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The Joe Rogan ExperienceThe Joe Rogan Experience

Joe Rogan Experience #1208 - Jordan Peterson

Jordan Peterson is a clinical psychologist and tenured professor of psychology at the University of Toronto. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCL_f53ZEJxp8TtlOkHwMV9Q All Dr. Peterson’s self-improvement writing programs at https://www.understandmyself.com/ 20% off for Rogan listeners. Code: ROGAN

Joe RoganhostJordan Petersonguest
Nov 30, 20182h 55mWatch on YouTube ↗

EVERY SPOKEN WORD

  1. 0:00 – 5:02

    Tour life, audience impact, and the mismatch with “dangerous followers” press narratives

    1. JR

      Three, two, one. Here we are again.

    2. JP

      Hey, Joe.

    3. JR

      Hello, Jordan. (laughs)

    4. JP

      (laughs) How are you doing, man?

    5. JR

      Good to see you, man. I'm doing great. You have, uh, the, the schedule that you have and the amount of energy and enthusiasm you maintain with the schedule i- is very remarkable. 'Cause you're not stopping. You're not slowing down. I mean, you've, you've had your foot on the gas for like two solid years now.

    6. JP

      Make hay while the sun shines.

    7. JR

      I guess so.

    8. JP

      Yeah.

    9. JR

      Is that what it is? Is that how you feel about it?

    10. JP

      Well, you know, when you have an opportunity that's completely preposterous-

    11. JR

      (laughs)

    12. JP

      ... you're a fool to take it for granted.

    13. JR

      Yeah.

    14. JP

      You know?

    15. JR

      I guess that's it, right?

    16. JP

      So, and s- yeah, so Tammy and I have been to 100 cities since January. So everywhere, you know? And part of what keeps us going... Well, first of all, I have a really good crew, you know? Like the CAA guys, they're really good. Live Nation's been really good. They make sure the theaters are smooth and, and we've had no problems at all. Um, and then I have lots of people who are helping me with my scheduling, and Tammy travels with me. And then the, the lectures themselves, well, I really like doing them, partly because I do a different lecture every night and so that keeps me sharp and it makes sure that I'm thinking about new things all the time and trying to formulate my thoughts more precisely. And they're also unbelievably positive, so that's also, that al- that's also something that makes it a lot easier to, to do.

    17. JR

      Mm-hmm.

    18. JP

      Because, you know, I, I go to a city and there's 1,500 to 2,000 people waiting for me there, which is like staggering in and of itself wherever I go. And they're all there listening intently and, and it's, it's a sophisticated discussion, or at least as sophisticated as I can make it. And I'm communicating directly with the audience, and all the people are there to try to get their lives together. And so the, the, the feeling in the, in the hall is really, really positive. And then I usually talk to about 150 people afterwards and, you know, they're, they... All of them, all of them, well, many of them, you know, they just say hi and they're polite and we have a photograph and all that. But lots of them have stories about how they've been putting their lives together and they're thrilled to death about it, you know? That they're out of the hole they were in or they've started a new business or they've sold a new business or they just decided to get married or they're gonna have some kids or they've fixed up their relationship with their parents or they quit drinking or, and they're, they're not addicted. I talked to one guy in Europe. He'd stopped, he was, he was addicted, I don't remember what to, but it wasn't, it was something that wasn't good. He s- he'd stopped for nine months and got nine of his friends to quit too. So he comes up, he's just like bouncing, you know? He's so damn happy that his life is better. And not only that, that he had this additional positive effect on other people. So... And it's so fun because I have these conversations with people, they're brief, but they're very personal and they're very intense, you know, because they, they... You think, people have to trust you to tell you that their lives weren't going so well, and then they have to trust you even more to tell you that they're going better now because, of course, what you want when you tell someone that things are going better is you want real encouragement and real sense from the person you're talking to that they're happy for you. And I'm absolutely thrilled to hear these things. Like, I was in Whole Foods this morning. I w- I went down near where I'm staying, and two of the guys that work behind the meat counter came out to talk to me and... independently. And they'd both been reading my books and watching my lectures, and one of them said he had a seven-year-old son, he really wanted to do right by him. He was looking for ethical and moral guidance and, you know, he found the books really helpful and that it was helping him put his life together and... And so, c- our guy at the car rental place last night told me the same thing and, and so it's so exciting. It's so ridiculously exciting to go everywhere around the world and to go into airports or to walk down the street and have people come up and say, um, "I've been watching you on YouTube." They often mention you. "Uh, I've been listening to what you say. I've been developing a vision for my life. It's really helped me out a lot. Thanks a lot." And Jesus, like, to be able to have that happen, you know, time after time, day after day, all over the place, that's just absolutely... It makes going to 100 cities, like, c- continually, uh, energizing 'cause it's so positive. And so... And then there's all this weird crap in the press, you know, about my dangerous followers and all this alt-right nonsense. And it's so ridiculous, you know? I've talked to 250,000 people in, in, in seven months. We haven't had one incident that was negative in that entire time. Not one. Nothing. No misbehavior on anyone's part. We had one heckler who was obviously not a fan of mine, given that he was a heckler. That was it. Other than that, the audiences behave perfectly. They all dress up, they come in suits, which is really cool.

    19. JR

      (laughs)

    20. JP

      A lot of the young guys, they dress up, so they have a little suit competition with me, which is quite fun. So that's an additional bonus. And yeah, it's, it's pretty damn good, Joe.

  2. 5:02 – 7:02

    New media creates a modern lecture circuit—and a hunger for practical guidance

    1. JR

      I think it's really fantastic, and I think what's going on is, uh, it makes me very optimistic because I think that one of the things that new media has provided is these new v- avenues for information to get out there. And these new things like these lecture circuits, when was the last time you saw public lecture circuits that were popular to the tune of thousands and thousands of people? I saw the ones that you and Sam Harris did on YouTube, and you know, Sam's doing them with a lot of other people as well.

    2. JP

      Yeah.

    3. JR

      You're doing them with a bunch of people, J- with Dave Rubin as well.

    4. JP

      Yeah.

    5. JR

      These are, the... I mean, this is a very unique thing.

    6. JP

      That's for sure.

    7. JR

      And also this desire to understand new paths of behavior and patterns of thinking, and that these are corrective paths and patterns that can lead you to a more fulfilled and happier life.

    8. JP

      Yep.

    9. JR

      And, and recognize the pitfalls of certain types of behavior that people just fall into.

    10. JP

      Yeah.

    11. JR

      And I think oftentimes the difference between someone who lives a fulfilled life and someone who lives a life filled with disaster...

    12. JP

      ... is following incorrect patterns and not knowing what the correct ones are. Yeah. So there's a lot of good people out there that live shitty lives. Yep. And they don't do it because they're- they're just dumb or because they're bad. They- they do it because they've been influenced by certain patterns, they've fallen into patterns, whether it's because of the people that they surround themselves with- Yeah. ... or the- the- the neighborhood they grew up, the- the people that are around them have this way of being and they kind of fall into that, or it's drugs, or it's alcohol, or whatever it is. But then they find a new one. Yeah. And then they can slide right into that new one and all of a sudden, they feel energized when they wake up in the morning instead of hungover, they're getting exercise in, they're eating healthy, they're starting to think about things correctly and do good things. And the momentum of them doing those good things leads them to feel good about themselves- Yep. ... and energized. And this is, these are all things that you promote and that I think are genuinely really significant. Yeah. Like, really important. Well, and- and- But it gets... But the thing is, it gets maligned. It gets... You get pushed into this- Well,

  3. 7:02 – 11:35

    “Why is it bad to talk to men?” Responsibility, meaning, and backlash dynamics

    1. JP

      f- ... weird- Can, but if- But- but- but what we were talking about before the podcast- Yeah. ... by a small select group of people. It's a- a very small but vocal minority that wants to misrepresent you. Yeah. And then there's the periphery that listen to this small group and then they sort of parrot those words out without any real thinking about what you've said. Yeah. Well, you know, one of the things that I have made a mistake about in the past that I just realized in the last couple of weeks was that, you know, people often accuse me and they say, "Well, most of the people that listen to you are men." And I think... And I- I... You know, when you're accused like that, your automatic response is, "Well, you wouldn't be accused if you weren't doing something wrong, so there must be something wrong about that." It's like, why isn't it 50% women? And so I've said things like, "Well, you know, 80% of the people who watch YouTube videos are men, and so the fact that 80% o- of the people who watch my videos are men isn't that surprising, given that base rate." But then, about three weeks ago, I started thinking, "Well, what- what the hell am I doing?" It's like, what, is there something wrong with talking to men? Is that actually a problem? It's like, I'm trying to... I'm trying... I mean, I didn't set out to do that specifically, but if that's the way it's working out and- and there is a majority of men coming to my shows, say, then is that... Why is that s- all of a sudden supposed to be a bad thing? I'm asking men to, you know, to be more honest, and e- especially in their speech and their thinking, and to be more responsible for themselves and for their family and for their community, and to grow up and to shoulder their burden and to live a responsible and meaningful life, and putting those two things together conceptually. Yeah. And it's like... And then there's an accusation about that, as if there's something wrong. And I- I thought, "Why am I even playing into this?" It's like, fine, I'm talking to men. I'm encouraging them. And I am absolutely thrilled, like, every time someone comes up to me, um, and that's happening, uh, maybe 100 times a week or something like that, and tells me one of these stories about how they put their life together. It's like, I'm absolutely thrilled about that. And so I don't see... I... It's just a sign of how pathological our times have become in some sense, that there would've been any guilt about that to begin with. Yeah, it's a weird thing. Because how is that not a good thing, man? It's weird. Uh, I think, uh, a lot of that has to do with this concept that men are running everything and that men have this massive advantage. There's a white male advantage and privilege that we all e- enjoy and share, and that men have this advantage financially. There's disparity in terms of the- the gender gap and pay, you know, and- and income. And that if you were really a good person, you would be looking out... You would be trying to balance that out. Yeah. And that you wouldn't be trying to pump up the winning team. Right. Well, and that's the funny thing. So this is, like, where the guilt is involved. Well, that's it, and that's part of that narrative that, well, if there's winners, there- there has to be losers. And the reason that there are losers is because there's winners. And that's complete bloody nonsense, because as far as I'm concerned that, and I really believe this, is that every single person who sets out to put themselves together ethically is a net positive to everyone around them. There's no downside- Yes. ... to that. You know, and I... My book is being criticized by people who've read it very poorly, especially chapter one, when I talk about hierarchies, that I'm somehow supporting the idea that power in a hierarchy is the right way to be. And that's... There's absolutely nothing in what I've written that suggests that at all. Like, I'm suggesting that human hierarchies are very complex and that the way that you win in a human hierarchy is by being competent and reciprocal. And so, and so I mean, for example, even if you're selfish, let's say, you gotta think very carefully about what that would mean if you were selfish and awake, because you have to work to take care of yourself and what you want, say, in this moment. But then there's you tomorrow, and there's you next week, and there's you next month and next year and 10 years from now and when you're old. So because you're self-conscious and because you're aware of the future, you're actually a community unto yourself. And if you're selfish and impulsive, all that means is that you're serving the person you are right now, you know, in that impulsive way, but not the person you're gonna be. And so that's not a good grounds for any sort of ethical behavior. And I see that if you serve yourself properly, there's no difference between that and serving your family properly and serving your community properly, that those things all mesh in a kind of a harmonious manner. And one of the things that's really being effective in the lecture tour is a discussion about that idea and its relationship between... The relationship between that and meaning and responsibility.

  4. 11:35 – 15:02

    Responsibility as the antidote to nihilism—and the personal roots of totalitarian horror

    1. JP

      Because one of the things that strikes the audience as silent constantly, because I'm always listening to them to see, you know, when- when the attention is maximally focused, is whenever I point out to people that the antidote to the meaninglessness of their life and the suffering and the malevolence that they might be displaying because they're resentful and bitter about how things have turned out, the antidote to that is to take on more responsibility for themselves and for other people. And that that's aspirational, which is kind of cool. You know, the conservative types, the duty types, and I'm not complaining about them, you know, they- they're always basically saying, "Well, this is how you should act," because in some sense that's your duty, right? That's how a good citizen would act. And that's a reasonable argument. But the case that I've been making is more that...Well, there is a... There is value distinctions between things. Some things are worth doing and some things aren't, and you can kinda discover what that is for yourself. And then you should aim at the things that are most worth doing. And what you'll find, if you watch carefully, is that the things that you find worth doing are almost always associated with an in- increase in responsibility. 'Cause if you think about the people you admire, for example, you spontaneously admire people, and that's a manifestation of the instinct to imitate. A- and people are very imitative. You don't admire people who don't take care of themselves. Like, unless there's something wrong with you, you- you at least want an admirable person to be accountable for themself. And then if they've got something left over so they can be accountable for their family, well then that's a net plus, obviously. That's someone you think is solid. And then maybe they take care of some more people, they have a business or they're involved in the community in some positive way, you see, well, that's a person whose pattern of being is worth imitating. And so... And that's all associated with responsibility. And it's so interesting because it's as if, it's as if everybody kinda knows this but that it hasn't crystallized. It's like, "Well, you should be responsible because that's what a good citizen is." It's no- no, no. You should be responsible because you need to have a deep meaning in your life to offset the suffering so you don't get bitter, and the way you do that is to bear a heavy load, you know? To get yourself in- in check for you now and for you in the future, and then to do the same for your family and your community, and that there's real nobility in that and there's real meaning. And more, the other thing that I've been suggesting to people, and I also believe this, is that... And I think that the guys that have come to talk to me, especially the ones that have had real l- real rough lives, they really understand this. If you don't get your act together and you let yourself slide, then what kinda moves in to take the place of what you could've been is something that's really not good at all. So it's not only that if you're living a- like, a dissolute life, that you're not aiming at anything positive, and so you don't have any real meaning and you're subsumed by anxiety and all of that hopelessness, but something kinda hellish moves in there too to- to occupy that place. Mm-hmm. And so then you end up making things worse. And when... You know, one of the things I learned about studying totalitarian systems, whether they were on the right or the left, was that part of the reason that the totalitarian horrors of the 20th century manifested themselves was because average people didn't take on the proper responsibility. They shut their eyes when their eyes should've been open, even though they knew it, and they did and said things they knew they shouldn't have done and said, and that was what supported those horrible systems. So, you know, if you don't get your act together then you leave a little space for hell, and I really believe that.

  5. 15:02 – 21:50

    Speaking up early vs. fear, disbelief, and modern mob punishment (Twitter as proxy crowd)

    1. JR

      Don't you think, uh, uh, when things are happening, like something like Nazi Germany, I- I- I would imagine that during that time, the people that were not in support of it felt helpless. Whether you're- you're in Germany, you're a part of this country, this country is turning towards this horrible situation where Jewish people are being put on trains and, you know, uh, uh, i- i- uh, the people that didn't speak out in that-

    2. JP

      Eh...

    3. JR

      I don't necessarily know if it's a lack of discipline or just complete fear and paralysis-

    4. JP

      Oh, it's- it's-

    5. JR

      ... and paralysis and un- un-

    6. JP

      Well, it's, uh, fear for sure. I mean, you- you-

    7. JR

      No knowledge of how to deal with it or what to do-

    8. JP

      Well, disbelief too. Like-

    9. JR

      ... and wanting to protect your family as well-

    10. JP

      Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, man.

    11. JR

      ... so not wanting to step out of line.

    12. JP

      Oh, absolutely. All the-

    13. JR

      Yeah.

    14. JP

      Well, that's the thi- The problem is that if you're gonna forestall that sort of thing, you have to do it early.

    15. JR

      Right.

    16. JP

      You know, 'cause the longer you wait, the higher the price you pay for it, so-

    17. JR

      But isn't it ha- It's hard to take that jump early because you're not exactly sure where it's going.

    18. JP

      That's true.

    19. JR

      Yeah.

    20. JP

      And you're e- And well, and you're also likely to be jumped on.

    21. JR

      Yes.

    22. JP

      I mean, you can see that happening in our own culture, you know?

    23. JR

      Yes.

    24. JP

      You- you make a mistake on Twitter or even something that isn't a mistake and, you know, you can pay a... Well, what feels to be a pretty high price.

    25. JR

      Right.

    26. JP

      Now, whether it is a high price or not is hard to tell 'cause Twitter is so weirdly fictional, you know? It's-

    27. JR

      Yeah.

    28. JP

      ... it's so hard to- to- to get your- to get a grasp on exactly what's going on. But-

    29. JR

      Well, it's i- It's also your comprehension of y- y- what- what is the- your emotional reaction to people that you don't know being mean to you. Like, this is like, what-

    30. JP

      Yeah.

  6. 21:50 – 26:58

    Mythic psychology: rescuing the father from the whale, confronting fear, and unlocking latent potential

    1. JP

      Okay, so I figured something out that I thought-

    2. JR

      Okay.

    3. JP

      ... I'd tell you about. This took me like 30 years to figure out, and I figured it out on this tour. So there's this old idea, you know, that you have to rescue your father from the belly of the whale, right? From some-

    4. JR

      Mm-hmm.

    5. JP

      ... monster that's deep in the abyss. You see that in Pinocchio, for example, but it's a very common idea. And I figured out why that is, I think. So imagine that we already know from a clinical perspective that, you know, if you set out a path towards a goal, which you wanna do because you need a goal and you need a path-

    6. JR

      Mm-hmm.

    7. JP

      ... 'cause that provides you with positive emotion, right? So y- you, you set up something as valuable, so that implies a hierarchy. You set up something as valuable. You decide that you're gonna do that instead of other things, so that's kind of a sacrifice, 'cause you're sacrificing everything else to pursue that. And then you experience a fair bit of positive emotion and meaning as you watch yourself move towards the goal. And so the implication of that is the, the better the goal, the, the, the more full and rich your experience is gonna be when you pursue it. So that's one of the reasons of, of, that's one of the reasons for developing a vision and for fleshing yourself out philosophically, because you wanna aim at the highest goal that you can manage. Okay, so you do that, and then what you'll find is that as you move towards the goal, there are certain things that, that, that you have to accomplish that frighten you. You know, maybe you have to learn to be a better speaker, a better writer, a better thinker. You have to be better to people around you, or you have to learn some new skills and you're afraid of that. Whatever, 'cause it's gonna stretch you if you, if you pursue a goal, and it's, and so that'll put you up against challenges. Okay, so all the clinical data indicates, well, the opposite of safe spaces, as Jonathan Haidt has been pointing out, that what you wanna do when you identify something that someone is avoiding that they need to do because they're afraid, you have them voluntary con- voluntarily confront it. And so you break it down. What you try to do, if you're a behavior therapist, is you break down the thing they're avoiding into smaller and smaller pieces until you find a piece that's small enough so they'll do it. And it doesn't really matter as long as they start it, you know, then they can put the next piece on and the next piece. And what happens is, they don't get less afraid exactly, they get braver. They get, they g- It's like there's more of them, and you can ... And, and here's why. So imagine, you do something new, and that's informative, right? There's information in the action, and then you can incorporate that information and turn it into a skill and turn it into a transformation of your perceptions. So there's more to you because you've tried something new. So that's one thing, but the second thing is ...And there's good biological evidence for this now, that if you put yourself in a new situation then new genes code for new proteins and build new neural structures and new nervous system structures. Same thing happens to some degree when you work out, right? 'Cause your, your muscles are responding to the load, but your nervous system does that too. So you imagine that there's a lot of potential you locked in your genetic code, and then if you put yourself in a new situation then, then the stress that's the situational stress that's produced by that particular situation unlocks those genes and then builds new parts of you. And so that's very cool, 'cause who knows how much there is locked inside of you. Okay. So now here's the idea. So let's assume that that scales as you take on heavier and heavier loads. That more and more of you ... You get more and more informed 'cause you're doing more and more difficult things, but more and more of you gets unlocked. And so then what that would imply is that if you got to the point where you could look at the darkest things, so that would be the abyss, right? That would be the deepest abyss. If you could look at the harshest things, like the most brutal parts of the suffering of the world and the malevolence of people and society, if you could look that, look at that straight and, and directly, that that would turn you on maximally. And so that's the idea of rescuing your father, because imagine that you're like the potential composite of, of all your... all the ancestral wisdom that's locked inside of you biologically. But that's not gonna come out at all unless you stress yourself, unless you, unless you challenge yourself. And the bigger the challenge you take on, the more that's gonna turn on. And so that as you take on a broader and broader range of challenges, and you push yourself harder, then more and more of what you could be turns on and that's equivalent to transforming yourself into the ancestral father. Into all... Because you're, you're like the... What would you call it? You're the consequence of all these living beings that have come before you and that's all part of your biological potentiality. And then if you can push yourself, then all of that clicks on and that turns you into who you could be. That's... And that's the re-representation of that positive ancestral father. So that's why you rescue your father from the belly of the beast.

    8. JR

      So you think that this ultimate goal of sac- of sacrifice and of, of risking your life in order to save someone who's truly important to you, that this somehow or another maximizes your potential as a human being?

  7. 26:58 – 30:19

    Christian symbolism as psychological instruction: suffering, malevolence, and the optimistic wager

    1. JP

      Well, I think, I think you can think about it religiously too. So you think about it this way. So in, in the Christian story, for example, you have Christ does two things that are me- messianic. One is takes the suffering of the world onto himself, okay? So that's a weird idea. Okay, so what does that mean? Let's think about it psychologically. Well, maybe it means that, well, that's your job, is the world's full of suffering and you should accept that as your responsibility, past present and future. You're supposed to do something about that, as much as you can about it. And maybe you start with your own localized suffering, you know, put yourself together, but then you expand that outward and you decide that it's... You're not a victim of that, even though, you know, you're part and parcel of it, but you're, you're the potential solution to that and so you accept that as a responsibility. So that's part of taking on a load, that's part of bearing a cross. You could look at it that way. The cross is sort of a symbol of the place of maximal suffering. Okay. So you accept that as a challenge, not as a... not as something that you're victimized by. Maybe you accept that as the price of being. Okay. So that's one, that's one responsibility. You're responsible for addressing the suffering in the world. So that could give you some meaning, seems to me. And then the next thing is, there's a story, of course, that Christ met the devil in the desert and so that's the encounter with malevolence. So that would be the other thing, because the two major problems that people face obviously are suffering, tragedy, and malevolence. And so that's the other thing that you're responsible for, is that you're supposed to look at the capacity for human evil as clearly as you possibly can, which is a very terrifying thing, you know. That causes post-traumatic stress disorder in people that aren't accustomed to it and in the mythology that's associated with the encounter with evil, it's almost always the case that the entity that does the encountering, even if it does it voluntarily, is, is, is hurt by it. So the Egyptian god Horus, for example, who's the eye and the falcon, the thing that can see and pay attention. When he encounters his evil uncle Seth, who's the precursor of Satan, he loses an eye 'cause it's no joke to encounter malevolence, you know. It, it can really shake you. But the idea would be that if you can face the malevolence and you can face the suffering, then that maximally... that opens the door to your maximal potential. And then the opt- the optimistic part of that is, and this is... this is why it's so useful to peer into the darkness, let's say, the op- optimistic part of that is that although the suffering is great and the malevolence is, is deep, your capacity to transcend it is stronger. So what you get out of the most negative viewpoint is the most positive possible consequence because one of the things you'd like to know, if you wanted to know something deep about yourself, is that you could face the worst that there was and prevail.

    2. JR

      Mm.

    3. JP

      And I believe that's ca- I believe that's c- I believe that that... people are capable of that. I think that despite how tragic life is and how malevolent things are, that fundamentally our spirit, let's say, has the capacity to, to confront that and to fix it, like psychologically, so, so to confront it courageously, to be able to bear up under that if you do it voluntarily, but also to address it. Not only to deal with it psychologically but to deal with it practically, and that we could make things much better.

  8. 30:19 – 33:16

    Utopia vs. adventure: Abraham’s call, Dostoevsky’s warning, and why humans ‘smash’ perfect systems

    1. JR

      There's always a striving towards utopia, right? Like this is the ultimate goal that if, if you, you ask people, "What would you like out of civilization?" "Well, I'd like everyone to be happy and everyone to get along and there to be no war, nothing, no suffering, no anything." But-... in order to really truly learn about yourself and about life-

    2. JP

      Hmm.

    3. JR

      ... you have to overcome adversity-

    4. JP

      Hmm.

    5. JR

      ... you have to experience things.

    6. JP

      Hmm.

    7. JR

      And in... And I firmly believe that in order to truly appreciate love, you have to understand or really have felt hate.

    8. JP

      Mm-hmm.

    9. JR

      And to really appreciate camaraderie, you have to feel loneliness.

    10. JP

      Mm-hmm.

    11. JR

      So, this is just a part of being a person.

    12. JP

      Hmm.

    13. JR

      For whatever reason, like-

    14. JP

      Yeah. Well, maybe... See, the other thing that I've been thinking a- along the same lines is that, you know, it isn't... So, in the, in the biblical stories, in, in the Abrahamic stories, for example, Abraham basically hangs around his dad's tent till he's, like, 80. He's one of these guys that fails to launch, you know, in a big way.

    15. JR

      Mm-hmm.

    16. JP

      And God eventually gets sick and tired of him, like, you know, playing video games in his basement and says, "Get the hell out there into the world and, and have a life." And so he does. He leaves his, his father's tent and his, his community and his, and his country, which is what he's commanded to do. And then he goes out and has an adventure. But, you know, the first thing he encounters is a famine, and then he encounters a tyranny, and then he encounters a, a bunch of people in the tyrannical state that wanna take his wife. And so you can imagine that Abraham's response to that is like, "It was a hell of a lot better sitting in my dad's tent playing video games." But what's cool about that story, what I realized when I was doing the lectures on it last year was that that was a call to adventure. You know, and, and that the right way of conceptualizing what we're talking about isn't that utopia would be a place where everyone was happy. Because, because... And I think because of what you just laid out is you need that polarity, you know, and people need a load and we need adversity and we need difficulty. We need all of that. Um, so maybe what you want is an adventure, the greatest adventure that you could have. And that would involve, you know, something to push against. It would-

    17. JR

      Yes.

    18. JP

      ... it would involve real challenge. And so just a, a... See, D- Dostoevsky knew this because when he wrote Notes From Underground, which I would highly recommend to everyone who's listening, it's a great book and it's a very short book. He, he criticized socialist utopia back in, like, 1860, way, way before it became the sort of widespread idea that, that it is now. And what Dostoevsky said was that, well, human beings are these very peculiar creatures and if you gave us a utopia so that we had nothing to do but eat cake and busy ourself with the continuation of the species, that was, that was his line, um, that the first thing we do is smash it all to bits just so that something unexpected and, and, and troublesome would happen because we're built for adventure and not for peace and happiness.

    19. JR

      Well, we're designed to overcome-

    20. JP

      Hmm.

    21. JR

      ... the natural world.

    22. JP

      Hmm.

    23. JR

      The natural world is filled with that.

    24. JP

      Hmm.

    25. JR

      The natural world is filled with things trying to eat things.

    26. JP

      Hmm.

    27. JR

      And this is just... E- everywhere you look, that's all you observe. You observe predators and prey and animals eating vegetables, and that's it.

    28. JP

      Hmm.

  9. 33:16 – 46:14

    Media combat, misinterpretation, and the personal cost of contentious interviews (Cathy Newman & GQ)

    1. JR

      And I think that this, uh, this concept of overcoming adversity is so hu- it's so human, it's so a part of what we are that I wanna bring it back to you because one of the things that I've been considering is that... I've said this many times and I just had a conversation with my good friend Steve Rinella the other day where he brought it up independently. He said, "I think Jordan Peterson is the most misunderstood and misinterpreted guy in the world." He's like, "People are always, like, not just misinterpreting, but misstating what you believe and misstating what you say." This opposition to you, this, uh... I mean, like we were talking about this GQ interview-

    2. JP

      Hmm.

    3. JR

      ... which I thought was... Uh, I thought that woman was far more intelligent than the... And, and her approach was far better and far more reasoned and well-thought-out than some of the other attacks on you before.

    4. JP

      Hmm.

    5. JR

      So, they're bringing in the varsity level players is what I'm saying.

    6. JP

      Hmm. Hmm.

    7. JR

      It's like... But I think this is important. I think this is part of what, uh, what, what forges this message-

    8. JP

      Hmm.

    9. JR

      ... is that you are and y- you've r-... And this is one of the things that, uh, Eric Weinstein and I had, had said about you, is that you're essentially the, the Royce Gracie of the intellectual dark web. If you don't know what that means, it's the early days of the UFC, no one knew what the best martial art was. And the idea was, like, there was all these martial arts that are running around independently and they're, they were all s- claiming that they had the best technique and let's see what happens. And Royce Gracie was the one who represented jujitsu and went out there and beat all these people with superior technique and superior strategy.

    10. JP

      South American?

    11. JR

      Yes. He's from Brazil.

    12. JP

      Brazil. Yeah. Okay. I know-

    13. JR

      Yes.

    14. JP

      ... about him. Yeah. Yeah.

    15. JR

      And he launched this Brazilian ju- and his family launched this Brazilian jujitsu empire that has since taken over the world of martial arts. But w- you are the one who's consistently engaging in these people. You're the one who's involved in these Vale Tudo events where you're debating these people who are coming at you hostile, with notes. And I think as, as uncomfortable as those moments are, like, who was the woman that said, "So what you're trying to say is..."

    16. JP

      Yeah. Cathy Newman.

    17. JR

      Yeah. H- Her... I think her approach... I think she misunderestimated you.

    18. JP

      Hmm.

    19. JR

      I think she underestimated you.

    20. JP

      Hmm.

    21. JR

      I think she misinterpreted who you are. And she thought that she could come at you with this, uh, straw man sort of article and, uh, uh, uh, argument rather, and frame your positions in a very unflattering way and it just didn't work.

    22. JP

      Nope.

    23. JR

      It just was... It was like the early days of Royce Gracie.

    24. JP

      Mm-hmm.

    25. JR

      Guys would come at him flailing and he'd get them in an armbar and they'd tap out and they'd go, "Fuck." That's kind of what happened with you. But now this woman who you had this conversation with in GQ, she was much more skilled.

    26. JP

      Yeah.

    27. JR

      She was better verbally.

    28. JP

      Yeah.

    29. JR

      She was... She was... He- her, her arguments made more sense.

    30. JP

      Yeah.

  10. 46:14 – 1:04:28

    The Scandinavian “gender paradox”: equality of opportunity vs. equality of outcome

    1. JP

      Really saw this in Scand- Really saw that in Scandinavia.

    2. JR

      Scandinavia.

    3. JP

      Yeah. Well, I, I was there. I went to Stockholm twice and Oslo twice and Helsinki twice and, and, and Copenhagen once in the last month, and I spent quite a bit of, did a lot of interviews, um, and a lot of discussion about the so-called gender paradox. That's a very interesting thing, 'cause it's really put their tails in a knot in Scandinavia. And, and that makes sense, because the Scandinavians are gonna have to deal with this first, because they've gone the farthest down the road for, like, making their society gender equal.

    4. JR

      But explain that to people-

    5. JP

      Yeah.

    6. JR

      ... if they don't might know what you're-

    7. JP

      I will. I will. Okay, so, so imagine, first of all, that there's two kinds of equality that you might pursue. One would be equality of opportunity. And so that would mean that, um, you know, there's, there's wide range of talent across people regardless of their type, whatever that might be, sex, gender, race, ethnicity. There's, there's talent distributed everywhere. And it's a kind of a truism, and I would say a, a truism of the West in the deepest sense, that each of the individuals within those groups should be put in a position where they, their talents are ... They're encouraged to manifest those talents, partly because that would be good for them spiritually and psychologically, but also because that would be of obvious benefit to the community. Right? I mean, talent's rare, which people don't understand. There's lots of different kinds of talent, but it's, but in each domain, it's rare. And so it's to everyone's benefit to exploit talented people to the maximal possible degree. So even if you're just selfish, you'd wanna push for equality of opportunity, because the more talented people there are out there, the more cool stuff you get to have, and hopefully the, the, the more diverse and interesting your life is. So, so you can pursue equality of opportunity, um, policies, and the Scandinavians have done that, especially trying to knock down barriers t- for women in the workplace. And by all accounts, by all standard theories, the Scandinavian countries and places like, uh, like h- like the Netherlands, Canada too, to a slightly lesser degree, um, have done a, have gone farther than any other countries in pursuing those, um, policies.... uh, okay. And, and, and part of the consequence of that is that some of the differences between men and women have been, um, minimized. So obviously, there's far more women in the workplace than there were 40 years ago. And in many occupations, there's actually dominance by women. There's dominance in the universities, there's dominance in the healthcare fields. And so women have poured into the workplace and hypothetically, there's problems with that because it's put a lot of stress on family structure. But hypothetically, that's for the best and... because it gives people a broader range of choices and it gives everyone access to more talent. So... and then also, if you look around the world, you see that one of the best predictors of e- of the probability of economic development in developing countries is their attitude... is the attitude in those countries towards equal rights for women, and it looks causal. The more positively the country is predisposed to female rights, the more likely they are to develop economically. And maybe that's because that indicates that they're open to new ideas or something like that, or open to transformation. So... okay, so that's one kind of equality. Open up the playing field so that everybody has a chance to compete and cooperate and lan- and land where they will. But then the other kind of equality is equality of outcome, so... and that's often described as equity in today's language. And so the ultimate equity utopia would be take every job, every conceivable kind of job, and then stratify that by every conceivable level of authority within every job. And then ensure that every single category of person is represented in precise, uh, proportion to their, to their prevalence in the population. So every job should be 50% women and 50% men, and say 13% non-Western ethnic minority and whatever that happens to be, and then you could break that down. And so... and otherwise there's evidence of systemic prejudice. Okay now, first thing to say about that is that's impossible, and the reason it's impossible is because there's no limit to the number of ways that you can categorize people into groups. So you know, you, you know about sex and ethnicity and race, maybe those are the obvious ones, but now you have gender and then you have ethnicity and, you know, and then there's attractiveness and intelligence and temperament and, and height-

    8. JR

      And age.

    9. JP

      ... and age and, and, and socioeconomic background and I mean, let's say there's 20, but there's a lot more than that. There's no possible way that you could ever regulate a society so tightly that every single one of those groups was equally represented in every single one of those occupations at every single level of the hierarchy. That is impossible.

    10. JR

      Yeah, so they wanna concentrate on the significant ones which are men and women and race.

    11. JP

      Well, yeah, but who's to say those are the significant ones?

    12. JR

      Right.

    13. JP

      That's the other thing. I... it isn't even obvious that they are because I would say that, like a more significant one is cognitive ability 'cause that's a way bigger predictor of long-term life success than sex or race. So I don't even think that we've necessarily identified the canonical groups. We've just decided that gender and race are the... maybe they're the most obvious.

    14. JR

      Right. But isn't there a problem is that people don't... th- that what, what they don't do is they don't take in, in terms of cognitive ability, they don't get on a team. They don't get on like... the- there's people that are sexist-

    15. JP

      Yeah.

    16. JR

      ... but there's... it's very rare that someone is elitist in terms of their cognitive ability.

    17. JP

      Well, hard to say, Joe. I mean, I think one of the reasons that-

    18. JR

      I wouldn't say elitist. Prejudiced is a better word.

    19. JP

      I don't know. It's... I mean, you could be right but look, I think one of the reasons that... like if you... here's something that's kind of peculiar-

    20. JR

      It actually doesn't even make sense now that I'm thinking about it. Of course, they are.

    21. JP

      Well, it's... well, there's one thing that's quite peculiar about the United States in that regard is like most working class people, let's say, are far more irritated with the intellectual elite than they are with the wealthy elite and that's because they think they could become wealthy, and they could, but they don't think they could become part of the intellectual elite. And it isn't obvious to me that the intellectual elite, so those would be the liberal left-leaning types that dominate the media and academia, are particularly, um, positive in their, in their attitudes towards the typical working class person. I think they're prejudiced and elitist. I do believe that that's the case, and I think they're also, um, what would you call it? Patronizing. And I think that the typical working class person, say, who voted for Trump is very, very sensitive to that. And so they're much more concerned with the 1% who are the cognitive elite than they are the 1% who are the economic elite because at least they think that's a game they could play. So anyways, it-

    22. JR

      But isn't that also because there's caricatures, right, of the, the 1% of the economic elite, you just think of people that are in these lofty positions that are in control of the financial institutions, but the 1% of the intellectual elite you think of in terms of like some of the more preposterous things you're hearing outta universities now and safe spaces and-

    23. JP

      Oh yeah, there's that too.

    24. JR

      Yeah.

    25. JP

      And that... there's that too.

    26. JR

      The things that, that pe-

    27. JP

      There's no-

    28. JR

      Yeah.

    29. JP

      Well, there's no appreciation on the part of the intellectual elite for the pathologies of rational... of ra- of rationalism.

    30. JR

      Right.

  11. 1:04:28 – 1:09:23

    Sex differences, resentment politics, and “patriarchal tyranny” as an all-explaining ideology

    1. JP

      Well, well, here's an ex- look, here's an example. So there are fewer women mathematicians in the, in the higher echelons. Okay, but here's something interesting about mathematical ability. First of all, it's very rare, so that's the first thing to keep in mind. Now, it looks like, if you look in junior high, that gif- mathematically gifted men and, uh, males and females are approximately as common. Now, there's a little bit of debate about that because there is some evidence that maybe at the very upper extremes, there's a male advantage just like there's a male disadvantage at the low end, 'cause the male distribution for intelligence might be flatter. And so that's the greater mar- male variability hypothesis. There's been papers putting that forward that have been retracted as a consequence of pressure from politically correct people-

    2. JR

      Hmm.

    3. JP

      ... even though greater mar- male variability is actually quite common in the animal kingdom for a variety of reasons. Men are more expendable. That males are more expendable in some ways. Or you could say that males are more likely to produ- to pursue high-risk, high-return strategies. You can look at it either way, and it's certainly possible. In any case, the men, the males in junior high who happen to be mathematically gifted are less likely to also be verbally gifted. Whereas that doesn't seem to be the case for the females. And so if you're a male math nerd, then math is a pretty logical pathway for you because you don't have as many other options. Whereas if you're a female math nerd, you have other options because you're a- you're less likely... You're more likely to also be verbally gifted. And so that's enough to, at least in principle, account for some of the reason why there are fewer women mathematicians than men mathematicians.

    4. JR

      They have other options.

    5. JP

      You know? They have other options. And there's lots of complex, there's lots of complex reasons like this, and so we have this reflexive idea, and this is very much the case, 'cause this is like the core idea among the feminist neo-Marxist types, is that if there's differences in outcome, that's, that's proof of prejudice and that's support for the idea of the patriarchal tyranny, and that's like the core axiom of the radical left, is the patriarchal tyranny, as far as I'm concerned. That's, that's God for them, the patriarchal tyranny. It's like, well, if it turns out that many of these differences in outcome between men and women aren't a consequence of the patriarchal tyranny, in fact even get bigger when you reduce the tyrannical aspect of the patriarchy and even the patriarchal aspect to it, then it, it makes that theory not only wrong, but opposite of the truth, which is the worst kind of wrong. And so, you know, if men are more likely to produ- pur- pursue careers in the STEM fields, which seems to be the case, under conditions of optimal freedom for men and women, then that's gonna drive income disparities because the STEM fields pay more. And they pay more partly because they're scalable.... like, it's really hard to scale care for people. You know, like if you work in a daycare, you're gonna care for three infants. You're not gonna care for 50 'cause you can't. It's not scalable. But if you're, like, a software designer, it's infinitely scalable. And so, there's, there's a much wider range of possible, of possibility for generating much larger, much larger income pools and much larger pools of wealth. You know, and men are also more likely to work longer hours and if you work 10% longer hours, you make 40% more money. There's a non-linear return on... That's a good thing for everybody who's listening to know. If you have a job, you wanna be the guy or the woman who's working that extra 10% because the return on that is non-linear. So, that's a really useful thing to know. Men are more likely to work outside. They're more likely to work in dangerous businesses. They're more likely to run full-time businesses rather than part-time businesses and, uh, they're more likely to move in pursuit of their career goals, and that all contributes to differences in... And, and in, in, among Uber drivers, they're, they make 7% more money 'cause they drive faster. So, and so anyways, that's-

    6. JR

      That's not good, though. (laughs)

    7. JP

      Well, but, well, no, but it's a high risk-

    8. JR

      I, I understand what you're saying.

    9. JP

      It's a high risk, high return issue, right?

    10. JR

      Yes. It's-

    11. JP

      I mean-

    12. JR

      It's a pattern male-

    13. JP

      Yeah.

    14. JR

      The, uh, common math male pattern.

    15. JP

      It's more risk, there's more risk in it-

    16. JR

      Yeah.

    17. JP

      ... so there's more return as long as you don't get hurt.

    18. JR

      Right.

    19. JP

      And I think that's a pretty common male pattern is there's more risk is... There's more return as long as you don't get hurt.

    20. JR

      The problem seems to be when discussing these things i- i- in any way, uh, romanticizing or, uh, glorifying male behavior or putting any emphasis whatsoever on there being a, a positive aspect to a lot of the things that we think of as being negative-

    21. JP

      Mm-hmm.

    22. JR

      ... like aggression-

    23. JP

      Mm-hmm.

    24. JR

      ... or ambition-

    25. JP

      Mm-hmm.

    26. JR

      ... or, or this-

    27. JP

      Yeah.

    28. JR

      ... or competition.

    29. JP

      Yeah, yeah. Well, the com-

    30. JR

      Competition amongst men is fine.

  12. 1:09:23 – 1:15:08

    Trans athletes, compelled speech echoes, and the boundary between preference, prejudice, and discrimination

    1. JR

      ... that instead of calling people men and women when referring to, like... 'Cause there's, there's this very disturbing, in my opinion, trend of transgender women entering into-

    2. JP

      Mm-hmm.

    3. JR

      ... these competitions now with women who are biologically female-

    4. JP

      Yeah.

    5. JR

      ... and dominating them-

    6. JP

      Yeah.

    7. JR

      ... and that instead of calling people men and women, let's dispense with that-

    8. JP

      Yeah.

    9. JR

      ... and just-

    10. JP

      You can be a man-

    11. JR

      Yes.

    12. JP

      ... or a woman.

    13. JR

      Just say who you're-

    14. JP

      Yeah. Yeah. You can be a man or woman, that's your choice, and you can change it whenever you want. So, you're a man or a woman-

    15. JR

      Yep.

    16. JP

      ... th- and that's your choice. But we're gonna have a new rule which is that if you have an XY chromosome, so you're an XY person or an XX person, then if you're an XX pers-... XY person, you don't get to engage in physical combat with an XY person.

    17. JR

      Yes.

    18. JP

      Man or woman.

    19. JR

      With an XX person.

    20. JP

      Doesn't matter.

    21. JR

      Yes.

    22. JP

      Yeah. How would that be?

    23. JR

      Yeah. If you're XY, you can't e- engage in physical combat with XX.

    24. JP

      That's right. XYs cannot hit XXs. How's that? And maybe they can't, um, run in con- running contests against them and maybe they can't-

    25. JR

      Yes.

    26. JP

      ... play tennis against them.

    27. JR

      Yes.

    28. JP

      Not within... And maybe that's just reasonable.

    29. JR

      It is reasonable.

    30. JP

      Yes. It is certainly reasonable.

Episode duration: 2:55:03

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