#249 - Jordan Peterson | The Tim Dillon Show

all right all right so what do you want. to do today what do you want to. accomplish today. that's a great question it's a great. question i think well you are you're a. clinical psychologist so i do want to i. think for my own life it's important. that i. selfishly use this a little bit to get. advice from you personally. um uh which i think is which could can. help other people as well. uh yes i i have the new book here which. is called. uh beyond order which i love the title. of that 12 more rules for life which was. written. i know a good chunk of this was written.

before your ordeal. um which we could talk about too um. and you know just the it's so funny on. the on the book it says the new york. times has called you the most. influential public intellectual in the. western world which is undoubtedly true. it's a tremendous amount of pressure and. do you ever say to yourself. like do you ever look at the western. world and go you know what i don't want. to be. the most influential public intellectual. i don't want to be responsible in any. way for what's going on. uh um i i would say i vary in that.

opinion. moment to moment every day um you know. i'm in an extraordinary. extremely fortunate position but it's. also. a strange position and it isn't exactly. clear to me how to conceptualize it or. how to move forward in the position that. i'm in so i'm. actively working that through. do you like fame like do you like the. adulation of people because you've.

helped a tremendous amount of people. um and you're very well known that also. comes with. uh obviously a lot of negatives um. but there's a ton of positives to it and. do you. have you grown to to like them to like. the idea of being famous. well i find it very difficult to. accustom myself to. it happened to me quite late in life and. so. it's still very strange for me to. walk down the street and be recognized.

continually it in some of it's extremely. positive it's it's as if i'm. always among friends and well-wishers i. mean you wouldn't get that impression if. you. looked at my reputation online let's say. because there's a disproportionate. number of journalists who. have taken a dislike to me but when i'm. out in public. it's like being it's like living in a. small town but.

everywhere in some sense because but in. a small town. like that was this subject of a 1950s. you know romantic romanticized version. of a small town where everyone. loves each other and um people are. always telling me that they're happy to. see me walking around and looking. healthy and. or or they just say hello or they you. know do a thumbs up or yell something. out and. so it's like being among friends and. well-wishers except it's more intimate. than that. and it's extraordinarily positive but.

also very difficult to conceptualize. i was walking with a friend of mine this. morning who's a clinical psychologist. and. i was talking about this issue and. about the impact that my communication. has had culturally and. and um at the level of individual lives. and. you know i i mentioned to her and we. discussed. the fact that.

so much of this isn't the consequence of. my ideas. you know i've read widely and. i i read people who's who were very. profound thinkers. nietzsche and dostoevsky and young. people who know me know that they were. great influences on me but much more. widely than not many. neuroscientists and many literary. figures and. and of course people like jung and. nietzsche and dostoevsky were. overwhelmingly influenced by their own. reading and their own knowledge their.

knowledge of christianity the knowledge. of our religious traditions. in jung's case his psychoanalytic. practice and his work with. schizophrenics and. i've read much of the major works by all. the major clinical psychologists and. i've been able to communicate those. ideas to synthesize them to some degree. and then to communicate them to very. large numbers of people it's not that. surprising the ideas have. a profound effect because they were. written by geniuses who were. interested in helping people sort out.

their lives and. and live more meaningful lives and so. um on the one hand it's not surprising. that the ideas have. that influence but on the other it's. difficult. it's complex to be the person who's. identified with that right to such a. great degree you're the conduit. yes which is a cliched thing in some. sense you know. artists say that that they're just a. conduit but there's truth in that.

and people say that i articulate what. they already know. and that that's helpful and i believe. that to be the case because otherwise it. wouldn't. echo and reverberate right um and as. powerfully as it does one of your rules. which i. i looked at here in the new book it said. um. and i want to ask you about this it says. do not allow yourself to become. resentful um deceitful or arrogant. the first part of that you i've. witnessed um.

and i know that you've lived and i i've. never seen an attack on someone like. i've seen on you and i've been. i paid attention you know i'm a comedian. i'm i i talk about. cultural issues i i um. you know am relatively well versed in. what's going on in the public sphere. i've never seen uh attempt after attempt. after attempt to smear uh and like. besmirch. a human being as i saw with you i've ne. i mean there was um much less.

and i'm i'm serious about this there was. maybe less. negative press about osama bin laden. than. you i mean i mean i like i i think there. was. more of like people trying to understand. osama bin laden. um you know he grew up uh you know when. he was disenfranchised or whatever it. was. but how do you not especially because. you went through this very powerful. ordeal. and i don't know how and i know that a. lot of that was internal family dynamics. and your own health and your family's.

health. but how do you not become resentful. against. uh the people that have uh. tried to assassinate your character also. do you blame any of them for what you. went through. recently which we'll we'll talk about in. a little bit but you know the ordeal. that you went through do you blame any. of these people. do you do you say to yourself had they. not been as aggressive. and had they not been as vicious uh you. might not have been in the situation you.

were in. well you know i worked through a lot of. the answers to the questions that you're. asking while i was writing. this second book the last chapter the. chapter you referred to do not do not. become. resentful deceitful or arrogant those. are the three things that i noticed. that were particularly catastrophic. to people in my clinical practice those. three things and their interactions. and then in the in the final chapter.

chapter 12 is. be grateful in spite of your suffering. um. look the first thing i'd say is that. i've watched people since i've. become public a public figure. i've watched people my my peers let's. say academics in other places. in the world or people who are roughly. my professional peers who've been the. target of attacks. on twitter or in the newspapers. in some manner similar to what's.

happened to me. and my observation has been that it's. very very hard on people they generally. fold up and apologize and are shocked. and hurt. quite to a quite deep degree and so. it's no joke to. to have that happen to you it's it's. given me more insight into why people. are so likely to not say the things they. need to say.

when it's the time to say them because. the trouble that that can cause. is very difficult to cope with. and so i certainly wouldn't say that. it's been without effect. it's also a great mystery to me that it. continually happens. i continually expect it to stop but. it doesn't stop and i don't it's hard to. understand why. that is exactly um i'm i'm trying to. understand that all the time. uh i think to some degree.

there's a public attempt to understand. that even. and i say that because i'm also the. subject of. an inordinate number of memes and. they represent who people think i am. um in a very large number of ways. strange ways i've become very associated. with lobster imagery and with frog. imagery and with. king imagery and with well the red skull. imagery and.

it's a very complex set of of images and. so. that all adds to the difficulty of. sorting it out as as far as i'm. concerned. i certainly was tempted towards. bitterness. and resentment as a consequence of my. illness which created a tremendous. amount of pain. and well at the same time or. approximately the same time my daughter. and my wife were also very ill. and so it's difficult not to.

succumb to the temptation to shake your. fist at god and. curse the clouds and the thunder and. this structure of being itself for. all the all the suffering that people. go through but it's not helpful. and i've really strived with the help. primarily of my wife but also of other. people close to me. to identify resentful and bitter. thoughts and to eradicate them. because they're not helpful they're not.

justifiable like under any condition as. far as i can tell. to and that's why i tried to. illustrate in chapter 12 that gratitude. is most properly conceptualized. if it's not naive as a form of courage. it's sort of like the decision you take. when you decide to get married. you know the trope is that you find the. right person and then. you just know but the truth of the. matter is is that you. you decide and then you continually keep.

deciding day after day while you're. living with the person and. gratitude in the face of life suffering. is the same thing it's. a decision about an attitude that you. are going to strive to bring forward it. isn't so much uh. it isn't so much a uh considered opinion. about the benevolence or lack thereof of. the world. right so and i just couldn't see when i. delved into my thoughts i thought this. seems unfair i.

my family is struggling under a. tremendous burden. of ill health uh not that that's not. true of many many families i'm. very aware of that and and at the same. time this. in some sense rather unique uh. exposure to continual public pillaring. pillorying if that's a word probably. isn't. but but i d when i delved into it. identified all the thoughts and thought. them through. i couldn't see any positive utility they.

weren't helping me in any way. so and i've done a reasonable job of. dispensing with them in the last two. months i would say at the same time. however i've also been recovering. to a fair degree since i've been. properly diagnosed finally. now what was that proper diagnosis for. the people that aren't aware of what you. went through because i know that there's. there was a lot of speculation because. there was really no information out. there when you kind of disappeared from. public life yeah. it's still not exactly clear what. happened to me i've had a long history.

of depression and that. definitely has played a role in. predisposing me to. whatever happened over the last few. years but. my new physician. i i i was particularly suffering in the. mornings that. and by the end of the day i was back to. something approximating normal but it. would take me like eight hours or so of. real effort to. even get to the point where i could. stand up and move forward. to without excruciating pain without.

believing that i was going to collapse. and then. that would recur every morning well he. investigated the structure of my sleep. and. found that i was i had severe central. sleep apnea and. i was waking up 25 times an hour so. those are stressful occurrences where. you stop. breathing and so i've been using a. breathing machine for the last. month and it's improved me from about. five percent of function to about 50 or. 60. and and i'm still seem to be improving. at least to some degree.

and so apparently i wasn't getting. i was wearing this ring that monitors. sleep and i was getting zero deep sleep. maybe one minute or two minutes a night. which is nowhere near enough. and since i've been using the machine. it's up to more like 30 to 50 minutes. that's where your body restores itself. completely it's during deep sleep. and so at least one of the problems that. i was facing it's not the only one but. at least one of them was. chronic lack of sleep and i know you had. anxiety and then you were having doubts. of anxiety.

your wife's illness and michaela's. surgery and you're having. bouts of anxiety and then you're taking. uh you know a doctor prescribed. benzodiazepines to try to deal with that. and you keep upping the dosage of that. and um. then you you're having a uh. an atypical reaction to the medication. where you're having. yeah well both to the medication yeah. well. i started taking it in 2017. i had an a pronounced episode of. insomnia.

and it lasted for a long time about. three weeks i had very little sleep. um you know people have i said i think. on joe rogan that i didn't sleep for 21. days and. the cynics have pointed out that the. world record for sleeplessness is 11. days. but there's a big difference between. trying to stay awake which is what. you're doing. when you're trying to break a record and. being unable to sleep. those aren't the same thing at all and. perhaps i was micro sleeping when i was. laying down but my subjective experience. was three weeks without any sleep at all.

i went to talk to and i had all sorts of. other symptoms that were quite. mysterious i. would faint when i stood up and. chronically and. i was ice cold i couldn't get warm no. matter how many blankets i piled on. um was this among other symptoms this. had to do with. stress well stress certainly but like. you start these. medications in 2017 had these things. happened prior to you taking. these medications well it's complicated.

because i had a fat. a history of depression as well and i. stopped taking antidepressants in early. 2016 and. that seemed to be going quite well but. it. either and i have an autoimmune disorder. so and what is it it's complicated like. an autoimmune disorder is just. i know that you know examples of that. are like lupus or something like that. yeah is it a um it's a what type of. disorder. is it i know that you're dying i haven't. had i haven't had arthritic symptoms but. i had psoriasis. quite in quite marked and um.

uh a chronic history of mouth ulcers and. peripheral uveitis in my right eye which. is an inflammatory condition in the. retina. and i had um. i can't remember the name of it it's. it's your your hair follicles are. attacked by your immune system and. sometimes people go completely bald they. lose all their hair. i don't remember the alopecia alopecia. as well and is this why you have the. diet that you have because i remember. you said that the diet you have has. alleviated some of those symptoms yeah.

well both my. wife and i have autoimmune problems and. so does my daughter although my son. doesn't. and my daughter's very severe arthritis. was. ameliorated to a tremendous degree by a. meat-only diet which she's maintained. for five years. and so both my wife and i while we're. still on that diet both of us. are still on that diet which i wouldn't. casually recommend to anyone by the way. it's very restrictive it's very hard on. my social life it makes it very.

difficult to travel or to go out. but it does seem to keep these symptoms. essentially under control were you. diagnosed when when you and your wife. you both have this disorder do you have. similar disorders or. is her disorder hers is more severe okay. and and. you were diagnosed with that when you. were younger or was that did that come. on later in life. um well it it was diagnosed. mostly this year okay i mean these other. might these other.

sort of symptomatic conditions sure. uveitis. and so on they were diagnosed as they. arose but this year. i was subject to a lot of medical tests. and i had. markers various blood markers of. autoimmune trouble. now do you did you would at any time did. you become addicted to the. benzodiazepines. well there's a not in that i was craving. them and. and not in that i was seeking them out. or or searching for them. um yes in that i was dependent on them.

okay. so if i stopped taking them i would. undergo withdrawal and. that really when i stopped taking them. which i did in 2019. um once i realized their danger to me. some people don't seem to respond. negatively to them but i i certainly did. i stopped taking them and that that was. catastrophic do you have any other great. catastrophe for insights about addiction. having gone through this experience. well i wouldn't recommend it.

i mean yeah. look lots of psychiatric drugs are. helpful to people. and but everything that's helpful comes. with a risk and. i mean antidepressants helped me a lot. and the benzodiazepine when i first took. it stopped my insomnia instantly. which is partly why i kept taking it. there were a lot of. stressful things going on in my life at. that time and i felt. especially because i had stopped taking. the antidepressants that.

once i took the benzodiazepine and i'd. settled back down a bit that i would. just leave well enough alone and. i just so i kept taking it was. prescribed to me. i didn't know at that point that a small. proportion of people. we don't know how small have a. catastrophic dependency response so. they can't stop they can't get off the. medications without. suffering catastrophic side effects and. i was in that category so. yeah and then you were you went to i. believe moscow. and you were put in a medically induced.

coma to. help you detox from the. medication well there was a variety of. reasons but that was definitely. that was the primary reason yes to get. through the worst of the withdrawal and. so. and after that happened i i haven't. taken any. uh benzodiazepines since then and you. when you woke up i was still suffering. terribly from the withdrawal effects. still eventually even after the detox. yes essentially yes so i mean these are.

now benzodiazepines these are drugs that. are like would xanax. be considered yes okay so in that family. of drugs. yes alcohol barbiturates and. benzodiazepines are all. uh anti-anxiety agents alcohol is more. complex but. they're all in the same family and i. know that people have to medically detox. from alcohol. as well at a certain alcohol withdrawal. often kills people. yeah often yeah and they use xanax they. use benzodiazepines to treat the. to reduce the risk of seizure when. people withdraw from alcohol.

right yeah and now waking up in moscow. which is like the chilling you know. why and i've heard a little bit about. this but you said you felt that you were. just your family made the decision to. move you. to moscow because they felt the. treatment there would be. better than canada or the u.s. well the treatments that i had in canada. in the u.s weren't working right. okay so it was a last-ditch attempt it. was a high-risk last-ditch attempt. yeah nobody did it lightly or or.

carelessly it was just we we felt we. were out of options and i believe that. to be the case. right and and what was the treatment in. moscow other than the medically induced. coma what else. would you say like how it was was the. experience. i mean obviously it wasn't a positive. one but in terms of the doctors and the. hospital and the in the place that you. were in you felt that you were well. taken care of. they did their best yeah and all the. people medical professionals that i. dealt with generally speaking did their. best and. it's hard to tell what the effect of.

that was. net positive or net negative i'm still. alive right you know. positive you roll the dice and take your. chances and and there's nothing certain. you know when my wife was treated for. her cancer. which was fatal a fatal form of cancer. and virtually a hundred percent of the. conditions of the cases uh noted it's. very rare. thankfully um she had quite. a radical second surgery and then. suffered terrible complications from. that surgery for six months their.

life-threatening complications. but it saved her life yeah so you know. the cure can be the cure has danger just. like the disease. and your diet is very important because. i remember that you were saying on joe. rogan that you had had like an apple. juice and had such an adverse reaction. to it. just because it contained sugar which. you had not had in years. sulfites actually sorry it's very. unclear. it's all of this is very unclear still. yeah it's very. it's very interesting how ready are you.

to get back to. your schedule i mean you had a question. i am i am in some sense back to my. schedule. as much as my health will allow i'm. working. from three o'clock while i do some work. before that. i spend most of the morning uh walking. and. exercising and some in correspondence. but i'm. recording two two to three podcasts on. my end a week and. i'm generally on two others during the. week and i'm writing again.

so you know i'm champing at the bit uh. i have it's possible that i'll tour. again depending. on whether or not i can tolerate it that. time changes and all of that. right and then of course with kova. that's a whole well yes there's that too. well ladies and gentlemen we are talking. to dr jordan peterson. this episode we're having a great talk. with him. and um one of the things that jordan has. advocated. is um.

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a big deal. so many people. are taking charge of their mental health. this podcast is sponsored by better help. and tim dylan show listeners get 10. off your first month at betterhelp.com. tim d betterhelp.com tim. d and and just to ask you about that. because you are a doctor i mean i know. you're a psychologist but. when you look at sort of like a doctor.

yeah it's like a you know psychologist. i've you know there's. i've said negative things about. psychologists but not. not per se the the discipline but the. person that. every my my thing is whenever i talk to. someone and i say what are you majoring. in in college and they say psychology. it's generally a person i'd never want. any advice from. and i don't that's just that's the. anecdotal evidence that's not backed up. by any data it's just. when it's just like when i say what are. you majoring in and someone says. business. i go i would never want to do business.

with you it's just a. it's a very general thing that a lot of. people major in and a lot of people. i feel like don't uh come out of that in. a. smart way um but as a doctor what do you. think. about uh you know covet i mean in in. psychologically what it's done to people. the lockdowns the fear. um you know obviously the fear of. getting sick and and then. losing income what is going to be the. sum total effect in your estimation.

of this entire period on the psychology. of the world and you know more. particularly this country. like you know we have a rash of. shootings now that you know we've always. had but now it seems like we're even. i mean these numbers are high even for. america um. how do we come out of this do you think. well i mean i've been struck. positively in the main by how resilient. the our social structures and.

our economic structures have been in the. face of this. i mean it's we've been locked down in an. unprecedented way. for more than a year and yet. most businesses are still functioning. and. the social order has been almost. completely maintained. and with any luck we're almost out of it. i mean. in the u.s i think you guys are up to. something. like it's close to 35 percent of the. population that's been.

inoculated now and that should start to. make a real difference really quick. we're a bit behind in canada partly. because we don't make our own vaccines. and so we've been dependent on supplies. from other countries. um and so i guess to some degree i'm al. so to some degree i'm surprised by. our resilience in the face of this. social and economic. um it's a remarkable thing that the. vaccines were. developed and distributed within the. span of a year. that there's so many vaccines that they.

seem to be working that they're not. producing catastrophic side effects. so i think that's all extraordinarily. positive. all things considered i think the signs. of instability that are. particularly evident in the us are. attributable to. factors other than kovid. and the kovid lockdown that have been. brewing for a long time. which i've been talking about and many. other people as well for a long time.

um right there are there are a rash of. shootings. that have been happening uh school. shootings and. one of my biggest disappointments. or is that all of these shootings are. done primarily by. men and it feels like it's another. thing that women have been kept out of. like you know stem. is there is there a way that's a. terrible joke. it is a terrible joke but you know it's. true. and so why are so many men.

being driven to violence. well it's not so many i mean the school. shooters are a. tiny tiny infinite infinitesimal. percentage of the population. and so it's very difficult to formulate. a policy to deal with such things. because they are. in fact so rare and so unpredictable. there's i mean aggression per se is. has its uses um males are.

disproportionately violent compared to. females or at least with regards to. physical violence. females have their own particular brand. of aggression. which has more to do with reputation. destruction than physical. violence and that starts very early yes. you can detect that in children. um so. and you have a very very large country. right 330 million people. the it doesn't you know one person in a.

million is pretty seriously disturbed. and so that's a shooting a day if it's. one person in a million. and you don't have a shooting a day so. it's less than one in a million so. that's very very rare. and thank god for that it is it is when. you look at the numbers like that but it. does. feel uh it's too much right i mean i'm. sure that like you know when we look at. across the world at other countries that. don't have these things. is any of this attributable to the fact. that men.

now and women as well too but since. we're on the topic of men. are retreating more into the digital. world uh. that they are less socialized that they. are more. into you know potential potentially uh. not to blame video games but like. people seem to be retreating from the. types of. um social structures that men had. participated in for years which was. marriage. family uh you know owning property. things like that. um and it seems like a lot of men are.

not doing those things or doing those. things much later in life. and there seems to be and you've. addressed this i think as effectively as. anyone. there seems to be a tendency of those. men uh that are not. uh participating in those social. structures to. feel alienated and and uh. disenfranchised and that often leads to. you know negative pathologies how do you. encourage. the type of social commitments that. um point men in the right.

direction um and i think you're a big. proponent of the. you know more traditional way of life. where it's you know. forming a bond with someone getting. married. um trying to you know uh. you know create manifest the life you. want that's a lot of the things that. you've read and you've talked about. involved that um do you see the digital. spheres being a real. problem here because people can escape. into that. i don't see the digital sphere as a as a.

problem um. not as such uh i think pornography might. be a problem. that's the digital sphere well fair. enough but yeah. you'd have to decompose the digital. sphere into its various aspects and then. look at. each of them i as i said i think that. the the. ease of access of pornography and its. proliferation i think that's. not a good thing i think there are many. good things about the digital sphere. i mean there are large communities of. encouragement.

that have popped up on youtube. i i suppose i am at the head of one but. there are many people doing similar. things like jocko willink is a good. example and. um and your. your question was i guess two part you. commented that. there's perhaps a disproportionate. number of people who are feeling. alienated. from the general community from life. itself from the social world from. the natural world for that matter and.

that that alienated. isolated and lonely existence can lead. to bitterness and. and god only knows where that goes right. that can move in an aggressive direction. quite quickly well the antidote to that. as far as i'm concerned is. something like encouragement is partly. why i'm so appalled by the. characterization of our. society as a essentially as it. both symbolically and and literally as a. tyrannical patriarchy. you know that the criticism that emerges.

on the left is essentially. that hierarchies are. predicated on power and. and power is equated to tyranny and. and then so social structure itself is. equated to tyranny and. that's nonsensical it's a nonsensical. oversimplification. the fundamental ruling principle of. a functioning hierarchy is not power.

it's something more like. fatherhood it's something more like. encouragement and reciprocity. and like and and. reciprocity and courage and productivity. and generosity all of those things and. i was talking to jocko willing a couple. of weeks ago and. and he's a very assertive and. man very much capable of physical. aggression built for it and.

both physically and temperamentally and. he went through the naval seal training. and. that's a prime example of a patriarchal. hierarchy let's say sure. but what they were taught most. fundamentally was that. each of them had their buddies back. right like they were taught reciprocity. right so the functional higher. part of the considerations issue with. that. uh characterization and i've listened to. a lot of your work on on hierarchies i. agree with a great deal of it. but part of it is when we see so many of.

the institutions that we grew up with. the catholic church. uh the government we look at a lot of. the wars that we've been in that we now. find out. uh were foolhardy and the uh reasons we. got into them were not. initially the reasons we were told when. we look at. um uh you know mega corporations. and uh the things that they get away. with you know whether it's you know. these massive. uh fraud uh you know examples of fraud.

when we look at. the the dishonesty that is inherently. seemingly baked into not only the system. but human beings. as you say it's it's not necessarily. capitalism it's deeper than that. but when you say that hierarchies are. more fatherhood or based on generosity. or cooperation. my generation is looking at so many of. the institutions that we have seen. um literally have been rotted out. from dishonest malevolent bad actors and.

bad forces that seemingly. are not really checked and seem to run. amok. and are not counterbalanced by that. generosity. uh or that encouragement that you talk. about so that that seems to be when i. hear a lot of what you talk about so. much of it resonates with me. but some of it uh is hard to grasp. because it seems very. it is very positive and very hopeful. view of of hierarchies but. in light of all of the nefarious people. and their ability to poison.

organizations do you not ever look at. some of those statements about. hierarchies and say that like yes. hierarchies can get poisoned. uh yes definitely yeah i mean the whole. look. a couple of observations there when. hierarchies degenerate it's because of. power and deceit. and they do degenerate and a. degenerative hierarchy. is full of lies and and and and power. games and but.

i'm not characterizing hierarchies as. based on let's say productivity and. reciprocity i'm characterizing. functional hierarchies as characterized. by. productivity and reciprocity see the the. essential claim on the radical left is. that. the hierarchical structure per se is. tyrannical and predicated on power and. that's simply not true. now when the structures degenerate. that's how they degenerate and. it's definitely the case that we have to. keep our eyes open. for that occurrence that we should be.

appalled by it and that. we should strive to do everything we. possibly can to stop it. but my sense of that is that starts with. you. you want to stop deceit in the world. then stop lying. if you want to stop the arbitrary. exercise of power then stop using it. now let me give you an example of this i. mean. because i'm sensitive to the criticisms. that you just laid out and the reasons. that people who young people might be. cynical about.

the institutions in the institutions. that make up our culture. and there's no doubt they have the. proclivity to degenerate as i talk about. in chapter 11 that's the evil. that's the that's the tyrannical and i. just before because. you're gonna have a great answer for. this but like the other. thing is when you say it starts with you. and to a degree that's true. but it's hard for a guy like me to. believe for example when i was in. community college. the cia was running a labyrinth of. secret prisons that we all later found. out about. so it's hard for me to kind of make the.

connection well if i do my homework. uh the cia's gonna stop running the. torture prison like that's the. disconnect i feel like uh with some of. the personal responsibility that it does. have a limit. where it's like i can be very honest um. how is that going to stop incredibly. powerful. people how many people are we talking to. you and me right now um 100. half a million easily okay so and you. were in community college how long ago. um good question i was there.

and i went back like a real loser but i. took out i graduated high school in. 2003. so let's say this around 2004. okay so. it's 15 years roughly speaking yes. okay so you've gone from that guy 15. years ago to someone who's speaking on a. regular basis with half a million people. that is correct. so everything you say matters well you. shaped your character back when you were. in college look you have. power plenty of it and you know people. are watching you on. youtube and they're watching how you say.

things and what you say and what. questions you ask and all of that and so. you have more influence than you think. well flattery will get you everywhere. you are well it's you're right about. everything when you can. when you can talk to half a million. people on a regular basis. then you have influence and god only. knows how much. and you're a comedian as well and so you. can say things that are funny and funny. things are often true. one of the characteristics of comedians. is to say true things and.

that people don't expect and right. everyone cracks some of them are true. and. you know we'll see some of them are we. don't know that they're true at the time. and then months later. someone goes to jail and they are true. but um. i i've observed when when institutions. become corrupted that there's someone. heading the show. generally speaking there's individuals. who are acting in a corrupt way they're. lying. often and they're dominating. inappropriately. and the reason i picked the individual. as the focus of my attention.

was because i thought that was the place. where the proclivity. for the corruption of of social. organizations could be. best addressed that's where the best. best addressed well how else could it. possibly be addressed with other. institutions. right they're going to run into the same. problem aren't they that's a fair point. so. so and uh you know you say there's. limits to personal responsibility and. i suppose that's true but it isn't. obvious to me what those limits are. i mean you climbed out from community.

college to. the position of authority and influence. that you have now. and god only knows what you'll be doing. in 10 years and god only knows what you. could be doing in 10 years if you did. everything right. right and so so it isn't obvious to me. at all what the limits of personal. responsibility is and i certainly. believe that. the tr the spoken truth is absolutely. unstoppable. and so the better you are at. well i do agree with you but we do have. uh. it is a little stoppable because we are.

on a website right now that can choose. to take me off. anytime they want right i mean we're. using youtube right now and they can. take me off and uh. you know we are on platforms that we. monetize our show but they can kick us. off too and then. yeah so there are you know there are. things. that uh you do run up into you know. uh you hit walls i think and i think. personal responsibility is great i think. it's important. i think it's essential for people to. live good lives.

but there's a lot of seemingly. institutional. injustice out there when it comes to. the prison system in america for example. and you know uh. private prisons people making money uh. you know by by giving kids harsher. sentences. uh in the penal system you know and this. has been a you know massive scandal. there was a documentary about it called. kids for cash where you have. you know corrupt people doing horrible. things and i'm not. naive and i don't think you can ever.

eradicate anything like that. but i do feel like there is. a tendency of people to say. well i'm honest and i'm doing the right. thing. but they don't hold any of those other. people to account that may be doing. horrible things to other people. so i think maybe i'm i'm definitely not. suggesting ever. that you stop with yourself right. you just start with yourself it's oh i. mean if you look at any.

complex problem you could say that it. it might manifest itself at multiple. levels of social organization the. individual would be implicated but then. perhaps the your family perhaps your. community perhaps your whole country. you know you can stack up the. hierarchies the social organizations. around any given problem and then you. could say well the problem. could optimally be addressed at all of. those levels of analysis simultaneously. if you had the capacity and that's the. case i would say that.

as you put your own life together and. become more responsible and more capable. and hopefully more generous and more. honest then you're going to be in much. better position to. properly assess what steps need to be. taken in the broader social realm. right i never suggested that people. limit themselves to. their room let's say but. but for me and and this makes some sense. because i am a. clinical psychologist the fundamental. unit of analysis is the individual and.

i would also say that's the principle. upon which our culture is erected. that's the place that's the fundamental. place is the individual and. maybe that's because individuals feel. pain right that's where the reality is. you know. and the rest of its abstraction not that. it isn't important or relevant of course. it is. people are doing a lot of business. online now ship station allows you. to create an infrastructure that. works for your business in terms of. shipping. they allow you to worry about growing.

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society that are tearing it apart what. are the biggest ones. to you in your mind well. certainly ideological possession plays a. huge role and i suppose to some degree. that's probably misplaced. spirituality it's something like that. and. and so i've i've always been struck by. nietzsche and dostoevsky's analysis of. the pathology of the west you know that.

we're still suffering the cataclysmic. consequences of losing our. religious grounding you need some. conceptual scheme at the highest level. of. philosophical generalization you need. some way of answering. what is good and what is evil and some. way of answering what's the purpose of. my life and. maybe what's the purpose of existence. and at that level of analysis. the only answers are religious now you. can debate the rational acceptability of. those answers but that doesn't matter.

i'm talking about the the level of. analysis. problem essentially if you're talking. about such things you're in the. religious domain. well intact cultures let's say or. traditional cultures have a structure of. ritual and myth and dance and music and. art. and story that. frames that uppermost domain of. conceptualization. and people live within that when it's. fragmented and shattered as ours has.

been people turn to substitutes and. and those substitutes have all too. frequently been. well either a cataclysmic loss of faith. in existence itself which is. a nihilism that has a terrible. psychological and social consequences or. the elevation of an ideological position. to the status of a religious belief. and that's not good and and so. everything in its proper place you know. you render unto caesar what is caesar's. and unto god what is god's.

and you know the rationalist objector. will say well there's nothing that's. god's. and i would re respond to that. by saying be careful what you presume. right because something has to act there. something has to exist there and you. fall into a religious story so if. if with the critique you laid out for. example of social institutions you say. well they tend towards corruption. and maybe they're so corrupt that only a. fool would have faith in them. and that's a powerful argument but it's.

essentially a religious argument what it. does is it. it takes the problem of evil so it. assumes that there's evil which is the. corruption and the power. maybe you don't use the term evil but it. doesn't matter it's still what you're. referring to. and then it places it in social. institutions says the problem of evil is. located. in the social institution well that's a. religious claim. it's also a faulty religious claim and. it'll twist you up and bend you around. because it's. it's incomplete and i tried to detail.

that to a large degree in chapter 11. when i talked about. because you can think you can find. malevolence in your own soul you can. find malevolence in. other individuals you can find it in the. social order and you can find something. that looks like malevolence or certainly. feels like it in the natural world. right and if you only focus on one of. those then. well it's very convenient for you i mean. so one of the things i always. wonder for example if you locate evil in. the social world let's say in the. institutional world in the patriarchal. tyranny.

well then you found an enemy right then. you found a target for all of your. unexamined spite and. resentment and cruelty and and homicidal. tendencies. all of that it's very dangerous. and this more sophisticated observers. and i think you can. make this case merely as a consequence. of observing literature it's more. sophisticated observers place the battle. between good and evil inside the human. soul. and and then it manifests itself in. social institutions as well but.

that's not the primary locale of the. divine battle. right christopher hitchens the late. great you know. writer um had had argued. you know in a polemic god is not great. that religion should be replaced by the. canon of literature. that uh that theology should be thrown. away and replaced with literature that. all of our great lessons. uh that we need to know are in. literature do you find. fault with that well the deepest. literature is religious.

okay i mean that's what hitchens didn't. realize is that. if you if you took a hundred great books. and sifted them so that you derived. one great greatest book from it. then you'd have a religious text right. and and. and it would deal with these high order. concerns that we just described and. some of that can't be done rationally. which is partly why hitchens would. locate it in literature but it's not. just literature it's also. it's also located and expressed in. architecture. you know a cathedral says something.

about the structure of being now what it. says you can't exactly say. that's why there's a cathedral instead. of the description of a cathedral right. it's the same with music and and perhaps. particularly religious music but. secular music is religious music it's. just been secularized it still has the. same. it still has the same impact and the. same religions seem to be less. relevant to uh people because a lot of. not all of their not all of their uh.

lessons and morals which many of them. are great. but a lot of them uh the big three let's. take which you have uh christianity. judaism in islam. um christianity went through a pretty. serious reformation. um judaism is a small religion in terms. of the. numbers of people islam is going. maybe potentially going through a. reformation now in certain countries and. other you know. politically um so when people look at. these religions and we say the answers. are to be. found there there's sort of a deep. skepticism amongst a lot of people who.

look at. um you know when people were following. these religions to the letter of the law. and when they had an omnipresent uh you. know. force in the political structure of. society it was often. quite an oppressive place whether it was. you know if you look at like. the the catholic inquisition or whether. you look at you know modern day saudi. arabia for example. so there there's a skepticism about. those. belief systems being incredibly relevant.

now. and then you arrive at this place where. people start believing in you know that. they're. you know an other can on tumblr or. whatever nonsense that you've. had to go up against for the last four. years so it's like. what can you create or what can. we put in that because if people for. example if you were raised a. fundamentalist christian christian man. you don't feel for whatever reason that. that belief system. suits you uh anymore.

and you you are out there. and you are looking for belief and. you're looking for meaning and you're. not you're not going to find it and who. knows why that belief system doesn't. suit you i don't know it could be. your right your identity it doesn't work. it could be that your family and you. had something it could have been that. the particular church you were in was. uh abusive i know many catholics who've. left the church because of. the the litany of abuses right that has. happened. so what can we create or how do we. create. some type of and i'm not saying that we.

we have to do it or it has to be a group. project i. loathe groups and i love your focus on. the individual in in that sense is what. makes you unique and interesting and the. individuals. george carlin had a great quote he goes. i love i hate people i love individuals. it was something to that degree. um but you know it i agree. wholeheartedly that the. what you see on the left right now is a. lot of people that are indoctrinating. themselves into a new religion. that is uh uh as oppressive. as unforgiving and as detrimental as a.

lot of the tenets of old religion. but what can you do if you say um. you know i don't want to be a part of. that but i also don't want to be a part. of you know. sort of that you know archaic. superstitious. kind of you know belief system that you. make well that's right. that's what we're all trying to work out. isn't it is what we should do i mean. i your your comments about hitchins are. very interesting to me because. i would say in the main i've taken his.

word seriously right is that i do. believe that the truth of. the the biblical truth for example is a. literary truth. it's not a scientific truth right. science isn't about morality it's about. something else whatever the bible is. about it's about morality. now you can debate the moral lessons in. the bible but the bible's an. extraordinarily complicated book so it's. not that clear. exactly what the lessons are let's say.

but. having said all that i've adopted. a psychological slash literary approach. to. ethical truth and i've learned a lot. about. christianity for for example. as a consequence so and a lot of that. was from reading carl jung who wrote a. lot of what he wrote in response to. nietzsche's. observation that religion was dead that. god was dead yes yes. and so jung was influenced by freud but. at least as much by nietzsche and he was.

trying to solve the problems that. nietzsche left. well you could. by definition christ is the perfect man. okay by definition right now you can. you can debate his representation in. christianity. that isn't what i mean i mean in some. sense i mean this. each of us has a relationship whether we. like it or not with the ideal.

no matter how obscure and unarticulate. that. relationship is you know that because. your own. conscience will torture you and the. reason it tortures you is because you. fall short of your ideal it's. there in you now. you have a responsibility it's all it's. pretty much the nature of responsibility. to manifest yourself in accordance with. that ideal. there's no escape from that now what we.

try to do collectively. is to represent that ideal and to come. to some agreement about what it is so. that we can organize ourselves. cooperatively and in productive peace. but there's no escaping from that. internal dialogue with the ideal. i mean every goal you have is a. reflection of that ideal. every aim you have every belief in. something worthwhile. all your conceptions that there is such. a thing as true. truth or your conceptions that there are. good ways of acting and evil ways of.

acting. all of that presupposes an implicit. ideal part of what religious. what our religious structures have done. was focus on christianity is to try to. make that implicit ideal explicit. to represent it so that we can. understand it more and more deeply and. and so that we can also live. out its dictates let's say more. consciously. and we are we're always doing this. whether we know it or not so for example.

you and i to the degree that we're able. to have this conversation. in a manner that is genuinely reflective. of. us a seeking of the truth. then we're manifesting a religious ideal. in the. context of the conversation and that's. why we're interested in it and that's. why other people are watching it. right and they don't have to know that. and they'll say that was meaningful. that struck me i i learned something uh. you know i thought i'd watch for five.

minutes but i watched for an hour. right we can't help it this grips us so. for. for example you'll find yourself. respecting or disrespecting. people spontaneously you'll find. yourself in awe. of someone or not or contemptuous of. them. all of that means that you're in the. grip of a moral evaluation that's. related to this implicit ideal. and you know the more i've looked at the. representation of that implicit ideal in. religious.

uh texts let's say but in the broader. religious culture the more i'm struck by. its profundity. so for for example i use this story. quite. frequently but the story of cain and. abel in in. genesis is very very short it's only. half a paragraph long it's very very. short. but it lays out very clearly the. dichotomy. of personality that exists inside the. human soul. there's part of us that part that's. represented by abel that.

is striving towards the light that's. attempting to serve our own interests. and the interests of the broader. community and perhaps the divine. interest to the best of our. ability believing it. intrinsically in the in the basic. goodness of. existence and there's another part of us. that's rendered. cynical and bitter and murderous by. the tragedy of life and our sequential. catastrophic failures and inability to. put ourselves together.

and cruelty of the world and that's. humanity where all of us are caught. between the. in the battle between those two opposing. viewpoints. it's religious to the core and we. when we lose christianity let's say we. lose thousands of years of the attempt. to make that. implicit reality explicit and. that's a catastrophe now we replace it. quite quickly we replace it with the. avengers universe. you know where we watch the battle.

between good and evil being played out. in movies that cost hundreds of millions. of dollars to make and that push our. computational resources to the limit. think about that you know the most. sophisticated computational devices. on earth are used to generate artificial. realities where we can explore the. battle between good and evil. and then we line up and pay you know. inordinate amounts of money to expose. ourselves to this. and we find it gripping now we write it. off as entertainment. i don't write it off as entertainment i.

take it seriously. right it's a serious business i think. the real conflict comes into. um you know what the ideal is. and of course that's the real. that's where the real meat of the. problem. lies right and and that to to agree on. that. and to agree on the steps to perfecting. yourself into that. is where you're going to find a lot of.

the discord which i know you know. of course i know that you know you've. waded into those waters and they're um. i i love everything you say about groups. i loathe groups i don't know. why i do it is something that i. uh i was born uh with a natural aversion. to. group think and i'm i'm not not that i. can't be caught up in it like every. other human being can and i'm sure. people i can see the youtube comments. already thinking. you know but i just don't i don't.

you know i'm a gay person for example. but i find the gay movement completely. insane. i don't think they represent me i think. a lot of the things that they want. are absurd and i've been vocal about. uh you know giving hormones to children. that are. that are you know questioning their. gender identity i think is ludicrous i. think it's abusive. i've said that um i've said that the. moralizing. and the making people like you and the. making them love you and the idea that.

they need. to conform to your belief system to me. is i've had no interest in that i have. no interest in spending my time on this. planet. getting people to think i'm a worthwhile. human being. uh and maybe that's because i'm i'm an. addict so as an addict i can't. entertain uh other people's ideas of me. too much because then they become. resentments and those resentments lead. me back to addiction. so i have to just do what i do and i've. attracted an audience based on the fact. that they know that i don't. care that much because i can't care it's.

not that i'm morally superior. if i'm to stay sober and to stay. effective um. i can't entertain people's ideas about. me too much i can. i can make sure that i'm why is that. linked why is that linked to your. ability to stay away from addictive. substances because. do you know the resentments that i will. build up you know there's a great line. and. oh i see yeah the resentments you know. if you okay so think about that so so if. you deviate from your.

inbuilt sense of ethics right then the. consequences of that will be so. catastrophic that you have to drug. yourself into. correct and to insensate uh existence. correct right well that's exactly what i. mean about the depth of the moral. impulse. right you violated at your peril yes. and you know you you talk about. agreement like there are things we. pretty broadly agree on sure i would say. i'm sure well. no one no one virtually no one thinks. it's a good idea to teach your child to. lie.

right so we we have a pretty deep. respect for the truth now right. we may quibble about when it's okay to. bend it right. but generally speaking we all respect. and admire honesty. and presume it and and attempt to to. live. in a relatively honest manner now i know. there are. exceptions there are excellent some. various exceptions to everything. well you know my experience has been. that you don't think that like in the. world yes our society is set up.

we're kind of it's we're we tolerate a. certain level of dishonesty everything. from the television shows we watch to. our political uh. system we kind of expect on some level. that the people. that are in front of us are not. necessarily. this is why i think you by the way have. taken off so dramatically because the. things you were saying you believe. i can tell that and the people that are. watching this can tell that whether they. agree with you or not. i think when you watch how staged and. manufactured. american culture is media culture.

entertainment culture political culture. we've all become a little cynical. and we all expect a healthy dose of. deceit. with most culture that we get and that's. why i think people like yourself have. broken through that. academic culture i believe as you said. many people are afraid to say publicly. what they need to say or what they have. said privately and i experienced this. in my business too so while i think the. idealist honesty would be great i do. believe we've been conditioned to expect.

far less honesty. than we should have well look. there's a couple of i have a couple of. thoughts about that the first is. what we should tolerate on average. about as much deception from other. people as we tolerate on average from. ourselves. because there's no reason to. assume that there's no reason to assume. anything other than that right and and.

we have to. allow our institutions to move forward. despite the fact that they're composed. of people who. on average are as corrupt and deceitful. as we are. right so so some of that's not so much. cynicism as wisdom. okay and i would say that's built in. that's a particularly notable feature of. the american political system because. it's been made explicit by the founders. of your. of your state they aim to produce a. system that people who were about as.

deceitful and unadmirable as they were. wouldn't screw up too badly that was. their goal. and that was very wise right now having. said that. i do believe nonetheless that we. should strive for better and that we. actually want it. and one of the things i have seen that's. very heartening is that. now that the broad now that the. bandwidth limitation has been. blown off video and audio communication. and the cost has been brought down to.

zero essentially. people are starving for genuine. conversation that's true. as you know yes you're you're you're. making your living yes. doing that 100 and and and you. i mean tell me if i'm wrong about this. but my experience with. youtube audiences and with my public. lecture audiences is. but more specifically youtube is that. it's a this long-form discussion medium. brutally punishes dishonesty yes and.

insincerity yes. if people spend that amount of time with. you. they have to know who you are or they. have to want to spend time with you. or you have to have a demonstrable skill. set that they find valuable. yes and the conversation has to take. place in a certain way right now. i'm increasingly struck by the. disjunction between a standard media. interview. and this kind of discussion right i mean. we didn't structure this.

none nothing you're not attempting to. do something with me other than have an. interesting conversation right. hopefully you're asking me questions. that are actually your questions. now if i go to a standard interview. yeah especially if it's a television. interview then. i'll be confronted with someone who's. the face of the. bureaucracy and virtually none of the. questions they ask. have anything to do with what they're. interested in so it's.

right there's an artificiality about it. that's that can easily translate into. manipulation not only i might not ask. you other people's questions i didn't i. barely prepared. i was just i've seen enough of you that. i said. it makes more sense for me to have a. genuine conversation. than to prepare uh questions. i i said i'm just going to kind of go. with the flow which is i. yeah i don't people often offer to send. me. questions before a discussion like this. and i always refuse right.

and it's for that reason is and i think. part of the reason that people. enjoy this form of communication is. because it has the same quality as. free-form jazz right or or or. i mean the same thing happens in other. genres of music when the when the band. members are. jamming it's spontaneous creation yes. and and to the degree that we're capable. of. engaging in that then we keep our. audience. along that we take our audience along. for the ride.

yes and so and so this also relates back. to your. first question about the online world i. mean. i think it's an unbelievably powerful. and useful. method of communication it's obviously. decimating the legacy media. and for good reason it's technologically. superior and ethically superior. in every way so that's very heartening. you can have real discussions i mean my. life right now consists of pretty much.

nothing but a series of genuine. discussions and. are there as genuine as i can make them. and i'm always trying to learn something. from whatever discussion i have i don't. go in there with a goal. in mind except to to have an honest. think as deeply. seek as deeply as i can into the. conversation yeah and and we we. we appreciate doing this you have two. more questions for you this book by the. way. beyond order uh 12 more rules for life. is available everywhere. right now you should grab it and read it. and then hopefully you'll be back on a. speaking tour.

uh relatively soon and hopefully i. you've sat down with stupider. interviewers than me i think you have. now i've watched some of your interviews. i think you have um. things that you would recommend that. people read. if people want to out there want to be. smarter or they want to. understand you better outside of your. own books which are. obviously uh 12 rules for life and 12. more rules for life and then other. things you've written as well. uh i always with somebody like you i. always like you to.

recommend reading because you know when. you're talking about nietzsche and jung. and everything. a lot of people are not connected with. that stuff in a meaningful way. so is there a way are there things you. recommend for them to. read on my website jordanbpeterson.com. under books. i have a list of about 100 recommended. books and. people are buying those a lot of those. books i keep track of their sales and. if you find the ideas that i'm. presenting. interesting you'll find the books in.

that list. interesting they'll be temperamentally. suitable for you but. it you'd get a decent you'd get the. equivalent of a good humanities. education if you read all those books. better i would say and so that's. and they're great books dostoyevsky for. example if if you are a fiction reader. and you like exciting fiction. dostoyevsky was a master at. plotting a thriller his books are. unbelievably engrossing and they're.

incredibly deep he's very good have you. read chelsea handler. handler no i haven't well she's we'll. we'll she will. i'll send you something of her she'll. check she's pretty good um. jordanbpederson.com when you are doing a. speaking tour. all of your uh dates will be up there. you can you can purchase the book there. as well uh. thank you for coming on i know your. schedule is busy and you. but you are making time for a lot of. people and you've done a lot of my. friends podcasts and.

um obviously we we really appreciate it. jordan and. i mean i don't know that we've solved. the world's problems but we've. we've solved the problem of people that. wanted to kill an hour in a. smart and enlightening way well that's. something to solve that is an hour isn't. it. that is something to solve all right. thank you very much we really appreciate. it. yeah well thanks very much for the. invitation all right thank you so much. michaela i said hello and. i'm gonna cut out sugar soon all right. all right thank you thanks so much all. right bye bye.