A Conversation with Jordan Peterson

and this evenings MC Genevieve would good evening it is so great to be in New York all these conservatives in one room in New York this is awesome Wow and it's a sellout crowd by the way I know some of you were standing hopefully it's mostly heritage staff back there we are delighted to see so many longtime supporters and friends in the room but 60% of the folks who register for this event are first-timers at a heritage event how many of you hear the first time at a heritage event hands wow this is awesome well we are delighted you're here we have a great program for you I hope you've had a great time so far but I hope I know that you're not here just to have a good time you're here because you know standing up against socialism is important and you want to be about doing that so thank you for caring about your country and being here and of course one of the ways to do that is fight against bad policy some of which we heard mentioned by a few friends in the video there but it's also about going on the offense and changing hearts and minds on this issue far too many of our fellow citizens are beginning to think well you know maybe socialist policies would be good for me maybe they'd be good for the country we have way too many young people who think socialism even though it's never worked anywhere else it's been tried somehow they think maybe it would work here but we know it won't so what are we gonna do about it and how we're gonna make sure that socialism is never gonna take root in American soil well that is what we want to talk about tonight and one of the ways to do that is to understand who's behind this what's behind this why are people all of a sudden seeming to maybe warming up to the idea of socialism is it's just a fad on college campuses is it's just the kind of new philosophy of former bartenders from the Bronx who somehow end up members of Congress what Americans really know about this well I dare say that our special guest this evening is an expert on these questions the new york times of all journalistic outlets has said that he is the most influential public intellectual in the western world high praise his book twelve rules for life has sold over three million copies i know many of you in the room haven't i saw some of you flipping through it as you were standing around the reception and if you follow youtube if you go to his page or you just want to download one of the videos where you can see him his videos have been downloaded half a billion times i know there every politician would love to have that many followers with me well thankfully he's on a politician he is a clinical psychologist he is the professor of psychology at the university of toronto and he is our special guest tonight ladies and gentlemen please welcome to the stage dr. jordan peterson [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] half a billion times people interested in what you have to say it seems that way somewhat of a shark well maybe it's because you aren't a politician you are a psychologist and your understanding more about what's going on in the world than many of our lawmakers actually do and I know we've got so many ways that we could go with this interview tonight and we got questions thank you to all of you in the audience who send in your questions I've got some of them right here and we're gonna get into those but let me start with let's just start the socialism piece do you think Americans truly understand the history of socialism and actually what it is as you've gone around under you've had when you speak to not just college campuses you've been events around the world I think 250 thousands of people you've spoken in front of I mean people are unbelievably ignorant about history and I mean I would include myself in that you know I mean I know what I know about the history say preceding the 20th century is very sketchy it's embarrassingly sketchy you know and what young people know about 20th century history is non-existent especially about the history of the radical left I mean how would they know they're never taught anything about it so why would they be concerned about and then I know it for for many of the people in the audience you know you're old enough so that the fall of the Berlin Wall was well that was part of your life you know that was really the end of the second world war let's say and in a technical sense and it was very meaningful but that's a long time ago there's mean a lot of people born since then and it's ancient history and we don't have that many good bad examples left you know there's North Korea there's Venezuela but we're not locked to the nail in a war with you know in a proxy war or in a cold war with the Soviet Union and and it's easy to understand why people are emotionally drawn to the idea of socialism let's say or the left because it draws on it draws its fundamental motivational source from a kind of primary compassion and that is always there in human beings and so that proclivity for sensitivity to that political message will never go away and so and it's important to understand that you have to give the devil his due fortunately you you've also said that people aren't as resentful at the success of others as we might think and I think as you watch a lot of people being interviewed today and you watch some of the students being interviewed you saw some of the ones up here you hear people talking a lot about inequality but you say they really aren't as resentful as we might think as long as they don't think the game is fixed yes well that's certainly the case well first of all I mean if you look at the psychological literature to the degree that it's accurate which is difficult to ascertain often people report far more prejudice against their group that against themselves so so that's quite an interesting phenomenon as far as I'm concerned so there's a tendency for people to exaggerate the degree to which the group they belong to it has is currently suffering from from generalized oppression they've been relatively free of it themselves I also think that if fairness isn't absolutely essential and perceived fairness is an absolutely essential component of peace because people can tolerate inequality so to speak or even revel in it let's say if they believe that the unequal outcome is deserved I mean look at how people respond to sports heroes you know everyone no one goes to a sports event and boos the star even though he or she is paid much better and attracts the lion's share of the attention hopefully not into narcissistic manner people can celebrate success but they do have to believe that the game is fair and and and the game needs to be fair because otherwise the hierarchy becomes tyrannical the problem with the radical left is that it assumes that all hierarchies are too radical and it makes no distinction between them and that's an absolute catastrophe because you know there's plenty of sins let's say on the conscience of the of the West as a as a civilization but you can't throw the baby out with the bathwater and there are far worse places like all the other places for example that there have ever been well it's the case and people also don't understand that and they also don't understand this is something that's of particular importance they also don't understand and that that may even characterize you in this audience it's very the knowledge of how rapidly we're making economic improvements around the world in the developing world for example how fast that's happening that is not well distributed knowledge you know that between the year 2000 and the year 2012 the rate of absolute poverty in the world fell by 50 percent now it's a UN figure dollar ninety a day that was their cutoff for absolute poverty and so the cynics have said well you know that's pretty low barrier it's not such an achievement to have attained that I can tell you it's an achievement to obtain that if you were living on less than a dollar a ninety a day to begin with but if you look at if you double the amount to 380 or you double it again to 760 you find the same pattern I mean the poor in the world are getting rich at a rate that is absolutely unparalleled in all of human history and I think I think a large part of that large part of that is happening in Africa where by the way here's another lovely piece of news the child mortality rate in Africa is now same as it was in Europe in 1952 which is I mean that's an absolute miracle or it's insane that that's not front-page news right it's that that's that's within a lifetime and the fastest-growing economies in the world are also there and so but but as you're saying it but why isn't it front-page news and when you considering social media and how fast news and photos and all that can travel and that young people are aficionados of all this technology why don't they know these things or why aren't they computing what they see as being progress well I think part of it is that things are changing so fast that none of us can keep up like it's hard to keep the story updated I had no idea for example that most of the world's economic news and even a substantial proportion of its ecological news by the way was positive until I started to work on a UN Committee about five years ago on sustainable economic development and I read very widely economically and and also ecologically and realized that things were way better than I had any any sense of that that that these improvements had come at a tremendous rate and and but you see pardon so so partly it is just that it's so new that we don't know and we don't have a story about it and and and and and who is who who would be driving the communication of such things especially given two other things one is that human beings are tilted towards negative emotion in terms of its potency and so for example people would rather they much they're much less happy to lose five dollars than they are happy to gain five dollars we're loss averse or we're more sensitive to negative emotion than we are to positive emotion and there's a reason for that and the reason is well you can only be so happy but you can be dead and right and I mean dead is that's not good and and there can be a lot of misery on the way to that end so where were tilted to protect ourselves and that makes us more interested in some sense and more easily captivated by the negative than by the positive and so that's that's a hard bias to fight and then when you also take into account and I think this is something that's Sarat worth seriously considering because the other thing we don't understand is the technological revolution that's occurring in every form of media no one understands it and but one of the consequences is is that the mainstream media so to speak is increasingly desperate for attention right there exist in a shrinking market with shrinking margins all of the leading newspapers and magazines are feeling the pinch television is dead you because YouTube has everything the television has and then an incredible array of additional features and radio is being replaced by podcasts and so it's very unstable time for the mainstream media and what would you expect them to do except to do whatever they can to attract attention in whatever manner they can manage one example of this one very good example of this is you may or may not know that the rates of violent crime in the United States and and actually in most places have have plummeted in the last 50 years it's it's really quite remarkable the United States is now safer and in terms of violent crime than it has been since the early 60s and that was probably the safest time there ever was but the degree to which violent crime has been reported has increased it's funny the curves are almost completely opposite to one another this is the decline in violent crime this is the increase in the reporting of violent crime and the reason for that is well people read stories about violent crime and then of course they're much more likely to believe that it's on the increase and the people who are most likely to believe that it's on the increase by the way are also those who are least likely to be affected by it because you know to be a victim of a violent crime what helps to drink too much but it also helps a lot to be young and male and that those aren't the people who are particularly afraid of violent crime even though they're the ones most likely to be implicated in it so there's technological reasons for our our concentration on the negative and they're complex it's not easy to figure out how to combat the spiral of outrage and attention-seeking that I think is accompanying the death of our previous means of communication no one no one knows how to handle that and and that's a big problem let's got me I know so many in this audience and not just here in New York but we hear from our members all over the country they're so concerned about what their children and what their grandchildren are both being taught but also what they're coming back home from college and talking about and saying where are you where are they learning them and I know where they're learning it but how does this get seeping into them you obviously have spoken out not just 15 or so Toronto but colleges all over the world what is it you see today on the campus or among young people today that that is that's new or may or is it new I've heard you say that we're no more polarized today than we were maybe even under Richard Nixon and the campuses were more on fire than that even they are today so what are the similarities and differences that you're saying well I don't I don't see any real evidence that your society is more polarized generally speaking than it has been at many times in the past and I think the Nixon era is a good example I mean if you if you think about it merely statistically I mean you've been split 50/50 Republican Democrat for what five elections now and it's almost perfect 50/50 split that really hasn't changed Trump of course is somewhat of a wild card and so that complicates things but I don't think it changes the underlying dynamic what I what I do think is is has arisen again because it's made itself manifest many times in the last hundred and hundred years is the rise of this group identity associated quasi Marxist viewpoint with this additional toxic mixture and paradoxical mixture of post-modernism the post modernists are famous for being skeptical of meta-narratives that might be a defining that was lyotard i believe who coined that although i might be wrong it was one of the French post modernists and that that means that they're skeptical about the idea that uniting large uniting narratives are valid and it's a it's a huge problem that claim because the first question is well how big does the narrative have to be before it's a meta-narrative right I mean is the narrative that holds your family together a falsehood is the narrative that holds your community together a falsehood like how big does it have to be before it becomes a falsehood and so it's a very vague claim and it's a very it's a very dangerous claim in my estimation because I believe that and I believe the psychological research is clear on this what we have we our cognitive abilities are nested inside stories we're fundamentally narrative creatures that's how our brains are organized and so to deny the validity of large-scale narratives is to deny the validity of the manner in which we organize our psyches and that's unbelievably destabilizing for people I mean first of all the simplest story in some sense is that I'm at Point a and I'm going to point B and that's not as simple a story as it might sound because it implies that you are somewhere and that you know it you have a representation of it geographically let's say socially psychologically you have some sense of who you are but more importantly you have some sense of who you are transforming yourself into and so that gives you a direction and now that direction the direction gives you meaning and that I'd and I don't mean that in a cliched sense what I mean is that the way that our brains are constituted is that almost all the positive emotion that people feel and install so true of animals by the way is it emerges as a consequence of observing that you're making your way to a valued endpoint so you know you think well what makes you happy is the attainment of something and there is a form of reward that is associated with that it's called consume Ettore reward it's the satisfaction that you feel say after you have a delightful Thanksgiving meal but that isn't the hope and the meaning that people thrive on the hope and the meaning that people thrive on is the observation that they're moving towards something worthwhile and that might be individually although it really can't be because we live in collectives but it should be collective and that isn't optional if you don't have a goal the transcendent goal say something that's beyond you then you don't have any positive emotion and that's not good because you have plenty of negative emotion and then that's that's the problem with fundamental claims of meaninglessness - in life that it's this it's the philosophical error that's made by nihilists let's say who say what life is meaningless it's like well if you're a nihilist genu genuinely you've lost all hope your life isn't meaningless it's just unbearably miserable and that's and that's a form of meaning you know that suffering is a form of meaning and you can try to argue yourself out of that with your nihilistic rationalizations but that is not going to work you need a transcendent goal in order to withstand the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune and the destruction of the narratives that guide us individually psychologically and that also unites us socially familial and socially it's an absolute catastrophe and well the question then is why is it being undertaken and that's a complex question that and I if we can even discuss that that that has something to do with this on an unholy marriage of the postmodern nihilism with with this Marxist utopia notion which makes no sense at all because the post modernists are skeptical of meta-narratives yet Marxism is a grand meta-narrative but coherency it doesn't have to make sense well that's well that in fact the idea that it makes that things have to make sense is part of the oppressive patriarchy and so we can just dispense well I'm serious that people people people people teach that in a dead serious manner that the requirement for logical consistency is an arbitrary what's an arbitrary imposition on cognitive structure it's not something necessary for for rational cognition even if there is such a thing I mean you know you don't know how deep this war goes in some sense I can give you an example you know there's a freeze debate about free speech on campus but what you don't understand it it isn't a debate about who can speak it's a debate about whether there is such a thing as free speech and the answer from the radicals is that there isn't because for there to be free speech you see there have to be sovereign individuals right and those sovereign individuals have to be defined by that sovereign individuality and they have to have their own locus of truth in some sense that's a consequence of that sovereignty and then they have to be able to engage in rational discursive negotiation with people who aren't like them which means they have to stretch their hands let's say across racial or ethnic divides they have to be able to communicate and they have to be able to formulate a negotiated and practical agreement and none of that is part and parcel of the post-motor doctrine all of that all of that up for grabs there's no sovereign individuals your group identity is paramount you have no unique voice you're a mouthpiece of your identity group you can't speak across group lines because you don't understand the lived experience of the other and so it's not who gets to speak it's whether the entire notion it's a very classic Western notion and a very deep one of free and intelligible speech is even valid I mean these these this this intellectual war that's going on in the universities is way deeper than a political war it's it's it's and way more way more serious than a political war it manifests itself politically but but no it's politics is way up the scale from where this is actually taking place so when you when you're talking with students both in one-on-one or what your their questions and I'm gonna get to some of your questions here very shortly these are not all conservative students that are coming up to you and they're downloading your videos and listening to your podcast and it's not even though it is a lot of young men it's not all men what do you think drives people to the message and to the things that you talk about oh I think it's that people I'm believable and well that's why it's that's why I mean you know in most of my lectures so I've done about a hundred and fifty public lectures or so in the last year all over the world and to large audiences and the audience is in Australia we're starting to approach well we had audiences for fifty five hundred people in Australia so which is quite remarkable you know that that fifty five hundred people would come to listen to like a serious discussion about philosophical theological and and psychological issues and and to participate in that and and I don't pull any punches I'm not speaking down I would never speak down to an audience all right I think that's a dreadful error of arrogance but the reason that I think people believe what I say is that I'm very pessimistic well look because most times when you when you listen to someone who's who's a motivational speaker let's say you know it fills you with a temporary optimism but you go home and and and the wiser part of you knows that mostly it's it's the painting over of raw would with with the fresh coat of paint and I tell my audiences very clearly that their life is going to be difficult and sometimes difficult beyond both imagining and tolerance and that that is definitely in your future if it isn't in your present and for many people it's in their present and that that and that and that that can be unbearable that enough to turn you against life itself to corrupt to corrupt you to drive you to nihilism to drive you to suicide and worse to drive you to thoughts of vengefulness of infinite scope to not only be turned against yourself and your fellow men but to be turned against being itself because of its intrinsically brutal in some sense nature and and then it's worse than that actually because it's not only that we suffer and and that that will necessarily occur but that we all make our suffering worse because of our ignorance and our malevolence and everyone knows that to be true and so the discussions start let's say on a on our on an unshakable foundation but then I can tell people look despite that despite that we're remarkable creatures you know we're capable of taking up the burden of that suffering and facing the reality of that malevolence voluntarily we can actually do that and all of the psychological evidence suggests and this is independent of your school of psychology if you're a practical psychologist a clinical psychologist of any sort the evidence is crystal clear that if people voluntarily confront the problems that face them and the malevolence that surrounds them that they can make headway against it and not only psychologically so it's not only meaningful to do that psychologically which which it is to to confront the problem that that torment you voluntarily that's meaningful psychologically but it's also practically useful in that you can actually solve some of the problems that beset you and god only knows how good we could get at that you know I mean I don't know what percentage of human effort is spent in counterproductive activity you know I'm not an absolute cynic about that but I mean when I talk to undergraduates I asked them you know how much time do you waste every day by your own reckoning and it's somewhere between five and eight hours it's a lot of time well I usually walk through my walk the student students through an economic analysis of that I said well you know why don't you value your time at fifty dollars an hour and calculate for yourself just exactly what you're doing to your future by your inability to discipline yourself it's worth thinking through in any case people do waste a lot of time and they are they also act counter productively a lot of the time regardless we do make progress and and and we can thrive under the difficult conditions that make up our lives and we can resist the malevolence that entices us that's within our power and we don't know the limits to that and we also know that it's better to we all know this that is better to live courageously than cowardly everyone knows that that's what you teach people that you love and and and we know that it's better to live truthfully than in deceit and you can tell that too because that's also what you tell people that you love and we know that you should pick up your damn responsibilities and move forward everyone knows that it's it's part of our intrinsic moral nature and that nature is there and it's not difficult to communicate to people about this like everyone knows that you wake up at 3:00 in the morning when you've left let your life go off the rails and that you berate yourself for your uselessness and your cruelty and your failure to take off to take the opportunities that are in front of you and if you were the master in your own house in some sense the captain of your own destiny if there is no intrinsic nature well that would never happen you'd just let yourself off the hook there'd be no voice of conscience tormenting you but no one escapes from that and what that indicates is to me is that at least psychologically we live in a universe that's characterized by a moral dimension and we understand that well and that moral failings have consequences and that they're not trivial they destroy you they destroy your family they destroy your community and and you can tell people that and they listen because they know they don't know they know that's the thing and maybe that's the thing about being an intellectual you do you have the opportunity to articulate ideas that other people know they embody but they can't articulate and that's what people tell me you know they say well you help me give words to things that I always knew to be true but couldn't say or or they say I've been trying to put some of your precepts into practice responsibility being a main one vision another honesty I was bringing up the pack and saying this is the fun part of doing all this fun is a weak word that it's it's it's uh it's the remarkable part of doing all this I mean I have people tell me constantly wherever I go it's so delightful that you know they were in a pretty dark place and they tell me why there's plenty of dark places in the world and they decided well maybe they were gonna develop a bit of a vision and take a bit more responsibility and start telling the truth and putting some effort into something and they come up and they say well you can't believe how much better things our hearts like my god I got three promotions I had one guy tell me this was a lovely story you know 15 seconds he came up after a talk he said two years ago I got out of jail it was homeless he said I own my own house I have a six-figure income I got married and I have a daughter thank you that was the whole conversation it's like he decided he decided he was going to put his life together and you know and so you can look at that pessimism that constitutes let's say the core of what well I think it's the core religious message really is the is the tragic nature of the world the reality of suffering it's it's part of the core religious message but what emerges out of that properly conceptualized is a remarkable appreciation for what human beings are capable of like we're unbelievably resilient and and able creatures and we do not have any conception of our upper limits dr. pre so let me ask you I mean we have about ten minutes I'm gonna get a couple questions in here from our audience on this too but is that that hope that you're talking about that you're giving people hope young people hope is that one of the secrets to reaching them somebody that you know and it's it's it's such a perverse sort of hope because I would say for the last 45 years we've told psychologists have been have been certainly to blame for this at least in part your okay the way you are that's what we tell young people oh you're okay the way you are it's like and there's nothing worse than you can tell that you can tell someone who's young than that especially if they're miserable you know and lots of them why if they're miserable and aimless it's like oh I'm miserable and aimless and sometimes I'm suicidal and I'm nya list ik and I don't have any direction in your life it's in my life it's like well you're okay the way you are here and it's like they don't want to hear that they want to hear look you know you're and you know this you're useless you know nothing you haven't got started you've got 60 years to put yourself together and god only knows what you could become and that's so that message is so much more it's so funny because it's so it's such an attack but it's so positive because there's faith there in the in the potential that makes up the person rather than the miserable actuality that happens to be manifesting itself at the moment and young people respond extraordinarily well to that because when you know that if you're a parent and you love your your child your son your daughter what you're trying to foster is the best in them you want that to manifest itself across the course of their life you want them to become continually more than they are to see what they could be and well and I think that's part of the great message of the West is that that's that's the that's the ethical requirement of individual being in the proper sense is to constantly note that you're not what you could be to take responsibility for that and to and to commit yourself like body and soul to the attainment of that ideal we're gonna get a question here from our members about right here on the front row Bob Grantham had a couple good questions right here uh he asked much of your effort today is trying to help people improve their lives we've just been talking about that why does the establishment attack you rather than try to support you efforts well you know we should be nuanced about that I mean there's a there's a group of newspapers in Canada called post media that's 200 newspapers strong and they supported me you know I mean I've had a lot of support from journalists and I would say I've had more support from the higher quality journalists which I'm quite happy about so it's polarized you know there there isn't I have a dedicated coterie of people who regard me as an enemy there's no doubt about that and I think it's because I am I am absolutely no fan whatsoever of the radical left I think the the fact that you can actively present yourself let's say on a campus as a communist is as the fact that that's allowable is as mysterious as it would be if it was allowable to present yourself as a Nazi I am NOT a fan of the radical left and and I think I understand the motivations on the radical left both on the postmodernist end and on the more Marxist end and I'm because of that I'm a relatively effective critic and that makes me very unpopular so and that's fine because I'm not because what people are being taught that's emerged from that brand of absurd and surreal philosophy is of no utility as a guiding light to anyone and it's a it's a catastrophe to take young people in their formative years when they're trying to catalyze their adult identity and to tear the substructure out from underneath them and leave them bereft and I do believe that that's what the universities on the humanities end and to some degree on the social science end I do believe that that's what they fundamentally managed to achieve so and I don't admire that I think there's something deeply sadistic about that there's something deeply anti-human about that and it presents itself in the guise of moral virtue which makes it even worse and so well that's why people don't like me [Laughter] all right we've got about five minutes I'm gonna try to get in too quick question this is where's Adam from Vassar College it's Adam oh there he is all right so this was Adams question he said given the liberal political order bends towards automation of individual ZG automation and urbanization how can meaningful community be assured while you build that for yourself in part you know I mean Adam get a girlfriend [Laughter] people aren't doing that you know that that's falling by the wayside right and and so I meant it's because it's trouble you know - well it is trouble life is trouble and it's trouble to establish a permanent relationship you know I mean we've told young people for far too long that well they should be happy in their relationships let's say and it's like that's weak it's well it is God most of you are married it's like to be married for 40 years that's that's not a triumph of happiness it's a truck it's a it's a triumph of character it's a triumph of negotiation right it's a triumph of will to do that and and and that should be celebrated but it showed it should also be pointed out that no matter who you find like they're no better than you and that's not so good so so there's gonna be problems and so but that shouldn't stop you it's like find someone you know you're gonna have if you're lucky you're gonna have the opportunity to sort of sift through about five people in your life that's about it then you're gonna have to stake yourself on one of those people and it's a well it's it's an it's a hell of a risk but but with any luck it'll make you a better person that that that wrestling you know one of the things I learned I did a series of biblical lectures in 2017 which have turned out to be crazily popular of all the insane things to be and I was supposed to ask you why do you yes that is yes yes well I learned one of the things I learned in in in in those lectures and should have known before was that the word Israel so their chosen people of God the people of Israel are those who wrestle with God and that's such an interesting idea you know it's a fascinating idea because it indicates at least even even in our deepest religious texts that there's some there's something about existential conflict and engaging in that that's Acts part of the moral substructure of life that that that that simple belief let's say whatever that might mean in a deity isn't sufficient is that there's an active engagement with with with the infinite and then and it's and it's a battle in some sense and and I think that's that's the proper way to conceptualize I think it's the proper way to conceptualize a relationship it's it's a battle it's about towards a positive end it's a battle towards the transformation of both of you into more than you could have otherwise been so you need that and you need your friends and you need to develop a network of friendship and you need to put your family together and to act responsibly towards them and then you need to move out from that into the broader community and that's on you and that's how you foster it you you you you make it a part of the ideal that you're pursuing and then you you realize that that's that's up to you to do and maybe then you realize that you can do it as well if you're willing to make the right sacrifices which really usually means burning off a fair bit of of Deadwood and that's not something that people are particularly excited about doing and no wonder our time has been too short we have time for just one more final question I'm told what have I not asked you about I've been thinking of our theme of standing up against socialism what have I not asked you about what have other interviewers not ask you about that would be beneficial for us all to know as we want to take well you you you asked a little bit about these biblical lectures you know one what was interesting was I rented a theater in Toronto I rented it 15 times and and was a theatre for about 500 and it sold out every time and I lectured about Genesis which and it was mostly young men who came they weren't all young but they were mostly men which was very surprising because like that's just not what happens and what the reason that the the the lectures worked and and was because I put together something that I don't think liberal or conservatives have done a good job of putting together the Liberals are more on the happiness and freedom end of things and the Conservatives are more on the duty end of things and those are both those both have their place but I've been attempting to develop an argument that's centered on meaning and I do believe and I believe that our our most central religious symbols like the symbol of the Cross itself for example the bearing of the Cross is an embodiment or a symbolic representation of this idea is that you you have to have a meaning in life that sustains you life is a serious business you're all in it's a fatal business right everyone's in it up to their neck and it's it's dreadful in some sense in the classic sense and you need a meaning that can sustain you through that and that's to be found in responsibility and that's something that we have not communicated I don't think well to ourselves but we certainly haven't communicated it to young people it's like well you're lost there's reasons that you could be lost and they're real you know god only knows what terrible things happen to you in your life it's like how are you gonna get out of that well not by pursuing impulsive happiness that is not going to work not by thinking in the short term not by thinking in a narrowly selfish manner either but by taking on the heaviest load of responsibility that you can conceptualize and bear that will do it it'll do it for you it'll give you a reason to wake up in the morning it'll give you a balm for your conscience when you wake up at night and ask yourself what you're doing with your life it'll make you a credit to yourself and to your family and it'll make you a boon to your community and more than that there's more than that you know it's said in Genesis that every person is made in the image of God and there's an idea in Genesis that God is that which confronts the chaos of potential with truth and courage that's the logos and if we're made in the image of God that's us that's what we do is we confront the potential of chaos the future the unformed future we confront that consciously and we we decide with every ethical choice we make what kind of world we're going to bring into being we transform that potential into actuality and we do that as a consequence of our ethical decisions and so it's not only a matter of putting yourself together and putting your family together putting your community together it's a matter of bringing the world in its proper shape into being and I truly believe that that's the case and I believe that we all believe that but we hold ourselves responsible you know that if you've made a mistake with your family you know because you were selfish or narrow-minded or blind in some manner that you regard yourself as culpable you could have done otherwise and now you've brought something into the world that should not be there and it's on you we hold ourselves responsible in that matter and so what that indicates to me is that in a deep sense we believe that we are the agents that transform the potential of being into reality and that is a divine if anything is links us with divinity it's our capability to transform what is not yet into what is and and the other thing that happens and I'll start with is agenices and this is so interesting it's so fascinating is that as god conducts himself through this enterprise of the transformation of potential into actuality he stops repeatedly and says and it was good and and then that didn't and that's a mystery why is it good and the answer is something like well if what if you conduct yourself with the courage that enables you to accept your vulnerability which is no trivial matter and if you're truthful then what you bring out of potential is what's good and sets the world right and that's up to us and to me that's the great that's the great story of the West that's why we regard ourselves as sovereign individuals of value as that's what we are and we need to know that to take ourselves seriously and to act properly in the world and so and that's what I said in the biblical lectures in many hours and that's what's made them popular because people at the level of the soul I would say people know these things to be true so ladies and gentlemen please help me thank Jordan Peterson [Applause] thank you very much if only the folks in Washington had even an ounce of the conviction that you have thank you so much for being with my pleasure oh you'll be will be inviting you back don't you worry well there actually is someone else in Washington who does have this much conviction uh and I have the great pleasure along with all of my colleagues at the Heritage Foundation of working alongside her every day she is the woman who leads and inspires us at the Heritage Foundation she's a veteran of the Reagan and Bush administration's she was a leader and the Trump transition team and she has been an advocate for traditional values and individual freedom in the public square for many years and we are so delighted that she is now the president of the Heritage Foundation ladies and gentlemen please welcome cake holes James [Applause] [Music] Wow dr. Peterson thank you so very much was that not just an extraordinary discussion thank you everyone and it is indeed a pleasure to have you here at such a spectacular venue isn't this fantastic I'd like to take a moment to recognize some of the distinguished guests who are joining us this evening the first is one of our most generous supporters here in New York Adrienne Price who was instrumental where's Adrienne instrumental and helping guide and inspire tonight's event I also want to recognize a wonderful friend to heritage and to the conservative movement a personal friend our director Rebecca Mercer Rebecca thank you for being here tonight Marian Smith where's Marian somewhere about the executive director of the victims of communism Memorial Foundation is also here we also have policy experts and members of the senior management team from our wonderful coalition partner the Manhattan Institute we are delighted to have you with us tonight we have several heritage alum heritage action sentinels and many of our local friends in the media are here as well if they're here they're the good guys and gals we're also delighted to welcome the next generation of America's leaders we have over 30 students here from Columbia [Applause] Columbia law Vassar Yale Law Cedarville University case law and I understand a huge contingent from the Kings College and several other universities and institutions are represented here as well we are so very glad that you're here as far as I'm concerned you're the key to getting the truth out to your peers about economic freedom individual liberty and ensuring that our generation your generation certainly don't mind isn't misled by the siren song of socialism you have a tough job to do thank you for being here all the young folks in the room [Applause] tonight we're also honored to be joined by representatives from the Swiss and Georgian embassies Daniel Frye hopper is the head of economic trade and financial affairs for the Embassy of Switzerland where are you Daniel here thank you for being here Switzerland was one of the most advanced free market economies in the world its institutional strengths include strong protections for property rights and little tolerance for corruption as our 2019 index of economic freedom shows this small yet highly competitive country is the world's fourth freest economy and tops the rankings for all of Europe thank you for being here [Applause] grg segolia is the deputy chief of mission for the Embassy of the Republic of Georgia you are here somewhere thank you for being here we're delighted to have you Georgia has been a rising star in our index of economic freedom the country's ongoing pursuit of greater economic freedom has made its entrepreneurial environment one of the top 20 on the globe Georgia is the world's sixteenth freest economy far ahead of many larger economies like Germany China and Brazil and finally there's a guest I'd like to recognize who was one of the first to RSVP for this event but isn't with us tonight mr. Harold Siegel was one of our fiercest and longest-running supporters here in the New York City area Harold was a kid from Queens the son of Jewish Polish immigrants when he was a young boy he met the local printer while getting raffle tickets printed to raise money for uniforms for his little league team he took such a keen interest that he began to learn about the printing business from that very age that eventually led Harold to start his own business Excelsior graphics and him becoming a respected leader in the industry nationwide I had the opportunity to meet with Harrell a couple of times over this past year and we became fast friends you could easily tell that he loved America and cared deeply about preserving freedom and liberty for all Americans part of that probably came from his service during the Korean War fighting back against communist expansion he and I talked about ways to expand the conservative movement in this country and ideas about how to grow the Heritage Foundation to preserve what we had here for future generations Harrell had RSVP to be here tonight but the Lord called him home just two weeks ago in his stead Harold's daughter Laura and his grandchildren are with us this evening thank you for being here my friends it is my honor to salute a man who truly loved his American dream to the fullest and worked tirelessly to help others achieve theirs mr. Harrell Segal thank you so much [Applause] well this rising tide of socialism seems to be reaching a critical point and I'm so delighted that you care enough about that to come join us here at the Heritage Foundation this evening I am concerned that we may not recognize this nation in ten years and many Americans especially our young people seem to be warming up to that idea of bigger government as the solution to the issues that we face as a country today however the fact is socialism has failed as you know in every country every time it's been tried from Albania to Vietnam to the former Soviet Union and China socialism has produced not prosperity not freedom but violence starvation and misery plain and simple over the last 25 years it truly has been capitalism and policies that promote economic freedom that have cut the global poverty rate by two-thirds but I wanted to remind us tonight that capitalism isn't just about economics we can see from the 25 years of data that heritage has collected for its annual index of economic freedom that countries with the most economic freedom also have more individual freedom better health outcomes greater life expectancy more educational choices and this will surprise our friends on the Left even a cleaner environment so Heritage's X index of economic freedom shows people the hard numbers so that they can compare for themselves the destructive nature of socialism versus the positive outcomes that capitalism provides one piece of good news is that some of the polling that we have shows that young people who responded that they liked socialism didn't seem to understand what it actually was that they were asked while initially people loved the ideas a free college tuition $15 an hour minimum wage health care for all when their toll even a few details what it cost them in taxes how their freedom and their options would be restricted how bureaucrats in far-off places would be making decisions for them they turn quickly against those proposals what this tells us in the conservative movement is that the right answers we have them but we need to do a better job of communicating them especially to this next generation when people ask me who is the audience that you're after well how do you want to expand the conservative movement I tell them my ideal audience is a group of Bernie Sanders supporters and that actually surprises them and I am absolutely convinced that the things that they care deeply and passionately about we actually have the answers and our scholars have the data and the research and the analysis to prove it [Applause] and for the young people are here I want you to know that they are not more compassionate and caring than you are I defy a Bernie Sanders voter to tell me that they care more about poor people than you do because they don't I defy them to say that they want to provide access to health care while you want to push grandma off a cliff because that's just not true I want you to know that if you really are interested in closing the gap on educational disparities as conservatives we have the answers and so the good news is while they may claim the hearts of compassion you should claim the heart of compassion and then we have the research the data the analysis and some really bad scholars that will back you up so we want to make sure that you are equipped to go out and fight the rising tide of socialism we want to make sure you have the answers because they're there so this is what I want you to do okay take out your smart phone I'm serious get it out got it older folks ask a young person around you I want you in the two section to put four seven four seven four seven that's who you're gonna text and then the message you're going to send is Heritage four seven four seven four seven heritage and you know what that's gonna get you you'll receive information about our latest research on real solutions we're gonna equip you for the arguments and the debates we're gonna give you the knowledge that you need to take them on do it now I here got it I promise you it will be worth it with the data and the information you receive see the for the older folks in the room we we send you emails they don't read emails they want text messages so we're trying to be responsive before I leave you tonight and I do look forward to coming back to New York I have so much I want to say to you and I do tend to be a tad bit optimistic and I am because I truly believe in the American ideal and the American people and the legacy that our founders left us so I want to leave you with this George Washington quote the preservation of the sacred fire of Liberty and the destiny of the Republican model of government are staked on the experiment entrusted to the hands of the American people ladies and gentlemen our Liberty our destiny as a free nation has been entrusted into our hands and I think we have established that we are at a critical time in our nation's history and I'm absolutely convinced that if we leave this place tonight determined to stand strong against this homegrown socialism in our country together we can debunk the lies and the empty promises of those who sing socialism's praises together we can share the truth that limited government free markets and the rule of law are the surest ways to ensure freedom prosperity and opportunities for all Americans together we'll ensure a future where you and your children your grandchildren can live the legacy our founders left to us a legacy that millions of Americans have fought and died for a legacy that no government should ever be able to take away I as your president I'm determined every day to get up and go into the Heritage Foundation along with that phenomenal staff that's standing there and work hard to leave an America that's at least as free as the one that we inherited will you join us in doing that [Applause] before I go I'd like to premiere for you a new video that shows Heritage's immense impact and the opportunity that we have to take the battle to them please join me in watching thank you [Music] heritage is the conservative movements largest and most effective voice in Washington located steps from the Capitol heritage has promoted conservative solutions for over four decades we fight for the principles and values that animated our founders to create this great nation they are the same principles and values we cherish today free enterprise limited government a strong national defense traditional American values and individual freedom we provide our elected leaders with the policy solutions they need to ensure we remain a free and prosperous people our experts develop conservative solutions for more jobs lower taxes stronger families secure borders a more affordable health care system and a national defense to protect it all in addition to that the Heritage Foundation works to expand the influence and size of the conservative movement we team up with state leaders to keep Washington in Washington our young leaders program recruits and trains almost 200 college in terms each year who go on to serve on Capitol Hill on political campaigns and another conservative organizations and we take our message not just to Capitol Hill but right to the American people you'll see our experts talking about the benefits of conservative solutions across a media landscape ladies and gentlemen Heritage's influence is needed now more than ever we're standing strong against the rising tide of homegrown socialism and educating Americans about its dangers we're debunking the lies and empty promises of those who sing its praises and we're showing how conservative solutions are better solutions to the issues that face America but the Heritage Foundation can't do it alone freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction we didn't pass it on to our children in the bloodstream the only way they can inherit the freedom we have known is if we fight for it protect it defend it and then hand it to them with the well taught lessons of how they in their lifetime let's do the same and if you and I don't do this then you and I may well spend our sunset years getting our children and our children's children what it once was like in America when men were brief the Heritage Foundation is your voice for limited government for over four decades we've kept our promise to fight for your Way of life and against the big government tendencies of Washington we fight for the American people not for any political party I invite you to stand with us because there's too much at stake to stand on the sidelines only with your help can we ensure that America remains the freest and most prosperous nation on earth like you I don't want to leave my children or grandchildren an American that's less freed than the one we inherited protecting our hard-fought American Way of life is one of the greatest gifts we can pass on to the next generation [Music]

Channel: The Heritage Foundation

Views: 161,510

Rating: 4.8676124 out of 5

Keywords: Jordan Peterson, conservative, Heritage, liberal, youth, socialism, congress, democrats, republicans, ideology, policy, responsibility, Jordan B. Peterson, meaning, purpose, life

Id: JPWx0ilenKM

Length: 71min 28sec (4288 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 03 2019