Joe Rogan Experience #2180 - Jordan Peterson

1. 0:00 – 15:00

   (drumbeats) Joe Rogan podcast,…

   1. JPJordan Peterson0:00

      (drumbeats) Joe Rogan podcast, check it out. The Joe Rogan Experience.

   2. JRJoe Rogan0:06

      Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day. (instrumental music plays) You don't use headphones, huh?

   3. JPJordan Peterson0:16

      Messes up my hair.

   4. JRJoe Rogan0:17

      (laughs) Good to see you.

   5. JPJordan Peterson0:19

      Good to see you too, man.

   6. JRJoe Rogan0:20

      What's going on in your, uh, your coat today? Every day is a new one.

   7. JPJordan Peterson0:24

      Yeah, well, I've got this suit maker, LGFG, Dmitri, the crazy Russian, and he, you know, pays attention to what I'm doing and makes me the suits that he thinks are suitable and, uh, I wear them.

   8. JRJoe Rogan0:39

      You've gotten quite extravagant though, like sometimes like one half of the suit is one color-

   9. JPJordan Peterson0:43

      Yep.

   10. JRJoe Rogan0:43

       ... like, it looks like, like you're getting bored. You just wanna switch it up a lot.

   11. JPJordan Peterson0:47

       He sends me these damn things and I get them and I think, "There's no way I, I wear that. There's no way I'll wear that." And then I put it on, I think, "Huh, I like that."

   12. JRJoe Rogan0:57

       (laughs)

   13. JPJordan Peterson0:57

       Yeah, yeah, yeah. And Tammy puts up with it, so, you know.

   14. JRJoe Rogan1:00

       Is it everyday suits now with you? Is that-

   15. JPJordan Peterson1:02

       Pretty m- I'm in a suit pretty much all the time, you know, so...

   16. JRJoe Rogan1:04

       Is there a reason for that?

   17. JPJordan Peterson1:06

       Well, the original reason was because, um, probably because my father, he was a teacher and, uh, he always wore a suit, even in the '70s when that started to become, you know, like, 1950s thing. And, uh, I asked him one time why he did that and he said it was to show respect for his students. And then when I was a professor, well, i- when you start to be a professor, you're not that much difference in age from your students to begin with. It's a good way of laying out a demarcation.

   18. JRJoe Rogan1:35

       Mm.

   19. JPJordan Peterson1:36

       And that was helpful. That's useful. You know, people like to know how the hierarchies are delineated.

   20. JRJoe Rogan1:42

       Right.

   21. JPJordan Peterson1:42

       And professors like to think that they're everybody's buddy, but that's not the right relationship. And so that was helpful. And then when I went on tour in 2018, you know, I realized that I was gonna speak live in front of several hundred thousand people over the course of the tour and I thought, you got to think when you have an opportunity like that, that if you had the least amount of sense, you'd pull out all the stops. So I bought some expensive suits, and then one of the things that happened in, in consequence of that was that people started to come to the lectures in suits. And so about, I'd say about 40% of the audience dresses formally. And lots of the young guys who come, they tell me when I meet them afterwards, in the meet and greets for example, that they bought their first suit to come to the lectures.

   22. JRJoe Rogan2:27

       (laughs)

   23. JPJordan Peterson2:27

       And so, you know, I wouldn't have ever expected that. And then Dmitri showed up about two years ago with this portfolio of suits. He designed one for each of the rules for my first book, and he put the rule underneath the collar at the back and designed the lining, custom lining on all the suits as well. And so I gave him a crack at it because he put so much work into it, and, and that worked out real well. He's very, very creative. Yeah, that too, uh, color suit, there's lamb's wool on one side and goat's w- wool on the other and it's a heaven and hell suit, so...

   24. JRJoe Rogan3:01

       Oh.

   25. JPJordan Peterson3:02

       Uh-huh. Yeah, no kidding, eh?

   26. JRJoe Rogan3:05

       (laughs)

   27. JPJordan Peterson3:05

       And this is covered with iconography, um, Christian or, uh, Catholic and Orthodox. I've got one of each and, uh, that's because I was out on tour with my new book, for my new book, which is called We Who Wrestle With God, which we will talk about today, I hope. So that's the suit story, man.

   28. JRJoe Rogan3:22

       How does one wrestle with God?

   29. JPJordan Peterson3:24

       Uh-

   30. JRJoe Rogan3:24

       Do you wrestle with God?
2. 15:00 – 30:00

   Are you aware of,…

   1. JPJordan Peterson15:00

      very, very hard job in those days because shepherds not only had to protect the weakest and serve them, but also keep the lions and the wolves at bay by themselves out in the wilderness. It was a very hard job and Moses has mastered this. So he's grown up and he's adopted a role that's like a standard social role, you know? He's, he's, he's a husband, he's a shepherd, he's an adult. Okay. And so kudos to him. But then one day he's out in the wilderness by the holy mountain, I think it's Horeb in that story, but the holy mountain is always the place where heaven and earth touch. And so there are all sorts of transformation stories that occur in the biblical accounts at, at Mount Horeb or at Mount Sinai where God and Earth meet. And he's out near the holy mountain and something attracts his attention and he goes off the beaten path to investigate. Okay, so that's the first thing, that's the first bit of wisdom to derive from the story. You'll have your role and you should have your role as a socialized adult, right? So you're kind of a type that way or maybe even a cookie cutter type but you've adopted this, th- this, this, uh, mature social role. It doesn't make you a full individual, but it's better than being immature and staying in your father's tent, for example, which is what Abraham does until he's very old. So something attracts Moses' attention and he goes off to investigate. Okay, so and then he sees that it's a burning bush and so what's a burning bush? Well, it's the tree of life and life is often represented as a branching tree and it's on fire because it's compelling, because fire is compelling and fire is alive and it's a symbol of life because everything that is alive burns. That's what metabolism is and so a burning bush is like life itself intensified to the ultimate degree and that's what attracts Moses' attention and he gets closer and closer to it which means he investigates more and more deeply. And as he investigates more deeply, he starts to understand that he's nearing the depths, he's on sacred ground. He takes off his shoes and that's an indication of his willingness to transform in identity and he continues to investigate and then the voice of being itself speaks to him from the depths and it tells him that, that it reveals itself to him as the ground of being itself and it transforms him into the leader who enti- invites his people away from slavery and who stands up against tyranny. And so that's the story of Moses' baptism. And so what does that mean for the ordinary person? Well, it means that you need to grow up and adopt a role, you need to mature, you need to become an adult, you need to be a good man in your time but then you have to pay attention to see what attracts your attention, what calls to you because there's an autonomy about that, right You don't get to pick what interests you, it picks you and you can respond to that call and investigate or reject it. Those are your options and if you reject it you stay in your box. But if you follow it, something will call to you and then if you investigate that, that will transform you and if you investigate it deeply enough, it'll transform you into the person who can stand up against tyranny and who can lead his people away from slavery and that's how God is defined in that story.... God is the thing that calls to you, to p- take you out of your role, that will shape the manner in which your psyche transforms itself as a consequence of your diligent investigation into what calls to you. And so, that's the God that's portrayed ... That's one image of the God that's portrayed in the Old Testament.

   2. JRJoe Rogan18:45

      Are you aware of, uh, the, some of the more recent, um, work that's been done by scholars in Israel? Where these guys have now come up with this hypothesis that the burning bush was actually, uh, the, it was a DMT experience.

   3. JPJordan Peterson19:01

      Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

   4. JRJoe Rogan19:01

      And that the burning bush was most likely an acacia tree.

   5. JPJordan Peterson19:04

      Mm-hmm.

   6. JRJoe Rogan19:04

      That the acacia tree is apparently rich with DMT.

   7. JPJordan Peterson19:07

      Mm-hmm.

   8. JRJoe Rogan19:07

      And they think, you know, the way you get a DMT experience is you smoke it, right?

   9. JPJordan Peterson19:11

      Mm-hmm.

   10. JRJoe Rogan19:12

       And that they had some method of achieving psychedelic states through this.

   11. JPJordan Peterson19:17

       Mm-hmm.

   12. JRJoe Rogan19:17

       And this is where Moses is encountering God.

   13. JPJordan Peterson19:19

       Well, we have ... One of the things-

   14. JRJoe Rogan19:21

       Have you read any of that stuff?

   15. JPJordan Peterson19:22

       One of ... I know about the theorizing and-

   16. JRJoe Rogan19:24

       Yeah.

   17. JPJordan Peterson19:24

       ... it's certainly the case that people have been using psychedelic experiences for, we don't know how long.

   18. JRJoe Rogan19:30

       Right.

   19. JPJordan Peterson19:30

       Hundreds of thousands of years, no doubt, and they've had a profound cultural consequence. Um, one of the things that a psychedelic experience does is amplify that sense of intrinsic interest, right? So, it strips, it strips your perceptions of their inhibition by memory, that's a good way of thinking about it, so that you see what's there instead of your habits of perception. And so it's a way of amplifying, you could think of it, as a way of amplifying what's represented in the biblical corpus as a calling. And that, the thing that's odd about the calling ... Well, you know, when you're th- you can think about it this way, when you're, when you're laying out a podcast, when you're participating in a podcast, you're following a golden thread, right? You're following where your interest takes you and your curiosity takes you. And that's not something you can pre-plan, right? It's something that happens in the moment. So, imagine that you're focused on your goal of having the most interesting conversation possible and communicating what's derived to the broadest number of people. So, that's the overarching goal. Okay, now you focus on the moment and a spirit arises within you, that's a good way of thinking about it, that's the logos-

   20. JRJoe Rogan20:46

       Mm-hmm.

   21. JPJordan Peterson20:46

       The spirit arises within you that leads you on a pathway that's an investigation into the truth. That's part of that calling. The psychedelic chemicals, what would ... They, they heighten that, they heighten the manifestation of the underlying mystery, that's another way of thinking about it. They do that neurochemically. And so, now what's the association between that and religious revelation in the Bible? We don't know. We don't know.

   22. JRJoe Rogan21:15

       Have you read any of Marco, uh, Allegro stuff?

   23. JPJordan Peterson21:19

       Ale- no. No, no, I-

   24. JRJoe Rogan21:21

       Uh, John Marco Allegro, uh, wrote a book called The Sacred Mushroom-

   25. JPJordan Peterson21:24

       Oh, yes.

   26. JRJoe Rogan21:24

       ... of the Cross.

   27. JPJordan Peterson21:25

       Oh, yes.

   28. JRJoe Rogan21:25

       Yeah.

   29. JPJordan Peterson21:26

       Yeah, yeah, yeah. I read, I read that back, oh my God, 1974? That's a long, long time ago.

   30. JRJoe Rogan21:31

       Well, so you probably read it before it was bought up by the Catholic Church.
3. 30:00 – 45:00

   Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. …

   1. JRJoe Rogan30:00

      is in the center of your brain, is, is thought to be literally a third eye. And in reptiles, it actually has a, a r- a cornea and a lens, this gland. Like, literally, it's exactly where the third eye of Eastern mysticism is and they've got a representation of it right here, and it's thought to be where dimethyltryptamine is produced.

   2. JPJordan Peterson30:20

      Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

   3. JRJoe Rogan30:21

      And this, this whole, this whole connection to it is so old that, uh, it seems like you go back to the Jean-Marc Aurolegger stuff, you go back to the, the Dead Sea Scrolls, which are the oldest version of the Bible, the only version that... I believe the only version they have in Aramaic of all those stories, and-... if he's right, if Jean-Marc Olegro's right, it all m- kind of makes sense, that these people were having these experiences, much like the Greeks were with the Eleusinian Mysteries, much like m- multiple different cultures in the Amazon, all over the world, have experienced these profound ceremony experiences that lead to these journeys into the spirit world, these connections with higher consciousness, this ... Something that when you're experiencing it, it seems very, very real, but also very preposterous when you try to explain it to people that aren't experienced. You know, it's like Hendrix, like the g- are you experienced? Have you ever been experienced? Well, I have.

   4. JPJordan Peterson31:27

      Mm-hmm.

   5. JRJoe Rogan31:27

      Like, it's that.

   6. JPJordan Peterson31:28

      Mm-hmm.

   7. JRJoe Rogan31:28

      Like, with, with that d- uh, understanding that that's possible, the world changes, because now you know that that's possible. You could live your whole life and not know that the most shocking profound thing in existence is three hits away.

   8. JPJordan Peterson31:47

      Oh.

   9. JRJoe Rogan31:48

      Three hits away, and all the sudden, you're in a completely different universe in 20, 30 seconds. That's nuts. And the fact that that is dismissed?

   10. JPJordan Peterson32:00

       Mm-hmm.

   11. JRJoe Rogan32:00

       Uh, that people look at it as, like, "Oh, you're just escaping reality, and you're just-" Like, it, it might be the source of civilization itself.

   12. JPJordan Peterson32:10

       Mm-hmm.

   13. JRJoe Rogan32:10

       It might be the source of language. It might be the source of the expansion of the human mind over a period of two million years, the doubling of the human brain over a period of two million years, which Terence McKenna felt directly coincides with the shifting of the tropical rainforests turning into grasslands, which would force these primates to experiment with new food sources, and these ungulate cows that were everywhere that would shit, and then these psilocybin mushrooms would grow in their shit. Observed primates flipping over these cow patties looking for beetles and grubs and things to eat. They're ... It's everywhere. Like, you could see it all over Africa. If there's something on that, they're gonna try it out. And if these things are trying it out, and they're doing this over a period of two million years, and they develop language and culture and weapons, and they start thinking about things, and they become different than every animal around them. And this was McKenna's stone ape theory, which I'm sure you're familiar with.

   14. JPJordan Peterson33:08

       Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

   15. JRJoe Rogan33:09

       And Dennis McKenna, who is, you know, a legitimate scientist, Dennis explains it even better, because he explains it with the actual mechanisms that your brain ... That what the, the things that fire up when you encounter high-dose psilocybin experiences that would lead you to the development of language. Glossolalia, the, the connection of sounds and, and objects, and, and bringing things together in a, in a manner of communication. Also, they, they've realized that in low doses, it increases visual acuity.

   16. JPJordan Peterson33:40

       Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

   17. JRJoe Rogan33:41

       It makes people more, uh, amorous, makes people hornier. They're gonna have more sex. They're gonna be better hunters 'cause they could see better. They're gonna be a little m- more sensitive to, uh, the, the environment. They're gonna be more aware. Edge detection's different. There's, like, so many different things that happen that if you're, if you're thinking about what made people people, it's a mystery. We wanna pretend that we understand things because of the fossil record and this and that. Sure, we kinda understand, but every now and then, we find a new human that we didn't even know exist. Like Denis Ovens? What was that? Not even 20 years ago, I don't think? So now there's a whole other branch of human beings that they weren't even aware of 20 years ago. Whatever the fuck happened that took us from all the other primates that are still here, and made us this? It's pretty profound.

   18. JPJordan Peterson34:29

       Mm-hmm.

   19. JRJoe Rogan34:30

       And I have a feeling that psychedelics were at least involved in that process. That's my belief. And my belief is that The Sweeping Psychedelics Act of 1970 that they passed essentially to target civil rights activists and anti-war activists, that's what they did. They wanted to go after the hippies, and they went after the hippies with MKUltra, with Tom O'Neil so brilliantly, uh, outlines in his book Chaos. They went after it, and they created the Manson Family. They created that family. They, they taught that guy how to do that so that that guy would kill people, and he would be a psychopath, and now hippies would be psychopaths. And then all this anti-war shit would just get stopped by sensible people. Then Schedule I'd everything, everything. Uh, psilocybin, marijuana, all down the board, everything becomes Schedule I, the most illegal of illegal things. So all these people who are experi- all these Ken Kesey people and, you know, the, all the LSD people of the '60s, all those people become criminals instantly. And they just threw water on the whole movement, and it worked. It really worked. It was Nixon and, and all the people that were in charge back then. If you look at what happened from 1960 to 1980, this confusing era of the '70s where the effects are wearing off, and then you get into the '80s, and everybody's doing coke, and they have makeup on and they have big hair, and the music sucks. It's like something happened. Something happened. And what happened was they completely remu- removed the very thing that had changed culture so radically from the '50s to the '60s. Like, I'm a gigantic fan of 1960s automobiles. I love them. There's something about the shapes of them, the way they sound. I mean, part of it is that I grew up in the '80s, and those were the cars we all wanted. When we were kids, you know, if a guy drove by in a 1969 Camaro, we would all be like, "Whoa, look at it. Look at that thing." It was ... But there's something about those shapes, there's something about the designs of those cars that resonate so strongly today. A 1990 car ain't worth shit. Nobody wants your fucking 1990 car. 1990 Camaro, get the fuck out of here with that thing. But if you have a 1968 Camaro, people will stop in a parking lot and stare at it. "What is that?" "A-... I think those guys were on drugs. I think all those guys were on drugs. I think the guy who c- created a Corvette had to be on drugs. These guys were ... They, they, they f- felt something the same way Hendrix felt something when he was on stage playing guitar in a way nobody had ever heard before. That guy came out of nowhere and everybody was like, "What the fuck is he doing?" It was so different that Eric Clapton watched him for the first time and was like, "I should probably quit playing guitar. Like, what the fuck am I doing compared to this guy?" Like, Jesus Christ, everybody was like humbled and confused by it. Psychedelic-inspired, 100%. 100%. And there's something about throwing water on that in the 1970s that I think has done a massive disservice to our civilization. A massive disservice, because it's equated these things with people that have poor discipline and bad social skills and ne'er-do-wells who fail in society, and that's not true.

   20. JPJordan Peterson38:01

       So s-

   21. JRJoe Rogan38:01

       And all these people that I know that are billionaires, I know people that are like super rich people that run these, uh, financial institutions, and I know a lot of, like, brilliant venture capitalist guys and brilliant tech guys, and almost all of them are enthusiasts.

   22. JPJordan Peterson38:20

       Mm-hmm.

   23. JRJoe Rogan38:20

       Almost all of them have had these experiences, and they're all kinda quiet about it.

   24. JPJordan Peterson38:24

       Mm-hmm.

   25. JRJoe Rogan38:24

       And it's very unfortunate. It's very unfortunate, because of these stupid laws that were passed 50 years ago, we've gotten ourselves in this weird crunch where we've made things illegal that could massively help people progress in life and sort things out if we could figure out how to manage them correctly, if we could run proper studies about what is the correct dose. Is there a person that has a certain sort of biological, uh, you know, makeup that makes these drugs problematic? Should we find out? Who's a ... Maybe someone's allergic to them. There's many medications and many different compounds and many plants and natural things that people are, are allergic to. Let's avoid that. Let's try to figure out what works for some people, what work- what doesn't work. Let's have legitimate counselors that could guide people through experiences, people that have experienced it themselves and can understand how to do this with intent and possibly aid your life. They have been shown to be hugely beneficial for soldiers, for our military men coming ... And women coming back from overseas experiencing horrific trauma, to help them get past that. And yet they're illegal still. By ... And h- we're both middle-aged men, right? So who is telling us what we can and can't do? This is preposterous. This is other men our age that haven't had these experiences maintaining this control on them in an i- completely ignorant way. They don't even know what they are. They don't know what these things are, they don't know what the experience is, and yet they want it to be kept out of the hands of kids. We gotta keep it off the streets. We've gotta keep drugs away from our society. And you don't know what you're talking about. It might be why we're here, and it also ... The absence of it might be why we're so fucked up. It might be why we're so disconnected, why we're so disjointed, and our society is so hypocritical. I mean, the most pro-life people are also pro-death penalty. It's like across the board, everything. The people that, you know, want no crime but don't want to stop the emergence of crime by funding programs to try to fix the inner cities, and they wanna ... E- there's ... Our whole thing is disconnected. And I have a feeling that a big part of that is that we have not been given access to tools that have helped people literally become what we are today. And if y- i- if they're t- You know, if you l- read Brian Muir rescue's work and if he's correct, and these people that are studying the Eleusinian mysteries and the, the literal emergence of democracy as we know it, probably all of it came out of psychedelic experiences.

   26. JPJordan Peterson41:20

       So I had Timothy Leary's old job at Harvard.

   27. JRJoe Rogan41:25

       That comes with a lot of weight.

   28. JPJordan Peterson41:27

       (laughs)

   29. JRJoe Rogan41:28

       (laughs)

   30. JPJordan Peterson41:28

       Yeah, and I knew some of the people that knew him, and so you could say that what happened in the 1960s, and this is relevant to the psychedelic experience, let's say, is that the emergence of mushrooms in particular and then LSD indicated to a swath of the population, like Leary and like Ken Kesey, that our perceptions were locked in kind of a box, in a, in a box that we didn't even really ... that we weren't even conscious of. I suppose that's the box of conformity. And the psychedelics released a wave of non-conformity, and Leary crystallized that with his tune in, turn on, and drop out.
4. 45:00 – 1:00:00

   Right. …

   1. JPJordan Peterson45:00

      there's no unity of purpose, there's nothing but fragmentation. And part of the danger of the hippie movement in the 1960s was a counter social fragmentation.

   2. JRJoe Rogan45:10

      Right.

   3. JPJordan Peterson45:11

      Now, so you can imagine, you know, things get so constrained that everybody's exactly the same, and that's a complete totalitarian catastrophe. But you can imagine the opposite catastrophe, which is that, well, everyone's letting it all hang out and doing their own thing, and that's equally dangerous.

   4. JRJoe Rogan45:26

      Right.

   5. JPJordan Peterson45:26

      And so there's some balance in the middle. Well, that's that balance between chaos and order that we were referring to earlier.

   6. JRJoe Rogan45:31

      It's also d- an ignorance of the structure that's involved in ma- maintaining a society.

   7. JPJordan Peterson45:36

      Definitely.

   8. JRJoe Rogan45:37

      And that you need discipline and people need to work to maintain the society that you enjoy to be so free, and to be a hippie.

   9. JPJordan Peterson45:43

      Yeah, well, uh, you can imagine that that complex social order can be maintained by something like mindless obedience.

   10. JRJoe Rogan45:52

       Right.

   11. JPJordan Peterson45:53

       That's suboptimal. What you'd really want is enlightened responsibility.

   12. JRJoe Rogan45:57

       Right.

   13. JPJordan Peterson45:58

       Right, right. Now-

   14. JRJoe Rogan45:58

       Right, that's a great way to put it.

   15. JPJordan Peterson45:59

       Right, that's a very hard thing to pull off though, because it means that you have to leap out of the, the box of social constraint, and you have to take the responsibility onto yourself. Now, that's a hell of a lot better if you can manage it, but that is definitely not what Kesey, or-

   16. JRJoe Rogan46:18

       Right.

   17. JPJordan Peterson46:18

       ... or Leary, for example-

   18. JRJoe Rogan46:19

       But what you're saying-

   19. JPJordan Peterson46:20

       ... were preaching to the masses.

   20. JRJoe Rogan46:21

       ... i- is like an admirable thing that people j- should aspire to, should be-

   21. JPJordan Peterson46:25

       It's the best possible ... Okay, let me-

   22. JRJoe Rogan46:27

       Yeah, the highest goal.

   23. JPJordan Peterson46:27

       Let me give you another example of this, if you don't mind. I'm, I'm gonna use another Biblical story.

   24. JRJoe Rogan46:32

       While you have Biblicalling, the lights are flickering behind you, almost like God is interacting with us.

   25. JPJordan Peterson46:37

       (laughs)

   26. JRJoe Rogan46:37

       There's spirits in the room, Jimmy.

   27. JPJordan Peterson46:39

       Well, hopefully-

   28. JRJoe Rogan46:39

       Have you noticed the light flickering? Uh-uh. If you haven't noticed it- No. ... keep an eye on it. (laughs) Well, I think they always are.

   29. JPJordan Peterson46:46

       Yeah. Yeah, yeah, well, uh ... So, in the story of Abraham, Abraham is a, um, he's an old man when the story starts.

   30. JRJoe Rogan46:56

       As soon as you started talking about Abraham, it started flickering again. (laughs) It's going now. See?
5. 1:00:00 – 1:15:00

   Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm. …

   1. JRJoe Rogan1:00:00

      UFC lightweight champion, the pound-for-pound best fighter on Earth, when that guy's fighting, when he gets into the cage on the day, whatever it is, that Saturday night, this is a peak of performance and training that cannot be maintained.

   2. JPJordan Peterson1:00:17

      Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

   3. JRJoe Rogan1:00:17

      You want it, he wants to catch it right when he's right there, when the body hasn't broken down yet, the immune system hasn't broken down yet, the endocrine system isn't fried, the adrenals aren't fried. You, you're getting it to right when your body can recover and is forced to maintain this insane level of fitness, and then you have to take a break.

   4. JPJordan Peterson1:00:38

      Mm-hmm.

   5. JRJoe Rogan1:00:38

      Like, you cannot maintain fight camp all year round. You will not be able to do it. Your body will break down.

   6. JPJordan Peterson1:00:44

      So you, you, this-

   7. JRJoe Rogan1:00:46

      So it's not what I'm, my point is, like, that requires discipline-

   8. JPJordan Peterson1:00:49

      Right, right, right.

   9. JRJoe Rogan1:00:49

      ... because that is no longer, you're no longer in the i- in, uh, in the inspiration realm. You're, uh, in the obsession realm. You are, I'm sure, as well, but you're also, and there's no fucking way you wanna do it. There's no way you wanna do more sprints. There's no way you wanna do all this stuff. You must do it, though.

   10. JPJordan Peterson1:01:05

       Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

   11. JRJoe Rogan1:01:06

       You must do the calisthenics. You must do the live wrestling drills. You must do the shark tank where they throw in a new fresh opponent every round for five rounds, so you're dealing with rested killers and you're exhausted. You have to do that. S- and that's not...That's pure discipline. And generally enforced discipline by coaches, 'cause it's so rigid, it's so hard to do, that you need someone over you with a stopwatch-

   12. JPJordan Peterson1:01:32

       Right. Right. Right, right, right.

   13. JRJoe Rogan1:01:32

       ... going, "Let's go! Let's go! Let's go!" And everybody has to get up and go at it because even the most disciplined, their body recognizes they need a break.

   14. JPJordan Peterson1:01:40

       Right.

   15. JRJoe Rogan1:01:40

       So that's pure discipline. The, what I had was this obsession that made that hard work easy.

   16. JPJordan Peterson1:01:49

       Right. Right. So that's a key thing.

   17. JRJoe Rogan1:01:50

       Because I was-

   18. JPJordan Peterson1:01:50

       So that's a key thing. Be... Okay, so... So now imagine that underneath that, there's a implicit or unconscious goal. Okay? So in the... And, and I'm saying this for a very specific reason. So the positive emotion that motivates people is always experienced in relationship to a goal.

   19. JRJoe Rogan1:02:09

       Mm-hmm.

   20. JPJordan Peterson1:02:09

       Now this is a very important thing for everyone to understand, because it means that if you don't have a goal, you have no positive emotion. And it also means that the higher your goal, the more positive emotion you experience when you're moving towards it, 'cause positive emotion signifies progress towards a goal. So you need a goal. The goal of the, what, deepest religious tr- the deepest religious traditions is the ultimate goal, by definition. So the idea is that you need a goal and so you should pick the utmost possible goal. That's another good definition of something like the Kingdom of Heaven, or the realm of the divine, the ultimate goal. Now you have a goal and every time you see movement towards it, you're going to get, um... What would you say? You're riding on the energy that's associated with movement towards that goal. That's dopaminergically mediated. That's the same systems that are affected by cocaine and methamphetamine and so forth, all the positive emotion drugs. So you need a goal. That goal... Now you imagine this, that if you're attentive to the action of your own instincts, or the divine voice, I don't think those are distinguishable, then a goal is going to emerge that catalyzes a series of transformations. This is what happens to Abraham. So he has a series of adventures after he decides that he's gonna go out in the world and every adventure is marked by the erection of a sacrificial altar and a recommitment of his upward aim. Now there's two reasons for that. One is that he reminds himself that he's aiming upward and he's on an adventure. And the second is he admits to himself that with every transformation of character, something has to be sacrificed. So you know... So now I, I'm, I'm curious about this in your own life, right? So you started obsessively committing to martial arts. What did you have to give up to do that?

   21. JRJoe Rogan1:04:00

       Social life.

   22. JPJordan Peterson1:04:01

       Okay.

   23. JRJoe Rogan1:04:02

       Yeah.

   24. JPJordan Peterson1:04:02

       What else?

   25. JRJoe Rogan1:04:03

       That's basically it. I was a kid.

   26. JPJordan Peterson1:04:04

       Okay. Social life.

   27. JRJoe Rogan1:04:05

       I didn't really have responsibilities other than school, so to leave from school and go right to training.

   28. JPJordan Peterson1:04:11

       Okay. So there's an, there's an emergent idea in that story of adventure-led transformation that with every profound transformation of character, something that's not appropriate has to be let go of. That's why... By the way, that's why Abraham's story culminates in the sacrifice of his son, 'cause the sacrifices get higher in value as the developmental progression upward continues.

   29. JRJoe Rogan1:04:35

       Mm-hmm.

   30. JPJordan Peterson1:04:36

       And that's basically the story of individual development. Right? You follow the call of adventure, aim upward, continually remind yourself of your fundamental goal, and then let go of everything that isn't appropriate as you transform forward. So Abraham ends up with a new name because of doing that. That's how different he becomes in the course of his adventure. Just like Jacob. Jacob becomes Israel and Abram becomes Abraham because the consequence of him following the pathway of adventure, the calling, is a transformation that's so complete it's as if he's a different person. And now those stories are maps of that transformative process. So they culminate, they culminate in the Christian view of things with the ultimate sacrificial offering. So that's the idea that lurks in the New Testament, is that the ultimate in transformation is brought about by your willingness to put absolutely everything on the line, no matter what. Right? And that's a very different view of the religious enterprise than something like defense against death anxiety. Right? It's the ultimate adventure and that's the willingness to welcome everything about life that's terrible and painful and malevolent, to welcome that with open arms, to accept that. And that's predicated on a deeper idea even, which is that sacrifice is the basis of community, which is exactly right, 'cause you have to give up something to be in relationship to the future-
6. 1:15:00 – 1:27:39

   Right. …

   1. JPJordan Peterson1:15:00

      can throw at you. Okay, so let's take that apart a bit. So the first thing that makes a tragedy tragic is that the tragedy befalls a good person. 'Cause if a tragedy befalls a villain, it's just justice, it's not a tragedy. So it has to be a good person. So then, to amplify that, you would not only have the tragedy befall a good person, you'd have it befall a good person that everyone knew was good, but was not only good, was the best, and that was persecuted because he was good. So that sorta limits it out in that direction. Then you might say, "Well, what does he have to face?" Well then, the answer would be, "Well, the worst life has to offer." Okay. Early death. Early painful death. Early, painful, humiliating, unjust death at the hands of his friends, at the hands of the mob, under the thumb of a tyrant. Right. Brought about by people who knew that he was not only good, but the best of men. That's an archetypal tragedy. And then it doesn't limit out, so then you have the death that occurs in consequence of that and its voluntary acceptance. But that's not where it ends because the mythology surrounding the crucifixion story insists that Christ harrowed hell after the crucifixion, which meant that he confronted not only death but malevolence itself, and in consequence transcended both. And so what's the underlying psychological message? It's something like the calling and the voice of conscience informing people that in order to thrive properly in life and to become who you could be, if you could be everything you could be, you have to voluntarily take on the weight of the worst life has to offer, including the depths of malevolence itself. And you think, "Well obviously, Joe, you know this." Like, how are you gonna adapt to a situation you won't even admit to?

   2. JRJoe Rogan1:17:02

      Right.

   3. JPJordan Peterson1:17:02

      Well, so how could it be otherwise than for you to become everything that you could be, you have to embrace all of the catastrophes that life has to offer?

   4. JRJoe Rogan1:17:12

      Mm-hmm.

   5. JPJordan Peterson1:17:12

      Like how could it al- how could it be other than that? You're gonna hide? You're gonna pretend?

   6. JRJoe Rogan1:17:17

      Right.

   7. JPJordan Peterson1:17:18

      How is that gonna work? No one thinks that'll work.

   8. JRJoe Rogan1:17:20

      Right.

   9. JPJordan Peterson1:17:21

      And so... And you're right. There i- there is this defensive element to the... Particularly the Protestant religious tradition, although I don't want to single out the Protestants specifically, that insists that, you know, the work has already been done, but there's a lot of ambivalence about that in the Christian canon because there's an equal insistence that, no, you're supposed to, uh... You're supposed to take all this on voluntarily. And that not only that, not only that, but that's... It's such an interesting idea because it makes so much sense psychologically. So imagine that as your courage grows so that you can confront more and more of the horror of life, that a spirit begins to develop within you that gives you a strength that's commensurate with your daring. That's walking with God. That's the same thing. So the promise is that if you had the courage, something would be with you to allow you to bear up nobly under the burden. And I... All the clinical evidence supports that proclamation because what you see in people in the therapeutic transformation is that insofar as they're willing to confront what terrifies them voluntarily, they get stronger.

   10. JRJoe Rogan1:18:34

       Hmm.

   11. JPJordan Peterson1:18:35

       And then imagine that there's no... There's nothing but a metaphysical limit to that. And I think that's right. I- I can't see how it cannot be right.

   12. JRJoe Rogan1:18:45

       It makes sense and it, it, it resonates with how we know people that have overcome great things in their life and become these very unusual and unique people.

   13. JPJordan Peterson1:18:53

       Yeah.

   14. JRJoe Rogan1:18:54

       I gotta pause 'cause I have to use the restroom, but let's jump right back into it.

   15. JPJordan Peterson1:18:58

       Okay.

   16. JRJoe Rogan1:18:58

       Where were we?

   17. JPJordan Peterson1:18:59

       Well, we were kind of bringing We Who Wrestle with God to a close, I would say.

   18. JRJoe Rogan1:19:04

       Yeah.

   19. JPJordan Peterson1:19:04

       We've got other projects I wanna talk to you about.

   20. JRJoe Rogan1:19:06

       Okay.

   21. JPJordan Peterson1:19:06

       All right?

   22. JRJoe Rogan1:19:07

       Sure.

   23. JPJordan Peterson1:19:07

       We're launching Peterson Academy today, so online university, we hope. We'll see. We've got... We're launching with 20 courses, best lecturers in the world, very, very high-quality production. We invited the best lecturers I could find down to Miami, eight-hour courses on the topic they really want, highest possible production quality, and, uh-... we're hoping we'll make a high level, university level, university-equivalent education available to everyone for approximately 1/20 the cost.

   24. JRJoe Rogan1:19:47

       Mm-hmm.

   25. JPJordan Peterson1:19:47

       So that's the plan. You want to see the opening, the opening salvo?

   26. JRJoe Rogan1:19:52

       Sure. Yeah. Put s it up. Put it up, Jamie.

   27. JPJordan Peterson1:19:54

       Yeah, yeah.

   28. JRJoe Rogan1:19:55

       Why did I decide to build an o-

   29. JPJordan Peterson1:19:55

       Let's take a look. I, I ran this before my lectures th- this last tour.

   30. JRJoe Rogan1:19:59

       You gotta put the headphones on if you want to hear it.

Episode duration: 2:36:25