Jordan Peterson: Why pornography rots desire and marriage

1. 0:00 – 2:30

   Intro

   1. JPJordan B. Peterson0:00

      We know that couples that live together before the marriage actually increases the probability that the relationship will fail, and the reason for that's very straightforward.

   2. SBSteven Bartlett0:07

      And talking of things that risk harming relationships, a subject we've never spoken about before, is ...

   3. JPJordan B. Peterson0:11

      Oh, yeah. And that's a huge reason sex is disappearing. 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. 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.

   4. SBSteven Bartlett0:36

      But what are the downstream consequences of that?

   5. JPJordan B. Peterson0:37

      Well, first of all, it's easy.

   6. SBSteven Bartlett0:38

      To get what?

   7. JPJordan B. Peterson0:39

      Sexual gratification.

   8. SBSteven Bartlett0:40

      But does it matter?

   9. JPJordan B. Peterson0:41

      Oh, it's a catastrophe. You're not desperate anymore, and if you're gonna have the true adventure of your life, you're gonna need love, shame, guilt, aspiration, and pain. Like, it's hard, but now people take the easy road, like avoiding conflict, for example. And I spent a lot of time studying evil. It arises when good men hold their tongue. Now, you may suffer some consequences of speaking, but retreating one step at a time defensively that it makes you sick of yourself, there's nothing worse that could 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.

   10. SBSteven Bartlett1:18

       This has always blown my mind a little bit. 53% of you that listen to this show regularly haven't yet subscribed to the show, so could I ask you for a favor before we start? If you like the show and you like what we do here and you wanna support us, the free simple way that you can do just that is by hitting the subscribe button. And my commitment to you is if you do that, then I'll do everything in my power, me and my team, to make sure that this show is better for you every single week. We'll listen to your feedback, we'll find the guests that you want me to speak to, and we'll continue to do what we do. Thank you so much. Your book comes at a really interesting time in my life personally. Your book is called We Who Wrestle with God, and it's my belief and suspicion that there's a lot of people wrestling with God at the moment, and when I say the word "God," I don't necessarily mean some man in the sky with a beard. What I really mean is a greater meaning, a greater sense of meaning. Um, the world feels like, and you speak to this in the book, that it's gotten more and more individualistic and there's consequence to that.

   11. JPJordan B. Peterson2:17

       Fractionated is another way of thinking about it, right? 'Cause you can think about it as individualistic, and that's a positive spin, so to speak, but alienated, isolated, and fractionated is the,

2. 2:30 – 5:23

   The World Has Become Fractionated

   1. JPJordan B. Peterson2:31

      what would you say, is the accompaniment to that. See, I think, I think, I think the case is, is that the liberal experiment in individualism only works when the conservative foundation is in place, right? 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 pre-conditions 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. 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. Partly, see, it's partly 'cause we have the wrong conception of identity, fundamentally. Identity is a hierarchical structure, so we kinda think that you end at your boundaries as an individual, but you don't, because, well, you're probably not, not gonna wanna be alone. So then let's say you're married, okay? So now your identity as a husband, that's a social identity, and then your, 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's, would be one nation under God. That's one way of thinking about it, or you could think about it as the self-evident truths that underlie the state. Your identity exists at all those levels.

   2. SBSteven Bartlett4:47

      Mm-hmm.

   3. JPJordan B. Peterson4:47

      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. And that's because they were (laughs) for a long time fortunate enough so all those other strata were in place.

   4. SBSteven Bartlett5:10

      So where do we find ourselves now if we don't have that hierarchy and we aren't held in place by all those layers and sort of social and, I guess, family identities?

   5. JPJordan B. Peterson5:19

      Mm. Adrift in a storm alone.

3. 5:23 – 8:41

   Where Do We Find Ourselves Without Community?

   1. JPJordan B. Peterson5:23

      So look, here's, 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. These were, in some ways, what they were doing was equivalent to the development of early large-language models.

   2. SBSteven Bartlett5:51

      Mm-hmm.

   3. JPJordan B. Peterson5:52

      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. If you're anxious, you're also, 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. 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, it, it makes sense when you understand how social people are. We're so social that you can take the most anti-social 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. 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 more, or maybe even more profoundly, are there people for whom you make sacrifices? Right? That's a very in- and, uh, that's, 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. Well, if you get married, it's a sacrificial offering, because you sacrifice your potential relationship with all other women to that woman.

   4. SBSteven Bartlett8:28

      What does one do on an individual level if they find themselves in such a society where individualism has taken hold, um, and they can't necessarily easily change the society? Are there day-to-day, week-to-week choices that I'm making

4. 8:41 – 15:21

   How Do We Address Individualism in a Self-Centered Society?

   1. SBSteven Bartlett8:41

      that are pushing me away from that meaning and purpose and sort of, uh, collective, I guess, sense of responsibility? Like, if the, the individual listening to this now that completely agrees with you finds himself as being a lonely person-

   2. JPJordan B. Peterson8:53

      Mm-hmm.

   3. SBSteven Bartlett8:53

      ... and goes, "What do I do about this, Jordan?"

   4. JPJordan B. Peterson8:55

      Well, um, 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, well, you're hyper-social. 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, um, well, you certainly and no doubt learn this more as you become successful, is like you need a team.

   5. SBSteven Bartlett9:34

      Mm-hmm.

   6. JPJordan B. Peterson9:35

      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, 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 to, for other people, or you could think about what you would do if you only did what was true and right. Those are very different orientations. Right? 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 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. I mean, unless you're trying to make your life worse, and people do do that from time to time, but we'll leave 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't happen. But assuming that you're relatively well-embedded in the realm of the normal, then you're moving towards something better, always, 'cause otherwise there's no motivation. We, we know this technically. This isn't even disputable. So 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, 'cause you could move towards a safety goal 'cause 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. 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 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, there are nestings of the good-

   7. SBSteven Bartlett12:52

      Mm-hmm.

   8. JPJordan B. Peterson12:53

      ... that have no upper limit. That's Jacob's Ladder, by the way, and at the top of that is the good itself, which is the divine for all intents and purposes.

   9. SBSteven Bartlett13:04

      Divine, what do you mean by that?

   10. JPJordan B. Peterson13:06

       Uh, that's a definition. That, that's what I mean, is that in the hierarchy of what's good-

   11. SBSteven Bartlett13:14

       Mm-hmm.

   12. JPJordan B. Peterson13:15

       ... th- the divine is the peak.

   13. SBSteven Bartlett13:18

       The top, okay.

   14. JPJordan B. Peterson13:19

       Right. Now-

   15. SBSteven Bartlett13:19

       We all know what that is.

   16. JPJordan B. Peterson13:22

       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 it's, 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.

   17. SBSteven Bartlett13:40

       Mm-hmm.

   18. JPJordan B. Peterson13:40

       Okay, now you've accomplished. Well, are you done? 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, the domain of the, the domain of opportunity is limitless, right? Because the thing that's at the pinnacle recedes as you approach it, and that's a, you could say that's a technical definition of God, which is accurate. That is a technical definition of God. God is the good towards which all goods point. Th- 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 'cause otherwise we wouldn't have the category good, and then we all believe that there are rank orders of good 'cause otherwise everything good would be equally worth pursuing. 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? Well, the, the stories on which our culture is predicated c- characterize that in story.

   19. SBSteven Bartlett15:08

       Do you think many people have an ultimate aim in their mind?

   20. JPJordan B. Peterson15:12

       They, they do, whether they know it or not.

   21. SBSteven Bartlett15:15

       What do you mean by that? So like, the average person listening to this now, do they, are they conscious at all of what they're...

   22. JPJordan B. Peterson15:19

       No, but it's implicit.

5. 15:21 – 16:17

   Do Many People Have a Clear Ultimate Aim?

   1. JPJordan B. Peterson15:21

   2. SBSteven Bartlett15:21

      Okay.

   3. JPJordan B. Peterson15:22

      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. They don't know what they're up to. That doesn't mean they're not up to something. And you could also think about them as the battleground between warring stories. That also happens. That just means they're fractionated in their psyche, you know? They're being pulled in many directions at the same time.

   4. SBSteven Bartlett16:05

      Someone said to me actually yesterday, they said, "An, an interesting way to understand your self-narrative or your self story is to answer the question, if you were a character, a fictional character, who would you be?" And-

   5. JPJordan B. Peterson16:15

      Sure.

   6. SBSteven Bartlett16:15

      ... i- in that, you'd figure out whether you have

6. 16:17 – 18:00

   What Movie Character Would Jordan Be?

   1. SBSteven Bartlett16:17

      this sort of her- heroized story or if you're a victim. So I'll ask you that question.

   2. JPJordan B. Peterson16:21

      Yeah, right, absolutely.

   3. SBSteven Bartlett16:22

      Which fictional character would you be?

   4. JPJordan B. Peterson16:28

      Bugs Bunny. (laughs)

   5. SBSteven Bartlett16:31

      (laughs)

   6. JPJordan B. Peterson16:32

      Bugs Bunny's a trickster character, right? So, yeah. More serious answer? You ever read The Idiot?

   7. SBSteven Bartlett16:44

      No.

   8. JPJordan B. Peterson16:47

      Yeah, well, I'm probably half Idiot and half Raskolnikov. That's another way of looking at it.

   9. SBSteven Bartlett16:53

      Why'd you say that?

   10. JPJordan B. Peterson17:00

       The, um, 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.

   11. SBSteven Bartlett17:32

       Is that how you characterize yourself? Someone that's doing things right, but in a way that others perceive as foolishness or naivety?

   12. JPJordan B. Peterson17:39

       Or, um, or even malevolence at times. You know, I mean, that's partly why people have gone after my reputation.

   13. SBSteven Bartlett17:47

       Does it, does it ever bother you? People going after your reputation or them perceiving-

   14. JPJordan B. Peterson17:52

       Sure. I mean, sometimes it's, like it's been very distressing, very distressing. The battles I've had with the

7. 18:00 – 20:39

   Does It Bother You When People Attack Your Reputation?

   1. JPJordan B. Peterson18:00

      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.... um, calumny in the press. They're, they're, uh, 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, 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, at University of Toronto. I liked working there. That place had its problems, but it was pretty functional and, and I really liked being there. I l- I r- I enjoyed my career as a professor. I, I had great relationships with the undergraduates and my graduate students. I loved doing my research, which has also disappeared. Um, so now those are the serious disputes that I've had reputationally, let's say. Um, 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 it... when I encountered a particularly psychopathic journalist, which happened quite often, particularly in the UK, um, it was completely a toss-up which way it was gonna go. Like, he could have just finished me and my family. That, that was definitely the case three or four or five times, maybe more than that. So yes, it's very bothersome. Now, now and really for a long time, all of that takes place within a much broader context. All the interactions I have with people in my actual life are ridiculously positive and, what would you say, positive and gratifying, you know? So...

   2. SBSteven Bartlett20:25

      That's a form of suffering in a way, and everybody goes through suffering. And because you've been through that, have you been able to develop a, a strategy or a... some kind of anchoring that helps you when the wind blows

8. 20:39 – 23:47

   What Do You Do When You Face Tough Times?

   1. SBSteven Bartlett20:39

      like that?

   2. JPJordan B. Peterson20:40

      Well, yeah. Oh, definitely. I mean, I, I had very strong relationships when all of this started to develop around me, and that's just become more the case. I've got 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? Um, well, (laughs) 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, like, I've known her for 52 years. It's a very (laughs) long time and, uh, she's definitely my best friend and probably has been for 52 years. And so that's really helpful. That, that... and that refers back to this issue of identity that we were discussing, you know? My identity is well-structured in, 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? Uh, now, is that a strategy? It depends on how you define strategy. It's not a strategy that's designed to serve my ends, not, 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 na- navigating in the world, right? It's an adventurous way of navigating in the world 'cause you don't know what's going to happen. You have to let go of that. And then there's a f- an, uh, element of faith in that, right? There's faith in everything you do. You know, the, 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. 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, you may be you're in love with the person that you wanna marry, but (laughs) you have no evidence whatsoever about how your life is gonna go. None. You have to leap into the unknown like you do with everything that's important. 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-

   3. SBSteven Bartlett23:33

      I think-

   4. JPJordan B. Peterson23:33

      ... insofar as you have access to the truth.

   5. SBSteven Bartlett23:35

      Is it true to say that if you hadn't have said what you think publicly, then you would have experienced less suffering than you have?

   6. JPJordan B. Peterson23:42

      No.

   7. SBSteven Bartlett23:43

      Really?

   8. JPJordan B. Peterson23:43

      I don't think so.

   9. SBSteven Bartlett23:45

      So if you had said... if you had stayed in your practice,

9. 23:47 – 29:00

   Why You Must Speak Your Mind

   1. SBSteven Bartlett23:47

      you know, as a clinical psychologist-

   2. JPJordan B. Peterson23:48

      No, because I would've had to not... I would've had to bite my tongue.

   3. SBSteven Bartlett23:53

      And you think that's more

   4. NANarrator23:53

      of course-

   5. JPJordan B. Peterson23:54

      I know it. It's not a matter of thinking. I know it. I know it. No, 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. 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.

   6. SBSteven Bartlett24:33

      Is saying nothing a form of-

   7. JPJordan B. Peterson24:34

      Yes.

   8. SBSteven Bartlett24:34

      ... falsifying your speech?

   9. JPJordan B. Peterson24:35

      It is when you have something to say. Yeah, definitely.

   10. SBSteven Bartlett24:39

       'Cause there's a lot of people probably listening now that have a lot they wanna say-

   11. JPJordan B. Peterson24:42

       Yeah.

   12. SBSteven Bartlett24:43

       ... but if they say it, they're gonna lose their job or they're g- there's gonna be immediate consequences which might mean they can't feed their family.

   13. JPJordan B. Peterson24:49

       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, you know, 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.

   14. SBSteven Bartlett25:13

       Hmm.

   15. JPJordan B. Peterson25:14

       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, 'cause that's not a good ... that's not wise. Now, when things blew up around me, I had three sources of income. That wasn't accidental. Now, you know, m- people say, "Well, you were fortunate." It's like, yeah, and careful.

   16. SBSteven Bartlett25:56

       (laughs)

   17. JPJordan B. Peterson25:57

       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. So if you're gonna think strategically, if you're gonna think like someone who's at war, let's say, then you don't leave your ... you don't leave a f- mortal flank exposed.

   18. SBSteven Bartlett26:20

       Mm-hmm.

   19. JPJordan B. Peterson26:20

       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. 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, to fortify and to put yourself in a position where you're on the offense successfully. That's hard. But retreating one step at a time defensively for your whole life and shrinking while you do it, that's also not very ... 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, that's not a good plan. That's a bad plan.

   20. SBSteven Bartlett27:19

       And did you see this when you were ... in your s- clinical practice, did you see it in people?

   21. JPJordan B. Peterson27:23

       Oh, oh, constantly. Yeah.

   22. SBSteven Bartlett27:25

       How does it show up on the surface? What, what are the words that they say to articulate that this sort of slow diminishing retraction?

   23. JPJordan B. Peterson27:31

       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, like, I'm, 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.

   24. SBSteven Bartlett27:55

       Mm-hmm.

   25. JPJordan B. Peterson27:55

       Just to pick a number. Maybe it's 50, maybe it's three, whatever. Five will do. Well, that's 1,500 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 remained silent when you had something to say. And they all aggregate. 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.

   26. SBSteven Bartlett28:47

       Last time we spoke, you said something which stayed with me, and I've actually forwarded it to a few of my friends on this particular subject. You said to me, "You're gonna have to sit and spend 90 minutes a week speaking to your partner."

   27. JPJordan B. Peterson28:57

       Ugh. So annoying.

   28. SBSteven Bartlett28:59

       (laughs) It's so annoying.

10. 29:00 – 32:26

    Why Spend 90 Minutes a Week Listening to Your Partner?

    1. SBSteven Bartlett29:00

    2. JPJordan B. Peterson29:00

       (laughs)

    3. SBSteven Bartlett29:01

       It's so annoying but it's so important. (laughs) And so many of my friends that are in r- have relationship difficulties, I send them this little four-minute clip I have o- on my phone of you-

    4. JPJordan B. Peterson29:08

       Yeah.

    5. SBSteven Bartlett29:08

       ... saying that. Because i- uh, the 90 minute, now it might be 95 minutes, it might be-

    6. JPJordan B. Peterson29:13

       Oh.

    7. SBSteven Bartlett29:13

       ... 85 minutes, but the concept of you need to sit down and create a space where she or he or whatever can tell you what they've noticed.

    8. JPJordan B. Peterson29:23

       Why they don't like you.

    9. SBSteven Bartlett29:24

       Exactly.

    10. JPJordan B. Peterson29:25

        Yeah.

    11. SBSteven Bartlett29:25

        Yeah.

    12. JPJordan B. Peterson29:25

        Yeah, well, it's especially, I think, (laughs) I don't think that you can really establish the kind of relationship with a woman that you want with anything in the road. Like, it's hard for women to give themselves to men. And no wonder. (laughs) It's amazing they ever do it. They have a lot on the line. What are the pre-conditions for that offering? Um, peace and security. You can tell if, if it's, if the territory is being cleared because play emerges. Right, right. Play emerges. And play is a very 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.

    13. SBSteven Bartlett30:35

        Mm-hmm.

    14. JPJordan B. Peterson30:36

        Y- 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 that there's a lot of... Dante's Inferno.

    15. SBSteven Bartlett30:56

        What's that?

    16. JPJordan B. Peterson30:57

        That, well, Dante's Inferno is a characterization of hell by, by Dante, by... It's one of the most famous poems ever written, and it's, it's... You can think about it as what you have to do to get to the bottom of things.

    17. SBSteven Bartlett31:15

        Mm-hmm.

    18. JPJordan B. Peterson31:15

        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? L- it's the same question. Addressing an issue is a journey into the abyss. Dante placed Satan at the bottom of hell, right? So th- 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-

    19. SBSteven Bartlett31:56

        Spiral down.

    20. JPJordan B. Peterson31:57

        ... to the bottom, you'll find betrayal, 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.

    21. SBSteven Bartlett32:13

        Can you ever solve for that? So if I'm in a situation where my partner doesn't trust me because she was betrayed-

    22. JPJordan B. Peterson32:17

        Yeah.

    23. SBSteven Bartlett32:17

        ... whether it's something I did or whatever, how do you ever get rid of the devil at the bottom of the spiral?

    24. JPJordan B. Peterson32:23

        Well, you have to s- you have to find out that it's there.

11. 32:26 – 37:39

    How Do You Resolve Years of Disputes?

    1. JPJordan B. Peterson32:26

       Okay. That's a hard question. You both have to want to. That's the first thing, 'cause 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.

    2. SBSteven Bartlett32:52

       Mm-hmm.

    3. JPJordan B. Peterson32:52

       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 gotta think about it. What do you want?

    4. SBSteven Bartlett33:06

       Hmm.

    5. JPJordan B. Peterson33:07

       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? You're gonna have to think about that for a long time. What would satisfy something as, someone as miserable and resentful and useless as me, right? If I could have it. Now, people will, they don't even wanna address that issue, be- 'cause part of the problem with making your aim clear is you know when you're failing.

    6. SBSteven Bartlett33:42

       Mm-hmm.

    7. JPJordan B. Peterson33:42

       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 gonna think, "Okay, I'm gonna aim high. I'm gonna take care of myself." Okay? Now, your wife's on board with that. Now, that's a hell of, that's a, 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 gotta start digging, finding out. And you c- and noticing. It's like now and then you'll see that you're happy with each other. 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, you know? 'Cause 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 and see if we could do like 10% more of that next week, or 1% more," and then just make that expand. 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. But you have to, in order for that to last, you have to become an expert at, 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. Might be them too, but you might as well start with you. I mean, you got lots of flaws. You could start with those.

    8. SBSteven Bartlett36:04

       What if you just made a bad decision? As in, like, y- the person you picked, you think they're not compatible.

    9. JPJordan B. Peterson36:11

       Well, huh-

    10. SBSteven Bartlett36:12

        Do you stay in work-

    11. JPJordan B. Peterson36:13

        ... that's a tough one, eh? Because you're not really compatible with anyone. You know, 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. I, when I was on tour, there was one...... three-day period where the same question emerged from the audience, 'cause I do a Q&A three nights in a row: How do I find the person that's right for me? And I, I tried answering it, and by the third night I thought, "Oh, I know why I can't answer this question. It's 'cause it's a stupid question." 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? (laughs) That's a way different question. Like, it's so w- they're not even in the same conceptual universe. And it's the right question, because you can build yourself into a person that people would line up to be with.

    12. SBSteven Bartlett37:27

        How?

    13. JPJordan B. Peterson37:29

        Well, have you done it?

    14. SBSteven Bartlett37:32

        (laughs)

    15. JPJordan B. Peterson37:32

        To some d- well-

    16. SBSteven Bartlett37:34

        You told me not to do it.

    17. JPJordan B. Peterson37:34

        ... you're very successful.

    18. SBSteven Bartlett37:35

        (laughs) Yeah.

    19. JPJordan B. Peterson37:36

        Right? You, you're increasingly successful.

    20. SBSteven Bartlett37:38

        Your book warns against

12. 37:39 – 46:27

    How to Become a Person Others Want to Be Around

    1. SBSteven Bartlett37:39

       narcissism, Jordan, so. (laughs)

    2. JPJordan B. Peterson37:40

       And, uh, yeah, there's, there's a difference between narcissism and giving the devil his due. You've l- okay. Let, let's pull back a little bit. What have you done right?

    3. SBSteven Bartlett37:51

       I have focused on myself for a long time, and-

    4. JPJordan B. Peterson37:54

       Okay, what does that mean?

    5. SBSteven Bartlett37:56

       It means I fortified myself financially.

    6. JPJordan B. Peterson37:59

       Okay.

    7. SBSteven Bartlett37:59

       So that I'm, I'm, you know, I can support others, I can support a family.

    8. JPJordan B. Peterson38:03

       So that's not exactly focusing on yourself, right?

    9. SBSteven Bartlett38:06

       Okay.

    10. JPJordan B. Peterson38:06

        That's focusing on getting your act together.

    11. SBSteven Bartlett38:09

        Okay.

    12. JPJordan B. Peterson38:09

        Right, there, and I'm being very picky about the words, because focus on yourself, that has a narcissistic connotation, but that, that isn't what you're talking about. You said you fortified yourself financially, okay? So now you're s- you've, you, you, you have foundation under your feet, financially.

    13. SBSteven Bartlett38:26

        Yeah.

    14. JPJordan B. Peterson38:26

        Okay? Okay, good. What else?

    15. SBSteven Bartlett38:28

        I go to the gym, so I'm strong, physically strong.

    16. JPJordan B. Peterson38:30

        Okay.

    17. SBSteven Bartlett38:31

        Um, which is use- useful. Um, I've learnt a lot.

    18. JPJordan B. Peterson38:35

        Okay.

    19. SBSteven Bartlett38:35

        I've done a lot of learning about myself, about how I show up in the world, um-

    20. JPJordan B. Peterson38:38

        Right, so you're trying to learn.

    21. SBSteven Bartlett38:40

        Yes, I've learned some skills.

    22. JPJordan B. Peterson38:41

        Okay, so, well, so there's three things that are pretty good.

    23. SBSteven Bartlett38:43

        Yeah.

    24. JPJordan B. Peterson38:43

        You've got a firm financial foundation, you've, you're work, you're, you're maintaining yourself physically or even improving yourself, and you're doing the same thing, say, spiritually and, and intellectually.

    25. SBSteven Bartlett38:55

        Mm-hmm.

    26. JPJordan B. Peterson38:56

        Okay, well, that'll attract a fair number of people, just those three, right? And maybe you're increasing the probability that it will attract the sort of person that you would like to attract.

    27. SBSteven Bartlett39:06

        That is very much the story of my life. Like, I think, don't think people realize this, but I have actually been on, I think, four dates in my entire life. I'm 32, and I took this really counter, sort of seems counterintuitive approach to myself, which was, as an 18-year-old, I basically couldn't attract anybody.

    28. JPJordan B. Peterson39:22

        Yeah.

    29. SBSteven Bartlett39:22

        I was also not on dating apps, I wasn't doing part- so my- for 10 years I basically focused on myself, and, uh, t- you know, s- 27 years old, someone messaged me and I went on a, and this is how I am, like, if I'm gonna go on a date, it's gonna be, I'm gonna go all in. It was a three-day date that I planned in an Excel document. I've been with that person for six years.

    30. JPJordan B. Peterson39:43

        Uh-huh. Right, good, yeah.
13. 46:27 – 49:03

    The Rise of Sexlessness

    1. SBSteven Bartlett46:27

    2. JPJordan B. Peterson46:27

       Oh, it's a catastrophe.

    3. SBSteven Bartlett46:29

       And, and why are we having less sex? What is the con, com- complex web of factors that have brought us to this place? And also, I mean, like the divorce rate-

    4. JPJordan B. Peterson46:36

       Well, one of them I would say is that m- in a, in a free and easy mating environment, women don't trust men, and no wonder. Well, here, here, uh, 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?

    5. SBSteven Bartlett47:02

       Mm-hmm.

    6. JPJordan B. Peterson47:02

       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 s- sort of guys, and there's some women like that too, although fewer women 'cause they pay a much higher price for sexual impropriety.

    7. SBSteven Bartlett47:17

       Mm-hmm.

    8. JPJordan B. Peterson47:18

       So the pool of short-term maters has more men in it. Okay, what are they like? 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. You throw all the women into the hands of the psychopaths. Well, that's a bad strategy, and it's no wonder-

    9. SBSteven Bartlett47:52

       Mm-hmm.

    10. JPJordan B. Peterson47:52

        ... 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. Obviously, you can't. There's, it, e- 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, and there are deluded people who think there i- there is a simple landscape and that there should be, but most, they tilt hard in the psychopathic direction because they're manipulative.

    11. SBSteven Bartlett48:50

        Do you believe in no sex before marriage as a concept?

    12. JPJordan B. Peterson48:54

        ... as an ideal, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's right.

    13. SBSteven Bartlett49:00

        And, and why would that result in

14. 49:03 – 52:19

    Why Does No Sex Before Marriage Lead to Better Outcomes?

    1. SBSteven Bartlett49:03

       better relationships and a better society more broadly?

    2. JPJordan B. Peterson49:06

       Well, here's one way of looking at it. So let's say you take the alternative approach, okay? Um, you're gonna try your partner on for size, uh, 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 proportionate to the number of partners before the marriage or the committed relationship.

    3. SBSteven Bartlett49:32

       Really?

    4. JPJordan B. Peterson49:32

       Well, well, partly that's just self-evidence. Like, the best predictor of future behavior is past behavior.

    5. SBSteven Bartlett49:38

       Hm.

    6. JPJordan B. Peterson49:38

       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 the- there's also a conceptual problem. It's like, is- are you shopping for a car? It's like you're gonna 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 gonna see what it's like to be married by living with this person." It's like, no you're not, 'cause you don't know what it's like to be married until you're married. Whatever you're doing when you live together, that's not a model for what you're going (laughs) to do when you're married, because being married is different. It's permanent.

    7. SBSteven Bartlett50:22

       So you're saying don't live together before you get married.

    8. JPJordan B. Peterson50:24

       Well, I, I know the stats on living together. It's like you live with someone and, and then you marry them, you're more likely to get divorced.

    9. SBSteven Bartlett50:29

       So you're saying-

    10. JPJordan B. Peterson50:30

        It doesn't work. Like, the, the, the theory was you try it out and if it works, you go ahead with it.

    11. SBSteven Bartlett50:36

        Yeah.

    12. JPJordan B. Peterson50:37

        Yeah, well, the theory was wrong because that isn't, that isn't what happens. It actually increases the probability that the relationship will fail. It's also partly, you gotta 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, like, that's a hell of a foundation for a marri- for a, like, longterm relationship.

    13. SBSteven Bartlett51:03

        So you're saying go f- go from single to married and living together straightaway without the, like, try-on period?

    14. JPJordan B. Peterson51:09

        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.

    15. SBSteven Bartlett51:17

        Yeah.

    16. JPJordan B. Peterson51:17

        It's not sim- Well, why would it be simple? It's th- 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 gonna be hard. How to do it optimally? Well, I can tell you in my own experience, you know, uh, like I s- I, I've known my wife since she was eight, and we were friends, good friends, and we kind of departed from e- each other during adolescence. Um, I was a year younger than everyone in my class, and she matured faster. Women do anyways. And so that kinda split us apart, and we didn't get married till I think we were about 27, something like that, 28. But it would've been better to do it earlier.

    17. SBSteven Bartlett52:01

        So get married earlier?

    18. JPJordan B. Peterson52:03

        Yeah. It's just time I didn't have with her.

    19. SBSteven Bartlett52:07

        What case would you make to me f- for marriage versus... 'Cause I'm, I'll be honest, I'm wrestling with marriage, not just God.

    20. JPJordan B. Peterson52:12

        Yeah.

    21. SBSteven Bartlett52:12

        Um, I'm trying to understand what the, what the point of marriage is versus the relationship we have now.

    22. JPJordan B. Peterson52:16

        Children.

    23. SBSteven Bartlett52:17

        Is... But I can have children in the relationship I have

15. 52:19 – 1:01:21

    The Purpose of Marriage vs Relationships

    1. SBSteven Bartlett52:19

       now.

    2. JPJordan B. Peterson52:20

       Yeah. Hm. 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 and narrow path. Like, you are already deviating in all sorts of ways. You're very entrepreneurial.

    3. SBSteven Bartlett52:37

       Mm-hmm.

    4. JPJordan B. Peterson52:38

       Right? So your life has a variety of adventurous pathways. You're gonna wanna put firm foundation wherever you can. That'll actually free you up to do more adventurous things. Children are a multi-generational commitment, 'cause it's children and grandchildren.

    5. SBSteven Bartlett52:56

       Mm-hmm.

    6. JPJordan B. Peterson52:57

       And so the, the marriage is a signifier of that, and y- 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. You know, and you might say, "Well, love is enough." It's like, (laughs) that's a very naive view of the world, because there'll be times... 'Cause that's kinda 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 gonna be plenty of years in there where you're not happy and you probably don't love each other. So what then? Are you gonna just, is it just gonna dissolve? Or are you gonna say, "We're in this, you know, come hell or high water," which is the vow, come hell or high w- And hell and high water, they're coming. And then you gotta 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 gonna be fun. That's for sure. You wanna do it alone? Or you think that when everything falls apart around you, you're gonna be in a better position to find someone better? I don't think so. It's a long... And then, you know, you, you take the marital vow in a religious sense and you do it in front of a community, right? So it's, it signifies a commitment, and you need that because, like, you think you can maintain all that commitment on your own? Maybe you can. 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.

    7. SBSteven Bartlett54:31

       But the traditional marriage agreement, one that's a legal agreement-

    8. JPJordan B. Peterson54:34

       Yeah.

    9. SBSteven Bartlett54:35

       ... does it need to be a l- Can, can I not take my partner, have a wedding in front of our friends and family, sign a contract, maybe even do it in a sort of relig- religious context without having i- it to be a reli- like, a legal document that the government are involved in?

    10. JPJordan B. Peterson54:50

        Well, you could, but-

    11. SBSteven Bartlett54:53

        Is it not the same bond to you?

    12. JPJordan B. Peterson54:56

        ... there, you're talking about a multitude of different bonds, right? Fundamentally, right? You're, th- the one that you're prioritizing is the bond that's voluntary and predicated on, what? The love of the moment? I mean, we wanna be precise here, right? That, so I think that's a reasonably will, re- reasonable way of conceptualizing it, and it is a romantic view that that should prevail, and it's a romantic view that that should be sufficient. I don't think it, there's, 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 wanna add a legal element to that and you wanna add a metaphysical element to it," because those are all fortifications.

    13. SBSteven Bartlett55:36

        Mm-hmm.

    14. JPJordan B. Peterson55:37

        And they're indications even to yourself that you're serious. 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 go ask yourselves like, "Okay, well, what processes, 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, then you better have everything necessary in place.

    15. SBSteven Bartlett56:09

        If you and Tammy hadn't got married-

    16. JPJordan B. Peterson56:11

        Yeah.

    17. SBSteven Bartlett56:12

        ... and you were just in a relationship like I am with my partner, how do you think your life would be different, and do you think you-

    18. JPJordan B. Peterson56:19

        I don't think it would've lasted.

    19. SBSteven Bartlett56:20

        You don't think your life would've lasted?

    20. JPJordan B. Peterson56:22

        Oh, well, no, that's pro-

    21. SBSteven Bartlett56:24

        Or the relationship?

    22. JPJordan B. Peterson56:25

        (laughs) 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, the waters were pretty high for the last three years, four years, socially, professionally, physically.

    23. SBSteven Bartlett56:53

        The-

    24. JPJordan B. Peterson56:54

        What are you wrestling with, exactly, like, in this issue?

    25. SBSteven Bartlett56:57

        Uh. Yeah. It's a...

    26. JPJordan B. Peterson56:57

        You know? I mean, you're, it seems like you're trying to sort out the relationship between the emotional attachment and the personal attachment and the social structures that, say, surround marriage.

    27. SBSteven Bartlett57:08

        It's, it's complicated because even any answer I might give you is, if, if you go down that spiral-

    28. JPJordan B. Peterson57:13

        Mm-hmm.

    29. SBSteven Bartlett57:13

        ... you might find something at the bottom of it. That's not what I'm saying. So what, what I mean by that is-

    30. JPJordan B. Peterson57:17

        Oh, definitely.
16. 1:01:21 – 1:06:10

    Is Porn a Bad Thing?

    1. SBSteven Bartlett1:01:21

       and generally-

    2. JPJordan B. Peterson1:01:23

       Oh, another reason that sex has disappeared.

    3. SBSteven Bartlett1:01:25

       Yeah.

    4. JPJordan B. Peterson1:01:26

       Right. Right.

    5. SBSteven Bartlett1:01:26

       You talk about hedonism in your book-

    6. JPJordan B. Peterson1:01:28

       Mm-hmm.

    7. SBSteven Bartlett1:01:29

       ... Um, We Who Wrestle With God. Pornography, is this a bad thing?

    8. JPJordan B. Peterson1:01:34

       It's a terrible thing. Yeah, it's a terrible thing. Everything about it is terrible.

    9. SBSteven Bartlett1:01:40

       Really?

    10. JPJordan B. Peterson1:01:42

        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...

    11. SBSteven Bartlett1:02:06

        And talk me through the downstream consequences of such a possibility.

    12. JPJordan B. Peterson1:02:10

        It's easy.

    13. SBSteven Bartlett1:02:11

        It's easy?

    14. JPJordan B. Peterson1:02:11

        Yeah.

    15. SBSteven Bartlett1:02:12

        It's easy to get what?

    16. JPJordan B. Peterson1:02:14

        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. Got to, to, to, to put you in a position where you're gonna have the romantic adventure of your life, the true romantic adventure of your life, you're gonna need love and desperation, buddy. You're gonna need everything working on your side: love, desperation, terror, shame, guilt, everything workin' for you. And so you take the easy road.

    17. SBSteven Bartlett1:02:59

        Pornography?

    18. JPJordan B. Peterson1:03:00

        Sure. You're not desperate anymore.

    19. SBSteven Bartlett1:03:04

        So p- people that consume pornography, do you think they're less motivated to attack life and to comp- compromise

    20. JPJordan B. Peterson1:03:09

        Well, they're definitely less motivated to pursue sexual relationships with women.

    21. SBSteven Bartlett1:03:14

        Away of that, are they then less likely to then wanna go to the gym or have a career or-

    22. JPJordan B. Peterson1:03:17

        Oh, definitely.

    23. SBSteven Bartlett1:03:18

        It's an interesting idea to-

    24. JPJordan B. Peterson1:03:20

        How much-

    25. SBSteven Bartlett1:03:20

        Mm.

    26. JPJordan B. Peterson1:03:20

        How much of what men do do they do to impress women?

    27. SBSteven Bartlett1:03:23

        A lot.

    28. JPJordan B. Peterson1:03:24

        It's like... Yeah, like all of it.

    29. SBSteven Bartlett1:03:26

        (laughs)

    30. JPJordan B. Peterson1:03:27

        All of it. I mean, the status battles that men... Back to the law firms, for example. So the, the men I worked with, they're very concerned with their bonuses and their, and their, you know, their end-of-the-year performance reports. Why? Well, part of it was the money. Most of them had lots of money. It's like, I'd ask and they'd say, "Well, that's... The money is how we keep score." "Well, what does that mean?" "Well, it's... Money is the way that men in those competitive enterprises stay. They, they compare themselves to one another." "And why do they wanna be at the top?" "'Cause 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. 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 low-brow. Like, it was a rough, low-class magazine. It didn't... 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. Was a huge part of it. What's that done? 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, 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 (laughs) looking at the pornography world online, I'd think, "Yeah, maybe not."
17. 1:06:10 – 1:10:06

    Why Doesn't Porn Feel Good to People?

    1. JPJordan B. Peterson1:06:10

       That's a different issue than whether or not it's wrong, right?

    2. SBSteven Bartlett1:06:12

       Yeah.

    3. JPJordan B. Peterson1:06:13

       It's certainly not an accomplishment.

    4. SBSteven Bartlett1:06:15

       Yeah.

    5. JPJordan B. Peterson1:06:15

       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.

    6. SBSteven Bartlett1:06:29

       Mm-hmm.

    7. JPJordan B. Peterson1:06:30

       Right? So is it an accomplishment? Probably. So what if your accomplishment is false? Well, then are... What are you betraying? Well, if it's associated with sex, maybe you're betraying the most fundamental possible thing. It's certainly possi-... Like, wh- 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? You're, maybe you're violating the spirit of relationship? Maybe you're violating the spirit of adventure? The spirit of romance? The spirit of reproduction? The spirit of life? Likely.

    8. SBSteven Bartlett1:07:16

       It's, it's so interesting that people seem to be, a lot of people seem to be angry at it. They, they seem to be angry with what it's done to them.

    9. JPJordan B. Peterson1:07:25

       They, they should be angry. They should be angry.

    10. SBSteven Bartlett1:07:26

        Even on an individual level, people seem, in the comments section of these episodes that we've done about the subject matter, people seem to be angry about its existence and what it's done to them.

    11. JPJordan B. Peterson1:07:34

        Yeah. They should be angry. They should be outraged. It's outrageous. It's outrageous.

    12. SBSteven Bartlett1:07:39

        Would you ban it if you were in charge of the world?

    13. JPJordan B. Peterson1:07:48

        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.

    14. SBSteven Bartlett1:08:09

        Mm-hmm.

    15. JPJordan B. Peterson1:08:10

        I think it's wrong. No, I don't think. I know it's wrong. 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. You know, I remember when I was a kid, I, I, I got ahold of some of these underground comics from the 1960s, and a lot of the underground com- comic artists were... they are pretty pathological creatures. Like, Robert Crumb's a good example. Crumb led a pretty good life for someone as demented as he is. And, uh, there's a very famous documentary made about the Crumb brothers, and Robert Crumb was the establisher. He was one of the people who established the genre of graphic novel, really back in the '60s in Haight-Ashbury in San Francisco. And his imagination goes places that you don't wanna, you don't wanna be along for the ride.

    16. SBSteven Bartlett1:09:15

        (laughs)

    17. JPJordan B. Peterson1:09:16

        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 now, it's like, there are things that he is going to see that he'll never forget. It's not good.

    18. SBSteven Bartlett1:09:37

        And the brain is still forming at that age, isn't it? So it's-

    19. JPJordan B. Peterson1:09:40

        Oh, definitely.

    20. SBSteven Bartlett1:09:40

        ... it's an interesting way to shock the brain.

    21. JPJordan B. Peterson1:09:42

        Well, we also don't know. Uh, that's right. We have no idea whatsoever what a diet of pornography exposure does to somebody who's, you know, making their way through puberty.

    22. SBSteven Bartlett1:09:54

        What would you say to the, those individuals then that have been Googling that, like, how to quit? 'Cause I imagine if we thought about percentages, I'd say, what, 90% of people that are listening right now watch pornography, at least-

    23. JPJordan B. Peterson1:10:05

        Yeah.

    24. SBSteven Bartlett1:10:05

        So I don't know what the numbers

18. 1:10:06 – 1:12:35

    The Effects of Pornography on You

    1. SBSteven Bartlett1:10:06

       are-

    2. JPJordan B. Peterson1:10:06

       Yeah.

    3. SBSteven Bartlett1:10:06

       ... but, but it's a lot of, lot of people. It's the vast majority.

    4. JPJordan B. Peterson1:10:08

       Write down, write down what it's doing to you.

    5. SBSteven Bartlett1:10:11

       Write down what it's doing to you?

    6. JPJordan B. Peterson1:10:11

       Sure. Write down every, exhaustively, everything you think it might be doing to you. Write it down, everything. Don't, 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. That'll help, 'cause if you're gonna... Look, any hedonistic endeavor is rewarding in the moment, obviously. The problem is, is the price you pay for it in the medium to long run, right? That's the problem. And it's the contradiction between those two things that's the problem. Okay, now, if you wanna quit doing something that's gratifying in the short term, you need to know why, right? Because otherwise, you won't have the willpower. You won't have the, the part of you that thinks, "Well, what the hell? We'll win. 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, when they're making that rationalization, because what the hell refers to hell. And you, 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 wanna 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. No. Are you the sort of person that y- 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. It's, there's something furtive about it and second rate, obviously. Like, obv- it's ridiculous in a sense that we even have to have this discussion, because obviously.

    7. SBSteven Bartlett1:12:07

       Well, these things creep in, don't they, to society, and they become normal.

    8. JPJordan B. Peterson1:12:10

       They, that's for sure.

    9. SBSteven Bartlett1:12:11

       So I guess-

    10. JPJordan B. Peterson1:12:11

        First they creep, then they rampage.

    11. SBSteven Bartlett1:12:13

        We almost can't remember a time, if, if you're a young person, when there wasn't pornography. When you g- you-

    12. JPJordan B. Peterson1:12:17

        You definitely can't remember a time.

    13. SBSteven Bartlett1:12:18

        ... you open up an app and you get-

    14. JPJordan B. Peterson1:12:19

        Absolutely.

    15. SBSteven Bartlett1:12:20

        ... a labyrinth to-

    16. JPJordan B. Peterson1:12:20

        100%. Oh, and it's gonna get way worse. Wait 'til there are AI-equipped adjustable pornographic succubi. Then we're really gonna have fun. 'Cause we're already at a ki- at the point now where, with

19. 1:12:35 – 1:16:33

    AI Girlfriends

    1. JPJordan B. Peterson1:12:35

       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 gonna get a lot smarter, and soon they're gonna have, like... Well, you can al- 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, that-

    2. SBSteven Bartlett1:13:05

       It's interesting, 'cause with my head in a-

    3. JPJordan B. Peterson1:13:06

       Design your own girlfriend.

    4. SBSteven Bartlett1:13:09

       ... she won't call y- she won't give you- she won't argue with you. She won't do the 90 minutes a week.

    5. JPJordan B. Peterson1:13:13

       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 ser- (laughs) that's seriously not good.

    6. SBSteven Bartlett1:13:31

       I mean, that's what pornography's kind of doing, right?

    7. JPJordan B. Peterson1:13:33

       Definitely. Yeah. Well, and there's an edge to it too, right? Because one of the... (laughs) Pleasure is enhanced by novelty.

    8. SBSteven Bartlett1:13:43

       Mm-hmm.

    9. JPJordan B. Peterson1:13:44

       Right. So, so that, that brings up an issue with regards to marriage. You know, I talked to Bill Maher. Bill's alone, and he's my age, you know, and that's painful. But he said to me, you know, in his Hollywood hedonistic manner, that he really couldn't imagine being with the same woman, you know, for any length of time. It's a novelty issue. 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. Like, I would say, if you establish the optimized relationship with someone, you, y- they're inexhaustible. That doesn't mean novelty isn't important. It's important. That's part of play. So...

    10. SBSteven Bartlett1:14:36

        Yeah. A lot of people struggle with that, got a lot of friends that struggle with this idea of being with the same person forever. Um-

    11. JPJordan B. Peterson1:14:42

        The same person.

    12. SBSteven Bartlett1:14:43

        Okay. That's the-

    13. JPJordan B. Peterson1:14:44

        That's the problem with it.

    14. SBSteven Bartlett1:14:44

        Yeah, it's interesting.

    15. JPJordan B. Peterson1:14:44

        Well, but that's really... No, look, I, I n-

    16. SBSteven Bartlett1:14:46

        Yeah.

    17. JPJordan B. Peterson1:14:46

        ... I understand. Like, I know that novelty enhances pleasure. So the question is, how do you keep your relationship alive? That means novel. You play.

    18. SBSteven Bartlett1:14:58

        It's interesting 'cause actually, what I actually think is happening there is, it's not that they are miserable with the same person forever. It's actually the thought, that's kinda what I said, the thought of being-

    19. JPJordan B. Peterson1:15:09

        Well, that's part of that trap, eh?

    20. SBSteven Bartlett1:15:11

        ... with the same person. Yeah.

    21. JPJordan B. Peterson1:15:11

        Well, okay, so that's very good observation because-

    22. SBSteven Bartlett1:15:14

        Yeah.

    23. JPJordan B. Peterson1:15:14

        ... wha- see, because that thought is gonna have a story attached to it. The story's gonna 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, and then we just sit, you know, and eat, like, cold eggs while looking at each other harshly over the table, at breakfast for 40 years."

    24. SBSteven Bartlett1:15:38

        Yeah.

    25. JPJordan B. Peterson1:15:38

        Well, yeah, that's dismal. So, you know, maybe don't do that.

    26. SBSteven Bartlett1:15:44

        (laughs) Yeah. Yeah, there's an element of control to it. On this point of hedonism as well, I was thinking, 'cause we're sort of talking about pornography, but there's many types of hedonism in my life, whether it's, uh, you know, eating the sh- the cookie for... I, this is a, I don't actually do this, but it's a metaphor for eating the cookie from the minibar in my hotel room here in New York at 1:00 AM in the morning when I know tomorrow I'm gonna regret it. There's all these forms of hedonism-

    27. JPJordan B. Peterson1:16:07

        Yeah.

    28. SBSteven Bartlett1:16:07

        ... where we're scrolling on TikTok or whatever it might be. And hedonism shows up in my life in these li- little uncontrolled like, "Oh, gosh, fuck. I made a mistake."

    29. JPJordan B. Peterson1:16:17

        Sure. Of course, of course.

    30. SBSteven Bartlett1:16:18

        And it sometimes shows up when I'm disabled in some way, emotionally disabled.
20. 1:16:33 – 1:21:14

    How to Overcome Weaknesses

    1. SBSteven Bartlett1:16:33

    2. JPJordan B. Peterson1:16:33

       Yeah.

    3. SBSteven Bartlett1:16:33

       "I don't wanna watch pornography," all those kinds of things. But then staving off that moment where, you know, you're, you're weakened in some way, and I use that word-

    4. JPJordan B. Peterson1:16:41

       Yep.

    5. SBSteven Bartlett1:16:41

       ... maybe it's you're weakened in some way-

    6. JPJordan B. Peterson1:16:43

       Tired.

    7. SBSteven Bartlett1:16:43

       ... by something, tired or whatever-

    8. JPJordan B. Peterson1:16:45

       Yeah.

    9. SBSteven Bartlett1:16:45

       ... sticking to those principles when in that moment when it's hard, is that just, again, a case of just being clear on what I want in the long term?

    10. JPJordan B. Peterson1:16:53

        Well, that helps. It helps. Practice helps. Um, surrounding yourself with people who have the same aim and that keep you, um, responsible-

    11. SBSteven Bartlett1:17:04

        Mm-hmm.

    12. JPJordan B. Peterson1:17:05

        ... accountable.

    13. SBSteven Bartlett1:17:05

        Accountable, okay.

    14. JPJordan B. Peterson1:17:06

        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.

    15. SBSteven Bartlett1:17:14

        Mm-hmm.

    16. JPJordan B. Peterson1:17:15

        You know? Like the, the right amount of pleasure in the moment isn't zero.

    17. SBSteven Bartlett1:17:20

        Yeah. Okay. We don't wanna live a life of misery, so I don't know.

    18. JPJordan B. Peterson1:17:22

        Well, right, right. And you can't ju- you don't wanna be at the joyless grind for whom everything is tomorrow.

    19. SBSteven Bartlett1:17:29

        Yeah.

    20. JPJordan B. Peterson1:17:29

        Right? It's very hard to, 'cause what you're trying to do is you're trying to optimize emotion and strategy over all time frames.

    21. SBSteven Bartlett1:17:38

        And you don't know how long that time frame is.

    22. JPJordan B. Peterson1:17:40

        Right? Well, that, that's also a problem. Exactly. Exactly.

    23. SBSteven Bartlett1:17:42

        If I might have one day left or-

    24. JPJordan B. Peterson1:17:44

        Right.

    25. SBSteven Bartlett1:17:44

        ... so I don't need to

    26. NANarrator1:17:45

        ... taste it.

    27. JPJordan B. Peterson1:17:45

        Well, we also know, you know, wh- 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, 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. Now-

    28. SBSteven Bartlett1:18:16

        Does that mean don't have the dessert?

    29. JPJordan B. Peterson1:18:21

        No, no, because... No, it, it doesn't mean that because, look, in the biblical text, for example, there is an insistence that, uh, the spirit of the divine wants the provision of life more abundant. That's the language. The, 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. It's, it's harmoniously balanced. I think best way to think about it is likely musically. You know, in a, in a musical piece that's great, every note has its place. Every note has its proper place in relationship to the whole.

    30. SBSteven Bartlett1:18:59

        Mm-hmm.
21. 1:21:14 – 1:27:08

    Staying True to Your Principles

    1. SBSteven Bartlett1:21:14

       um, preconceptions. I take them as I meet them.

    2. JPJordan B. Peterson1:21:17

       Mm-hmm.

    3. SBSteven Bartlett1:21:17

       I, I try not to... I'm in search of genuine curiosity in them or some kind of answer or truth, and-

    4. JPJordan B. Peterson1:21:25

       Right, so there's a search in it.

    5. SBSteven Bartlett1:21:26

       Yeah, it's a search, yeah, yeah.

    6. JPJordan B. Peterson1:21:27

       Well, that's a quest then.

    7. SBSteven Bartlett1:21:28

       Yeah, yeah.

    8. JPJordan B. Peterson1:21:29

       So you know what? An adventure story is a quest.

    9. SBSteven Bartlett1:21:31

       Can I answer that question questionably?

    10. JPJordan B. Peterson1:21:32

        Yeah, yeah.

    11. SBSteven Bartlett1:21:32

        Okay.

    12. JPJordan B. Peterson1:21:32

        Yeah, yeah, yeah. There, there's only one thing I would take issue with. You said-

    13. SBSteven Bartlett1:21:36

        Yeah.

    14. JPJordan B. Peterson1:21:36

        ... that you don't judge.

    15. SBSteven Bartlett1:21:37

        Yeah.

    16. JPJordan B. Peterson1:21:37

        See, I would say probably you don't condemn. You have to judge 'cause you have to listen and you have to separate wheat from chaff. You have to evaluate, but you can do that without careless condemnna- condemnation or-

    17. SBSteven Bartlett1:21:50

        Yes.

    18. JPJordan B. Peterson1:21:50

        ... a priori, what would you say? Like a tyrannical is- insistence that what you know now is sufficient.

    19. SBSteven Bartlett1:21:57

        Okay, exactly. Yeah.

    20. JPJordan B. Peterson1:21:59

        Yeah.

    21. SBSteven Bartlett1:21:59

        Exactly.

    22. JPJordan B. Peterson1:21:59

        You, you wanna not... People say, "I'm not judgmental." It's like, that's not a virtue. You wanna be... You wanna use judgment all the time, but that's not-

    23. SBSteven Bartlett1:22:09

        Yeah.

    24. JPJordan B. Peterson1:22:09

        ... to con- Like, I could judge you so I don't ever have to listen to you about anything.

    25. SBSteven Bartlett1:22:13

        Yeah, a ju- a judgment might happen in my head, but it's then about how I treat the person based on that judgment. I don't wanna treat them based... I don't wanna have some, like, higher, um, egotistical values-

    26. JPJordan B. Peterson1:22:24

        Yeah, that's it. That's exactly right.

    27. SBSteven Bartlett1:22:24

        ... that I'm, that I'm correct and that-

    28. JPJordan B. Peterson1:22:26

        Yeah, yeah.

    29. SBSteven Bartlett1:22:26

        ... like-

    30. JPJordan B. Peterson1:22:26

        Yeah, yeah.
22. 1:27:08 – 1:31:27

    What to Say to People Struggling With Discipline

    1. SBSteven Bartlett1:27:08

       stay focused on the long term. F- for the people at the very other end of the scale who just look at their lives and go, "I just ... I hear what he's saying. For some reason, it's not working. Like, I can't get out of this situation."

    2. JPJordan B. Peterson1:27:20

       Yep.

    3. SBSteven Bartlett1:27:21

       You meet these people all the time.

    4. JPJordan B. Peterson1:27:21

       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. 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?" Is ... So then, then you have a variety of ideas about how you-

    5. SBSteven Bartlett1:28:06

       Everywhere.

    6. JPJordan B. Peterson1:28:07

       Yeah. Okay. Okay. So-

    7. SBSteven Bartlett1:28:08

       "I'm on my mom's bed. I'm in- I've got no relationship ... My job's crap. I hate it."

    8. JPJordan B. Peterson1:28:12

       Okay. Then I'd say-

    9. SBSteven Bartlett1:28:13

       "I'm watching

    10. NANarrator1:28:13

        photography."

    11. JPJordan B. Peterson1:28:13

        ... zero in on one of those-

    12. SBSteven Bartlett1:28:15

        Yeah.

    13. JPJordan B. Peterson1:28:15

        ... and find some small thing that you could fix that you would fix.

    14. SBSteven Bartlett1:28:19

        Why a small thing?

    15. JPJordan B. Peterson1:28:21

        Well, because look at you. You're completely goddamn useless. You better find something small that you could do.

    16. SBSteven Bartlett1:28:26

        Well-

    17. JPJordan B. Peterson1:28:26

        Now if you can find a big thing, good, but obviously you haven't been able to 'cause 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, 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? 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?" It's like, hey man, uphill is better than downhill. And there's a doctrine in the Gospels that Christ puts forward which is very interesting. He says, uh, 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, it lays out a view of the world. Progress, regression.

Episode duration: 2:27:49