Joe Rogan Experience #1070 - Jordan Peterson

1. 0:00 – 15:00

   Four, three, two, one.…

   1. JRJoe Rogan0:02

      Four, three, two, one. Boom, and we're live. 12 Rules for Life. So without reading this, so what you're saying is?

   2. JPJordan Peterson0:12

      (laughs)

   3. JRJoe Rogan0:12

      That's what it's like. (laughs)

   4. JPJordan Peterson0:13

      There's only 12 things you need to know in life, right? That's it?

   5. JRJoe Rogan0:16

      (laughs) Yeah. Well-

   6. JPJordan Peterson0:16

      Yeah, yeah.

   7. JRJoe Rogan0:17

      This, um, this interview that you just did with this woman, uh, Cathy Newman, she... Was that in the UK?

   8. JPJordan Peterson0:23

      It was. Channel 4, UK.

   9. JRJoe Rogan0:24

      Um, I just went... I, I, I felt bad, but I was also laughing. I went to her Twitter page to read, like... And in... With each one of her tweets, no matter what she says, someone writes underneath it, "So what you're saying is..." And then some ridic... But by the way, the... Your fans were mocking her, but politely, non-aggressively. They were... I di-... I didn't read any rude things. Like there was no th-... There was no insults or there w-... Well, maybe a few insults, but there's no swears. It was just playful mocking of the interview that she did with you, because the interview was ridiculous. It was a ridiculous interview. I mean, I, I listened to it se-... Or watched it several times. I was like, "This is so strange." Like her determination to turn it into a conflict, to... It's one of the issues that I have with television shows.

   10. JPJordan Peterson1:15

       Yep.

   11. JRJoe Rogan1:16

       Because they have a very limited amount of time and they're trying to make things as salacious as possible.

   12. JPJordan Peterson1:21

       Yep.

   13. JRJoe Rogan1:21

       They wanna have these sound bites, these clickbait sound bites, and she just went into it incredibly confrontational, not trying to find your actual perspective, but trying to force you to defend a non-, non-realistic perspective.

   14. JPJordan Peterson1:35

       Yes. Well, I was the, I was the hypothetical villain of her imagination, essentially.

   15. JRJoe Rogan1:40

       Yeah.

   16. JPJordan Peterson1:40

       Well, what happened, what was interesting too, the way it, it l-... Played itself out, because I met her in the green room beforehand. You know, she was being made up and then they put a little bit of powder on me, and we had a friendly kind of interchange. And then we went and sat in front of the cameras and for a couple of minutes, you know, before, before the show got rolling. And we had a pretty pleasant back and forth. And then as soon as the cameras went on, she was a completely different person.

   17. JRJoe Rogan2:01

       Ugh.

   18. JPJordan Peterson2:01

       And I thought, "Oh, I see."

   19. JRJoe Rogan2:04

       It's a trick.

   20. JPJordan Peterson2:05

       "I see what's going on."

   21. JRJoe Rogan2:05

       Yeah.

   22. JPJordan Peterson2:06

       Yeah. Well, so, so that kind of alerted me to, well, the fact that there was something rotten in the state of Denmark, let's say.

   23. JRJoe Rogan2:13

       (laughs)

   24. JPJordan Peterson2:13

       Yeah. But, you know, this is also why YouTube is gonna kill TV, because television, by its nature, all of these narrow broadcast technologies, they re-... They rely on forcing the story, right?

   25. JRJoe Rogan2:27

       Yeah.

   26. JPJordan Peterson2:27

       Because it has to happen now. It has to happen in, like often in five minutes, 'cause they only broadcast five minutes of that v-... In-... Interview. They did put the whole thing up on YouTube.

   27. JRJoe Rogan2:37

       To their credit.

   28. JPJordan Peterson2:38

       Yeah. It, it, it hasn't ceased to amaze me yet. I think that they thought that the interview went fine. That's the scuttlebutt I've got from sort of behind the scenes, because I've... You know, I know some people who know what's going on at Channel 4, and they're shell-shocked by the response, you know. And b-... And then of course there is the counterresponse. The Guardian, the next day published a paper, uh, published an article saying that, you know, the head of Channel 4 had to call in police security because of threats, you know. Well, first of all, you can call the police in about anything, and they never did detail out exactly what the threats were, you know. But then about 20 newspapers picked that up and went for the, "Well, Cathy Newman is now being harassed by an army of online trolls for doing nothing but doing her job." Which, well, I... And then there was a backlash against that in the press. So it's been a... Well, I'd... What do you say about that?

   29. JRJoe Rogan3:34

       Well, someone took an audit of the im-... The actual inter-... Interchanges that-

   30. JPJordan Peterson3:38

       Yep.
2. 15:00 – 30:00

   (inhales deeply) …

   1. JPJordan Peterson15:00

      often if the women are in prison, it's 'cause they got tangled up with a really bad guy-

   2. JRJoe Rogan15:03

      (inhales deeply)

   3. JPJordan Peterson15:03

      ... you know? So, so, one of the problems is, is that differences at the extreme are where the differences really start to manifest themselves. And so you can have a small difference at the level of the average, but out at the l- extremes, it starts to make a massive difference. So, let's say, to be a Google engineer, which is hard, right? Because you not only have to be an engineer, but you have to be a very good engineer. Say, well, you have to be interested in things rather than people. That's a, that's a huge difference in interests. Like, men are more interested in things, generally speaking, and women are more interested in people, generally speaking. Now, there's still a lot of overlap between them, but that's one of the biggest differences between men and women. It's been demonstrated cross-culturally. It's also a very big difference in the Scandinavian countries. Well, on average, the difference isn't that great, even though it's a relatively large difference. But at the extremes, it's the same thing. Almost all the people who are hyper, um, what would you call, hyper-focused on things, they're almost all men. And all the people who are hyper-focused on people are almost all women. And so how does that play out in the world? Well, in the Scandinavian countries, it plays out this way. About 85% of nurses in Scandinavia are female, and about 85 to 90% of engineers are male. It doesn't mean women can't be engineers. It doesn't mean men can't be nurses. It also doesn't have anything to do with intelligence, but it does have to do with interest. And the differences in interest are big, now, at the extremes in particular. So, when you read a review like that, the one that was pointed out, the first question is, "Well, what do you mean by big and little?" There's more overlap, there's more overlap between men and women than there is difference, on virtually every parameter. Okay, fine. Are the remaining differences significant in how they play out in the world? And the answer to that is overwhelmingly significant, because you, you, you select for extremes. So, here's another example. Ashkenazi Jews have an average IQ of 115. So, in the typical population overall, it has an average IQ of 100. 15 points is about the difference between the typical college student and the typical high school student. Okay, so it's not a massive difference. But if you go to the extreme, say, "Well, let's go look at people who only have an IQ of 145," which is kind of where you hit the beginnings of genius level. It's like the Jews are overwhelmingly overrepresented. So, s- relatively small differences in the average can produce walloping differences at the extremes, and people don't understand that. It's not surprising, 'cause it, it actually requires a fairly sophisticated grasp of statistics. But when we're talking about things like differential outcome in the workplace, um, then you have to take a sophisticated statistical approach to it, or you don't know what the hell you're talking about. And unfortunately, many of the people who are talking about things like gender differences, they have no idea what they're talking about. They don't know the literature. They don't know there is a literature. They don't understand biology. Like the, the social constructionist types, the women's studies types, the neo-Marxists, they don't give a damn about biology. It's like they inhabit some disembodied universe. So, the review was poorly written at best and did not...... was, showed a, a, a very poor grasp of the relationship between group differences and economic and practical outcomes.

   4. JRJoe Rogan18:20

      It's not just that, it's deceptive. And there's, there's a need, in some way, on that side, uh, this side of the debate, the anti-Jordan Peterson side, to label men and women as being virtually identical when there's so much evidence that that's not the case. And what you're saying, what you've n- you've never said one is superior, one is inferior. What you are is a guy who's pointing out the reality of the difference between the various types of human beings, and you've been very open about the extremes. About, y- look, I'm, I'm well aware of the extremes. I deal with MMA fighters.

   5. JPJordan Peterson19:00

      Hmm.

   6. JRJoe Rogan19:00

      I know a lot of female MMA fighters are as g- aggressive and as tough as any man you're ever gonna meet in your life. And I know a lot of men from comedy that are meek, little guys who, they're not nearly as aggressive as some of these female fighters. Look, there's... I think one of the beautiful things about freedom is that people get an opportunity to express themselves in a way that's genuinely them.

   7. JPJordan Peterson19:23

      Yep.

   8. JRJoe Rogan19:24

      And whether that is like, uh, our friend, Alex Honnold, who's a, a free climber, who is, like, climbing up these fantastic mountains with no ropes, or whether it's a female MMA fighter, like Raquel Pennington, who's just a tank in, uh, beating the shit out of people. And that's what she loves to do. All of these extremes are available to people because of freedom. This is not a, a suppressive thing. You know, no one's, no one's stopping people from choosing these paths. I don't know if you saw the most recent slip-up by the, uh, CEO of YouTube. Um, I retweeted it today. Um, they were talking about why there's not as many women in tech (laughs) . And she basically said... They both, her and the CEO of Google, said exactly what James Damore was saying in his memo. They completely fucked up. They tried to c- l- l- did you find this?

   9. JPJordan Peterson20:17

      Hm.

   10. JRJoe Rogan20:17

       Look at this. This is goddamn hilarious. And James Damore had this on his page. They respond, "Women, a lack of tech, could..." No, go to Jo- go to James Damore's tweet. Just go to the, the, the ro- what I retweeted, and what he said.

   11. JPJordan Peterson20:31

       (sniffs) So, there was a study published a while ago, a- about-

   12. JRJoe Rogan20:34

       Ja- no, Jamie, scroll back up. Right, it was right there. It's right there. Just g- just make his tweet larger. There you go. Look, see, it said, he's saying, "Did I read this right?" S- I don't know how to say her name, a Susan Wojcik-cic... I'm sorry, I don't know how to say her name. W-O-J-O-C-I-C-K-I, said that, "Women find geeky male industries, as opposed to social industries, not very interesting, and Sundar cites research on gender differences."

   13. JPJordan Peterson21:00

       Yeah, well that's the, that's exactly the difference in interest that I just pointed out.

   14. JRJoe Rogan21:03

       Yes, and this is what he-

   15. JPJordan Peterson21:04

       That's exactly what...

   16. JRJoe Rogan21:04

       ... this is what James Damore wrote in his memo-

   17. JPJordan Peterson21:07

       Yeah.

   18. JRJoe Rogan21:07

       ... that got him fired.

   19. JPJordan Peterson21:08

       Yeah, yeah.

   20. JRJoe Rogan21:08

       And this, in my mind, if I was the lawyer for James Damore, I'd be like, "Oh, well look what we have here." (slaps desk)

   21. JPJordan Peterson21:14

       Yeah.

   22. JRJoe Rogan21:14

       "This is, this is checkmate-"

   23. JPJordan Peterson21:15

       Yeah, well, and he's-

   24. JRJoe Rogan21:16

       "... you dummies." He just said what he said.

   25. JPJordan Peterson21:17

       You know, the, the Damore story, the Damore story's really interesting. You know, because I think it's such a classic story of, of an engineer getting tangled up in politics. So, Damore went to this diversity seminar. And he wasn't very happy about it because he knew the literature. And so-

   26. JRJoe Rogan21:31

       (sniffs)

   27. JPJordan Peterson21:31

       ... at the end of the seminar they asked for feedback. Well, James Damore is an engineer. So, when you tell an engineer that you want feedback, the engineer thinks, "Oh, you want feedback."

   28. JRJoe Rogan21:42

       (laughs)

   29. JPJordan Peterson21:42

       "And you, and you want, like, facts and s- stuff, right?" 'Cause that's what feedback would be like. So, Damore went and wrote this, like, thorough memo and gave it to them. He said, "Well, you know, this is what I think. Here's some feedback." And then it traveled around. He got no real response from the diversity people, and then he posted it on one of these internal boards at Google, where people can discuss things, which people at Google do all the time. So, it was perfectly reasonable for him to post it. Because he didn't get a response from the diversity people, he thought, "Well, let's see what other people think." And then it was there for a long time until it was leaked up, into the outside world. It wasn't like Damore was trying to expose Google for, for what it is. He was just doing what an engineer type would do when someone asked him to provide feedback. Because he's not thinking politically. He's not thinking, "Oh, they just wanna hear what they already said." He thought they actually wanted some facts. Anyways, I think they picked on the wrong guy-

   30. JRJoe Rogan22:35

       They certainly did.
3. 30:00 – 45:00

   Yeah, well, they couldn't…

   1. JRJoe Rogan30:00

      You could hear that in her discussion with them and how flabbergasted she was by their take on things, but this was essentially proof to a lot of people that were on the outside of how preposterous some of the dialogue was inside these universities and how-

   2. JPJordan Peterson30:14

      Yeah, well, they couldn't have done me a bigger favor-

   3. JRJoe Rogan30:16

      Right.

   4. JPJordan Peterson30:16

      ... than having that scandal because when I made the videos about Bill C-16, they-... 15 months ago. I said, "Look, here's what's going to happen because this legislation is written in an appalling manner and the surrounding policies are pathological." I said, "Here's what's gonna happen." And, and so I laid it out. And then people came out and said, "No, you're being paranoid." It's like, "That's possible." "No, the bill, the legislation isn't going to have that effect." "No, you're not a legal expert. What the hell do you know?" Et cetera, et cetera. "You're crazy. You're a bigot. You're a transphobe." You know, they, they threw everything but the kitchen sink at me. And, like, fair enough, you know, 'cause there's always a possibility that I was wrong. But the problem was is I read the policies and I understood them and I knew where they were leading. But I never imagined that one of the consequences of Bill C-16 and its sister legislation was that a teaching assistant at a Canadian university would be pilloried and accused of breaking the law and then accused of all sorts of reprehensible political beliefs by two professors and an administrator hired for that purpose, um, merely because she showed a video about two people talking about the law. It's like that, that... Paranoid as I am, let's say, that, that exceeded the grasp or the reach of my imagination. And then of course, it was made public and people just couldn't believe it. And then you think, "Okay, well what's the defense?" "Well, they misinterpreted Bill C-16." It's like, no, I don't think so. Um, they aren't representative of the university professor or the administration. Well, all of Pimlott and Rambukanna's colleagues rose to their defense, the whole department. The university, when they apologized, did it in a very mealy-mouthed way. Like, there's no evidence that it was an anomalous occurrence. So what had happened is they overextended the reach of Bill C-16 in exactly the way that I said would happen. It was inevitable. And it wasn't an anomaly, it was actually... That's actually the way that the universities are. And it is the way that they are. It wasn't a one-off. It was exactly diagnostic. And it's appalling. It's appalling. The universities have so much to be ashamed of. They're, they're, they're... Well, there was an article in the Boston Globe this week saying the same thing, that all of this crazy postmodern identity politics, equality of outcome nonsense is not only disrupted the university in a way that might be irreparable, as far as I can tell, but it's rapidly spreading outside into the normal, say, business world, which is exactly what you see, for example, at Google.

   5. JRJoe Rogan32:47

      Well, the tech industry in particular seems to be, um, like, more left-leaning than pretty much any industry there is. And I guess it's because there's so many intelligent people there, so many people that have spent a tremendous amount of time in universities and they get indoctrinated into this mindset. And you're, you're seeing that in this, uh, the CEO of YouTube's response to the James Damore memo completely misrepresented it. Uh, they're talking about harmful gender stereotypes. That's not what he talked about at all. Um, what, what's fascinating to me about all of this is it, it just reeks of tribalism that these people on the left have decided... I mean, and I'm mostly on the left-

   6. JPJordan Peterson33:29

      (laughs)

   7. JRJoe Rogan33:29

      ... which is really crazy. I mean when it comes-

   8. JPJordan Peterson33:31

      Yeah, yeah.

   9. JRJoe Rogan33:31

      ... to most policies and most thoughts of equality and, and the idea of just letting people be who they are, I mean, that's what the left used to stand for. It used to stand for being open-minded, it used to stand for being a reasonable person. And yet now it seems to be all about this very toxic tribal ideology and this is one of the reasons why so many of these attacks on you are so baffling to me. It's because there's a willful ignorance or a deceptive narrative. There's a deceptive description of who you are and what you're saying and what you represent. And it's this conveniently categorized, not even convenient, willfully ign- willfully deceptively categorized into these category- categories of homophobia, transphobia, sexism. These are reprehensible categories that if they can just shove something that you're saying, figure out a way to push you into this little narrow confine that e- everyone has to disagree with you, everyone has to insult you, and everyone has to, uh, like take that girl into her- their office and chastise you for even us- not even speaking up for you.

   10. JPJordan Peterson34:45

       Right.

   11. JRJoe Rogan34:45

       Just using-

   12. JPJordan Peterson34:45

       Which, and she said she wasn't.

   13. JRJoe Rogan34:47

       Yes. That's what was more fascinating-

   14. JPJordan Peterson34:49

       Mm-hmm.

   15. JRJoe Rogan34:49

       ... about it than anything.

   16. JPJordan Peterson34:49

       Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

   17. JRJoe Rogan34:50

       She-

   18. JPJordan Peterson34:50

       Yeah, then they gave her hell for that. (laughs) Like, "Well, you can't present something like that neutrally. That's like presenting something Hitler said neutrally, or maybe Milo Yiannopoulos."

   19. JRJoe Rogan34:59

       Ugh. It's, it's so strange. But what they don't understand, and this is what's really crazy, is that the world is watching. And that most people, m- uh, maybe it's a 60/40 like we were talking about before when it comes to aggressive wom- women versus aggressive men, I don't know what the number is, but I think most people-

   20. JPJordan Peterson35:17

       I think it's about 50 to one, actually. Like I've been watching the comments on YouTube and so forth trying to track this. It's like I think that, like I- I think that what the radical leftists are doing is overwhelmingly, um, unrepresentative of the general population.

   21. JRJoe Rogan35:34

       Yes.

   22. JPJordan Peterson35:34

       Overwhelmingly. But they're, they're a very well-organized and, and v- verbal and prepared minority. And they've occupied powerful positions in many, many institutions. HR... And one of the things I really can't figure out right now, and for anybody who's running a company that's listening they should think this through, like to let these postmodern neo-Marxists into your company through the guise of human resources is an absolute catastrophe. You're gonna pay for that. This, the ideology that drives postmodern neo-Marxism, this identity politics, uh, what... The, the identity politics movement and its insistence on equality of outcome is powerfully anti-capitalistic. It's powerfully anti-Western. Why you would let that into your company...... is so that you can look good socially, let's say, is beyond me. It's a big mistake.

   23. JRJoe Rogan36:26

       I agree with you, but I don't think people are aware of it. I think part of the problem is this battleground is largely ignored by the general population. I don't think most people are aware of what's going on.

   24. JPJordan Peterson36:36

       Yeah.

   25. JRJoe Rogan36:36

       You are, 'cause you're obviously, you're deeply embedded in the university system in Canada, and you're, you're obviously now, uh, branching out into YouTube and podcasts and all these different ways to get this information out. But the average person that is a CEO of a company or... They're, they're concerned with their own company. They're concerned with their own individual needs. They're concerned with organizing things and keeping their bottom line and making sure-

   26. JPJordan Peterson37:01

       Yeah, well, they're also concerned with looking fair, and-

   27. JRJoe Rogan37:03

       Yes.

   28. JPJordan Peterson37:03

       ... making sure that they're not prejudiced and all of that, which is laudable. And, but-

   29. JRJoe Rogan37:08

       I just don't think they see the wave coming.

   30. JPJordan Peterson37:10

       No, they don't, they don't see it coming. They don't understand it, and they're incautious about it, but they're gonna pay for it. Well, Google is a good example because-
4. 45:00 – 1:00:00

   Most people's gonna take…

   1. JPJordan Peterson45:00

      and this is something that has to be dead seriously addressed. It's like you might say, "Well, why is the left wing necessary?" Let- let's, let's put it that way. So... And then a subset of that would be, "Well, why is the left wing attractive?" Well, the left wing is necessary because inequality does spiral out of control. And so there has to be a political voice for the dispossessed. And you, you don't want people to stack up at zero, you know, where they can't play the game at all. It's a bad idea. Not only do you not... If people stack up at zero, they're too poor to get ahead at all, let's say. They're too poor to open a bank account. They're too poor to buy enough food. Like they're stuck at zero and they can't get out of it. It's a really bad scene because first of all, that's a lot of suffering and that's not so good. Second of all, well, at least in principle, a lot of those people might be, um... what... might have something to offer the world or their children might, and you want to open up avenues of opportunity to them so that they can succeed but so that everyone else can benefit from their success. So... And then the next thing is, well, if the inequality gets out of hand too much, then the whole society starts to destabilize because if you get enough people stacked up at zero, especially young men, you get enough young men stacked up at zero, they think, "Oh, to hell with it, we'll just flip the whole board over and it'll settle in a new configuration and maybe we won't be stuck at zero in the new configuration." So it foments revolutionary thinking. So there's lots of reasons to be concerned about inequality. And so you need a voice on the left to say, "Look, we've got to parameterize the, the tendency towards inequality so that it doesn't destabilize the entire society. So that it's... everybody has an opportunity to advance." Like yes, right, you need that. Okay, so that's the technical reason for the necessity of the left. And then I think it's attractive because, well, because young people can be resentful partly because they're at the bottom of the heap, so to speak. They're not 'cause they're young. Like, look, you want to be... You want to be poor and 18, you want to be rich and 80. Which are you gonna choose? Well-

   2. JRJoe Rogan46:57

      Most people's gonna take poor at 18.

   3. JPJordan Peterson46:59

      Well, yeah. (laughs)

   4. JRJoe Rogan46:59

      Especially if you've been rich at 80 and you understand you can get back there.

   5. JPJordan Peterson47:03

      Yeah. Well, that's the thing, you know, is that most of the people who are... have a million dollars or more in... you know, their states are old. Well, why is that? Well, (laughs) really do we need an explanation for that?

   6. JRJoe Rogan47:14

      (laughs)

   7. JPJordan Peterson47:14

      It's like you've had a lot more time to make money. How would that be? That's the explanation. So that's one of the big drivers of inequality is just simply age. But it's not obvious that the old rich people have an advantage over the young starting out people. So, so anyways... But any- anyhow, maybe you're resentful and irritated 'cause you're young and you're still at the bottom of the heap and, you know, you've got other problems too. It's more difficult for people of your race or ethnicity or gender, at least you think it is. And so you say, "Well, I wanna make things fair." And then that's also driven by some real compassion because nobody really likes that, the consequences of radical inequality. Like nobody likes the fact that homeless people exist and have to go to the emergency ward, you know, to get treated and they don't have medical coverage and they have to live in tents on the street. And so if you have some compassion then you think, "Well, we gotta do more for the poor and dispossessed." It's like, okay, that's... that's an understandable sentiment. But the problem is, is that the people... But the problem is, is that... It's... That, that, that desire to help is contaminated by resentment and ideological certainty and then also by something that George Orwell pointed out so nicely in his book Road to Wigan Pier. It's like...... the typical middle class socialist, this was his diagnosis, and he was a socialist, by the way. His diagnosis was the typical middle class intellectual socialist doesn't like the poor. In fact, they don't wanna have anything to do with the poor. They're contemptuous of the poor, but they hate the rich. And I think it's even more devious than that because I think who they hate are the successful. Some of the successful are rich, but really who they hate is the successful. It's, it's like Cain and Abel. It's the retelling of Cain and Abel. And so there's some positive motivations for being engaged on the left, and there's a lot of negative motivations as well. And the people who are really driven by the radical left ideology, the real radicals, they're almost all driven by, by resentment and hatred as far as I'm concerned. Now, the, let, let's look at both extremes. So back to the idea of the, of the ideological and verbal territory. I said with Bill C16 that I wouldn't speak the language of the radical leftists because I don't think that that language should define the game. But let's say it does. So here's the game. The world is a battleground of groups and the, they're battling for power. That's it. That's the game. And some of them win and they oppress those who don't win. So that's how we're gonna view the world. Okay. Now the leftists say, "Okay, well here's the oppressed people, the oppressors, the patriarchy type- patriarchal types, they should be ashamed of themselves and give up some power." The right-wingers, the radical right-wingers look at that and they say, "Oh, I see. So the game is ethnic identity, is it? It's identity politics. Okay, we're white males. We're not gonna lose." That's the right-wing version of identity politics. It's like, "Screw you." If we're gonna divide into groups, if we're gonna divide into tribes and I'm in my tribe, I'm not gonna get all guilty and lose. I'm gonna get all cruel and win. And that's like, then you think, well, there's people in the middle. They're kinda looking back and forth, which side of the identity politics spectrum am I gonna fall in? Do I wanna go with the, do I wanna g- go, do I wanna be driven primarily by compassion and am, am I going to accept guilt for my historical privilege? So that's one possibility. And then I'm the oppressor, I'm the member of the oppressor group, or am I gonna say, "No, to hell with that, I'm just gonna play to win"? Well, then I'm gonna go to the right. It's like, well, my sense is how about we don't play either of those games? And the reason we shouldn't play them is, well, the Soviets played the left-wing game and like killed who knows how many tens of millions of people. You can't even count it accurately. The estimates range from 20 to 100 million. Those are pretty big error bars. And the, and the Maoists, maybe 100 million, certainly 60 million. So okay, that didn't work out so well. And then there's the Nazis, like they played ethnic identity politics and racial superiority. It's like why do we, we wanna play that game? See, what I've been trying to do, really what I've been trying to do for the last 30 years is say, look, there's heavy temptations to play those sorts of games, but that's not the only game in town. It's a much better game to play individual. It's like get your act together. Stand up in the world. Make something of yourself. Stay away from the o- ideological oversimplifications. Set your house in order. That's rule six in the, in the, in this book. So I have a book rule in there says, "Set your house in perfect order before you criticize the world." And it's a very dark chapter about the motivations of the Columbine High School killers and this other guy named Carl Panzram who was a serial rapist and arsonist and murderer. And these, he wrote an autobiography and the Columbine kids also wrote about why they did what they did. They're resentful to the core, bitter, bitter resentful, terrible. And well, I'm suggesting that people stay away from that resentment, resentfulness and bitterness even though life is hard and it, and it, and there's malevolence in the world. It's like yeah, you can, you can tell a story where everyone's a victim because we all die. We all get sick, you know, and, and things happen to us that are bitter and terrible, betrayal, deceit, lies. Like people hurt us on purpose, you know? So it's not just the tragedy of life, it's malevolence as well. It's everyone's a victim. You can tell that story. The problem is if you tell that story and you start to act it out, you make all of that worse. That's the problem. And it's, so this is why partly I got attracted to Christian imagery, at least in part, um, 'cause there's an idea in Christianity that you should pick up your goddamn cross and like walk up the hill. And that's dramatically, that's correct. That's the right answer. It's like you've got a heavy load of suffering to bear and a fair bit of it's gonna be unjust, so what are you gonna do about it? Accept it voluntarily and try to transform as a consequence. That's the right answer. It's the right answer 'cause the rest of it is tribalism and we're, we're too technologically powerful to get all tribal again.

   8. JRJoe Rogan53:24

      What's exciting to me is that I think this is the first time in my life that I've ever seen so much communication on these subjects, and I think so much recognition about the consequences of tribal, toxic tribalism, this tribal thinking that everyone seems to be engaged in on the right and on the left. I mean, in America you needn't go no further than going back and forth from CNN to Fox News to say something's wrong here.

   9. JPJordan Peterson53:51

      Yeah.

   10. JRJoe Rogan53:51

       These are, these are supposed to be news outlets. You have two completely different narratives, and that has nothing to do with what we're talking about with gender politics and, and radical left socialism and Marxism. Uh, what, what you're seeing in universities though, um, is a radical departure from what I always considered universities great for. What I always considered universities great for is separating from your parents, challenging belief systems, and being engaged in the, the works of brilliant people who you can compare all of their findings and their discoveries and, and sit down and debate them in class. And when I was a kid, when I was in high school-... I went to a very good high school, Newton South High School in, uh, Newton, Massachusetts. And, uh, one of the things that they did is they put on a debate between a guy from the Moral Majority, which was this, uh, right wing, uh-

   11. JPJordan Peterson54:47

       Yep.

   12. JRJoe Rogan54:47

       ... Christian group that I don't even know if they're around anymore, but there ... This was 19 ... I was 14, so '81. And, uh, Barney Frank, who was that congressman, is now one of the first openly gay guys, uh, in, in Congress. And, and, uh, you got to watch these two people in this auditorium debate their points. And this Moral Majority guy had this, you know, right wing, Ronald Reagan sort of pu- point of view. And Barney Frank, who's kind of crazy, he's got busted in some male prostitute scandal and a- and ... but in the gay community that's not that big of a deal. And, uh, just B- Barney Frank took him apart. It was b- brilliant to watch, but it was a real debate.

   13. JPJordan Peterson55:31

       Mm-hmm.

   14. JRJoe Rogan55:31

       It was fascinating. And you got to see, uh, a, a, a mediocre mind versus a great mind. And you got to see this little thing. And I was like, "Wow, this is ..." And it's one of the things that's always attracted me about the, the idea that two people with differing viewpoints can get together in front of a neutral audience and these people can sort of decipher which, which way these people are thinking and why they're thinking.

   15. JPJordan Peterson55:56

       Yeah, well, and bad as that is, and rife with conflict, uh, as that is, the alternative is to separate, as you pointed out, into two camps that don't talk.

   16. JRJoe Rogan56:05

       Yes.

   17. JPJordan Peterson56:05

       And the thing is, the, the consequence of not talking is that you fight. That, that's the end game. Because the only way you can stop from fighting with other people is by negotiating with them. And, you know, one of the things that's also interesting, and this is partly why Silicon Valley leans to the left, is that a fair bit of your political preference is determined by your biological temperament. It's strongly influenced. So if you're a creative type who's kind of disorderly then you're likely to be on the liberal left end of the distribution. And if you're a non-creative type who's orderly and, and especially if you're orderly, then you tend to be on the right wing end of things. And so ... And w- well, why is that? Why, why do those variations exist? Well, they exist because some of the time your best strategy is to do what other people have done and shut the hell up, and just do it. Run the algorithm, right? The pathway's already laid clear, it works. Stay in the damn rut and move forward. Okay, so that's the conservative approach. And when things are going right, it's the right approach. The problem is, is that sometimes it's not the right approach, because something has shifted and so something new has to emerge. And so then there's a bunch of people who are adapted to the new, and those are the entrepreneurial and creative types, and of course they dominate Silicon Valley because it's a very entrepreneurial, it's a very entrepreneurial ... what would you call it? Um, geography. And so they're gonna lean to the left. But they have to understand, people have to understand that the left and the right need each other. The liberals and the conservatives need each other. Liberals start companies, conservatives run them. And the problem with the conservatives is, well, they can only run a company in one direction, 'cause they're conservative, they don't think outside the box. But, so if the company is working and the product line is good and everything is stable, like hire some conservatives 'cause they'll maximize efficiency and they'll move down that track. But if the track is no longer going in a good direction because something's changed, the environment's changed, well then you gotta bring in the creative people. And so we need each other. And the, the only way that we can survive the fact that we're different and the fact that we need each other is by continually talking. We have talked constantly. It's like, well, how much of what we're doing should we preserve versus how much of what we're doing should we transform? And the answer is, we don't know, because the environment keeps changing. So what do we do about that? We talk. Now, I was on a CBC, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation interview a couple of days ago, and they took me to task. I tweeted out this, uh, this invitation to the Kek Boys to fill out this program that I developed called Future Authoring, and it helps people make a plan for their life.

   18. JRJoe Rogan58:45

       Explain the Kek Boys, people.

   19. JPJordan Peterson58:45

       Yeah, well they're, they're an online group. They're, they're ... They-

   20. JRJoe Rogan58:48

       I know what it is but-

   21. JPJordan Peterson58:49

       They, they, they run Kekistan.

   22. JRJoe Rogan58:50

       Yeah.

   23. JPJordan Peterson58:50

       It's this fictional polity. It's a p- it's a satire of identity politics, essentially. We're gonna, we're gonna be our ethnicity.

   24. JRJoe Rogan58:59

       Highly demonized satire.

   25. JPJordan Peterson59:00

       H- highly demonized satire. Right.

   26. JRJoe Rogan59:02

       And ... Because ... And with good reason, for ... With some individual examples of racism and-

   27. JPJordan Peterson59:07

       Oh yeah.

   28. JRJoe Rogan59:08

       ... Nazism and you know there-

   29. JPJordan Peterson59:09

       Yeah, yeah, there's lots of misbehavior.

   30. JRJoe Rogan59:11

       Yeah.
5. 1:00:00 – 1:15:00

   They're having fun being…

   1. JPJordan Peterson1:00:00

      "Well no, what I'm doing ..." I said, "Look, the- these people are attracted by the radical right, although they're satirists and juvenile satirists and graffiti types and, you know, they're, they're playing a weird satirical game."

   2. JRJoe Rogan1:00:10

      They're having fun being naughty.

   3. JPJordan Peterson1:00:10

      Yes. That's exactly what they're doing. They're, they're provoking. And I ... My sense was, well, why don't you develop yourself as an individual and get the hell out of the ideological trap? So here's my program which helps you write about your future and that'll help you decide who you are as an individual 'cause that's the way out of the ideological trap. It's like ... And that's the way obviously ... What's the way out of tribalism? First, the way out of tribalism is not to never join a tribe.You actually have to join a tribe as you mature, right? Because what happens is, first of all, you're an infant, and then you have your parents to, to make a relationship with. But then when you move from your parents, you have your tribe, you have your group. Maybe it's the music you listen to, it's the gang you hang around with, whatever. You have to be socialized into the tribe. You have to, 'cause otherwise you stay a dependent infant. Okay, but now you're socialized into the tribe. Well, is that where it ends? It's like, no. The next thing to do is differentiate yourself from the tribe while still knowing how to behave within the tribe. Well, that's the call to individualism, and that's, I think, what the West got right, is we figured that out. It's like, you're more than your... You have to be a member of a group because otherwise, you're not socialized, you're not good for anyone. You know- You have to be able to play on a team, man. You have to have team loyalty. Okay. But that isn't where you should stop. You should take the next step and become a fully developed individual. And see, the problem with being just a group member is that the group... It's the problem with conservatism. The group is a fixed entity. It has its rules and its regulations, and if you're a member, that's all you are. But the group can go badly wrong, so the group needs individuals to keep the group alive and revivified. So you have to become an individual so you can revivify the group. That's the call to, that's the call in the West, to, to heroism, essentially, to noble way of living is to develop yourself past your group identity so that you can reconfigure the game when that becomes necessary. And I think that there's a very influential line of developmental psychology, uh, pioneered by Jean Piaget that laid that out as a developmental, well, w- progression. First, you're a child, then you're a member of a group, then you're an individual. It's like, get to the individual level. That's the solution. It's a solution to tribalism, but you have to accept responsibility to do that.

   4. JRJoe Rogan1:02:31

      And this is what your future authoring program is basically all about.

   5. JPJordan Peterson1:02:34

      Yeah.

   6. JRJoe Rogan1:02:34

      I mean, it's, it's a wonderful program. It's... And a- a- along with this book, Rules and Guidelines for Life. I think that's one of the things that a lot of young people are lacking, is a structure to how to go about establishing who they are in the world.

   7. JPJordan Peterson1:02:48

      Yep. Yeah. Well, that's... Uh, you know, what's really cool, and, and it's been really quite remarkable, I would say, is that what I've noticed when I've been speaking publicly, say over the last year and a half, because there's a hole in our culture where there should be a discussion about maturity, truth, and responsibility. No one's talking about that.

   8. JRJoe Rogan1:03:08

      Yes.

   9. JPJordan Peterson1:03:08

      Okay. So now I'll come up and I'll start talking about that. I'll say, "Look, like, wha- what should you do with your life?" Um, "Well, take care of yourself, but take care of yourself in a way that also means that simultaneously you're taking care of your family. And that, and also means that simultaneously you're taking care of the broader community." So that's kind of your goal. So orient yourself towards that. Personal success, but in a way that your success breeds success, because if you're gonna establish an aim, why not establish like a really good aim? That's a good one. It's good for you. It's good for everyone else. Yes. Okay. That'll give your life some meaning. Now adopt, make a plan, generate a vision. That's what the Future Authoring Program helps people with. Make a... Develop a vision of what your life could be like if, if it was worth living, despite all its suffering. It's like, what would you need so that you would be happy to be alive? You'd find your life meaningful so you don't get all bitter and resentful and cruel and hostile and ideologically addled and, like, murderous and genocidal. It's like none of that. You think real hard. How would you have to configure your life so that despite its suffering and the malevolence that's part of it, that you would regard it as worthwhile? So that's up to you to develop a vision, then put a plan into practice. And so when I talk to people about this, and most of my audiences are young men, it's probably about 65/35, more and more women are showing up, but that's about what it is right now, the halls are dead silent. You could hear a pin drop because nobody's said so clearly for like 50 years that almost all the meaning that you will need to get you through the hard times of your life is going to be a consequence of adopting responsibility. Not of rights and impulsive action, impulsive freedom. Like, fine, rights. Yeah. Got it. Freedom, no problem. Even freedom to do impulsive things, fine, but that isn't where you're gonna find the meaning that keeps you sustained through the storms of life. That's gonna be, you take care of yourself, you take care of your intimate partner, you take care of your damn family. You don't run off. You take care of your community. You rescue the wisdom from the past. You stand up straight and you be courageous despite the fact that life is tragic and tainted by malevolence. It's like that's the, that's ancient wisdom. That's what that is.

   10. JRJoe Rogan1:05:18

       And understanding that there's structure and discipline, and that, you know, I am in a lot of ways both of those things you described earlier. I'm, in a lot of ways, my mind is... I'm creative and I'm always, uh, sort of half paying attention to things, but I'm also disciplined.

   11. JPJordan Peterson1:05:36

       Yeah. Right.

   12. JRJoe Rogan1:05:36

       And it's one of the reasons why I think I, I'm... I so relate to both sides of this issue.

   13. JPJordan Peterson1:05:42

       Yeah.

   14. JRJoe Rogan1:05:42

       Because I could have easily-

   15. JPJordan Peterson1:05:42

       It's also one of the reasons you're successful.

   16. JRJoe Rogan1:05:44

       Yeah. I could have easily been some hardcore right-wing asshole. I'm a competition-oriented person.

   17. JPJordan Peterson1:05:50

       Yeah.

   18. JRJoe Rogan1:05:51

       I've been since I was a child.

   19. JPJordan Peterson1:05:52

       Yeah.

   20. JRJoe Rogan1:05:53

       I grew up competing in martial arts tournaments. I mean that's... And you have to be a hard person to do that.

   21. JPJordan Peterson1:06:00

       Yeah.

   22. JRJoe Rogan1:06:00

       You have to understand what discipline is. But before that, I was an artist. I wanted to be a cartoon-

   23. JPJordan Peterson1:06:05

       Right.

   24. JRJoe Rogan1:06:05

       I wanted to do comic books. That's what I wanted to do. I wanted to be an illustrator. If it wasn't for one bad teacher in high school that totally shied me away from art, I probably would have went into that as a, as a living.

   25. JPJordan Peterson1:06:17

       Mm-hmm.

   26. JRJoe Rogan1:06:17

       When I look at both sides, I see myself in both sides.

   27. JPJordan Peterson1:06:21

       Yep. Yep.

   28. JRJoe Rogan1:06:22

       And I-

   29. JPJordan Peterson1:06:22

       Well, the o- the other thing I've been telling young men is that... And, and this is something I think that you could relate to tremendously, is, I, I read this New Testament line.... well, decades ago, and I, I could never understand it. Its line is "the meek shall inherit the earth." And I thought, there's something wrong with that, that line. It just doesn't make sense to me. Meek just doesn't seem to me to be a moral virtue. And so I did a series of Biblical lectures this year, like 15 of them, and that was also a weird little experience that we can talk about. But I was looking through the, these, these sayings, these maxims, and that was one of them, "The meek shall inherit the earth." But I'd been using this site called Bible Hub, and it's very interesting. It's very, it's organized very interestingly. So you have a Biblical line and then they, they have like three pages of commentary on each line. And so because people have commented on every verse in the Bible, like, to the, to a degree that's almost unimaginable. So you can look and see all the interpretations and all the translations and get some sense of what the gen- genuine meaning might be. And the line, "The meek shall inherit the earth," meek is not a good translation or the word has moved in the three h- hundred years or so, 300 years or so since it was translated. What it means is this: those who have swords and know how to use them but keep them sheathed will inherit the world.

   30. JRJoe Rogan1:07:38

       Hmm.
6. 1:15:00 – 1:20:42

   Mm-hmm. …

   1. JPJordan Peterson1:15:00

      You have these inner demons, let's say, all of which need to be satisfied, but they need to be satisfied in a very particular way. Not only do they need to be satisfied today, but they need to be satisfied today in a way that doesn't interfere with satisfying them next week, next month, next year-

   2. JRJoe Rogan1:15:16

      Mm-hmm.

   3. JPJordan Peterson1:15:16

      ... and in a decade. So, 'cause there's no point in you betraying your f- your future self to gratify your present self.

   4. JRJoe Rogan1:15:24

      Right.

   5. JPJordan Peterson1:15:24

      It's a stupid game. Okay, so you're constrained by the necessity of satisfying yourself, but of maintaining that satisfaction across time, but then it gets even worse. That's hard enough, but it's like there's an infinite number of yous extending indefinitely into the future and all of them have to be satisfied simultaneously. But then it's worse because it isn't just you. You have to figure out how to gratify all those internal demons in a sustainable way, in a way that other people not only don't object to, but probably help you with, and that benefits them at the same time. Well, then you think, you think, "Well, there just aren't that many ways of solving that problem," and we know some of them. One of them is r- reciprocity. You know, like if you go out of your way for me, it's incumbent on me to notice that and to attempt, in some manner, to, to repay you. And like if, if we're good friends, that's what we'll do. If we're good brothers, that's what we'll do. That's what you do with your wife. It's a reciprocal arrangement, and that keeps things flowing properly across time. So, there is an, there is an ethic. This, and this is the answer to the postmodern conundrums, like, well, is life meaningless? Is everything just nial- nihilist ... Is, is nihilism the right answer? Or maybe, you know, the, what would you call, identification with an ideology as a counter position to nihilism? So, nihilism is wrong. Life is meaningful. That, and that's what 12 Rules For Life is about. The first meaning of life is suffering and malevolence, is indisputable realities. Okay? Well, what's, what's after that? Well, there's a noble way of being that allows you to exist properly despite that, and also not to make it worse. So, can your life be meaningful enough so that you, what is it? Confront chaos voluntarily, establish and revivify order, constrain malevolence. That's a good three-part doctrine for life. There's things to do. And so that's what I've been talking to the audiences that I've been seeing over the last year. It's like, get your act together. Stand up forthrightly. That's rule one. Stand up straight with your shoulders back. That's a vulnerable position, right? 'Cause you're open. But it's a powerful position because it means that you're brave enough to take what's coming. And it isn't like what's coming isn't dangerous. It's dangerous. So, but your best bet is to be dancing on your feet and ready for it, pay attention and be awake, and to treat yourself properly. That's rule two. Figure out how to treat yourself as if you're someone worth coming to the aid of. To detach yourself in a bit and say, "Okay, I'm gonna set up my life so that it, it's good for me and good for other people as well." Uh, that's a corollary to that. So the book is all about, uh, all about the meanings of life, the negative meanings, suffering, malevolence. Those are indisputable realities. And then a mode of being that integrates the sorts of things that you were talking about, these underlying needs, with everyone else's and, like, doing that voluntarily. It's a call to responsibility and meaning, and I actually think it's not... The thing that's been so exciting for me for the last three decades looking into these things is that-... I believe that there is a genuine human ethic. It's not arbitrary. It has to do with reciprocity, for example. It has to do with honesty. That's another thing is that you should speak the truth, 'cause your life turns out better if you speak the truth, and so does everyone else's. So in this Biblical lecture series I did, I looked at the first chapter in Genesis, and there's a theory in there. It's a really interesting theory, and the theory is that there's three parts to being. There's chaos and potential, and that would be like the potential you should live up to, 'cause everyone says, "Well, you should live up to your potential." It's like what the hell's that? You can't measure it or touch it or taste it or feel it. It's this hypothetical thing that everyone regards as real. It's like, it's like the future. What's the future? Well, it's not here yet. You can't measure it. What makes you think it's real? Well, we act as if it's real, and that seems to work. There's the po... There... So there's potential, that's one. That's chaos, chaotic potential. Then there's order, and that's the structure that you need in order to, to confront the chaos. And, and you'd be born with that biologically. And then there's your ability to, to call forth from the potential new order, and that's what you do with your speech, and that's what, that's what happens in the first chapter of Genesis is that God uses God's order, let's say, uses the power of truthful speech, that's the logos, to transform potential into order. And that's what people are made in the image of. So there's this theory, it's a lovely theory that's laid out right at the beginning of the Bible that says that if you tell the truth, you transform the potential of being into a habitable actuality. That's how it works. So we say, well, how do you want... How do you make the world better? Tell the truth, 'cause the world you bring into being as a consequence of telling the truth will be a good world, and I believe that's true. I think it's true metaphorically, I think it's true theologically, and I think it's true, like, at the practical and scientific level as well. I think it's true in all those levels simultaneously. So that's been ridiculously exciting to, to sort through.

Episode duration: 2:28:52