thought. The universities are rotting everywhere, everywhere.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Jordan Peterson on Pathological Masculinity, Alarming Political Gender Gap Among Young Voters, and Snow White | Ep. 1035
Okay, so one diagnosis is the reason they're rotting is because they're dead. Like their time is over.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Jordan Peterson on Pathological Masculinity, Alarming Political Gender Gap Among Young Voters, and Snow White | Ep. 1035
Well, I've watched companies fail. big companies, tech companies, research institutions, all sorts of different large organizations. And it's very hard to stem the tide once it turns, very hard. And if your organization is only making one mistake, That might be fatal, but I think the universities are making – like I made a list once. I think they're making 10 mistakes.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Jordan Peterson on Pathological Masculinity, Alarming Political Gender Gap Among Young Voters, and Snow White | Ep. 1035
Yeah, well, you know, there are schools that have managed to teach non-selected inner city kids extraordinarily effectively. There's a school in the UK called the Michaela School run by Catherine Birbelsingh, which has done a job that's so good, you just can't believe it. And so there are educational initiatives that can work and can work for minorities.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Jordan Peterson on Pathological Masculinity, Alarming Political Gender Gap Among Young Voters, and Snow White | Ep. 1035
Catherine Birbelsingh School is minority dominated, The students are selected from low tiers in the economic hierarchy. And she graduates more students into Russell Group universities. That includes Oxford and Cambridge. Well, let's stick with Oxford and Cambridge to begin with.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Jordan Peterson on Pathological Masculinity, Alarming Political Gender Gap Among Young Voters, and Snow White | Ep. 1035
She graduates a higher percentage of her students into Russell Group universities than any other school in the UK, including Eton. And so the kinds of initiatives that are being proposed can work. But one of the comical things about Catherine Burbles saying is that Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Jordan Peterson on Pathological Masculinity, Alarming Political Gender Gap Among Young Voters, and Snow White | Ep. 1035
the bulk of the lectures are not top great, top rate. I'd say maybe 10% of them are, and all of ours are top 1%. And so you can learn a tremendous amount. We have a very good social network there too. free of bots and trolls and the sorts of people who make normal social media interaction quite the insanity-provoking ordeal.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Jordan Peterson on Pathological Masculinity, Alarming Political Gender Gap Among Young Voters, and Snow White | Ep. 1035
And our social media site, The Quad, is very positive and upward-aiming, and people seem to enjoy it a lot.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Jordan Peterson on Pathological Masculinity, Alarming Political Gender Gap Among Young Voters, and Snow White | Ep. 1035
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. ,, young women need to make finding a husband and having a child a priority in their 20s, probably their early 20s. And then they can concentrate on their career if they're inclined to for the next 30 years of their life, just plenty to be a slave to a corporate entity.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Jordan Peterson on Pathological Masculinity, Alarming Political Gender Gap Among Young Voters, and Snow White | Ep. 1035
You know, I don't make clips like that and put them online, but people clip my lectures and Maybe they'll make a little three-minute piece where I'll say something like that. And it's inevitably the case that the comments fill up with comments from young women that are so vitriolic that they just make your hair curl.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Jordan Peterson on Pathological Masculinity, Alarming Political Gender Gap Among Young Voters, and Snow White | Ep. 1035
about this horrible old white man who's telling them what to do with their bodies, which is so idiotic because I'm trying to warn them. I had lots of women in my clinical practice who ended up alone and childless in their 30s and then got desperate about it, you know, because you get desperate about it. And let me tell you, that's not fun.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Jordan Peterson on Pathological Masculinity, Alarming Political Gender Gap Among Young Voters, and Snow White | Ep. 1035
Well, that's a topic well worth delving into, partly because it would also enable us to talk a little bit about what's happening hypothetically on what is hypothetically described as the right. So I guess you might, there's a number of people who have influenced young men in a more conservative direction, and I'm one of them, and Ben Shapiro is another, and Andrew Tate is a third.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Jordan Peterson on Pathological Masculinity, Alarming Political Gender Gap Among Young Voters, and Snow White | Ep. 1035
And I warned people back in 2016 that if they kept making men weak, that there would be a consequence of that because weak men do very terrible things. They turn, for example, for their models to people like Andrew Tate. Now, the reason I'm bringing that up in relationship to the clips that you showed me is because you put together three clips that
The Megyn Kelly Show
Jordan Peterson on Pathological Masculinity, Alarming Political Gender Gap Among Young Voters, and Snow White | Ep. 1035
are predicated on the assumption that masculinity has this kind of brisk, pushy, I don't give a damn if I swear on national TV, because I'm so tough, kind of men to it. And it's very easy for weak men to assume that power, is the defining characteristic of a respectable man, like an actually masculine man. And that's what Andrew Tate, at least in part, purports to sell his audience.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Jordan Peterson on Pathological Masculinity, Alarming Political Gender Gap Among Young Voters, and Snow White | Ep. 1035
So now Andrew Tate is a very bad actor, to say the least. He's a pimp, an electronic pimp. And I think pimps are possibly the lowest form of male life because they are parasitic on women. And that's about as bad as you can get if you're a man. Maybe you can get lower because you could be parasitic on children. But being parasitic on women, that's pretty bad.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Jordan Peterson on Pathological Masculinity, Alarming Political Gender Gap Among Young Voters, and Snow White | Ep. 1035
And he's taught his followers how to be this, you know, playboy Lothario type of love them and leave them, do it my way or hit the goddamn highway sort of attitude. And you know, if you've been demoralized your entire life,
The Megyn Kelly Show
Jordan Peterson on Pathological Masculinity, Alarming Political Gender Gap Among Young Voters, and Snow White | Ep. 1035
and you haven't been attractive to women and you're not doing well in your career and you're very disoriented and you've had no role models at all, then someone who has all the trappings of surface success like Andrew Tate, and who's very good at flaunting it, can look like just the medicine you need.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Jordan Peterson on Pathological Masculinity, Alarming Political Gender Gap Among Young Voters, and Snow White | Ep. 1035
And to give the devil his due, I can understand why men who have nothing would at least want to have something. And I can see that Andrew Tate offers that to them. And that is not any advocacy for Andrew Tate, as I've already made my view of him very clear. Now, the left likes to think that Andrew Tate and me, for example, are gateways to the alt-right, and that somehow we're the same.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Jordan Peterson on Pathological Masculinity, Alarming Political Gender Gap Among Young Voters, and Snow White | Ep. 1035
And we're not the same at all. And what I'm offering young men is a pathway to adulthood through responsibility, not through the exercise of power. Now, if you're powerful and you're strong and you're forthright and you're articulate, then you can harness all that power into your responsibility. And that can make you an even better man. But if you weaken men, they will 100%.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Jordan Peterson on Pathological Masculinity, Alarming Political Gender Gap Among Young Voters, and Snow White | Ep. 1035
they'll become nihilistic, they'll become hedonistic, and they'll worship power. And Andrew Tate is exactly the face of power worship. And you can bloody well expect to see a lot more of that coming down the pipes. And if the Democrats are daft enough to turn to a power representation of masculinity,
The Megyn Kelly Show
Jordan Peterson on Pathological Masculinity, Alarming Political Gender Gap Among Young Voters, and Snow White | Ep. 1035
because they're too foolish to understand the relationship, let's say, between responsibility and proper masculinity, then they deserve exactly what's coming to them. And what will come to them is no increase whatsoever in their approval rating among young men, because anyone with a clue can see through what they're doing in 15 seconds flat.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Jordan Peterson on Pathological Masculinity, Alarming Political Gender Gap Among Young Voters, and Snow White | Ep. 1035
But they'll also do nothing but promote people like Andrew Tate, and then we'll have serious trouble. That's for sure.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Jordan Peterson on Pathological Masculinity, Alarming Political Gender Gap Among Young Voters, and Snow White | Ep. 1035
Well, it's partly because the left doesn't have a vision of responsible masculinity. So it's either, you know, soy boy or bully. That's their whole theory of masculinity. And if you're, you shouldn't be a bully because that's the worst. And actually that's not the worst. If you think bully is the worst, you know, very little about worst. There's way there's,
The Megyn Kelly Show
Jordan Peterson on Pathological Masculinity, Alarming Political Gender Gap Among Young Voters, and Snow White | Ep. 1035
abysses of hell that make bully look like paradise. And the Democrats, the progressives are very naive in their conceptualization of malevolence and evil. Like they tend to think that bad people are victims. It's like, that's because they, in their world, bad people don't exist. And in my world, bad people exist. And I know what they're like. And bully is
The Megyn Kelly Show
Jordan Peterson on Pathological Masculinity, Alarming Political Gender Gap Among Young Voters, and Snow White | Ep. 1035
a pretty desirable form of bad person compared to the real monsters. And the Democrats just have no clue of that at all. And so they don't know. what sort of man a boy would admire if he was set on the right path. Because, well, for example, they think marriage is a patriarchal oppressive institution.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Jordan Peterson on Pathological Masculinity, Alarming Political Gender Gap Among Young Voters, and Snow White | Ep. 1035
And so a man who's willing to offer himself as a husband and a father, well, he's just another bloody oppressor, isn't he?
The Megyn Kelly Show
Jordan Peterson on Pathological Masculinity, Alarming Political Gender Gap Among Young Voters, and Snow White | Ep. 1035
Well, it is one of the paradoxical things about Elon, too. He's a very weird conservative, so he's not a conservative, and neither is Trump, obviously. Neither is Trump. No, and also, by the way, the divide in our society is no longer between left and right. Those categories don't even make any sense anymore as far as I'm concerned.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Jordan Peterson on Pathological Masculinity, Alarming Political Gender Gap Among Young Voters, and Snow White | Ep. 1035
I mean, one of the Democrats whose video you posted earlier pointed out that increasingly the Democrats are the party of women. And that's part of what's happening is actually we're actually seeing a sex divide in terms of political affiliation. But it's not because the women are becoming left and the men becoming right. It's because the left is now feminine and the right is now masculine.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Jordan Peterson on Pathological Masculinity, Alarming Political Gender Gap Among Young Voters, and Snow White | Ep. 1035
And the political distinctions have become virtually undetectable and irrelevant. The old categories don't work. Now... And it isn't only that the left has become feminine and the right has become masculine, but that's a big part of what's driving the strangeness of today's political discourse. Because it's also the case that the Democrats have become pathologically feminine.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Jordan Peterson on Pathological Masculinity, Alarming Political Gender Gap Among Young Voters, and Snow White | Ep. 1035
And that's not the same thing as becoming feminine. No, I get it. Democrats will say, well, the... The Republicans have become pathologically masculine and there is a danger of that, like Andrew Tate's the face of pathological masculinity, and you can see that to some degree in Trump, because he likes to throw his weight around and he's actually very good at it, but
The Megyn Kelly Show
Jordan Peterson on Pathological Masculinity, Alarming Political Gender Gap Among Young Voters, and Snow White | Ep. 1035
fundamentally, like, first of all, you can look at his family. I mean, they're a pretty high functioning bunch. There's no Hunter Biden in the Trump tribe, you know, and he seems to get along pretty well with his wife. And she seems to be a pretty classy character. And she stays in her lane. And I don't mean that in any misogynist way.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Jordan Peterson on Pathological Masculinity, Alarming Political Gender Gap Among Young Voters, and Snow White | Ep. 1035
Yeah, yeah. Well, and she's got enough humility to play her role well and to be apparently satisfied and grateful for that by all appearances. And so, you know, Trump is a blustery character and he's definitely got that kind of
The Megyn Kelly Show
Jordan Peterson on Pathological Masculinity, Alarming Political Gender Gap Among Young Voters, and Snow White | Ep. 1035
throw your shoulders around masculinity that is attractive to people who confuse power with masculinity but he's also there's a lot more to trump than that i mean he's got a vicious vicious sense of humor he's got a tremendous amount of energy and he's been successful at like five impossible things just like musk and you can throw that away and
The Megyn Kelly Show
Jordan Peterson on Pathological Masculinity, Alarming Political Gender Gap Among Young Voters, and Snow White | Ep. 1035
as you would if you felt that all forms of capitalist success are just another manifestation of oppressive patriarchy. But, you know, that's a pretty idiot theory unless you're a progressive leftist.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Jordan Peterson on Pathological Masculinity, Alarming Political Gender Gap Among Young Voters, and Snow White | Ep. 1035
Sure, why not? You know, people have been after me for a long time because I've been speaking to disaffected young men. You know, what a terrible thing to do that is. I thought the marginalized were supposed to have a voice.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Jordan Peterson on Pathological Masculinity, Alarming Political Gender Gap Among Young Voters, and Snow White | Ep. 1035
Well, God, you know. It's very difficult to understand how demoralized people are. And certainly many young men are in that category.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Jordan Peterson on Pathological Masculinity, Alarming Political Gender Gap Among Young Voters, and Snow White | Ep. 1035
Well, I'd like to say something in defense of Chris Pine momentarily. I heard through the grapevine, by the way, that he had no idea that that character was based on me until after he finished the movie and he started paying some attention to what I was saying and actually... I found out that he agreed with my stance.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Jordan Peterson on Pathological Masculinity, Alarming Political Gender Gap Among Young Voters, and Snow White | Ep. 1035
So now I'm not absolutely certain that's true, but I heard it from a very reliable source. So if I've got that wrong, my apologies, but I'd like to set the record clear if I do have it right. Well, that clip's very interesting because it indicates the, misapprehension of, first of all, what I think.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Jordan Peterson on Pathological Masculinity, Alarming Political Gender Gap Among Young Voters, and Snow White | Ep. 1035
It was interesting that the screenplay focused on chaos, for example, because it is the case that chaos and possibility tend to be symbolized with the feminine. And that's not my doing. That's the basis of literary symbolism and psychological symbolism for thousands and thousands of years. And it's partly because
The Megyn Kelly Show
Jordan Peterson on Pathological Masculinity, Alarming Political Gender Gap Among Young Voters, and Snow White | Ep. 1035
The feminine is a useful symbolic marker for possibility because females bring new life forms into the world. And so chaos isn't the enemy of order. It's the dance partner of order in the transformation that leads to progress across time. So... She just didn't get that right at all, like not even a bit. And that's indicative of the shallowness of her analysis.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Jordan Peterson on Pathological Masculinity, Alarming Political Gender Gap Among Young Voters, and Snow White | Ep. 1035
You know, there is an element to me that's like a 1950s preacher, you know, and that's fair enough. I mean, I've been teaching people religious stories for 40 years. And I gather large audiences and the lectures are emotional and they're motivational. And so I can see why... People who think they're my enemy are set back on their heels by that because they don't know what to make of it.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Jordan Peterson on Pathological Masculinity, Alarming Political Gender Gap Among Young Voters, and Snow White | Ep. 1035
And that's not surprising because isn't it really quite remarkable that young men will come and listen to lectures about the Bible, for example? Like, what the hell? There's no logic to having that be a market or that they're happy to be lectured to about responsibility. Like, it really is a mystery. And it's not surprising that...
The Megyn Kelly Show
Jordan Peterson on Pathological Masculinity, Alarming Political Gender Gap Among Young Voters, and Snow White | Ep. 1035
artistic types on the left would try to figure out what the hell's going on. But the sad thing is, is they just got it so cataclysmically wrong. So, you know, it isn't, it isn't me or the soy boys, boys and girls, it's me or Andrew Tate. So you can take your pick. And I wouldn't, I wouldn't recommend the worshipers of power. If you want to see toxic masculinity, like you ain't seen nothing yet.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Jordan Peterson on Pathological Masculinity, Alarming Political Gender Gap Among Young Voters, and Snow White | Ep. 1035
And if you think it's married men who are like working that are toxically masculine, then look, here's an example. So, you know, Disney just nose planted remarkably with Snow White. And so in the original Grimm's fairy tale, which is a very, very old story, right? Because Grimm gathered these stories. We have no idea how old they are.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Jordan Peterson on Pathological Masculinity, Alarming Political Gender Gap Among Young Voters, and Snow White | Ep. 1035
There's indication that some of our folktales are 15,000 years old. They're really old, and you can't mess with them because they have a logic. Okay, so now you might ask yourself, well, why does Snow White have to run away from the evil queen? Who's the evil queen? Well, in the Grimm's fairy tale, the evil queen puts Snow White in a bodice that's so tight she can't breathe.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Jordan Peterson on Pathological Masculinity, Alarming Political Gender Gap Among Young Voters, and Snow White | Ep. 1035
So that pathologizes her sexuality. And then she gives her a comb that poisons her because that's the temptation towards narcissism. And then she feeds her a poisoned apple, which is exactly what the harpy ideologues are doing to young women to destabilize their identity and to push them off the reproductive tract. And so track. Both of those interpretations work, by the way.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Jordan Peterson on Pathological Masculinity, Alarming Political Gender Gap Among Young Voters, and Snow White | Ep. 1035
Well, it's a little late in the game to be concerned about the sorts of things that I would say the progressives have actually produced. I mean, we've had four generations, say 60 years at least, of targeted demoralization of young men and, well, men in general. Boys, young men, and men in general. Because boys' play preferences are...
The Megyn Kelly Show
Jordan Peterson on Pathological Masculinity, Alarming Political Gender Gap Among Young Voters, and Snow White | Ep. 1035
And so that's the Evil Queen. Okay, now, when Snow White runs away from the Evil Queen, where does she go to get her act together? Well, she goes to live among the dwarfs. And who are the dwarfs? They're hard-working, orderly, responsible, ordinary men who keep a clean house. And she learns to be appreciative of their ability to protect her from the evil queen.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Jordan Peterson on Pathological Masculinity, Alarming Political Gender Gap Among Young Voters, and Snow White | Ep. 1035
And so she grows up and then she can find a prince. Right. And like these are the sorts of stories that I'm telling people. And when I tell them, they understand because the stories make sense. Like everything I said there is immediately comprehensible. Right. You think, oh, yes, obviously. Right. Well, it's not so obvious.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Jordan Peterson on Pathological Masculinity, Alarming Political Gender Gap Among Young Voters, and Snow White | Ep. 1035
Not well, apparently controversial enough so that Disney would rewrite the entire story and spend a quarter of a billion dollars plus 150 billion on marketing to make a dull mess, right? And sink their damn company. And that's, well, that's just an indication, one indication of how absolutely messed up we are. You know, now that movie, I went and saw it.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Jordan Peterson on Pathological Masculinity, Alarming Political Gender Gap Among Young Voters, and Snow White | Ep. 1035
It could have been a lot worse than it was. You know, they reverted back to the dwarfs and not exactly accurately, but it was still basically a feminist revolutionary screed. And even that could have been interesting, although it wasn't. And the evil queen wasn't particularly evil, but the evil queen that's teaching women right now is particularly evil. And she's already made one quarter of them
The Megyn Kelly Show
Jordan Peterson on Pathological Masculinity, Alarming Political Gender Gap Among Young Voters, and Snow White | Ep. 1035
She's already knocked one quarter of them off the reproductive pathway. One in four. One in four. And so that's a complete catastrophe. And so, you know, Olivia Wilde, she's you know, you can understand it to some degree. She's trying to figure out, I imagine, how to balance career and public presence with family and more classic femininity, and that's a hard thing to get right.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Jordan Peterson on Pathological Masculinity, Alarming Political Gender Gap Among Young Voters, and Snow White | Ep. 1035
It isn't clear that we have figured that out exactly. We certainly don't teach young women well, and she's trying to figure out, you know, what the hell, why I'm attractive, and am I the same sort of creature as Andrew Tate, and am I like Trump or the worst of Trump? These are hard things to sort out, but but the way they were sorted out wasn't helpful.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Jordan Peterson on Pathological Masculinity, Alarming Political Gender Gap Among Young Voters, and Snow White | Ep. 1035
And her movie wasn't successful because it was wrong. Like she didn't get the story right. The real story is a lot more interesting. You know, because one of the mysteries she could have delved into is like, Why the hell are people, young men, letting me tell them stories about the Old Testament? Like, how the hell did that happen?
The Megyn Kelly Show
Jordan Peterson on Pathological Masculinity, Alarming Political Gender Gap Among Young Voters, and Snow White | Ep. 1035
And why is there a religious revival sweeping across the West in partial consequence? Like, that's a mystery. And you can say, well, that's because Peterson is a power-hungry misogynist. But I'm actually not power-hungry, and I'm not a misogynist. So that's a stupid story. And anybody who listens to me, who actually listens for more than like 10 minutes, figures that out immediately.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Jordan Peterson on Pathological Masculinity, Alarming Political Gender Gap Among Young Voters, and Snow White | Ep. 1035
So she just didn't... She wasn't guided by curiosity. She was guided by ideological pre-commitment, just like Disney. And that doesn't work when you're telling stories. They're dull.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Jordan Peterson on Pathological Masculinity, Alarming Political Gender Gap Among Young Voters, and Snow White | Ep. 1035
verboten in schools, which is why so many of them are diagnosed with attention deficit disorder, which as far as I'm concerned is a category that rarely even exists and is radically overprescribed. Boys on average are more active than girls and they're less agreeable. So they're more of a, you could say they're more of a discipline problem. Depends on what you're trying to discipline them to do.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Jordan Peterson on Pathological Masculinity, Alarming Political Gender Gap Among Young Voters, and Snow White | Ep. 1035
Yeah. Well, with regard to page, you know, like I think what's up to her, is it just an absolute bloody catastrophe? Like I, I think it's terrible, like seriously terrible. And I would regard her as a victim and accept that she paraded it. And the problem with that is that once you parade your self-destructive proclivity as a virtue, you're no longer a victim, you're a perpetrator.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Jordan Peterson on Pathological Masculinity, Alarming Political Gender Gap Among Young Voters, and Snow White | Ep. 1035
And so that was the dividing line for me. Like she must've been stunningly, unbelievably, unimaginably unhappy to have gone through what she went through. And I can only imagine how she got there. And I think that the physicians and the counselors who enabled her in that, I believe they should be put in prison for the rest of their life. And I think it's absolutely unconscionable.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Jordan Peterson on Pathological Masculinity, Alarming Political Gender Gap Among Young Voters, and Snow White | Ep. 1035
So that's really sad. I used to watch Paige when she was a young woman on the Trailer Park Boys in Canada, which is this like off-color, hilarious Canadian sitcom. And she was so charming and so lovely.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Jordan Peterson on Pathological Masculinity, Alarming Political Gender Gap Among Young Voters, and Snow White | Ep. 1035
Oh, yeah, yeah. She's such an attractive person. And I can't imagine how much pain... She must have had to do that. But you don't get to tell young women to do it. You don't, sorry, that's just not acceptable. And then with regards to the swimsuit model, like it has nothing to do with what I find attractive.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Jordan Peterson on Pathological Masculinity, Alarming Political Gender Gap Among Young Voters, and Snow White | Ep. 1035
It does insofar as what people find attractive has a universal element, which has been well documented by biologists, symmetry, for example. But the thing is, everything about that photo was a lie. It was a lie to manipulate the consumer because it was so radical. It was a lie because it's sports illustrated. And to be an athlete, you have to be physically fit.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Jordan Peterson on Pathological Masculinity, Alarming Political Gender Gap Among Young Voters, and Snow White | Ep. 1035
And so they're, discriminated against as boys in the education system. And then as young men, they're taught that all of their ambition, their competitiveness, let's say, is nothing but a
The Megyn Kelly Show
Jordan Peterson on Pathological Masculinity, Alarming Political Gender Gap Among Young Voters, and Snow White | Ep. 1035
And morbidly obese and physically fit are opposites. And beautiful? Well, you could argue that Sports Illustrated should have never gone into the swimsuit model business, but they did. And it means that to accept that photograph as a valid model, statement of the truth you have to dispense with the idea of beauty and athleticism.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Jordan Peterson on Pathological Masculinity, Alarming Political Gender Gap Among Young Voters, and Snow White | Ep. 1035
And I'm not doing that because beauty has value and so does athleticism. Now that doesn't mean that someone who's obese, who's eaten way too many carbohydrates because they've been diluted by their government for 40 years is not worthy of a certain degree of sympathy. I certainly regard obesity as a disease. I don't think it's a problem of willpower. I think that's a big mistake.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Jordan Peterson on Pathological Masculinity, Alarming Political Gender Gap Among Young Voters, and Snow White | Ep. 1035
I think that the Department of Agriculture gerrymandering of the food pyramid for marketing purposes, pathologized the whole society in an absolutely appalling manner. But that doesn't mean that obese women on Sports Illustrated get to be regarded as beautiful. No.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Jordan Peterson on Pathological Masculinity, Alarming Political Gender Gap Among Young Voters, and Snow White | Ep. 1035
Well, we talked earlier a little bit about the shift in the political world to the toxically feminine. And the toxically feminine has a definition. It's uncritical acceptance. Right now, we can take that apart and we should. So it's really complicated because when you're the mother of a newborn, the right ethos for you to adopt is uncritical acceptance.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Jordan Peterson on Pathological Masculinity, Alarming Political Gender Gap Among Young Voters, and Snow White | Ep. 1035
Because for the first nine months of a child's life, before the child can crawl, let's say now, you know, can get around by its own on its own. The right attitude to have to that child is that everything it wants, it should be given. And everything it needs is not only good, not only fine, and acceptable, but good. So it's complete uncritical acceptance. And so women have to have that capacity.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Jordan Peterson on Pathological Masculinity, Alarming Political Gender Gap Among Young Voters, and Snow White | Ep. 1035
And it is a core part of what's admirable about femininity. But that doesn't mean that it's the sine qua non of morality. Like, you also need judgment. And, like, it's been known forever that the highest divinity, let's say, God, for all intents and purposes, rules with two hands. Mercy and Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Jordan Peterson on Pathological Masculinity, Alarming Political Gender Gap Among Young Voters, and Snow White | Ep. 1035
are contributing to the industrial desecration of the planet, that marriage is a patriarchal oppressive institution, and that what propagating the human race in general as a responsible man is the worst thing you can do for the future.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Jordan Peterson on Pathological Masculinity, Alarming Political Gender Gap Among Young Voters, and Snow White | Ep. 1035
I don't really see that a few scattered half-wit DEI programs aimed at rectifying the consequences of this idiot propagandizing are going to have the least bit of difference. They're certainly not going to get more men in the teaching system. That ship has sailed long ago. There is no faculty more corrupt than the faculties of education.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Jordan Peterson on Pathological Masculinity, Alarming Political Gender Gap Among Young Voters, and Snow White | Ep. 1035
Thank you.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Jordan Peterson on Pathological Masculinity, Alarming Political Gender Gap Among Young Voters, and Snow White | Ep. 1035
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And I didn't answer it the first night. There was something about the question I didn't like. And then it came up two more nights in a row and was voted up by the audience. And the third night, I thought, oh, I know why. I tried stumbling through an answer and it didn't work.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Jordan Peterson on Pathological Masculinity, Alarming Political Gender Gap Among Young Voters, and Snow White | Ep. 1035
And conservatives have been asleep, unconscionably asleep, for 60 years while the faculties of education promoted the worst of all possible idiot academic doctrines, whole-word learning, social-emotional learning, self-esteem training, you name it. There's a stupid idea.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Jordan Peterson on Pathological Masculinity, Alarming Political Gender Gap Among Young Voters, and Snow White | Ep. 1035
Oh, multiple intelligences, practical intelligence, all these complete travesties of psychological theory, all adopted by the faculties of education. The worst students generally become teachers. They have the worst professors. They are awarded for their pathological efforts, 50% of the state budgets, right?
The Megyn Kelly Show
Jordan Peterson on Pathological Masculinity, Alarming Political Gender Gap Among Young Voters, and Snow White | Ep. 1035
And then the third night, I thought, oh, I know what the problem is here. That's the wrong question. Because the right question is, how do I make myself into the sort of person that's so attractive to other people that potential mates are lining up for me? That's a way different question than how do I find the person that's right for me? Like, first of all, Who are you? I like that.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Jordan Peterson on Pathological Masculinity, Alarming Political Gender Gap Among Young Voters, and Snow White | Ep. 1035
And what's so special about you that what the, how do you know that the right person wouldn't take one look at you and run away screaming if they had any sense? Like seriously, you know, you're settling. Are you, you know, um,
The Megyn Kelly Show
Jordan Peterson on Pathological Masculinity, Alarming Political Gender Gap Among Young Voters, and Snow White | Ep. 1035
If you use that language even, the first thing you might ask yourself is, why do you start with such a high opinion of yourself and such a low opinion of the people who are pursuing you? Now, look, I understand that it's necessary to be attracted to a potential partner, you know, and that women have the right and the duty to be picky.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Jordan Peterson on Pathological Masculinity, Alarming Political Gender Gap Among Young Voters, and Snow White | Ep. 1035
They should find a man who's gonna be not a child and who's gonna be very helpful to them In all ways, particularly when they have children, who's going to be a good father? And so, hooray to women for being picky. But that's not the same thing as starting out narcissistic. You know, we talked about Snow White. Before she could find a prince, she had to learn to be of service to the dwarves.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Jordan Peterson on Pathological Masculinity, Alarming Political Gender Gap Among Young Voters, and Snow White | Ep. 1035
That's worth thinking about. Now, you might think, well, why should we pay attention to a fairy tale? It's like, well, how about because people remembered it for 15,000 years and that Disney just spent a quarter of a billion dollars trying to retell it and failed. And so and then with regards to the order of affairs in a woman's life.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Jordan Peterson on Pathological Masculinity, Alarming Political Gender Gap Among Young Voters, and Snow White | Ep. 1035
Look, I calculated recently that even an attractive woman, like radically attractive woman, let's say, who often has her own problems, by the way, because she tends to scare men away, right? A lucky woman has five potential partners in her life. Five. You get five chances. That's it. Now think about this. Let's just think that through, right? Because it's a terrifying way to think.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Jordan Peterson on Pathological Masculinity, Alarming Political Gender Gap Among Young Voters, and Snow White | Ep. 1035
So imagine that you're primarily looking, say, from the time you're 16 at the lowest end to, say, 30. Because after that, it's starting to get harder because the clock is ticking so desperately. One in three couples at 30 already have fertility problems, by the way, which is defined as difficulty conceiving within a year, even though the attempts are being made.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Jordan Peterson on Pathological Masculinity, Alarming Political Gender Gap Among Young Voters, and Snow White | Ep. 1035
Okay, so let's say you got 14 years, something like that. Now, how long does it take to find someone and then figure out who they are, especially if they're strangers? Before you're going to decide to marry someone, likely you're going to want to know them for a year, something like that. And so that's five years right there with five people.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Jordan Peterson on Pathological Masculinity, Alarming Political Gender Gap Among Young Voters, and Snow White | Ep. 1035
But that also assumes that you go from one relationship to another with no intervening space. So you're not suffering too much, for example, when a potentially promising relationship collapses or you don't get sick or something doesn't waylay you in your professional career.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Jordan Peterson on Pathological Masculinity, Alarming Political Gender Gap Among Young Voters, and Snow White | Ep. 1035
I don't know if you know that figure, but K through 12 education eats up 50% of the state's budgets. And it all goes to teachers who come through the faculties of education because they have a hammerlock on certification, which the Republicans and the conservatives are still not paying any attention to. And so- You're not going to fix that problem.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Jordan Peterson on Pathological Masculinity, Alarming Political Gender Gap Among Young Voters, and Snow White | Ep. 1035
so imagine two years per relationship that's ten years for five that's assuming that people want to be around you so I don't know if you're settling it's I get the picture. You don't want to lie to someone and tell them that you find them attractive in all possible ways when you don't, but maybe you could start the bloody process with a little more humility.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Jordan Peterson on Pathological Masculinity, Alarming Political Gender Gap Among Young Voters, and Snow White | Ep. 1035
Well, it's really nice to see you again. And thank you very much for the opportunity to talk again. I've been watching what you've been doing for, well, for a very long time. And you seem to be very useful and very successful. And what you're doing is very difficult. And it seems very helpful. So, you know, hooray for you. Thank you. Yeah, it was a pleasure talking to you today. Thank you.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Jordan Peterson on Pathological Masculinity, Alarming Political Gender Gap Among Young Voters, and Snow White | Ep. 1035
Well, first of all, the Democrats aren't interested in fixing it at all, because to call them in bed with the teachers unions and the faculties of education is to say almost nothing about how deeply in bed they are. Now, the Democrats know perfectly well that they've lost.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Jordan Peterson on Pathological Masculinity, Alarming Political Gender Gap Among Young Voters, and Snow White | Ep. 1035
The male vote, and certainly the young male vote, young men are more conservative than any generation has been in the memorable past, in living memory, let's say. And that's going to happen with young women eventually, too, because... Young women lag young men, right? Because young women like men, they're about five years older, four years older on average.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Jordan Peterson on Pathological Masculinity, Alarming Political Gender Gap Among Young Voters, and Snow White | Ep. 1035
So comparing young men and young women at any given time with regards to their political beliefs isn't reasonable from a psychological perspective. So... Yeah, keep going. Wow, it's terrible. What's being done to young men is terrible. And we're seeing the results of that. Well, that's partly why they're turning so... radically all across the world, by the way.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Jordan Peterson on Pathological Masculinity, Alarming Political Gender Gap Among Young Voters, and Snow White | Ep. 1035
Young men are becoming more conservative and more religious, interestingly enough.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Jordan Peterson on Pathological Masculinity, Alarming Political Gender Gap Among Young Voters, and Snow White | Ep. 1035
Well, post George Floyd, the big corporations decided that they were going to go all in on the DEI front and they just stopped hiring or promoting young men, Caucasian men in particular. And so why your sons, for example, or my son for that matter, should be paying the price for whatever hypothetical sins his ancestors hypothetically committed is, well, that's all part of the leftist notion that
The Megyn Kelly Show
Jordan Peterson on Pathological Masculinity, Alarming Political Gender Gap Among Young Voters, and Snow White | Ep. 1035
people should be categorized by group and that the way you attain equity in the equity you know equality of outcome in the current milieu is by being prejudiced against people by in consequence of their race and gender yeah well thankfully a lot of that's coming to an end although let's make no mistake about it it's not come to an end in the universities i mean you know that or k through 12th
The Megyn Kelly Show
Jordan Peterson on Pathological Masculinity, Alarming Political Gender Gap Among Young Voters, and Snow White | Ep. 1035
Well, yeah, well, that's just done. And again, I put a fair bit of responsibility for this at the feet of the Republicans. It's like, have you guys been, you guys, I don't mean you specifically, Megan, obviously, but they've been asleep at the wheel for four generations. And even now, the Trump administration is taking aim at the Department of Education federally.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Jordan Peterson on Pathological Masculinity, Alarming Political Gender Gap Among Young Voters, and Snow White | Ep. 1035
But, you know, that's a tiny proportion of the actual trouble. The real trouble is at the state level. I can't see how the school system could be set up any worse. It's unbelievably expensive. It does a terrible job at making kids literate and numerate. It's radically propagandistic in the most insane possible ways.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Jordan Peterson on Pathological Masculinity, Alarming Political Gender Gap Among Young Voters, and Snow White | Ep. 1035
I mean, the idea that we should be teaching our children to be confused about their sexual and gender identities, period, but let alone in elementary and junior high schools, you couldn't do anything. You literally can't do anything to confuse children more deeply than to confuse them about whether or not they're male or female.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Jordan Peterson on Pathological Masculinity, Alarming Political Gender Gap Among Young Voters, and Snow White | Ep. 1035
Well, you see, your story just highlights how deep the problem is because you're in private school and it's a high-end private school and still the same thing is happening. And so that's indicative of how deep the rod is. And the problem that the parents that you described still have is they think it's 1995. And that Harvard and the other Ivy League schools are what they were.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Canada NDP Leader STRIKES BACK at Trump’s THREATS
So the socialist policies that provide goods and services to Canadians, let's say, or denizens of other countries, by printing money, actually punish the poor brutally. Oh, absolutely. In consequence of the inflation that they generate.