Joe Rogan Experience #1139 - Jordan Peterson

1. 0:00 – 15:00

   5, 4, 3, 2,…

   1. JRJoe Rogan0:03

      5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Hello, Jordan Peterson.

   2. JPJordan Peterson0:09

      Hello, Mr. Rogan. How you doing?

   3. JRJoe Rogan0:10

      You look very spiffy today.

   4. JPJordan Peterson0:11

      Thank you, sir.

   5. JRJoe Rogan0:12

      This is a new look for you. You're, you've been rocking these a lot, these big, gigantic, uh ... What do you call those things? These concerts that you guys are doing? What do you ... Speeches?

   6. JPJordan Peterson0:21

      Well, lectures.

   7. JRJoe Rogan0:22

      What-

   8. JPJordan Peterson0:22

      Discussions is really what I-

   9. JRJoe Rogan0:23

      Discussions.

   10. JPJordan Peterson0:23

       ... think of them as, yeah-

   11. JRJoe Rogan0:25

       Yes.

   12. JPJordan Peterson0:25

       ... because I'm discussing ... I mean, you might think it's kinda perverse to be discussing with a 3,000-person audience, but it's not, because if you pay attention to the audience, they're constantly ... And the individuals in the audience, they're constantly providing feedback. So it's a discussion as far as I'm concerned.

   13. JRJoe Rogan0:42

       Feedback in applause, laughter. Sometimes they shout things out too, right?

   14. JPJordan Peterson0:48

       Shuffling.

   15. JRJoe Rogan0:49

       Shuffling?

   16. JPJordan Peterson0:49

       Yeah. Well, really what you want, if, if you're on track, if you're where you should be, then it's dead silent, and everyone's focused and listening. And so if that's not happening ... I mean, you know, there can be laughter and that kind of thing, but generally speaking, you don't wanna hear noise from the audience. So if, if you're, if you're on a r- if you're pursuing a complicated topic and you're paying attention ... And I'm always looking at individual people in the audience, you know, in the first few rows 'cause that's all I can see because of the lights. I'm trying to make sure that everyone's on track with the talk. And, you know, there's ... People gesture with their face and they gesture with their eyes and they shake their head and they nod and there's lots of things to pick up. And if you're not speaking with notes, you can really pay attention to the audience, and then you know if you're in the dialogue, and that's where everyone wants to be.

   17. JRJoe Rogan1:38

       Yeah, it's an interesting thing you're doing because you have experience in doing that with lectures in colleges and universities, but now it's the general public, and people just pay to see it, and you fill up these huge, gigantic theaters. I mean, I've seen some of the places that you guys are doing it. You and Sam just got done doing one in Vancouver, and it's huge places.

   18. JPJordan Peterson2:01

       We did two.

   19. JRJoe Rogan2:02

       You did two, that's right.

   20. JPJordan Peterson2:02

       Yeah, yeah, back to back, and yeah, so it was about five hours of intense discussion over two days. And you know, we were supposed to talk for an hour each night and then go to Q&A, but we asked the audience ... Brett Weinstein, who was moderating, asked the audience if they wanted to go to Q&A or continue the discussion, and, you know, the, the response from the crowd was definitely continue the discussion, and so we ended up talking for about two and a half hours each night. And again, it was ... The audience is along for the ride.

   21. JRJoe Rogan2:32

       Hmm.

   22. JPJordan Peterson2:32

       You know, and they were good discussions as far as I'm concerned. You know, it was kind of marketed as a take-down in some sense, Harris versus Peterson, you know.

   23. JRJoe Rogan2:41

       Right.

   24. JPJordan Peterson2:42

       But the discussion itself was an attempt on Sam's part and my part to further our thinking about the topic and to bring everyone along for the ride, you know, for the journey, so to speak.

   25. JRJoe Rogan2:55

       Yeah. Well, you guys had two podcasts that you did, uh, over the phone. So this, these were the first meetings that you guys had in person?

   26. JPJordan Peterson3:03

       Yeah, it was the first time I'd met Sam.

   27. JRJoe Rogan3:05

       The first one that you two had was marred by this discussion about what is truth.

   28. JPJordan Peterson3:11

       Yeah.

   29. JRJoe Rogan3:11

       And it was a, like s- a strange sort of a ... You got stuck. You guys got kinda stuck in that first conversation. But I feel like the second one was much better.

   30. JPJordan Peterson3:21

       Yes.
2. 15:00 – 30:00

   Is there any benefit…

   1. JPJordan Peterson15:00

      sports events and so forth at the universities. That's what it was designed for, but it's become this umbrella legislation that pushes equality of outcome essentially across every possible dimension in the universities, and it's been used as a weapon by the radical left. But, you know, some of that's driven by legislative necessity. Um, what, what's happening, what... The reason that I think this is coming from the universities is because I don't think that this could... Well, there's all these activist disciplines that are essentially subsidized by too high tu- tuition fees and also by state funding, and they've produced an entire substructure of, of activists. And those activists are doing everything they can to lay out the theoretical structure for the radical left, and that's a, that's a structure that involves... There's buzzwords, right? Diversity is one, but that means diversity by race and ethnicity and, and sexual preference, for example, as, as if those have anything to do with genuine diversity of ideation, and they don't, and there's no evidence that they do. Inclusivity, I'm never even sure what that means. Um, equity, which is a marker for, uh, what would you call it? It's a code word in some sense for equality of outcome, which is an absolutely deadly doctrine. I think of all the mistakes that the radical left are making and the moderate left for not calling them out on it, the equity doctrine is at the top of the list. And then there's other associated things like white privilege, that's a good one, and systemic bias, and, which is a... (sighs) It's an absolute embarrassment from the perspective of a, of a reasonable academic psychologist because psychological tests have been used to prove that there's this implicit bias that, that lurks everywhere, and the tests aren't reliable and valid enough to make that claim. That's even the people who've made the test, the implicit association test, have admitted, except for Mahzarin Banaji, who's the chairman of the Department at, of Psychology at Harvard, they've admitted that the tests aren't reliable and valid enough to be used for the purposes they're being used for. And there's also no evidence at all that these unconscious buying- bias retraining seminars have any effect whatsoever that's positive. It's all nonsense pushed by this, the, the, the, the ideological, what, fulminations of the radical left.

   2. JRJoe Rogan17:07

      Is there any benefit in having these conversations, talking about implicit biases, and recognizing that there's, uh, an extreme pushback against racism or sexism and all these different things, and that even though these things, these, b- b... These, these ideas that they're pushing might not be tested and proven, the idea of putting it out there in the mainstream, that there's a shift in consciousness in terms of like how people will or won't accept racism or sexism or homophobia or whatever is, else is being discussed, that...Maybe it's far left, but maybe it's moving the needle towards where it needs to be.

   3. JPJordan Peterson17:49

      Well, I, I think that, well, that, I think that happens. I mean, I certainly believe that there's space and necessity for a constant dialogue between the left and the right. This is also something that I've been developing more particularly during these lectures. So, so I'm gonna lay out a couple of propositions. So imagine that you have to move forward in the world. You have to do things.

   4. JRJoe Rogan18:09

      Mm-hmm.

   5. JPJordan Peterson18:09

      And the reason you have to do things is because, well, if you just sit there and don't do anything, then you suffer and die. So that isn't an option. You have to move forward. You have to move forward towards valued things, so you have to have a value hierarchy. It has to be a hierarchy because one thing has to be more important than another, or you can't do anything, right? You're, you're too split with your choices. So you have to do things. You have to value. You have to value some things more than others. Then you have to act out what you value in the social environment because you're a social creature and you're not gonna do things alone. Then as soon as you start to act out things of value in the social environment, you inevitably produce a hierarchy. And the reason you do that is because no matter what you're acting out, some people are way better at it than others. And, and it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter if it's basketball or hockey or plumbing or law. It doesn't matter. As soon as there's something valuable and you're doing it collectively, there's a hierarchy. Okay, so then what happens? Well, the hierarchy can get corrupt and rigid and, and then it stops rewarding competence and it starts rewarding criminality and power. And so there's always the danger the hierarchy will become corrupt. The right-wingers say, "We really need the hierarchies and we should abide by them." That's sort of the motif of patriotism and, and, and, and, and, and, and positive group identity. And the left-wingers say, "Yeah, but wait a second. There's a problem here." A, your hierarchy can get corrupt and might, and B, because some people are way better at it than others, you're gonna produce a bunch of disse- dispossessed people at the bottom. And that's not only good f- not only not good for the dispossessed people, it actually threatens the whole hierarchy, so you have to be careful. You have to attend to the widows and the children, let's say.

   6. JRJoe Rogan19:48

      Hm.

   7. JPJordan Peterson19:48

      The widows and the orphans. Okay, so now and then y- now you can think about that as an eternal problem. You can't do without hierarchies, but, and that's the right-wing claim in some sense, you can't do without hierarchies and they're valuable, but they're also prone to corruption and they dispossess people. Okay, so now that's an eternal problem. The question is what do you do about it? And the answer to that is there's no final answer to the problem. So what you have to do is you have to have a left wing and you have to have a right wing, and they have to talk all the time about whether the hierarchy is healthy and whether or not it's dispossessing too many people. And then the problem with that is, is that discussion can go too far. Because the right-wingers can say, "Hierarchy uber alles," right? That, that, that we've, the state is correct and everything's right. And so that's the right-wing totalitarian types. And the left can say, "We'll flatten everything so there's no inequality." And so both the left and the right can go too far. Now, the problem is we don't, we know how to define... I think one of the problems is we know how to define when the right goes too far. I think we learned that after World War II. I think if you're making claims of ethnic or racial superiority, you get to be put in a box and put off the shelf, right? You're not in the dialogue anymore. It's obvious that the left can go too far, even though they are necessary participants in the discussion, but we don't know when to... we don't know how to define when they've gone too far.

   8. JRJoe Rogan21:09

      Right. We don't have an obvious example.

   9. JPJordan Peterson21:10

      And we, no, and, and, and you might think, well, that's the moderate leftists' problem. It's their moral responsibility to dissociate themselves from the radicals, just as it's the moral responsibility of reasonable conservatives to dissociate themselves from the Birch, John Birch and, and Ku Klux Klan types.

   10. JRJoe Rogan21:26

       That's a very important point.

   11. JPJordan Peterson21:27

       But, but the prob- but it isn't just the moderate left's problem, because even the people on the right don't know what to point to when they say, "No, you've gone too far as a leftist." Now I've tried to... it's complicated because I think it's, it, it might be more than one policy. I think the really deadly leftist presumption is equality of outcome. I think as soon as you start talking about equality of outcome, you should be put in a box and put off the shelf. That's the, but, but it isn't obvious why. Like that doesn't sound like, you know, white people over all. It doesn't have the same guttural punch that the excess of the right has. It's-

   12. JRJoe Rogan22:04

       Right.

   13. JPJordan Peterson22:04

       ... "Well, you're for equality of outcome. Why is that bad?" well, it's bad because when you play it out in society, and there's endless evidence for this, it's an instantaneously murderous doctrine. And I think it's because it shifts so quickly into a victim/victimizer narrative. I, I've had a great opportunity, eh, in the last month and a half. I got asked to write the preface to the 50th anniversary edition of Solzhenitsyn's Gulag Archipelago.

   14. JRJoe Rogan22:29

       Hm.

   15. JPJordan Peterson22:29

       And so I've been writing that, and one of the things Solzhenitsyn did, which was one of the things he, one of the things that made that book arguably the greatest work of non-fiction of the 20th century, I mean, it's in the top 10 anyways, was to point out very clearly that the excesses of the Russian Revolution started right away. It wasn't that Lenin was a pretty good guy and then Stalin came in and corrupted everything. It was like Lenin was not a pretty good guy. The revolution got bloody really fast. And what seemed to happen, so imagine you, you're, you're starting to divide the world up into oppressor and oppressed, right? And you're gonna do something about the oppressors. The problem is, is that you can define people multiple ways. This is the intersectionality problem. And almost everybody can be defined, in terms of their group identity, in some way that makes them an oppressor. So like if you're a Black man, well, you could argue that you're oppressed because you're Black, but what about the fact that you're a man? And so does that make you an oppressor or someone who's oppressed? And the answer is, as the revolution progresses, if there's any dimension along which you can be categorized as oppressor, you end up dead. And so that's part of the pathology of the equality of outcome doctrine.

   16. JRJoe Rogan23:38

       What do you mean by that, like, you end up dead?

   17. JPJordan Peterson23:40

       You end up rounded up. You ended up being put into the oppressor camp.... right? And so-

   18. JRJoe Rogan23:45

       But, but there's only so far you can go with that, right? I mean, you can't put all men in the oppressor camp. There'd be no men left. Like what do you-

   19. JPJordan Peterson23:50

       Well, that, but, yeah.

   20. JRJoe Rogan23:51

       How do you-

   21. JPJordan Peterson23:51

       But that, that is exactly the sort of thing that-

   22. JRJoe Rogan23:53

       So you really think that's how it plays out?

   23. JPJordan Peterson23:53

       Well, it is how it plays out. I mean-

   24. JRJoe Rogan23:54

       When you look for equality of outcome?

   25. JPJordan Peterson23:56

       Well, it, it is how it played out in the Soviet Union and China. I mean, in the, in the Soviet Union, we don't know how many people died. The, the, the reasonable estimates look like about 25 million. That's dead. That's not just, that's not imprisoned, that isn't families destroyed, that's just dead. And in Ma- in Mao's China, it might have approximated 100 million. That's just internal repression. And so what, what seems to happen as soon as you decide that the hierarchy's unfair because there are oppressors and oppressed, then you can go after the oppressors with moral virtue. But the problem is, is that y- there's almost no limit to the number of ways that you can categorize someone as an oppressor. The, the category just starts to expand. Like, the communists killed all the socialists. They killed all the religious people. They killed most of the students. They killed all the productive farmers, and they killed the productive farmers because they owned land and, you know, and maybe a little house and a few cows, you know? I mean, (laughs) to be a successful farmer in Russia at the, at the turn of the 20th century didn't mean you were rich, right? It just meant you weren't starving. It's like, they killed all those people because they were oppressors, because they had more than someone else.

   26. JRJoe Rogan25:03

       That's how they defined it in order to get the people to rally against it.

   27. JPJordan Peterson25:06

       Yes. Yes, exac- yes, and it, and the, and the definition kept slipping. Because well, look, look even now, it's like, well, let's say we rally against the 1%. You know? And, and those would be the money owners, let's say. It's like, okay, who's in that group? Well, everybody in North America's in that group.

   28. JRJoe Rogan25:23

       Worldwide, yeah.

   29. JPJordan Peterson25:24

       Well, (laughs) but who, who sets the parameters, right?

   30. JRJoe Rogan25:26

       But when you ... Right, well it's 34, it's $34,000 a year sets you in the 1% worldwide.
3. 30:00 – 45:00

   It's interesting because the…

   1. JPJordan Peterson30:00

      description. It's always power though, right? I mean, isn't it- Well, that's, that's the other thing. That's the claim. The other claim is that all hierarchies are predicated on power, which is a claim that's absolutely appalling. It's like, plumbers? Are they part of the hierar- hierarchy? You've got roaming bands of armed, aggressive, tyrannical plumbers coming to your door, saying, "Use our service or else." That's not how it works. You go look, when you're going looking for a plumber, you go look for a massage therapist, you look, or a surgeon for that matter, or a lawyer. You go look for the person who's most competent and one of the things the left can't tolerate is the idea that hierarchies are predicated, in part even, on competence, which they clearly are. The best predictors for success in Western hierarchies are intelligence and conscientiousness. Those are the best psychological predictors of success. They only account for about a third of the variation in success. Maybe a third is probably about right. So there's still lots of room for randomness and, and even for systemic discrimination. But the notion that our, our systems aren't predicated in part on competence is clearly wrong. Now, you asked a question about the left. It's like, well, why are the left always on the side of the people who don't fit in, let's say- Mm-hmm. ... or don't fit so easily in? And I, I think that is a matter of the consequence of hierarchical structures, is that ... So imagine in every hierarchy, there are some people who don't do very well in any given hierarchy. Then imagine a ... then imagine across all the hierarchies that there's a subset of people who are very likely to not do well in any of them. So you might say, "Well, they're systemically discriminated against." The left would be on their side because they're on the side, even temperamentally, of the people who are dispossessed. And the thing about that is that it's, it's valid. Look, we need a, we need a spokesperson, politically, for the dispossessed. That's what the Democratic Party used to do when they worked for the working class, is the working class needed a political voice. It's like, okay, that's the Democrats. Well, why do they need a political voice? Well, to, to, to keep the hierarchy from degenerating into rigid tyranny. It's part of the political discussion. But now, the problem is, is, and the pro- this is the problem with the left, is that, well, what's the hierarchy? It's a tyrannical patriarchy. It's like, no, it's not. It's partly corrupt, like every system. But it's less corrupt than most systems and there's a lot of, of elements of it that are devoted towards self-improvement and self-monitoring. You have to be a little nuanced and subtle about these sorts of things, and you can't throw the baby out with the bath water. And the leftist rhetoric has got so intense that the i- the idea is, and, and people believe this, well, the world is going to hell in a handbasket. Everything is getting worse in all possible ways and there's systemic racism everywhere and it's utterly unfair and it should be torn down and rebuilt. It's like, no. It's actually functioning unbelievably well, even though it still has its problems. You know, and there's a big difference between saying, "There's systemic racism everywhere and the reason that there isn't perfectly equal outcomes is because of prejudice," and saying, "No, no. Look, the system is functioning, uh, let's say at 75%. It's doing all right. It's got some problems, including systemic prejudice, which hopefully will work themselves out across time and, and which show every bit of evidence of doing so. And so we don't need a radical solution." You know? And, and one of the things I've started to do with my Twitter account is to tweet out good, non-naive news. Because one of the things that's happening in the world, and there's been half a dozen books on this or more written in the last five years by credible people, is that the distribution of the idea of individual sovereignty and property rights and, and free market economies, et cetera, out into the rest of the world is making the- the- the non-Western world, is making the non-Western world rich really, really, really fast. So between 2000 and 2012, the rate of absolute poverty in the world fell by half. Half. It was the fastest period of economic development in human history. We beat the UN, we beat the optimistic UN target by three years. Staggering. Um, you know, the- the rates of child mortality in Africa are now lower than they were in Europe in 1950. The fastest growing economies in the world are in sub-Sahara and Africa. Many, m- you know, millions of people, millions of people a month are getting access to this incredible technology that's embodied in cell phones. Right? People have access to fresh water like they've never had access before. The chi- uh, the, the kids are, kids are, uh, getting immunized at a rate that's, that's unfor- that's, that's unprecedented. And, and yet we have this idea that's become rampant in the West that there's something ultimately corrupt about the patriarchal tyranny and that it has to be dismantled right down to its core. And a lot of that's being taught by the activist disciplines in universities and I just don't get it. It's not acceptable. So they see these hierarchies- Mm-hmm. ... and their proposal to f- level everything off and to take away the insane power at the very top is a quality of outcome. Mm-hmm. It's unpro- unproven in terms of it's never been th- it's never been done successfully to a utopian p- Right. Well, I, and I also don't even think you can do it in principle because if you accept the proposition, the- the propositions I laid out, which is you have to pursue things of value and if you pursue things in a, uh, value in, in a social space, so you do it cooperatively and competitively, you do it with other people, then you're gonna produce differential outcome because people will be differently good at it. Yes. It's like, okay, you don't believe that? It's like, okay, do you listen to random selections of music online?... or do you do what everyone else does? You go for the 1/10 of 1% of songwriters and you li- only listen to them. You only listen to the one ... You only read the productions of 1/10 of 1% of writers. You only listen to the podcasts of 1/10 of 1% of podcast br- broadcasters. Right? When you watch sports on TV, you only watch the athletic contributions of 1/10 of 1% of athletes. So, like, where's the equality exactly? Where is that in your life, you people who are pushing for equality of outcome? You manifest that in anything you do? You don't. You're unbelievably selective, just like everyone else. And the reason you're selective is because d- y- you ... there are things that are happening that need to happen or that are entertaining and, and interesting, and you want the best in all of those realms. That's how it works. And there is a best, that's the other thing that's so painful. And that, that actually is painful. You know, one ... Here's a problem of dispossession, (clears throat) a real problem. One way to not do very well in any hierarchy is to have a low IQ. And so, IQ is normally distributed, and if you have an IQ of less than 85, it's hard for you to read well enough to follow instructions. That's about 10% of the population, might even be higher than that. Okay, so given that lack, how are you gonna compete? And the answer is, you're not, because low IQ is a good predictor of poverty. Now, they spiral because, you know, if you're, if you, if you're cognitively ... if you're on the, in the ... if you're, if you're less cognitively gifted than ... and you have children, they're gonna be in a less enriched environment, these things spiral, but you still have the essential problem. That's the essential problem of the dispossessed. It's like, hierarchies are complex tools to attain necessary goals, but they dispossess people. What do we do with the people that they dispossess? The answer is, we don't know, so we have to talk about it constantly to figure out how to solve it, 'cause it's an ongoing problem that transforms, and that's the reason that political dialogue is necessary. And then the danger is, is that the political dialogue will polarize into the radical left, no hierarchies whatsoever, or the radical right, our hierarchy is 100% right at all costs. And so those are the ... We have the eternal problem and those are the two poles that we have to negotiate between.

   2. JRJoe Rogan38:08

      It's interesting because the accusation has always been that what the left is trying to do with this equality of outcome thing is sort of an infantilization of th- the populace, right? And w- the best example of that is sports. Um, when you look at sports, clearly the best people win, right? The, the fastest runners win the race, the, the people that have the best strategy win the game. The infun- inf- that's a weird word, infantilization, I never get it right-

   3. JPJordan Peterson38:38

      Mm-hmm.

   4. JRJoe Rogan38:38

      ... but of that is what we do with children where you get participation trophies and no one wins.

   5. JPJordan Peterson38:45

      Mm-hmm.

   6. JRJoe Rogan38:45

      You know, when my daughter was three years old, she was in soccer, and they didn't keep score, but everyone knew. Everyone knew these kids scored and they didn't ... At the end of the game, they didn't announce a winner. There was no, n-

   7. JPJordan Peterson38:55

      Well, you can't. You can't have a soccer game without keeping score.

   8. JRJoe Rogan38:58

      Yeah, but-

   9. JPJordan Peterson38:58

      It's not a soccer game anymore, it's something else.

   10. JRJoe Rogan39:01

       But the score was kept-

   11. JPJordan Peterson39:02

       Of course.

   12. JRJoe Rogan39:02

       ... it just wasn't discussed.

   13. JPJordan Peterson39:03

       Oh, of course.

   14. JRJoe Rogan39:04

       It was the strangest thing-

   15. JPJordan Peterson39:05

       Mm-hmm.

   16. JRJoe Rogan39:05

       ... but this is, to treat these little kids 'cause they couldn't handle it.

   17. JPJordan Peterson39:09

       Yeah.

   18. JRJoe Rogan39:09

       Y- you know, she cried when the other team scored. I'm like, that's ... y- it feels bad when they score, so it feels good when you score. It's very difficult to say-

   19. JPJordan Peterson39:18

       Right.

   20. JRJoe Rogan39:18

       ... that to a three-year-old.

   21. JPJordan Peterson39:19

       Right.

   22. JRJoe Rogan39:19

       So-

   23. JPJordan Peterson39:20

       But part of it-

   24. JRJoe Rogan39:20

       ... is she going to run hills? Is she going to practice drills so that she feels that good feeling more? And then there's a point where that becomes too far. There's a point where you become an obsessive over-winner, right?

   25. JPJordan Peterson39:32

       Yeah. Mm-hmm.

   26. JRJoe Rogan39:32

       And this is the people that want to crush their enemies.

   27. JPJordan Peterson39:34

       Yeah.

   28. JRJoe Rogan39:34

       Then you become Conan the Barbarian.

   29. JPJordan Peterson39:35

       Yeah.

   30. JRJoe Rogan39:36

       This is, this is the far end of it.
4. 45:00 – 1:00:00

   I think what you're…

   1. JPJordan Peterson45:00

      and he'll be socialized and he'll be invited to many games, some of which he'll win, all of which he'll be able to participate in. And if he's fun to play with, then adults will teach him things, and then he wins at life. And so when you say to your kid, "It doesn't matter whether you win or lose, it matters how you play the game," what you're saying is, "Don't forget, kid, that what you're trying to do here is to do well at life, and you need to practice the strategies that enable you to do well at life while you're in any specific game. And you never want to compromise your ability to do well at life for the sake of winning a single game." And there's a deep ethic in that and it's the ethic of reci- reciprocity in games. Part of the reason that we're so obsessed with sports is because we like to see that dramatized, you know? Like, the person we really admire as an athlete isn't only the person who wins. We don't like the narcissistic winners. They're winners and that's a plus, but if they're narcissistic, they're not good team players, they're only out for themselves, then we think, "Well, you're a winner in the narrow sense, but your character is suspect. You're no role model even though you're a winner." And it's because we're looking for something deeper. We're looking for that, the manifestation of character that allows you to win across the set of possible games, and that's a real thing. That's a real ethic. It's a fundamental ethic.

   2. JRJoe Rogan46:14

      I think what you're pointing out that's very important is we're- we're searching for the person who's got it all nailed, someone who tries their hardest, but is also honest enough about the circumstances to not cry foul when it's gone the other person's way.

   3. JPJordan Peterson46:32

      Mm-hmm. Yeah, well, that's part of resilience is, right? Like-

   4. JRJoe Rogan46:34

      Yeah.

   5. JPJordan Peterson46:34

      ... look, you're not gonna win t- you're not going to, you're not gonna score on every shot.

   6. JRJoe Rogan46:38

      Right.

   7. JPJordan Peterson46:38

      Doesn't mean you shouldn't take the shots, doesn't mean you shouldn't try to- to hit the goal, but part of, part of being able to continue to take shots is to have the strength of character to tolerate the fact that- that ... in that instance, you weren't on top.

   8. JRJoe Rogan46:52

      It's more trivial in games than it is in fights, and it's also, the response is much more negative to the f- from the fans if you lose a fight and complain about it. It is, it's ruthless. They're ... because they understand that you've made a- a huge character error.

   9. JPJordan Peterson47:11

      Yeah, so why do you think it's more important in- in fights than it is in games? Why do you think it's even highlighted there?

   10. JRJoe Rogan47:15

       Because the consequences are so grave, because you recognize that the high is much higher and the lows are much lower. To lose a basketball game sucks, but it's nothing like losing a fight. There's no comparison. It's not even close.

   11. JPJordan Peterson47:26

       Okay, so- so what do you think it is that damages the fighter if he, um, complains about losing? Why is that a mistake? Why do the fans respond so negatively to that?

   12. JRJoe Rogan47:36

       Because they know. They know that you lost. They know that you're complaining for no reason and you're not a hero. They want you to be better than them.They want you to be the person that has the courage to step into a cage or a ring or where- wherever you, with whatever the format is you're competing, and to do something that's extremely difficult.

   13. JPJordan Peterson47:52

       Mm-hmm.

   14. JRJoe Rogan47:53

       And when you do that, they hold you to a higher standard.

   15. JPJordan Peterson47:55

       Right. To lose with grace.

   16. JRJoe Rogan47:56

       Yes. And when you fall, especially if you are a champion, that is one of the most disappointing things ever, when a champion complains.

   17. JPJordan Peterson48:03

       Right.

   18. JRJoe Rogan48:03

       And, and i- it is, it's-

   19. JPJordan Peterson48:04

       Okay. So, so-

   20. JRJoe Rogan48:04

       ... response is horrific from the audience.

   21. JPJordan Peterson48:06

       Okay.

   22. JRJoe Rogan48:06

       Yeah.

   23. JPJordan Peterson48:06

       So that's a great example. So let's imagine, what does the person who loses something important with grace do? And the answer is fairly straightforward. He accepts the defeat and thinks, "Okay, what, what is it that I have left to improve that will decrease the possibility of a similar defeat in the future?"

   24. JRJoe Rogan48:24

       Yes.

   25. JPJordan Peterson48:24

       Right? So-

   26. JRJoe Rogan48:25

       Yes.

   27. JPJordan Peterson48:25

       ... so, so what he's doing is... Because the great athlete, and the great person, is not only someone who's exceptionally skilled at what they do, but who's trying to expand their skills at all p- at all times.

   28. JRJoe Rogan48:36

       Yes.

   29. JPJordan Peterson48:36

       And the attempt to expand their skills at all times is even more important than the fact that they're great to begin with, because the trajectory is so important.

   30. JRJoe Rogan48:43

       More important, i- in particular, to the audience. It's extremely important-
5. 1:00:00 – 1:12:29

   Why do you see…

   1. JPJordan Peterson1:00:00

      associated with that sometimes, and you and the people around you are doing stupid things to make it worse. It's like, okay, what have you got under those circumstances? You've got the possibility to slowly raise yourself out of the mire. You've got the, the possibility to do just what the fighter does when he's defeated, which is to say, well, regardless of the circumstances that might have led to my defeat, like even if there were errors on the part of the referee, this is no time to whine about it. This is a time to take stock of what I did wrong so that I could improve it into the future, and that's the right attitude. You know, in the Old Testament, one of the things that's really interesting about the Old Testament stories is, in the Old Testament, the Jews keep getting walloped by God. It's like they, they struggle up and make an empire, and then they just get walloped, and then it's all crushed and they're, and they're, they're out of it for generations. And then they struggle back up and make an empire, and then they get demolished again, and it happens over and over and over. And the, the attitude of the Old Testament Hebrews is, we must have made a mistake. It's never to shake their fist at the sky and curse fate. It's never that. The presupposition is, if things aren't working out, it's my fault, and that's a hell of a presupposition. And you might say, "Well, of course, you know, it's, that, that underestimates the degree to which there's systemic oppression," et cetera, et cetera, and, and the, and the vagaries of fate. It's like, it doesn't over, underestimate it. It's not the point. The point is, your best strategic position is, how am I insufficient and how can I rectify that? That's what you've got, and the thing is, you are insufficient, and you could rectify it. Y- both of those are within your grasp if you aim low enough. One of the things you do-

   2. JRJoe Rogan1:01:43

      Why do you see the, y- that's another thing you keep saying, "Aim low enough, have a low enough bar." Why do you, why do you mean that?

   3. JPJordan Peterson1:01:48

      Well, let's say you've got a kid and you want the kid to improve. You don't set them a bar that's so high that it's impossible for them to attain it. You take a look at the kid and you think, okay, this kid's got this range of skill. Here's a challenge we can throw at him or her that exceeds their current level of skill, but gives them a reasonable probability of success, and so, like, I'm saying it tongue-in-cheek to some degree.

   4. JRJoe Rogan1:02:09

      Mm-hmm.

   5. JPJordan Peterson1:02:09

      You know, it's like, but if you're, but I'm doing it as an aid to humility. It's like, well, I don't know how to start improving my life. Someone might say that, and I would say, "Well, you're not aiming low enough." There's something you could do that you are regarding as trivial, that, that, that you could do, that you would do, that would result in an actual improvement, but it's not a big enough improvement for you, so you won't lower yourself enough to take the opportunity.

   6. JRJoe Rogan1:02:34

      Incremental steps.

   7. JPJordan Peterson1:02:35

      Yes, and, and-

   8. JRJoe Rogan1:02:36

      So this is also what y- is achieved through exercise. It's one of the most important, you know, things.

   9. JPJordan Peterson1:02:40

      Yeah. Well, what do you do when you go and lift weights?

   10. JRJoe Rogan1:02:42

       Yeah.

   11. JPJordan Peterson1:02:42

       You don't go and, like if you haven't bench pressed-

   12. JRJoe Rogan1:02:43

       Right, of course.

   13. JPJordan Peterson1:02:44

       ... before you don't put 400 pounds on the damn bar and drop the, and drop the bar through your skull.

   14. JRJoe Rogan1:02:48

       Right.

   15. JPJordan Peterson1:02:49

       You know, you think, look, when I started working out when I was a kid, I was, I was weighed about 130 pounds and I was six foot one. I was a thin kid and I smoked a lot. I wasn't in good shape. I wasn't in good physical shape, and I went to the gym and it was bloody embarrassing, you know? And people would come over and help me with the goddamn weights. Here's how you're supposed to use this. You know, it was humiliating. And maybe I was pressing 65 pounds or something at that point, you know? But what am I gonna do? I'm gonna lift up 150 pounds and injure myself right off the bat. No, I had to go in there and strip down and put my skinny goddamn self in front of the mirror and think, son of a bitch, there's all these monsters in the gym who've been lifting weights for 10 years and I'm struggling to get 50 pounds off the bar. Tough luck for me. But I could lift 50 pounds, and it wasn't ver- very long until I could lift 75 and, well, you know how it goes. But, and I never injured myself when I was li- weightlifting. And the reason for that was I never pushed myself past where I knew I could go, and I pushed myself a lot, you know? I gained 35 pounds of muscle in about three years in, in university. I kind of had to quit 'cause I was eating so goddamn much I couldn't stand it. I was eating like six meals a day. It was just taking up too much time. But there's a humility in determining what it is that the wretched creature that you are can actually manage. Aim low, and I, I don't mean don't aim, and I don't mean don't aim up, but you have to accept the fact that y- you can set yourself a goal that you can attain and there's not gonna be much glory in it to begin with because if you're not in very good shape, the goal that you conta- could attain tomorrow isn't very glorious. But it, it's a hell of a lot better than nothing and it beats the hell out of bitterness and it's way better than blaming someone else. It's way less dangerous. And you could do it, and what's cool about it, there's a statement in the New Testament that's called the Matthew Principle, and economists use it to describe how the economy and the world works. "To those who have everything, more will be given. From those who have nothing, everything will be taken." It's like, well it's very pessimistic in some sense because it means that as you start to fail, you fail more and more rapidly. But it also means that as you start to succeed, you succeed more and more rapidly, and so you take an incremental step and, well, now you can lift 55 pounds instead of 52.5 pounds. You think, well, what the hell is that? It's like, it's one step on a very long journey, and so it's, it, and it starts to compound on you. So a small step today means, puts you in a position to take a slightly bigger step the next day, and then that puts you in a position to take a slightly bigger step the next day, and you do that for two or three years, man, you're starting to stride. You know, and I have so many people coming up to me now. This is one of the things that's so insanely fun about this tour, which is so positive it's, it brings me to tears regularly. It's mind-boggling because people come up to me, and this is happening wherever I go now, and they say, uh, they're very polite when they come and talk to me, you know, and they're always apologetic for interrupting and so it's never, it's never narcissistic and it's never annoying. I'm really happy to see people, and they come up to me and they say, "Well, I know you've heard this lots of times before, but I've really, I've really been putting my life together since I've been watching your lectures." Then they tell me a story about where they were in some dark place, too much alcohol, too much drugs, not getting along with their father, not getting along with their mother, not having a vision for their life, being nihilistic, playing too many video games, you know, like, um-... uh, being suicidal, that, that happens a lot, having post-traumatic stress disorder sometimes as a consequence of combat, whatever little slice of hell they were occupying. They say, "Look, I've been, I've been listening to your lectures and I've been developing a vision for my life and I've been trying to take responsibility and I've been trying to tell the truth and things are way better." And so that's absolutely perfect. It's, uh, it's, it's the right way forward as far as I'm concerned. And those are people who, they took stock of themselves, they said, "I'm in a dark place and I'm a dark person and here are some things that this dark person in this dark place could do, little things that they could actually do. I'll clean up my damn room, I'll make my bed." I've had, um, I don't know how many people have come and told me, it's so strange, they said, "Well, I started making my bed and that made all the difference." It's like, "Well, yeah, you decided to aim up, man. And the first concrete instantiation of that was that you made your bed." And you think, "Well, that's nothing heroic." It's like, no, but aiming up is heroic. That's something. And then l- l- lowering yourself to the point where you're not above the mess in your room, you know, you're not superordinate to that, you lower yourself so that you straighten up, you, you're grateful for what you have right in front of you and you take care of it and you put it in order. It's like all of a sudden things start to get better. And it's so wonderful to be doing this tour because s- s- I see so ... That's what this tour has been about for me. It's not political. I never talk to p- people after the talks, for example, I talked to about 150 people tonight, we never talk about anything political. It's always this: "I wasn't doing very well. I'm putting my life together. I'm getting along better with my father, I'm getting along better with my wife, I'm getting along better with my kids, I've got some meaning in my life. Thanks a lot. It's way better." It's like, yes, that's, that's the right thing.

   16. JRJoe Rogan1:07:53

       It's very beneficial for people and they, they need to hear that. And there's, there's something that comes along with that that's critical, and what that is is, uh, an honest assessment of yourself.

   17. JPJordan Peterson1:08:05

       Mm-hmm.

   18. JRJoe Rogan1:08:06

       And honesty, psh, that, that type of honesty, honesty with yourself, it's very difficult for some people and they don't have the tools for it and they haven't been explained how to do this. It's-

   19. JPJordan Peterson1:08:15

       Or why you should.

   20. JRJoe Rogan1:08:16

       Or why you should.

   21. JPJordan Peterson1:08:17

       Mm-hmm.

   22. JRJoe Rogan1:08:17

       Yeah, one of the things that happens when you go through school, you're told what to do, you're never told how to think.

   23. NANarrator1:08:21

       Mm-hmm.

   24. JRJoe Rogan1:08:22

       You're never told-

   25. JPJordan Peterson1:08:22

       You're also told that you're okay the way you are, that's self-esteem, man.

   26. JRJoe Rogan1:08:26

       Yeah.

   27. JPJordan Peterson1:08:26

       "You're okay the way you are." It's like, "No, you're not." And this is another thing that, that-

   28. JRJoe Rogan1:08:30

       Well, you are and you're not.

   29. JPJordan Peterson1:08:31

       Right.

   30. JRJoe Rogan1:08:31

       You're okay as a human.

Episode duration: 3:20:21