Vision Restored | Vivek Ramaswamy | EP 380

these values are cool they are meaningful they are different they are today heterodox you want to stick it to the man you want to be heterodox you want to be counter-cultural say you want to get married in a heterosexual relationship and bring kids into this world and teach them to believe in God and be patriotic and pledge allegiance to the flag yeah that actually is pretty heterodox today and so it's my job to reawaken that spirit [Music] thank you hello everyone watching and listening today I'm speaking to author entrepreneur and 2024 presidential candidate Vivek ramaswamy we discuss his ongoing campaign the long growing hunger in the general population for depth in political discussion the dire need the necessity for a renewed American Vision and how Vivek plans to strip the Washington administrative agencies of their unconstitutional powers all right Mr ramaswamy we said about four months ago which was the last time we talked that we would talk in about four months and here it is I was very interested uh after contemplating our last conversation in staying in touch with you at least in part to get more insight into what it's actually like to be on the campaign Trail and so now you've been hard at it how long it's going to be how long have you actually been campaigning now well it was last week of February that we began so it's been just a little bit over four months about close to five months right right so what have you what have you learned well one of the things I've learned is actually one of the more surprising expectations is that the political consultant class at the start of this campaign had a concern about my style that I think they still continue to have today which is the advice they give me is to dumb it down that this is no longer the era of writing books as you know I mean you've written more prolifically than I have but the last few years I've been in a stage of life where I've been writing books examining issues with depth I think the threats to Liberty are complex and I've been exploiting them and so what they said is when you need to get used to the political mindset people don't have that kind of attention span they need to be distilled into bullet points dumb it down when you need to or nobody's going to listen to you what I have found is that I have been at my worst when I'm doing that and I've been at my best when I'm more or less ignoring that advice and that's less about me Dr Peterson that's actually deeply encouraging about the voter base in this country I'm talking to voters that go beyond the traditional Republican primary base but everything that I'm saying here applies to the traditional Republican primary base as well I think that our voters today are hungry for death actually in a way that they may have never been and why do I say they may have never been well I mean these political Consultants are getting their conventional wisdom from somewhere I assume it's from past experience and not just raw stupidity I think that they must be judging from prior eras and at least today you put your finger on two things that I think are of crucial importance you know one of the things we talked about the last time you said that you weren't going to have someone else write your speeches you said you weren't going to use a teleprompter you were going to say what you thought now this is what I've watched happen to a number of people that I know quite well they get they lack confidence in their own ability in their own their own their own capacity to judge the political context and they hire political Consultants and the political Consultants claim to be political Consultants but my sense with political Consultants is that they're like money managers if they could manage money they'd be rich and if political Consultants knew anything about politics they'd be running themselves and they always do the say the same thing they say just what you said which is well people aren't very bright they don't have a very long attention span you have to dumb it down which shows you exactly what they think of people and it makes it does too just exactly who they want to dumb down for like it might be for the people but it might be for them and it's canned advice and then you said you know that you found when you did that that that's when you went astray and you fell off course and that's what I've seen happen to the other people I've watched do this is and you know I don't dumb what I say down ever and people watch it online and lots of people say well you know I had to listen to this two or three times and I had to look up some of the words but I'm pretty thrilled that I'm not being talked down to and I learned something and so I think I think all of that's a lie I think it's mendacious and I also think this is more situational that it's a hangover from the television era because yes television yeah right right because you had television produced fragmented attention because you could only you could only get a 30 second sound bite and you couldn't assume that your audience was following you but that's not true online and not true in the podcasts so that's very interesting that's actually a great point is that in a certain sense it's easy to just blame the political Consultants but they may be playing to the medium of communication yeah yeah absolutely so they they produce 30 second TV ads that is what they do literally you have to sit in 30 seconds and the final one of those 30 seconds has to be paid for by you know XYZ so that is already where they begin and even TV hits that are unpaid ad and we haven't been doing very much TV paid ads at all I one of the things I'm learning is that actually is probably certainly at this stage of the campaign a horrendous waste of money absolutely absolutely and it doesn't make any sense but even the even the three four minute TV hits it's a bastardized form of the truth and you know I do think especially in this moment we live in the threats to Liberty are complex they do not present themselves in one bad guy and one good guy in fact I think one of the mistakes that the Republican Party makes and I see this when I go to Party events in particular you know there will be a lot of signs that'll say fire Biden you know and then the pledge that the Republican party has asked people to sign is the called the beat to make it out of the debate stage which I will sign as a condition for going on the debate stage but it's called The Beat Biden pledge and it's so reductionist right like you know the entire party apparatus is focus on one man not because I have any great feelings about this man I don't I think he's an awful president but the deeper point is he's barely the president it's a managerial class that's actually pulling the strings and we can get into the substance of that but that gets back to the reductionist form on TV or the political Consultants are giving you the advice and you see this just listen to the other candidates in this race it's almost as though they're that are as they tell them to do stay on message and that message is how we defeat Joe Biden and the radical Biden agenda as though these were words uttered by the same carbon copy printer that was served up to all of the candidates I think it in some literal sense was the same carbon copy that was served up to all the candidates but then you know the P but the good news is you might think you know in a less optimistic version of the world that the politicians speaking like this has a dumbing down effect on the people and what I see and I think this is encouraging certainly in the On The Ground events that we're doing now are these millions of people no but these are maybe a few hundred or a big event a few thousand people at a time and at a small event Maybe 50. in room fulls of that size people aren't falling for it right their eyes will glaze over and then the questions I get from the Grassroots audience base I mean they're like the questions I get from you very different from what I would get on cable television on a given night of the week and so this is deeply encouraging that I think years I think the last decade of the public knowing that they have been lied to systematically lied to by the Legacy Media I think has inculcated a deep sense of curiosity intellectual curiosity is skepticism you know I think the mainstream media will now complain that that creates conspiracy theories many of these conspiracy theories end up being correct some of them may not be correct but they're still the right Spirit of being skeptical of what you're fed such that individual people across this country college degree or not are asking some of the most intelligent questions I've heard more intelligent questions about Central Bank digital currencies than I will get from my former colleagues on Wall Street more detailed questions about the relationship between the US and the UN that I might then I might get in a standard foreign policy briefing from somebody who's been giving those briefings for 30 years and so I think this is actually deeply encouraging actually to say that you know part of the reason as I often say right if you if you have a people who are sheep a government behaves like wolves well when those people are not behaving like sheep anymore when they're questioning what not only their government but their media and their political class are feeding them this is a unique moment and this is where I've I've maybe I wouldn't say shifted the messaging I've discovered the core messaging of this campaign in the last three to four months kind of what was in my heart at the start I'm now able to articulate we live in a 1776 moment that's what I think it's like a moment of the American Revolution that's what I feel in the air well the other thing that's worth thinking about on the television front is that you don't want to underestimate the degree to which network TV and Legacy Media as such is really entertainment and so well that's exactly it so you know so that it's politics is spectacle and part of what you're being called upon to act out as a Legacy Media politician is the is politician as actor right you should be playing the party politician and and television because it's primarily an entertainment medium demands that but that doesn't mean that that's what the public wants on the political front and I think you know you talked about this being a 1776 moment and I know Lincoln wasn't around in 1776 but you know people used to listen to Abraham Lincoln deliver two-hour speeches right and they'd be standing there in the hot sun well he was oreating and one of the things I've also really noticed Vivek and this is interesting you know very few people buy books it's a it's a luxury Market or it's an elite Market but the audiobook industry has exploded and lots and lots of people listen to long-form podcasts and I they're not necessarily people who read but it also looks to me and this could easily be the case that maybe 10 or 20 times as many people can listen to complex ideas as can read them and so I think so well it might be the case we don't know right because it's a technological Revolution these long-form podcasts and we don't really know what the significance of it is although we do know that the most popular journalist in the world and that's definitely Joe Rogan is a long-form podcaster and his podcast regularly run three hours so obviously people don't have a short attention span you know I think that there's a couple interesting hypotheses of what's going on here one is there might just be a real scientific understanding that this is revealed which is everyone might have I think I have you know if this is true for everyone it's definitely going to be true of me maybe a low level of Dyslexia right dyslexia might not be a just like a condition for just a scarcity of people that there's something about the way that our eyes process information that's just a little bit behind where most people are on where their ears process information but I think that there's something deeper going on in our moment and I think it's not a coincidence that we see the rise of this podcasting form at a moment in our history when there's a demand for it and why is there a demand for it I think there is a deep hunger for human connectivity direct disintermediated human to human connectivity and the reason I say I think that's closer to the flame is that I see an excitement Dr Peterson when I'm going to these events I mean I was in whatever a few days ago in Iowa in a barn in a small town of just a couple hundred people there were a couple hundred people in the barn literally it was as though everybody in the town came to the meeting that we were having in that barn and I think it's because we live in a moment where people are starved we talked about this last time for purpose and meaning and identity but people are also starved for a disintermediated relationship with their fellow citizens and human beings and so there's something about hearing the voice especially if it's the voice of the person who actually wrote it right so I think that's why the audiobooks are more successful than the actual author reads it it's also the case with the podcasts that they're unscripted and so yes I think there's there's a great difference in listening even and this might make this might be one of the ways that a long-form podcast actually has an advantage over a book you know I think it's easier I think you can think more deeply in a book but I also think it's easier to deceive people because you can craft your lies in a book but it's very difficult to craft your lies in a spontaneous conversation right you get falseness of tone you get awkwardness of body posture you can tell when people are delivering a sound bite you know and I think part of the reason that people like Rogan and Lex Friedman's a good example too Friedman is that the reason that they're so popular is because they are genuine the same thing is true with Russell Brand you know I mean he's got more of a trickster stick and he's a comedian but of course Rogan was a comedian too but it's and that is a form of disintermediated interaction and I do think that it's an it's the antithesis of the crafted Hillary Clinton political class message it's part of the reason that Donald Trump was also successful and it is something that makes itself available to people like you and Kennedy has been doing this very effectively too who are using the new media pure polio of the conservative leader in Canada has also done a very good job of that's direct to voter communication and I I think your comments that the time is calling for that because people are tired of being manipulated by large what gigantic Enterprises corporate or government alike they want to see the real thing and they want to hear it because they can tell if it's real then you know and and Trump definitely capitalized on that you know he he he didn't use the podcast format although he used Twitter quite effectively but he captured certainly in that 2016 yeah in 2016 he did yes and you know I mean I think even large-scale rallies of being there in person there's you know in some ways I would say that if I go to go up the chain I would say there's no substitute for being in person live in a room with even no screens or algorithms in the air between us in all with a large group of people who are your direct consumers of your message and that's what the part of this campaign I'm enjoying the most next best to that are actual unscripted long-form conversations where you're not reading speeches into a teleprompter it's not a three-minute hit you know context select the conversation we're having now and I've invested more time in that just because I I hope it's certainly effective as a campaign we'll find out that part later but I am rejuvenated as the best version of myself when I'm actually able to speak truth without doing it in some sort of artificially constrained format then you go to actually TV hits which are a true bastardization of of reality and then you go to the ultimate bastardization which is a 30-second straight to camera TV ad which is where most where the most money will actually get spent on this campaign so one of the things I've learned is I don't yet have a strong view on what the political Snakes and Ladders will be on mapping a path to Victory but actually that might just be the path to Victory and I'm going to stick to that and that's one of the things I've learned in this campaign I've reviewed the empirical literature looking out campaign spending and its relationship to campaign success and as far as I can tell there's no relationship at all well I also think what happens is that's especially true for incumbents by the way there's a small effect of advertising spending for Challengers but it's not very big and it certainly doesn't justify the magnitude of spending and I think part of what's also happened to the political consultant class is that Democrat Republican alike they've been in bed with the political advertisers and the big media corporations for like six decades and so the political Consultants tell you to craft your campaign in a manner that will maximize your spending in the Legacy Media format but there's no evidence that that works by the way so but that's but that's the pipeline it's actually fascinating you say that because maybe you've studied that empirical literature more than I have here's what I will tell you in the last election cycle of a Republican primary and then this one as well so in 2015 around this time you can look back at the data in the second half of 2015. how much was each candidate spending per percentage point they had in the polls so for Jeb Bush and Scott Walker and a bunch of these other guys last time around it was millions of dollars per percentage point in the polls for Donald Trump it was in the tens of thousands the thousands of dollars is what we're talking about in terms of paid advertising per percentage point now we look at it this time around and I find this encouraging suggest to me we're on the right track where again you look at the candidates in this race if you count their Super PAC dollars that are spending money on ads millions of dollars per percentage point in the polls for me it's again in the tens of thousands we're not spending boatloads of money barely any money on on paid ads on TV or otherwise and I think at this stage of a race it does say something about you know you're on the product Market fit regardless of whether or not you're using the money to prop it up I do think there will come a point as a realistic matter at some point in this race and it did for Trump last time around as well it's just you know part of the part of the pill you have to swallow is just the sheer scale of reaching still to many people in this country who don't access YouTube or long long form podcasts that still are viewing the linear medium of television and it is does skew to be an older voter base that yes that is going to be there's going to be a time and place for that in this campaign but that's almost by the time you get there you've already won if you're going in the right order and so that's the way I'm viewing this too is at some point we're going to need the Mega Money to probably pipe this all the way through but I'm pushing that as far out down the line as we can and I am more confident than ever that actually an outsider like me me in particular in this race can absolutely defeat the odds and win an election just as Donald Trump did last time around and it says as much about the improved pipes that we have thanks to New Media that disintermediates television but it says something even deeper Dr Peterson about the people the people can tell when they're being lied to and I think that we live in this moment where the government where the media where the establishment believes that the people can't handle the truth it's like Jack Nicholson at the end of the A Few Good Men right you can't handle the truth I think the people live in a moment today and it's the voice that I'm representing on their behalf on our behalf to say that you know what we the people can handle the truth about covid about the Nashville shooter Manifesto about the hunter Biden laptop story about what really happened on January 6th about what really happened over the course of the last year of vaccine mandate policies we can handle the truth sometimes it's ugly but just give us the truth and I think that that's something that if a good thing has happened over the last 10 years through the Trump Administration and otherwise I think we have a populace a population that was trained on knowing that they have been lied to which means that they are badly starved hungry for somebody a human being a medium Etc where they know they're at least able to get the truth or be able to tell the difference if they're being lied to or not and I think that is a powerful moment that we live in I mean how special it is to be alive in a moment like this it's like if you're alive in 1775 or the spring of 1776 you'd have a lot of reasons to be upset about a tyrannical government but what did they do back then it was a special time a unique time to be alive I think we're in one of those moments where it is actually a pretty unique time to be alive if we're open if we're willing to open our eyes and see it that way and then when you have a bunch of other politicians who preach about the virtues of incremental reform or I'm going to reform X Y or Z I almost don't use the word reform anymore I think the real choice in this election in this moment do you want reform or do you want Revolution and I stand on the side of Revolution actually I stand on the side of the American Revolution I'm not talking about violence or anything like this but I'm talking about a revolution of those 1776 ideals a Revival of the American Revolution itself and in some ways I'm far more optimistic today ironically you would have thought it might have gone the other direction I would have thought it would have gone the other direction I'm actually more optimistic today than when I began in late February than you and you and I spoke this March because I believe that actually we absolutely are in a revolutionary moment there's electricity in the air it is a special time to be alive and if we're able to awaken the positive instincts that come out of that boy do I think good things are going to happen in the next 18 months and this election is just going to be one of them are you looking for an all-in-one e-commerce platform that can help you easily set up and grow your business online look no further than Shopify with Shopify you can quickly and easily build your own online store manage your inventory and accept payments from customers plus Shopify offers a range of customizable themes and templates to choose from so you can create a professional looking store without any design experience it even helps integrate with other popular tools to help you sell across social media marketplaces like Tick Tock Facebook and Instagram with shopify's 24 7 support and an extensive Business course library that is available to support you every step of the way Shopify is the Commerce platform revolutionizing millions of businesses worldwide if you're ready to get serious about selling try Shopify today sign up for a one dollar per month trial period at shopify.com jbp go to shopify.com jbp to take your business to the next level today that's shopify.com jbp well obviously the fact that Kennedy's candidacy is quite popular as well as Trump's is an indication that that revolutionary fervor is active because Kennedy strikes me as as much of a bull in the china shop on the Democrat front As Trump was on the Republican front and you I've been following you regularly on Twitter and watching how you've been being treated in the press and I want to get back to that at some point but also um and it's made me curious too you've talked a fair bit about your skepticism about let's say uh the Deep State you know about the FBI in particular and you've put forward some relatively radical propositions and you just said that you feel that there's a kind of revolutionary fervor in the air which in some ways is a strange thing for a conservative to say for Republican to say and I know you're more on the libertarian end if I hopefully not putting words in your mouth but what do you think it is that you're bringing to the table that's in that revolutionary spirit and how do you you defend yourself do you think against the danger that you know radical change in and of itself even if it's hypothetically in the proper direction can you know can can cause its own brand of trouble you know doubt about fundamental institutions and that sort of thing so what do you think is revolutionary about your approach and how do you think you can protect yourself against the potential excesses of the necessity for for relatively radical change I think that there are a couple of unique attributes here for me one is it just does take somebody who comes in as an outsider you cannot be beholden to the existing system one of the things that actually constrains the Revolutionary impulse and you could argue whether this is good or bad or neutral but it's just a fact is the influence of large donors in the Republican party there is a version of the world in which they I mean there's a there's an institutionalized function that large donors play and it's to sort of tame candidates to get them back on a few set of accepted messages that then become eventually the agenda they use to govern You could argue that there is a a conservative function there conserving the status quo in a way that some people may argue is good I think I I think that there are positives and negatives but I think the negatives outweigh the positives greatly in the current moment for whatever it's good you could debate whether this is good or bad I'm not constrained by that I'm totally unconstrained by that because I'm not playing the mega Super PAC puppet game I am independent I have put now more than the last time that we spoke I've put over 15 million dollars of my own hard-earned money into this campaign and we have 70 000 plus small dollar donors the online fundraising is now you know just digital small dollar fundraising is now hit a Snowball Effect where it's just continuing to accelerate day by day that's what's lifting this campaign up and so that's one of the constraints that doesn't apply to me that much I think was also true largely of trump I think it takes a unique combination though because where Trump got tripped up with draining the swamp gutting the Deep state is what the same members of that managerial class told him when he got into office they told him lies but lies that he was forced to believe because he didn't have independent knowledge to know any better which is that you can't fire civil servants without without running afoul of the Civil Service protections which are these extensive laws designed to protect individual bureaucrats from firing by the U.S president Trump's instincts were in the right place I actually think he was an excellent president in this regard but he was not able to implement his own agenda he was able to expose the problem because the people around him told him a bunch of Lies why are they lies well my suggestion is read the law just those Civil Service protections to use one example among hundreds those Civil Service protections protect against individual employee firings they do not apply to mass layoffs on their own terms the law just doesn't apply to mass layoffs Mass layoffs are absolutely what I am bringing to the DC bureaucracy I have said that I will lay off over 75 percent of the federal employee bureaucrat head count by the end of the first term 50 by the end of the first year and we've also already offered unprecedented detail on exactly how we will do it on which of the remaining minority employees in the FBI minority number of employees will move to the U.S Marshals or to the drug enforcement agency or to the financial crimes enforcement Network which small sliver of the US Department of Education will move to the U.S Department of Labor so that we neither need an FBI nor a Department of Education and we can get into those details but you're asking about a question of personal attribute and I think that the personal attribute that really matters here is that we need a U.S president that is at once an outsider to that system uncaptured unbeholden by the donor class in the managerial class but at the same time who has a deep first personal bone deep understanding of how to actually get that job done and a deep understanding of the laws and the constitution of this country okay that is actually a rare combination that I'm bringing to the table okay let me ask you about that because that's very very complicated so you know first of all it is the case that in most large-scale institutions a small number of people do almost all the productive work right that's the square root law okay so if you have ten thousand employees a hundred of them are doing half the work now we saw a Stellar example of that in musk's takeover of Twitter because he dispensed with about 80 percent of the employees and all he did was improve the company now musk has had extensive experience doing that sort of thing with other companies and he's obviously able to separate the wheat from the chaff now you just made the case that you would like to do the same thing and you also said that you had a detailed plan to do so and so what I'm very curious about is how is it that you are how is it that you believe you will be able to decide who should stay and who should go and how is it that you've developed this detailed plan like what sort of what sort of analysis have you conducted that enables you to determine what should be shrunk and how and to know that that's going to cause beneficial rather than damaging consequences so there's something we have going for us here is that I don't have to start in a vacuum there is this thing we call the US Constitution already proven time tested to be the best operating manual for a nation and preserving Liberty in human history that's certainly my view well it turns out that much of the excess we have seen came from running a foul of that operating document so many of the administrative agencies that were created were created in a manner that Congress actually never gave those agencies the power to wield the power that they do the Supreme Court has in the last two years already begun to recognize that West Virginia versus EPA a case where the Supreme Court held that the epa's regulation climate-focused regulations on the coal industry were unconstitutional because we the people never gave the government that Authority and Congress in turn never gave that authority to this three-letter agency which nonetheless ran a foul well if those EPA regulations are unconstitutional then it turns out most of the Federal Regulations today are also unconstitutional turns out most of the employees implementing those regulations are actually unnecessary so in many ways I don't think we have to start in some first principles whiteboard of a vacuum and say how are we going to design and draw this up that would be a fatal conceit I think that would be hubris I think designed for failure to think that one man Elon Musk or myself or anybody else it's just not going to happen it's destined for failure but if you're following a time-tested framework for the operating manual for this nation built an operating manual built in the shadow of the Declaration of Independence the greatest mission statement for a free Society in human history well then I think we actually are doing nothing more than implementing that which is already time tested and true and so you know I don't want to you know short sell myself here on I mean I have I'm 37 years old I've built multiple multi-billion dollar companies I do understand that if somebody works for you and you can't fire them that means they don't work for you I understand what meritocratic hiring looks like you work for them you're you're in some ways they're slave because you're responsible for what they do without any authority to change it so I understand these principles but it's not that experience based not Donald Trump's not musk's not mine that could be sufficient to get this right at the level of the nation it is actually a firm understanding and commitment to the Constitution itself and that brings me back to that rare combination you can't rely on your advisors for that that is not a substitute for saying okay I'm bringing executive experience and then I'm going to ask my advisors how it's done within this legal framework and ask the lawyers and I think that's the difference between me and Trump and I think that'd be the difference between me or someone like an Elon Musk or anybody else who would be great as a who is great as a business Builder and is a good alternative to the professional political class doing this in Washington DC but I think it requires a deep intellectual historical principled understanding passion for and commitment to that Constitution to see that through but not doing it as somebody who's coming in as just a law professor or a lawyer they're not going to have the skill set to actually the fortitude to cut and see that through and that explains why we haven't had leaders to that effect kit because that is a rare combination those skill sets aren't supposed to go together right these are different skill sets why did they go together in your case so so I so I hope they do I mean yeah but why do this why do you think they do what what is it about your background and and your interests that make it reasonable for you to make the claim that you exist at that intersection between like legal prowess let's say and and and and wisdom in relationship to the Constitution and that entrepreneurial bent what do you have on that front that say Trump doesn't have yeah so the first thing I'll say is I'm not going to claim to be some Messiah coming from on high with exactly the prescription but what called me into this race I mean when you and I first started getting to know each other I you would I would have said we were both nuts if we were thinking about me running for U.S president I was driving change in the private sector I started strive I was writing books that was my calling so the thing that pulled me in Dr Peterson is that I think I am the best among the lot we have now to actually bring that combination to the White House at a moment where we require it to actually reform that administrative state to gut and bring a revolution to that administrative state that we need a unique combination to actually achieve because I watched where Trump fell short I watched where Trump excelled above his lot and so that pulled me in so I I will preface everything I'm saying by saying that I'm not going to tell you that I am some Messiah and here I have arrived okay far from it but I do think I'm a product of my experiences okay so so first of all I had the privilege of not growing up in money I had the privilege of actually having to work for what I've achieved I'm grateful for that I did not want to be burdened as many of my peers at places like Harvard and Yale were burdened and I do think it's a burden by the burden of inheritance or by the burden of not having the space to actually achieve and ordain for myself what I would in my career so I I started as a scientist I was molecular biologist in the lab in my senior thesis all the way through college I ended up getting into the world of Biotech investing the commercial side of my brain right finding opportunity where others would not that led me to really enjoy I am grateful for this more than boastful of it just strictly grateful that I was able to find this opportunity to earn extraordinary success for myself by by my mid to late 20s I was in law school simultaneously as I was making tens of millions of dollars as a hedge fund investor by spotting opportunity and they said I'm going to take this to the next level I'm going to start an entire business on finding opportunities to develop medicines that others didn't and built a multi-billion dollar company from scratch and I think that's different than coming in and just managing and being appointed Rising the managerial rank ranks of a big Corporation sitting on a bunch of boards and then plopping yourself into CEO when some guy retires at the age of 70. I built that company from scratch and so that's one skill set but actually it was midway through my career at the hedge fund where I first started that I also have this weird native itch to study law and political philosophy I had been so science Centric that I actually told my bosses at the hedge fund I said listen I'm going to take three years off I'm going to go to law school I'm actually going to I'm finding reading things in my spare time that I would rather do in a more structured setting now I discovered something important there which is if you're following your passion good things tend to happen they said just keep your job they gave me far more autonomy on the job they said go manage this portfolio yourself and do it from New Haven if you want to I said great we have a deal and that's what I did but I for me it's less that I have a skill set more than I have had for the last 15 years a dual passion that has given me experiences both akin to that of many legal academics which shows up in several of my books which have been quoted in appellate court opinions in the last three years but my principal day job has still been as an entrepreneur building Enterprises hiring and firing people accordingly right so that calls me an intersection of you're at the intersection of three relatively unique what domains of achievement so you one on the entrepreneurial front one on the scientific front and one on the legal front and so that is you know each of those levels of accomplishment are relatively rare and the intersection is relatively staggeringly rare let's say how was it do you think and why did your interest turn from the scientific to the legal and what aspects of the legal in particular compel you and then how did that transmute into a political interest well I mean the political Interest really is barely an interest at all I feel like this is a sense of Duty that pulled me into this political Journey but all the way through the legal doorstep of it I guess I'm a person that reasons through principles okay I think that science is actually founded on principles that are iteratively we hone and we have an approximation of the actual truth of the world but the scientific method driven by hypothesis-driven testing as opposed to just purely deductive oh I observe something and then I decide that that's the state of the world that's not the way the scientific method works it's a deeply principled understanding and approximation of the world right you form a hypothesis and then you test that hypothesis you don't just sit and deductively observe the whole time that's actually not that's just pure empiricism that's not the scientific method and so there's something about that that spoke to me and I think that was probably why when I started my first major business royiven which was a scientifically founded company I mean I personally oversaw the development of five medicines which are FDA approved today but the business building piece of it was the first thing I did was with the day one employees we sat in a room for about six hours and came up with our first draft of what ended up being 20 business principles right here are the the principles on which the company would run right value creation the external world is a sole goal everything that happens in these four walls is a means to the end of what happens in the external world you know whatever is necessary is always possible I mean we went went through several iterations of that and so for me I think it's just the way that I think and process information and then that is I think part of what drew me in my interest in the law and in the ordering I Think We're a nation deeply built foundationally on the rule of law not the whims of man and that's what speaks to me about much of the US Constitution about the United States of America and so delving deep into what those principles were became just a passion of mine it was a side hobby I mean the things I was reading in my spare time in my mid-20s well you know I hedge fund you know investor and then you know before my career as an entrepreneur damn it's kind of a weird thing for a guy to do in his mid-20s and spend my weekends that way but that's what helped me discover that I have this separate passion that Drew me then to go to Yale for a few years but it's part of what pulled me back even out of my business career I ran my business in a way that was Tethered to those business principles I think it's part of what allowed me to have success as an entrepreneur but even when I felt like okay I've developed a drug among other things for prostate cancer now there's this cultural cancer that nobody else is working on there are other people working on biological cancer nobody was working back in 2020 on the cultural cancer that I believed I had identified which was the mixture of this wokism with the forces of capitalism back in 2020 when I think this was really still not as well understood as it is today to say that I'm going to step aside from my job as a biotech CEO to focus on this cultural cancer but against the backdrop of a legal framework where it feels intuitively like something's gone wrong it's not obvious that somebody's Prosecuting this as a legal violation but what are the principles enshrined in that law that are violated by what we're actually seeing so that's what drew me in and then one thing you know that that led me to the doorstep of this you you you you're interested in scientific science as an investigative process and then when you set up a business you started to understand that you needed to develop a set of guidelines that were essentially enabling principles because that's a good way of thinking about principles or rules rather than as restrictions as enabling principles and that attracted your attention to the idea of enabling principles as such you got deeper into that particularly on the Constitutional front that pulled you into the legal domain and now your claim is that you think that you can you and your team think that you can use your knowledge of those enabling principles especially buttressed by your corporate and entrepreneurial experience as a scalpel and a tool of discriminating judgment to to uh what would you say recreate shrink back and re-establish the managerial state as something more akin to what was envisioned in the constitution is that is it that's the that's the gist of the argument that's exactly right and I think that puts me together in a position to say okay now let's just intuitively there's a lot there right so let's just sort of make this intuitive what would George Washington and Thomas Jefferson and John Jay and Alexander Hamilton and James Madison say if they were walking the modern American terrain if they were walking around in Washington DC on a given day what would they say would they be pleased would they be proud would they be appalled I think today in many respects they would be appalled by what they see and I think their intuitive understanding that intuition is also part of what I'm Reviving here because they're the guys who enshrined that intuition in the form of principles that are in a document known as our U.S Constitution today and so for me I think I shared those intuitions there's the intuitive side of me too but my skill set is both as an entrepreneur and as somebody who understands principles including legal principles and those things don't usually go together now we haven't talked about all the things that I'm awful at okay by uh artistic talents or sparse I think that there are there's there's everybody has their strengths and weaknesses but I do think that the unique Coincidence of those talents is something that it so happens this moment calls for when we think about who we actually need in the White House to take us to the next level and I think there's something encouraging about the moment we live in and the challenges we face it's not Congress it's driving the administrative State and that's where my focus is as well because I think that's where the skill set will be most useful well you could see that Trump was attractive to people because of his entrepreneurial background and the fact that he was an outsider and the and his appeal to people sense that things had developed at the managerial state level far too far and that that needed to be disrupted but Trump was lacking part arguably in political experience and potentially an administrative skill although he had being at the head of multiple successful Enterprises and so obviously had some administrative skill I think people are attracted to DeSantis in part because he has that toughness of temperament that's characteristic of trump but has a better track record in terms of administrative ability and your claim is that you have a you have an interesting intersection of all those abilities right there's an entrepreneurial ability there's a there's an administrative ability but then there's also that legal depth of in relationship to your understanding of constitutional principles that gives you an additional Edge so let me okay so let me ask you something about Temptation because that you know I've watched Lots I think there's one more Dimension to this there's just one more Dimension to this that I think is important as I was hearing you summarize this and I and I just wanted to pause because I think it might actually be the most important of all is I do think there is a fundamental difference between either running an Enterprise or even running a state as a governor that is a requirement of certainly the U.S president in the moment we live in today is I think an ability to articulate and deeply believe in a vision of what it means to be a citizen of this nation so take everything you laid out yes I think you summarized it beautifully but I think that that is in some ways insufficient it's a little bit still too small because I think that's still like a resume test and we all are Trump descendants myself and you know we're in the top three now in the Republican National polling but the other is too I would put in the same category interviewing for a job with the American public so you know I feel like I'm in a job interview with the American public so are the others we should treat it that way and not take the public for granted so that's why I'm treating this like an interview but I think there's a there's a third element that goes beyond just that descriptive and interestingly detailed account that you and I just went through is this more foundational ability to articulate and believe in a vision of where we are going and I think this is a big difference for me and this is a generational difference I think Dr Peterson I think this is what is allowing us to reach young people in this campaign in an unprecedented way for the Republican Party part of that we're using podcasts but part of that is just the message is that young people are as you and I have talked about last time Hungry For A Cause hungry for direction and purpose and what I see in the rest of the Republican party I'm not going to speak about the any other field here but the Republican field what I see is a group of people who are habitually running from something I am in this race to start leading us to something offering an actual affirmative vision of our own and I think we badly require that In This Moment In Our National History so to take everything we talked about the competence the diverse skill set from and be enterprising to having deep knowledge of the law on actually the unprecedented detail we've laid out on how to reorganize and gut the administrative State all of that but I think the missing fuel that will allow me to see that through but also revive a missing national identity is having a clear answer to the question of what it means to be an American we talk about the American Revolution what were those ideals of the American Revolution how do we revive them in the present and I think we're seeing that in some ways where look together in the Republican debate stage one of the requirements was 40 000 unique donors right the former vice president of the US just met that requirement I'm told in the last you know 24 hours we're at over 70 000 unique donors I've never had a political donor in my life we didn't begin this campaign with any donor lists but the beauty of this is 40 of those donors our first time ever donors to the GOP in any form and most of them are relatively young actually so that says something about one of the missing gaps when I think the most important thing that I want to be saying that I did for this country when I leave office in January of 2033 that's eight years from now my older son won't even be in high school yet probably the most important thing I want to say is that we revived national pride in my two sons and their generation and I think it does take someone probably of a different generation I'm the youngest person ever to run for president in a major political party but not just of a different generation but of a different generational view that we're actually standing for an affirmative vision of our own rather than just tearing down the vision of the other side and so I just wanted to pause to say that because I think of all the things we talked about that's probably the most important actually have you ever wondered why you're alive you're alive because your mother gave birth to you sadly this is not the story for over 64 million babies whose lives tragically ended in abortion that's why preborn fights every day so that at-risk infants will get a chance at life too with the pressures of society telling mothers that their babies are just a clump of cells it's no wonder that abortion continues at an alarming rate once a mother meets her baby and hears their heartbeat through ultrasound she sees and feels that life inside of her the majority of the time she will choose life when you join forces with preborn you bring life and love to a whole new generation which is why pre-born and you have rescued over 28 000 babies this year alone for just 28 dollars you can rescue a baby any gift will help and all gifts are tax deductible dial pound 250 and say the key word baby or visit preborn.com Jordan all gifts are tax deductible you will never regret saving a child's life that's pound 250 baby or visit preborn.com Jordan okay well I think that's a good addition and and I'll return to the issue of Temptation uh via the root of Youth I think so let's talk about that vision of the future so this is going to be a bit of a convoluted question because I have to wander around a bit to answer it so I've been involved in this Enterprise that's established in the UK but has roots in Australia and Europe and and the US and Canada um we're trying to formulate a positive vision of the future and one of our principles let's say our suppositions is that if your vision of the future is predicated on fear so it's an apocalyptic Vision let's say and you're using that fear as a as a means to Garner power to yourself you're not to be trusted and this is happening most particularly I would say on the climate apocalypse front and I suspect that there are any number of existential crises awaiting us in the future as there always are but my sense is that if you use any any given crisis as a as the means of instilling a demoralizing fear and the consequence of that is that you're Gathering Power to yourself you're not to be trusted as an advocate of the people and that you should be putting forward a positive vision and we're trying to differentiate that and delineate it and you know we would like to see cheap energy we would like to see a multi-dimensional approach to environmental maintenance we would like to see uh what would you say a re-established commitment to the fundaments of the minimal necessary family we're not very fond of corporate gigantism but most importantly I would say of all those things is that we believe that we can that people that we can all be offered a positive vision of the future so that we have something to strive for that's that's motivating and hopeful instead of being enjoined to cower and destroy our own Ambitions because we're something approximating a planet destroying Force now I know that you know the typical young man in grade 12 now is more likely to be conservative than liberal it's not true of young women The Tide is turning on the generational front and I think it is because young people have been force-fed so much apocalyptic Doom that they've really had enough of it and so you're and I see this in your tweets and your Communications too that you're trying to outline a positive Vision so and you've you've laid out some of the principles what and you talk a little bit about the return to constitutional principles but if you saw a renewed America and by implication A Renewed West what would that renewal look like like where would we be in five years or ten years that's different from now and how might you move us towards that I think it is an ordering of our society on things that have always grounded successful flourishing societies throughout our human history so so the left preys on this vacuum of identity with race gender sexuality and then now what you just mentioned climate it's cereal once the climate farce is and I do think that much of the agenda around it is a farce one that once that's revealed and untenable just as when the covid-19 pandemic passed in the residual climatism filled the void once this farce passes and people like yourself myself Alex Epstein and Bjorn Lumberg and others are playing roles in exposing this it'll be something else that fills the void I don't know what it is but it'll be something now I think that what I see right now is a lacking in a conservative movement that becomes too what should I say um lazy to satisfied complacent probably complacent is the right word with just criticizing that vision and the endless hypocrisies and the nature of how uninspiring it is and it is uninspiring but just criticizing it is also uninspiring and so I want us talking more and acting more on ordering a country a nation a society grounded in the value of each individual a member who is a member of a family who is a family that is embedded in a nation with commitments to that Nation and yes I think a Revival of a belief that we are one nation under God that doesn't mean a single religion or a single you know religious Orthodoxy pushed from on high in fact I think it shouldn't be so but broadly individual family Nation God as an affirmative alternative to race gender sexuality and climate and I think that that vision is not only more innately inspiring to young people to all people it is grounded in truth right we have distinct sources of our identity that we as lost human beings we as lost human beings who wander in that Wilderness biblically wander in that desert we need something to ground us and I think that Reviving the value of the individual through hard work and the creation of what you create through hard work and the ability to be proud of that I was talking yesterday to two entrepreneurs who are themselves already young actually not much older than me multi-billionaires who have are now on their next creation I asked what motivates you I think he didn't have an answer other than to say I hard work actually I believe in hard work as an ethic and I believe in creation that's great I said I need to help you need to I need your help in bottling that up and I need to put that in the water across this country but the value of hard work the value of the family that there is truth to having a commitment to the unit of two parents in the house with a commitment to their children first the idea that you know what I will take care of my family first before I worry about the starving child in the middle of the Congo not to say that there's something wrong with going and helping the starving child in the middle of the Congo but to say that there's an ordering I am a self that that means something I work hard and create something in the world and I am proud of that and I am an individual agent not writing some tectonic plate of group identity but there's only ever one you Dr Peterson there's only ever one me there's only ever one anyone and that there's inherent value as the individuals the same thing I'll say is that my first commitments are to my family the children who I brought into this world the wife with whom I am raising those children the parents who brought me into this world those are my commitments and then around that I have commitments as a citizen to this nation that I will go and visit the south side of Chicago or Kensington in the middle of Philadelphia before I go take pictures with some child in Myanmar so I can post it on my social media account and feel better about myself I'll get to Myanmar later I'll get to the Congo later but but I'm a citizen of this nation and that that means something to me too so I take care of myself throughout my own hard work and dedication I take care of my family I take care of my nation that I'm proud of these things that I believe that we're a nation under God and then yes as human beings we are all equal in the eyes of each other because in a Christian tradition or Judea Christian tradition you'll say we're made in the image of God I'm raised in a Hindu household we say it's that God resides in each of us but whatever formulation it is that there is a higher power and then once we've taken care of all of that then we can get to you know Ethiopia or or you know South Africa or Myanmar or wherever else one might go but I think what we see right now is a substitution of that if fact right intensely worried about the climate apocalypse or intensely worried about some Fringe problem that doesn't affect your own Community or your family or your nation at home as a substitute four the actual things that in a time-tested way ground us as human beings and so I'm still scratching the surface but at least gives you a taste you that Future No No well you know I've been spending a lot of time assessing the book of Exodus right and part of what the book of Exodus does is lay out a psychological and social alternative to tyranny and chaos and chaos is the desert in the Israelite sojourn and so you can imagine two extremes of Miss government one would be tyrannical order and the other would be desert chaos and the alternative that's put forward in that book is an alternative that the Catholics in particular have referred to as subsidiarity and it's the notion of a hierarchical identity that's both individual and social and it very much parallels what you're describing as the essence of identity itself now you see a craving for this on the left because the leftists tend to um prioritize hedonic impulse right as sort of the grounds of individual subjectivity and then in response to the lack that produces they leap to Global identity Solutions and that would be ethnicity race or maybe okay but what why would be appropriate exactly the appropriate alternative to that is I think historically speaking the subsidiary structure that you're laying out so you could say well first and foremost you're responsible for yourself you have to take care of yourself and that's that's a duty and an obligation but also a source of meaning right of meaningful stress and if you can manage that well then you can embed yourself within a couple and that's another place you can derive meaning and identity and if the two of you can organize yourselves halfways intelligently as a mutually sacrificial couple because you're sacrificing your short-term impulses to her well-being and vice versa and counseling each other to do the same for yourselves well then maybe you can establish a family and that's your next level of responsibility and then maybe a community or a business Enterprise and then maybe a town and then maybe a city or a state and then maybe a nation and then you said you know that has to be nested under God and that is like that's one of the pillars of Catholic Social Doctrine one of the three pillars that notion of subsidiarity and I think it is the time-tested alternative to you know top down Tower of Babel statist centralism and the absolute in Kuwait chaos of the fragmented identity that we see unfolding in the world now and I think that's why this message of responsibility by the way is echoing so deeply with young people particularly with young men because meaning is to be found in that subsidiary hierarchy of responsibility right and it's also ethical and you you you implied this it's also ethical oddly enough to focus your attention first on what's local to you right take care of yourself first then take care of your wife it doesn't mean other people aren't important but it means that you have a hierarchy of responsibility and that you should take care of what's local and immediate before you dare ordain to presume that you're capable of doing something that's more abstract and I know people are absolutely right that's absolutely right it's intuitive it's woven into our nature as man and I think that we are in some ways running contrary to our nature as man which leaves a vacuum in its wake that leaves us lost like the Israelites were in The Book of Exodus and I think that that's where we are in our modern American landscape and so I think that there's a there's a there's a not very practical component of how we revive that world view I think there's an attitude where the things that I'm talking about individual family Nation God these are needless to say not novel Concepts they sound novel to some when I say them now to many to most and that shows you how dislocated we are right now from even the proper ordering of a society you don't have to take a judeo-christian worldview take Aristotle is that the same thing basically you go to the Hindu scriptures you know in in Ancient India they say the same thing right so this is time-tested transnational trans-historical stuff okay truths now the reality is I think that there's a sort of squeamishness prudishness that make us feel in the modern American moment like we're hearkening back to something those are Antiquated values they're not cool they're not the stuff of progress I think it's a uniquely post-modern attitude and I think one that many especially Millennials gen Z actually might actually come back to it because they're so starved but Millennials My Generation feel like that was like not cool and certainly if there's a boomer preaching to us as such or a Gen X or preaching to us as such I think that there's a reluctance almost uh contrarian impulse uh equal and opposite reaction in the other direction a sort of natural Rebellion to it this goes back to also the special set of attributes that I think it takes in this unique moment to get this done this is my responsibility to make Faith Family patriotism hard work to make these values cool actually for the Next Generation to the way we live by those values the example that I want to set living in the white house I'm not some old fogy from a giant gen from a past generation preaching how it used to be I'm talking about this on the campaign Trail certainly in the way that it can be this is a progressive Vision as I cast it because of how far we've come this now becomes the stuff of progress not regress and I think that I know that's Framing and you could just say that's just that's just marketing but there's some element of marketing to the job you know to get this done human beings have to come along there's some element of marketing to every job yeah and I think that's okay I don't I don't chafe at that I accept it I embrace it let's accept that right part of the job of the next U.S president is to be a successful marketer for the values as long as you're marketing something that's good for you that's grounded in truth that's good for the nation there's no shame in that but I think that as a young person as a guy who still actually you know this month I'm turning 38 but as a guy who's still 37 you know I think that there's no shame in that I am openly saying and many young people hear me say this and that's okay they can be in on the in on the marketing campaign to say that yes I'm marketing to you guys but I'm marketing something that's true these values are cool they are meaningful they are different they are today heterodox you want to stick it to the man you want to be a hippie you want to be heterodox you want to be counter-cultural say you want to get married in a heterosexual relationship and bring kids into this world and teach them to believe in God and be patriotic and pledge allegiance to the flag well that's pretty heterodox today put up the U.S flag instead of the trans flag on in the month of June in front of your house yeah that actually is pretty heterodox today and so it's my job to reawaken that spirit and again you know you can talk about Trump or Biden or whoever I think there are intangibles yes we can talk about the the differences in having well who has the business skill set well who has the legal skill set and these are important discussions but I think far more important is who is going to be able to bring along a generation that is starved for purpose and meaning but running and latching on to The Superficial fast food that the other side is serving up as opposed to serving up the more substantial fare in an appetizing format that they actually want to consume it and I think that's something that I feel like I'm not going to frame this in the sense that I have the unique ability to do because then it's just more boasting and I feel like I've been already boasting too much in this conversation that's not the point it is something that I have a responsibility to do I have a duty to do as a member of my generation and somebody who can do this with that comes a duty to do it right now and that's the sense of Duty that I feel right now I'm extremely pleased to announce the daily wire plus has decided to make the 16-part Exodus seminar fully and freely available to everyone over the next four months on YouTube we are therefore truly Beyond pleased to invite you almost hospitably to partake in this great moral banquet [Music] so let me ask you the other question that I that that has emerged in my mind as we've been talking so you know um for most of my career I I was a popular professor and I had a little bit of exposure on the broader public front I worked with small television station in Ontario and so I had a taste of public recognition let's say but I didn't become well known until I was in my mid-50s you know and that's protected me I would say to some degree against some of the excesses that might otherwise be associated with that you know at a very established family and long-term friends who were accomplished in their own right and like a Phalanx of people around me who could counsel me carefully um as my star rose so to speak now you're a young man and you've been very successful on multiple fronts and for a very long time and you you're you've garnered great wealth you've you've had a lot of entrepreneurial Adventures now you're running a very public candidacy for presidency and but you're 37 and so one of the things we talked already about the Temptations that you faced on the campaign front with regard to the advice that you were receiving from the political class and how you withstood that and I guess I'm curious and I think this is probably the therapist in me thinking about someone who's in your situation is like and you've provided a partial answer in your in your understanding that you have a responsibility all at all these levels of social embeddedness but how do you keep your how do you keep your ego from running away from from you given your the particulars of your situation in combination with your youth like what do you have around you that keeps your feet on the ground you think or around you or within you honestly it's very practical and simple the first thing is my family I actually am pretty grateful to um I I don't know that I hope you don't mind me mentioning this but the best piece of advice I got at the start of this campaign was just like very practical advice from Tucker Carlson okay Tucker told me is this like very practical stuff he said travel with your family take your bubble that you live in with you right because you know at some point you're gonna show up on the road and you're just going to be floating in The Ether and waking up in some Hotel asking okay where am I and I'm just floating and going through the motions you're gonna feel like that at some point in this campaign and here's how you protect yourself against that whatever you have at home just take it with you or when you don't take it with you just make it a rule that you want to come back and spend as many nights at home sleeping in your own bed as possible I came home at 11 30 last night a few nights ago it was 2 A.M when I got back from Iowa oh actually where was it coming from that was New Hampshire excuse me lose track where I'm coming from but it's 2 A.M but I still made a point to come back rather than to sleep the night over there because just as a very practical Point there's nothing philosophical about this it grounds me I wake up that next morning to the sound of my young son crying in it it annoys you at first for the first Split Second and then it's just Joy after that which is like that's what you wake up to in the morning and I think that we're traveling as much as we can as a family now now my wife has her own version of this which I wouldn't say is in Conflict but has some logistical attributes that we have to balance which is her version of also part of staying grounded in a journey that she did not sign up for she does not covet attention she doesn't hide from She's I don't know if you've ever seen her she's very Earnest and connects with people at a level sometimes that's even deeper than I do with many audiences and she's not shy about it but she doesn't covet it in any sense certainly doesn't seek it the thing that keeps her grounded is in addition to our family unit which is important to her is she made a decision that I admire her for keeping is she's kept her full-time job through this and it's not a lightweight full-time job she is a throat surgeon she literally saves lives of people who have gone through cancer at the Ohio you know Cancer Center at the James hospital at the Ohio State University people have been through had neck cancer the consequences of that she's a throat surgeon the best one of the best in the world certainly had the narrow domain she's in she has people who fly here to see her she keeps her operating room schedule and so let's say I'm in Iowa on a Friday night there have been cases where she would days where she will do 12 cases in the day and still be at a dinner event where we're both speaking in Iowa that night and so for each of us it's I think the prac the Practical steps actually I think where and this is where I'm so grateful to Tucker actually I uh I launched the campaign actually on his show and it was just in the Chit Chat that we had after that that I got like probably the best practical tip that I have since used throughout this campaign which is as simple as this whenever you can just make it a rule we will travel with our family as a family unit whenever that is possible that is just what we will do when that is not possible because apoorva has to stay in Columbus Ohio maybe I'll get one-on-one time with Karthik she'll stay with Arjun and when it's not possible for the kids to come which would be too taxing for them or they have their activities I will make an effort and even if it's 2 am I will be back home in this house where I'm talking to you from and maybe I'll get an hour less sleep but I'll be more grateful for it in the morning when I wake up the next day well you know that's that Harkens back that Harkens back to this issue and the idea of embedded responsibility that we already discussed you know so one of the one of the uh what would you call it errors that the psychotherapeutic community has foisted on the general public and I think this is true even of the greatest therapists is the idea that your sanity is something that's somehow located in you and I don't think that's true like I think your sanity is the harmony that's established between your multiple levels of Social embeddedness and so when you abide by Carlson's advice to take your wife and your children along with you you're actually taking the structure of responsibility that reminds you to be sane along with you right and because we all need to be tapped into Harmony and unity and you do that not so much some of it's abiding by your own principles it's internal it's pure force of will but as Carlson pointed out you know you can wake up after a month on the road you're kind of lost and and suspended in space and that's also the sort of time where a moral error of one form or another is much more likely to occur but if you're in constant communication with those embedded levels of responsibility that also keeps you on track right in that in that conservative manner that that is part and parcel of secure sanity and that's another advantage to adopting social responsibility right is you surround yourself with people who remind you to be sane yeah because I don't know about other people but I'm not a perfect person or or endowed with some sort of divine you know infallibility in the in the decisions that we make and so we just put ourselves in a position to make the moral decision at every step through the structures that have it was it's not I didn't invent this my parents demonstrated it by example to me and I suppose they didn't invent it it's societies throughout human history in our in our faith-based tradition I mean the Hindu way of life just as the judeo-christian way of life puts a great premium on this institution of the family and so I think it actually comes down to just being that practical about it rather than to be overly abstract it's like you know you and I talked about the bats in the cave I think you know I I certainly see us see myself all of us I think my generation maybe all of us as Americans as human beings today like blind bats lost in a cave right and the bad how does it figure out where it is in that cave it sends out an echolocation signal that bounces back off the wall and then it comes back and it says this is where I am so if we human beings are doing the same thing this is my family that's true that bounces back it says this is where I am I believe in God I'm a citizen of this nation those things come back and say this is where I am when those things disappear or they're distant what happens we send out these signals and then nothing comes back and we're back in the desert we're back to being the Israelites in the book of Exodus we're back to being Americans in 2023. and and so yeah well that's part of that problem of over emphasis on subjective self-identity you know right this is a big this is a terrible thing that the radicals on the left have done to people psychologically is to tell them you are only what you claim to be it's like well no that's not true you're what you've been able to negotiate with other people and that's a damn good thing for you too because as you pointed out about yourself like isolated and alone there's no indication at all that we'd be other than you know maximally sinful in the direction of our greatest weakness we need other people and part of our identity is the ability to integrate ourselves with other people and to use them as signaling devices for our own orientation as you pointed out that's a deep psychological truth and it is practical in the way that you describe too right it's you distribute the responsibility for your sanity to the community that you take responsibility for and that works and that's not an internal or psychological phenomenon that's the soap phenomenon that's a social phenomenon and that's one thing the conservatives knew I would say in their conservative philosophy that the Liberals who are hyper individualistic Miss completely and you know what maybe maybe those who are Saints or the rare saintly individuals who are rare in human history that walk this Earth maybe they don't need that they're in a higher plane than people like me I think that ordinary people people like me need that grounding in order to have my grounding in who I am avoid moral error as you put it I think that's an important Insight in all of this as well it might be why you see instances of moral error more often from people who do put themselves in the position to wake up in a given day and not know where I am or feel lost in this aimless passage of time and so you know I I guess I don't want to Discount the possibility that there are a rare few people out there who independently could find that for themselves without creating the structures around them from family to Nation to God and belief in God to ground themselves in these things but I certainly think that I am like most people in that yes I'd do need it we do need it and part of what we do is you know this there's this old expression where you you practice what you preach I actually feel that what I'm doing much of in this campaign is it's not that I'm doing that because I'm practicing what I'm preaching it's the reverse I'm just actually on this campaign preaching what I practice and I would like to actually share that privilege I'll use the word the p word I would like to share that privilege with everyone in this nation with certainly every kid in this nation to enjoy the ultimate privilege that I had as a kid which is not that I grew up in wealth I did not actually but I grew up with two parents in the house with a focus on education a focus on the family unit a focus on God now my kids they are growing up in much greater wealth than I did but that's not the attribute that makes the difference we're doing our best to give them that same privilege to parents in the house 2AM or not two parents in the house with the focus on education on a focus on the family unit on the phone with the focus and a belief in God and why if I'm aiming to leave this country why would I want anything other than to share that same privilege with every other kid who's growing up in this country as well does that mean that one of the 25 percent of kids and it is that high who are born into fatherless homes or raised in fatherless homes today don't have a shot at achieving everything that I have or people like me have in my life no No in fact if I'm speaking to one of those kids I will say that in your unique experience there is still sources of strength that you will be able to find it doesn't have to be exactly what mine was would we have gotten out of world would we have won World War II if FDR didn't have polio I don't know actually I I just it's a weird question to ask but but I don't know I mean but does that mean we wish polio upon every U.S president or every citizen because that's how we protect ourselves no and so both of these things can be true at once that when you encounter hardship you don't have to be victimized by it you still can derive at an individual level fortitude from it because if it isn't the two-parent household then it can be something else that grounds you but that also should stop us sort of saying oh well because somebody else can do it or did do it that we should wish polio in the FDR analogy case or a single parent household in the case of a quarter of people in this country's case upon everybody else no and I think that both of those things can be true at once and so what I'm saying here I want to be very careful that that doesn't negate hope or possibility for those no I think you I think you made that I think you made that very clear what do you what do you think you've done or your wife has done or both of you have done that makes your marriage work like how long have you been married first why do you think your marriage could sustain the pressures of an extended campaign and then a potential presidency because that's a hell of a law to ask for any for any bond to maintain that many Transformations why do what have you guys done that should let's say speak to a certain degree of confidence among the listeners in the Integrity of the commitments that you've made on the family front well I would say that the The Superficial answers we just got very lucky the deeper answer is I think we chose well the true answer is I think that we were actually we were set up by Fate I think by God to be in this marriage with one another I mean there are I've never met and will never meet somebody in my life who pushes me and I think that that's it's the push actually between us right it was you know I think that a poorva she pushes me to be the best version of myself the the only person more unforgiving of my failure to be the best version of myself than me I'm I'm very unforgiving of myself but there's one person even more unforgiving and unsparing and that's a poorva and I and I returned the favor to her and I think that that is that push it's how do you do that without eating each other how do you do that without alienating each other I think it is well you know occasionally there will be spikes of it in moments of insecure yeah yeah yeah but but the the lack of alienation doesn't actually come from the without that comes from within right so so when you have somebody who loves you and is pushing you to be the best version of yourself because they know that they can expect more of you and then you lash out at them as I on occasion May in my weaker moments do that is actually an insecurity in me and I think that my ability to at least see that is part of what and she helps me see it right understands enough of me to understand what those moments of insecurity are to just say okay he didn't mean what he just said but we're going to actually get to the bottom of this that's actually been for us a a very different way that might not be working for everybody else it's not just like two magnets that are automatically stuck that's been the result of it it's actually two people who are in a constant cooperative struggle in pushing one another to be the best version of ourselves and I think that's why I would describe it I think actually that Cooperative tension is part of what actually keeps our marriage and our family unit so deeply steel level strong and I think that that is I think Ben Shapiro Shapiro I don't think we would have found it Shapiro told me that the Hebrew word for Eve means beneficial adversary and it means optimized player it means something like optimized player in a challenging game right so what is that that's the best description of it that's the that's exactly how it feels you you caught me and sort of let me try to describe it I have a feeling it's hard to capture in words yeah yeah you just captured it in words that is it and it just it just actually raises another one of these kind of conservative values that's a little bit um uncouth maybe to talk about or you're not supposed to touch Beyond The Pale to talk about right now but it's just the importance of choosing who you marry and choosing very well and almost the responsibility that I'm grateful that my parents apoorva's parents both exercised in in making sure that they were you know filtering for making sure understanding their kid probably better than anybody else that's something that I think many parents abdicate today is to say that oh he's well I think he would find somebody more matched for him but at least he's happy or at least she's happy and you're studying Exodus but I this might be this might be more of a Genesis example I think it's probably late in Book of Genesis when when Abraham sends his servant after he has has him put his hand under his thigh for the moment of commitment that was just how they made commitments back then we don't put people's hands under their thighs now but that was I think the biblical version of a a solid commitment to say go back all the way over there to our homeland to find the proper spouse for my son Isaac who's he was the son that he was God asked him sacrifice he didn't have to sacrifice it was important to him to know that he went all the way there and what if I come back him Dan and he said I will not come you will not come back empty-handed if you do I will relieve you of your promise but do not come back empty-handed and I do not want her mayor I don't want marrying someone you know a Canaanite or something like this so yeah he brings back Rebecca and I think it's just a beautiful story of the importance of parental some it doesn't always have to be this way but the spirit of it at least is if it's not apparent it's someone close to you maybe it's a best friend but who really cares enough about you to say that maybe that's not the right person and what I will tell you is in the period that a poorva and I were dating um pragmatically we knew we were going to get married but we were waiting for her to finish medical school and by the pragmatism of you know all of that if I was doing it again we were just got married sooner and just be done with it we don't have to have a big ceremony about it but we we started in 2011 we got married in 2015. there wasn't one person who cared about either of us who would have looked and said you know maybe you want to take a step back and take it a little bit slower but if people around me who know me best they would have stepped up including enough to including my parents and family members and my brother and you know my best friends they would have stepped up and said hey this isn't this isn't right why don't you or you know are you sure you want to go this fast take it slow not a single person around me said it because they knew it was right but I think it also just highlights the importance of we could say we got lucky but I think that actually it was the fabric around us each of us have helped us get it right too and so I think even the importance of who you choose in your marriage I mean the Bible has a lot to say about this Hindu tradition has a lot to say about this my parents have a lot to say about this and if you asked me 20 years ago I would never be saying this right now but I think that actually there is a role for family members to play and it's wise role for wise counsel it is yeah and I enjoyed that and I and I thankfully I'm eternally grateful that I was blessed with the wife that I have now that was not a product of accident it was actually a problem why do you think why do you think she supports your you know it's I've seen many couples compete with each other and and interfere with each other's progress forward sometimes out of spite and jealousy and you know hidden resentment and bitterness and your wife appears to be on board with your Ambitions or with your joint Ambitions like what and you said you know the sheet you you have a child she has maternal responsibilities but she's maintained this difficult career she's obviously balancing that with the support she's providing you for your complex Endeavor why does she support what you're doing I think that it's I think that she and I both share this in common is that we don't view this as balance in a certain sense if we were going to view this as a game of balancing competing responsibilities no chance because I mean just think about the Endeavor I'm on with two young kids at home you know I've built businesses and everything else but this is another scale all together at the age of 37 with a wife as a full-time surgeon if we're playing in the game of balancing there's no balance of this that that ball games out I think it is because it is part of a shared project of asking ourselves how do we make the most of the short time we're given on this Earth right there's more to our life we agree on this there's more to life than the aimless passage of time we were put here for a purpose I think that my wife she shares a conviction that I was put here to pursue the purpose that I'm pursuing now does that end in the white house I mean we certainly hope so not for ourselves but for our sense of purpose but that's God's plan not ours but she believes that I am following my purpose just as I believe she is following her purpose in doing what she does today and there have been times in our life where you know we talked about that Cooperative tension well that's a team sport actually it's like when you know it's like almost an analogy of you know Kobe Bryant right the way he would push his fellow Los Angeles Lakers they're still part of the same unit and so yeah I'll give you an example when when our first son Karthik was born he was born in February of 2020. we had moved to Ohio not long before that butapura was finishing up her her final months of training in Colombia and Cornell Hospital New York presbyterian's Hospital System to be any antishes the throat surgeon she is today and you will remember February 2020 was right he was born on February 23rd of 2020. that's right on the cusp of that first wave of the pandemic in New York City where unlike the later waves that were catastrophized you know that was a real wave of in New York City condensed Manhattan's hospitals were for a matter of months overrun in the icus included and she has this special skill set as a throat surgeon but she is three weeks into giving birth you know she could take as long of maternity leave as she wanted she felt that this was her Duty her colleagues were short staffed I think one of them was maybe was without violating any Norms or anything gently suggesting what kind of trouble they're going through and facing and she just said okay it's my obligation to go back I'm a biotech CEO I'm running a successful Enterprise multi-billion dollar company but it's 2020 circumstances of changes we brought our first set into this world it was the early stage where nobody knows the first thing about this virus and so literally in March of that year she made the decision she gave birth on February 23rd by mid-march she's already made the decision and going back in mid-march to treat patients on the front line to open air surgery of people who are covered positive at that time at the time people didn't know whether that was a significant thing or not to be concerned about if you have an infant and so what did I do I was in Ohio for a month and a half with our newborn infant yeah the one thing they said is it probably doesn't affect young people badly but you don't want an infant you don't know yet and so you know back in March and April of 2020 I took a step back from my day-to-day grind as a biotech CEO to say that you know we've got other people in charge I'm taking a little bit of time to play my dad my role as a dad as a father and I was the one you know mixing up our you know mixing up formula or taking the breast milk she fedexed to us and feeding the little man that actually gave us a unique bonding that I don't think we otherwise would have had if I was still in the hustle and bustle of traveling internationally and doing deals and developing drugs that I'd been doing in the two years before but that was that moment I think that poorva and I sat down in December and I couldn't have predicted to you that I would feel this way but I felt compelled I felt and I continued to feel that same sense of Duty for all the reasons we talked about earlier that I have to do this this is what's right I think that this is quite possibly the purpose for which I was put here and I cannot let this moment pass even though we have all the reasons in the world of the inconveniences of this journey running for president being the wrong thing to do right now this is what this is what I feel compelled to do and in an instant I mean she she had for us as a unit to make sure this is the right question for us pushed me as she does are you sure that we shouldn't be doing this even 20 years from now suppose even it is your destiny and your role to be the US president shouldn't we do when these kids are out of the house when we have more experience and and we she pushed me and we pushed each other to make sure that we had conviction that there's the right answer but once we have that conviction she's all in in the same way because this isn't my project versus hers this is asking the question of why we as a unit were brought together why God each put each of us here put us here together to realize our purpose in the world and does that mean that I'm then attached to and fetishizing the result of being the White House no I think that would actually be the wrong way to look at this but if I am called to do what I am now we will be open and open-minded and open-hearted to whether God's plan has me in the white house next November or next January of 2025 or not we're not attached to that result but I am attached to following out what I believe is my conviction and duty but I couldn't do it without the foundation of a family starting with a spouse a wife who pushes me to actually do not more of not not less of that and view it as some Balancing Act or trade-off but actually further in the direction that I already feel called to go and there's no way I would have achieved the success I have in my life there's no way I would have the capacity to do what I'm doing now were it not for that and I would I would like to think if approval were here she would in her own version of success that she's had in her life the impact she's having on the patients she sees every day that I've played a role in pushing her to do the same right right all right well that's a very thorough answer to that question and and I guess probably the answer that you know people would hope to hear so so look so look we'll talk again eh and maybe something approximating three to four months we thought the last time we talked that it might be good to do this to check in every so often I thought we were just getting warmed up well we've got another we've got another that's good an hour to do daily wire behind the daily wire plus platform so we will we will turn to that but uh we have run 96 Minutes and amazing I couldn't guess that yeah yeah well that's that's that's how it's supposed to happen if the conversation goes well and so it's very interesting to watch your progress through this what promises to be the strangest and most surreal presidential election I would say in living memory it must really be something to be on the front lines you know plowing your way through this and it'll be very interesting to see it it's been interesting to watch your success so far which a success that seems to be expanding um quite remarkably and perhaps somewhat unexpectedly and so it'll be amazing it'll be remarkable to watch that unfold some that's some major drama you know I think that's relevant too to your notion that you shouldn't hold on too tightly to the outcome because you actually don't know what the right outcome should be you know maybe this is your time for that ultimate goal the presidency but God only knows what you could learn along the way if you stick to your principles and exactly what you're only 37 there's absolutely no doubt that whatever you learn along the way if you stick to your principles is going to serve you well in whatever might come your way in the you know additional 60 years you have to unfold your life so I really do hope and wish that in pray I suppose that you're able to stick to your principles and abide by the truth that you swore to allow to guide you and to stay out of the hands of the bloody political consultants and to continue talking directly to people and that is what's called for now it is what people are crying out for now and be lovely to see someone actually do that and it looks to me like so far you've managed that for what it's worth for my opinion and you know it's a hell of a thing to be able to continue doing that in the face of all the pressure that's going to come your way especially as you become more successful and more sycophants and temptations as well as opportunities come your way so I hope you can keep your feet on the ground in your head in the sky properly and it sounds like like you have the wife that can help you do that and the family and friends as well so hooray for that so for everyone watching and listening I'm going to talk to Vivek another half an hour on the daily wire plus platform I often do something autobiographical on that front but I think today I'm going to hassle him instead because I read a New York Times article recently which was a bit of a hit piece and I thought it might be entertaining and interesting to walk through that and and uh dissect it it's not like I'm a big fan of the New York Times I suppose most people watching and listening know but you know it's interesting to take apart what it is they're attempting to do and I'd like to see how vivec responds to that so that's the plan for the daily wire plus platform in the meantime thank you all for watching and listening and thank you very much for agreeing to talk to me again it's quite a privilege to be involved even in a peripheral way in this campaign hopefully YouTube won't censor this podcast as they did with my discussion with Robert Kennedy which is 100 unforgive livable but seems unlikely yeah well you know what if they do we'll find other ways of reaching the people with the truth and uh and that's that's what I admire about what you do speak and you and I both I think speak the truth without attachment to the result and I think that that's actually what keeps us tethered so thank you my man yeah well you know that that that I think one element of faith in the truth is the decision and I think it's a decision I think it's a decision of faith that whatever happens if you speak the truth is by definition the best thing that could have happened now that might not be what you planned but what the hell do you know you know yeah well they're certainly not infallible they're certainly not interested yes yes our plans are silly compared to the trip so right exactly yeah yeah well it's a nice it's it's it's it's a way of finding a really Firm Foundation you know because in a way also of contending with your own ignorance you know you think well I said what I had to say and it didn't turn out how I expected well that doesn't mean that the consequence was erroneous it wasn't what you expected but that doesn't mean it's wrong that's a hard thing to uh to understand especially when the consequences appear somewhat Dreadful you know because they can be but of course the consequences of speaking falsehood can be Dreadful and generally are much more Dreadful right lies lead to hell that's for sure all right sir well um thank you to everyone watching and listening to the Daily wire plus folks for making this possible to the film crew here in Toronto and um in vivek's location for facilitating this flawlessly and for everyone watching and listening your time and attention is much appreciated thank you very much sir thank you [Music]

Channel: Jordan B Peterson

Views: 1,015,643

Keywords: Jordan Peterson, Jordan B Peterson, psychology, psychoanalysis, existentialism, maps of meaning, free speech, freedom of speech, personality lectures, personality and transformations, Jordan perterson, Dr Peterson

Id: rlTY7VzqBwc

Length: 104min 13sec (6253 seconds)

Published: Thu Aug 17 2023