Dr. Jordan Peterson - One Last Question

we'll have a relationship with the transcendent like we're remarkable creatures and I think for us to call on that relationship in times of dire need is perfectly appropriate and you're providing people with the language for doing that and to let someone know that there's more that they can call on that they may then they may have yet called on I think can be extraordinarily useful okay so we just came off the convocation stage with dr. Peterson thank you so much for being here what an honor we have 88 convocations a year and maybe once or twice does our entire audience all 10,000 students find themselves giving a unanimous standing ovation and that's not to say that the other guests aren't phenomenal but I think you're really connected with them today sir and it was great to see not so much even your words but the spirit by which you delivered them the humility that you had and then what was not on our schedule to have a student who was there not a liberty student but a friend of a Liberty student was there a college-age young man who unexpectedly jumped onstage and and you know cried out for help to you dramatic embodiment of the problem yes sir I've been here for four years we've never had an incident like that but I really feel like he was God ordained I think God allowed this young man to really be a bit of a spokesperson for lack of better terms for so many others in the room who maybe aren't gonna physically jump on stage and say help me but are on the verge matter of fact I just got a text from young man who said when that man jumped up on stage and did that he said he just broke me because I feel like that's where I am and so two things on that right off the bat first of all I looked over at you when we were praying for him and you were crying and I saw not the clinical psychologist or the best-selling author I saw like a dad I'm a big brother and it just reminded me that you actually care about the people who want help oh yeah in pretty dire straits to do something like that and it was pretty obvious that he was desperate and it's a terrible thing to see that if you're in if you're in really serious trouble like if you're contemplating ending your life for example and you have a plan and you fantasize through the plan you really you really really need to let someone know you have to talk to someone and tell them what's happening and a friend or a family member or a professional priest someone and you need to do that because you're in danger if you're at the point where you're fantasizing actively about such things then you you have a relatively high probability of at least a serious suicide attempt and so you don't want to take that lightly and suicide is well first of all it's permanent if it's effective and it also another thing to consider and and this is sometimes the vengeful aspect of suicide is that you know you may feel that you're doing your loved ones a favor by removing yourself from the world with all your trouble and catastrophe but it's very common that family members and friends family members in particular never recover from someone's suicide there they torment themselves for the rest of their life wondering what they could have done differently why the person didn't reach out berating themselves for arguments that that are typical in families that you know that that still may turn out unfortunately it leaves a huge rift in the in the structure of things and so and you know there look if you're feeling that way there actually might be something wrong with you that's the other thing like you might be sick you know physically there's depression for example is a very complicated illness and there's lots of physical reasons that people become depressed and and there are a lot of effective treatments so you know there is some possibility that if you allowed someone to know what you're experiencing that you could be better I've seen people recover from extremely serious cases of depression you know they they're usually somewhat fragile in their mood compared to other people permanently but their quality of life lives up to the point where life is well worth living they can engage fully and and so although it seems hopeless and it's one of the terrible things about suicidal ideation is things close in on you and it seems hopeless that there are things that can be done and you should do everything you can and do those things before you make that fatal decision you know you don't have 16 thousand people on campus and over 90 thousand online without running into suicide situations and I've got to tell you most of the time when we get in the trenches and we just really begin to listen to someone it's not the sins they've committed that brought them to that point it's the sins that we're committed against them and so even when you say do you realize that you're leaving a trail of tears that you're not just ending your life but that you're wrecking the lives of others when they've been hurt by someone they go good I want the people who have hurt me to be hurt yes well that's the vengeful right and so what we've learned is people just sometimes don't have the ability it's not as easy as just start to make good decisions you know they don't have the ability to make them right and so we feel like sometimes we need to come alongside of them and sometimes even take those first initial steps with them if if we have to even if we have to even hold them accountable to it grab them by the arm and said we're gonna do this we're gonna go get you out but then show a measurable amounts of grace and patience and and then they wake up to the they come out of the clouds a little bit a little bit you know you do that right you if someone's afraid of that getting in the elevator it's not like we're gonna push you into the elevator what's the first step no no of course you accompany them on the smallest possible part of the journey yes sir smallest possible implementable part of the journey so what is the word that you what's the smallest but if someone desperately needs help what are you saying to your child what are you saying to someone who comes anyway well the first thing I would do is to say talk to someone find someone who who will listen and I would say to those who want to help that you can get an awful long ways by listening to let and and and without premature without premature attempts to make the person feel better you know when someone's that desperate premature attempts to make them feel better it's not that bad you're looking at it right negative away that that's not going anywhere they may have a lot of woe to Express before they get to anything that looks vaguely optimistic and so you you don't want to underestimate the utility of just trying to hear what the person is saying right so can I ask you as a pastor what I say to a student who is overwhelmed when they see a giant that's bigger than them instead of saying oh it's not a giant you know instead of discounting your paint or minimizing I go you know what that's bigger than you yeah but it's not bigger than God and I know it sounds like a cliche sermon little zinger but we just say yeah we i don't even pretend that you have the power on your on your own to slay this goliath in your life but we believe that you know God hasn't left you as a matter of fact in this very dark hour that's when he's closest to you and so we're not looking for you to do this in your power but we're looking for you to do this you know and the power the one who died on the cross for you there's are we giving people false hope when we do that as Christian counselors are we oh we oh we it does it doesn't work all the time right and again I think you're right sometimes I'm talking to someone who literally needs because of a chemical imbalance in these medications yeah so it's not as hey here sermon and then they're good and it's chiropractic - what I mean by that is you don't adjust and then it's fine you know you have to adjust again and adjust again have to keep continuing to go to counseling and continue to get help it's a dance it's two steps forward one station ship with the transcendent like we're remarkable creatures and I think for us to call on that relationship in times of dire need is perfectly appropriate and and you're providing people with the language for doing that no I mean there is a lot of potential locked up inside of each person and the precise nature of that potential is unknown it's it's often referred to in religious language and to let someone know that there's more that they can call on they may then they may have yet called on I think can be extraordinarily useful if people can walk down that path what about those who maybe aren't suicidal but are in a place where they're just overwhelmed with mistake after mistake after mistake in their life and they're just looking for um a first step out what advice would you give them well I think partly what you do under those circumstances is you do a little bit of meditation you know and and you decide first that you want your life to be better you know that that it's that it would be acceptable in the sight of God and the universe if your life was okay if you were doing well and then you concentrate on what you could do what you could stop doing that's not good for you you know and and I think that's that's a repentance in some sense and and I'm speaking about it I would say in a psychological sense rather than a technically religious sense it's like it's easy to sit on the edge of your bed and to think look there are things I'm doing there are things I'm not doing that I should be doing that I could and would do small things you don't want to get grandiose but you can you can start to improve your life incrementally by eliminating those things that are self-evidently making you bitter and miserable but you have to decide that that's what you want you are willing to burn off that Deadwood to sacrifice that bitterness and that unhappiness even though you may feel that you're justified in in in in harboring it you may even be justified in harboring it because people have very hard lives and sometimes they're very badly mistreated what do you need to think it's okay if things improve and it would be worthwhile for me to start to abandon my well you could say my sin my failure to make the mark right my failure to take proper aim but to abandon those things that I'm doing the I know to be harmful to myself what would you say to pastors who think well why would you stop short of trying to get them to self-help or try to get them to when you could go even further with them not just only deal with the symptoms and those things but just actually then provide them a faith that well with a pastor you probably should ask that question I mean the the issue is the issue in a situation like that is that you have to govern your response to the person in accordance with that person you know you have to see where they're willing to go next like and you want to make sure that your destination which might be which could be let's say your pride in your role in their salvation right for example oh yeah doesn't interfere with your careful noticing of what it is that they need right here and now and so you you you you want to push people to their limit but but to they're genuine limit right but you don't want to tear the fabric of trust like no and and yeah and I just want to make them you don't want to make them into puppets of your desire you can lead people but you can't you can't let's say you can't remake them like it you can lead them and and to lead someone appropriately you need to know where they are and that means you have to pay attention and I would say well for some people the religious approach initially might be the right one there's some evidence for that for example in the treatment of alcoholism I mean the alcoholism literature indicates quite clearly that perhaps the only effective known treatment for alcoholism is actually religious conversion I mean sometimes people stop of their own accord and we don't exactly understand why but religious conversion actually seems to be quite effective and it isn't clear why the 12-step people capitalized on that and there had there hasn't been good scientific studies of the effectiveness of the 12-step program because it's hard to do control studies but well because because i think i sat with a gentleman one time who who is a 12-step program guru he travels the world so he said hey wait what are you doing and I thought my travel and speak and he said oh I travel and speak and I told he said what are you going to and I said I'm going to this church I'm you know I'm gonna go preach and he said I'm going to a rally and Alcoholics Anonymous rally and he pulled out his coin and he said you know I've been sober and he gave me the days was a long time and he said and I said well how do you begin I said he asked me I'm sorry Stephanie and I said I always begin with the word I always open up the Bible make sure I'm not you know that that's the foundation of anything I have to say you know people ultimately don't need my opinion they need the truth and he said I always began with the same this is interesting he said I always begin with hi my name is and I am an alcoholic he says because we believe once an alcoholic always an alcoholic and I said you haven't taken a drink in 1,100 days or whatever he said he said yeah he said I teach people he said but we believe one I said that's the difference for us we as believers believe I once was lost but now I'm found I once was soft but I'm Paul I would I once was an alcoholic but now I have a new identity so are we just preaching to ourself please be just very honest with me is that oh we just no loitering it up and preaching that to ourselves because we've seen the evidence of saying to someone when Christ gives you a new identity you can you're no longer a slave to the things that you are slave to you you're now a slave to righteousness now growing in that identity doesn't mean there's not a struggle doesn't mean there's not temptation that you can fall into and understand your weak points I think it's more of a cautionary technique on the part of the 12-step people as they assume that alcohol especially for people who are really susceptible to alcoholism is sufficiently powerful so that some people can't risk any relapse and I think that's true with alcohol it's it's a very dangerous drug and I think that that is true for a minority of people there are studies of alcoholic recovery where the people learn to drink moderately and there's been a huge debate in the alcoholism treatment literature about whether total abstinence or modified drinking is more effective and I haven't looked at that literature for a long time it's been decades I would say but the last time I did look the argument still hadn't been settled but it's quite clear that for some people alcohol is so dangerous that it's safer for them to assume that they don't have the wherewithal to make a single error but remember they're talking about something that's a fairly focal part of their life right they say well I have this one overwhelming temptation and I have to treat it with with with tremendous respect your question is more about personality transformation in general and and how it plays out even into the trenches of addictions I mean I'm a Christian I became a Christian when I was 18 my addictions didn't didn't stop and you know tempting me you know and it's not just even the things that I that I had before I became a Christian I've had I've added new it new temptations as a believer trust me they don't go away but rather than tapping into self power or tapping into even good things like the accountability of a community and those kind of things for me it's in so inside out I just have to continue to preach to myself well it's a funny I'm acting in contradiction to my new identity when I succumb to it and I do succumb to it sometimes but when I do have to tell myself I just acted in contradiction to my new identity not as a compliment to my new identity so so as a Christian I mean you're called upon ethically to act in a Christian manner yes sir and so there's obviously some assumption that your voluntary actions are part and parcel of an ethical requirement and also part and parcel of the faith but then there's also the the core correlated claim that the salvation is through Christ and so there's a there's a there's a there's a funny contradiction there that's difficult to reconcile which is that on the one hand it's the action of something transcendent that's leading you out of perdition but on the other hand you're still called upon to act as voluntarily as an active agent and so it's a very tricky business to separate out how much you put on the person let's say this is up to you this is your responsibility to draw the bull back and to hit the target properly and how much you attribute to the grace of God that allows that to occur and I came I was a Muslim you know before I became a Christian and before it was always the responsibility was there you know it's hate as a responsible religious person here's the list of do's and here's the list of don'ts and by the way they were all good for me you know those lists of do's alike don't they were good do's and the list of don'ts were you know they were not evil they were actually for my benefit they have a lot more than 12 rules these cattle are rules and even on the Old Testament side there's over 600 do's and don'ts of the Mosaic law but it was no longer for me responsibility is reimagined in the life of a believer and that it's my response to his ability and so responsibility is now that I'm a Christian I'm responsible to love my neighbor to love the Lord with my heart soul mind and strength first of all I'm gonna fail at that so Christ has already done it for me he's the perfect model second I'm walking in obedience not to earn his favor but because I've already been given and so I feel like the power has been put into me that's resurrection power now I've just got to walk it out I've got to flesh it out I've got to grow in it by the way I say that yes I've already sinned a lot but it's a funny one too because that's that same contradiction is that that and so I mean when I'm thinking about these things metaphysically I think so there's a Christian idea that Christ died on the cross to save us from our sins and to redeem the world and I think well one of the things Carl Jung pointed out was that part of the reason though the Enlightenment emerged was because there was observations in Christendom that there was still a lot of redemption that seemed to need to occur despite the fact that this miraculous event had manifested itself and so you have this contradiction that the redemption has already taken place but there's still all the problems in the world and so the way that I've reconciled out to myself conceptually speaking metaphysically is that well the the death and resurrection of Christ it has to do with with a different concept of time I suppose is the death and resurrection of Christ has redeemed the world but we still have work to do and that those two things can can be together I mean the logos has always been regarded as something outside of time right it's it's outside of the past and the present in the future and encompasses all of that and so in some sense something there's a level of analysis outside of time where something could have already been accomplished but within time which is where we are well there's still plenty to do and it seems to me that I would the reason I'm stating that that's a metaphysical statement is because well it's it's complicated and paradoxical but it seems to me to be correct is that there's a there's a pathway laid out it manifests itself to us at least in part in the voice of our conscience and in in in our knowledge of our ethical responsibility and well in our knowledge of good and evil and the the ideal the redemptive ideal is there to beckon end to call and to aid us but there's no complacency there's still the battle that we each have to undertake and you can see this within Christianity itself you know because the Orthodox Christians for example place a lot more emphasis in my understanding on the action of the individual the attempt to become christ-like in in action and attitude and less on the turning over of the redemptive process to the to the to the redemptive figure and so the Protestants and the Orthodox have been arguing about that for a long time absent and I don't know how to rectify that yes sir I don't think Jesus is trying to redeem the world around me I don't think Jesus wants to bring save America I think he wants to save Americans I don't think Jesus is going to fix Canada you know he wants he died for Canadians and so it's the individual right now if God's redemptive power is in me and it's working through me and so so all of a sudden the way I see my neighbor the way I treat people with dignity even if they don't treat me with dignity the way that I showed the fruit of the spirit the evidence of the Holy Spirit living in mean certainly that's going to drop the crime rate if more people are doing that certainly there's going to be evidence of a bit of a turnaround in a community if a bunch of people in that community have the power of God and living in and through them but that said it's certainly not gonna be religion I mean the most messed up places in the world I'm from Iran trust me it was messed up places in the world of the most religious places in the world so for me it's more about this Christ living in someone and then the rest of it fleshing out what's also you willingness to replace your current personality with an ideal personality you know and that might be and that might be a very that might be a very productive way of thinking about it is that there's the you that exists now like you know many psychologists will tell young people that they're okay the way they are and I never do that I always say well you're nowhere near what you could you love them too much too well it's all the truth it's just not appropriate to tell someone who's young that they're okay the way they are because they have 60 years to be far better who they are than they are now and they need that adventure and I think part of that I think psychologically speaking part of that language that goes along with the idea of having Christ inhabit you let's say and then having him work through you is the decision that you're going to turn yourself over to the ideal and then allow that to act through you to the degree that that's possible and then that ideal is fleshed out here's a figure of the person it's the person of the Holy Spirit is who I would turn and by the way it's a daily work Bible says you know deny yourself if any man wishes to come after me deny yourself pick up the cross daily and follow have to die every day that's also the part that's well that's the part that's so much associated with responsibility like that that dying and again I would speak psychologically here is that look we all have preconceptions of the world and in some sense we have the whole world mapped out and much of our map isn't accurate and it's low resolution and it's it's it needs updating but what it means is that when we learn something new instead of merely adding something new to something we already know we have to let something we thought we knew die and have it replaced and that's that daily death and resurrection that's part of it is that is to be acutely aware of your errors which I think you do if you try to act out an ideal right do you see where you fall short I think if I try to figure out where I am on the map or self-evaluate I tend to lie to myself I'm really good at telling myself I'm okay I don't need a psychologist to tell me I'm fine but if I just put my life up against the Word of God you know if I look and if I have community that's willing to tell me the truth even if it's not what I want to hear that's what I need to hear they tell my wife is the number one person in my life does it then then people that know me they go man your life isn't consistent with what you preach and what you believe and so I'm daily coming before community of account right I'm daily looking at the Word of God I'm daily asking the Holy Spirit to reveal to me the places that I need to grow it's funny allowing the ideal to hold you accountable yes sir and I feel honestly not the person I've been a Christian I got I got saved when I was 18 by the way I got say for myself you know that's why I feel like looking back on it God saved me from me and so because I was sitting on the throne of my life but when I became a Christian sir it I'm gonna tell you I was committing I was a pothead you weren't even good pot I would smoke pot I would mix it with oregano sell to my friends at dumbest Italian pot I was even an honest crook you know I was an alcoholic there's so much everything in my life was broken I was completely addicted to porn completely addicted to me completely bankrupt at every as a bonfire of vanity I mean everything and then Christ saved me and my mouth I called my youth pastor and said I got saved and he said he saves your heart but still got to work on your mouth yeah and then he started disciple in me and working with me and it's funny experience like yes sir what was the transform it's dying it's dying the self and and it's understanding that the exchange you know it's not changing your life people think Christianity is change it's not it but change life is religion here's your stuff you need to change the exchange life you know it's not changing it to me change is taking the the old man and putting makeup on it we exchange is if if any man is in Christ if I will says behold behold means what's happening internally is be held on the earth there's external evidence of the internal behold he's a new creation as a new creation means I'm not taking the old and cleaning it up taking the old and it's dead bringing it to the end of itself because I didn't need makeup I need a haircut I needed open-heart surgery I need a full new heart and so then walking into that is growing into that by the way it's a dance what precipitate but I've got to tell you I feel I feel more sinful today than I did when I first became a Christian because a sign of spiritual growth for me is that I'm more sensitive to the sins in my life so I thought that I'm like committing these massive meaning on the scale of like that's part exam that's right it's it it's I think literally growing in Christ is not that I stop sinning it's just my sensitivity to as you grow in your love affair with your wife it's not so much that like it's wow it's no longer just good enough to just be faithful as far as physically it's I'm gonna be faithful and really paying greater attention to what she's saying I'm gonna be more sensitive and so as I'm growing I sometimes feel like I'm a wretched sinner and I look back and stuff I wasn't even convicted about a few yet a few years ago and that can't be me cuz no part of the flesh ever desires that that has to be the Lord mm-hmm and so I'm just explaining where it's coming from for someone and that's not to discount the help that people are getting from a great book like yours you know I love your book so much I probably pass it out like tic tacs you know look to everybody I wish it wasn't 34 bucks but yeah I passed it out because I think it really helps people and I love everything but the subtitle says you know there's an antidote to chaos I just think man I need these 12 rules but I don't know how that's an antidote to the chaos in my heart because you could keep adding rules and I'm still kept at the very best I've just learned how to clean up the chaos oh yes but it's still under the curve the rules themselves are certainly insufficient to eradicate the chaos it's the it's the rules are well you talked about discipline as in as in disciple I mean partly what you do to straighten yourself out so that you can deal with the transformations of life on an ongoing basis in a manner that's not overly rule-bound is that you bind yourself with rules enough to become somewhat disciplined so that you can become a spontaneous ethical actor the rule part is the rule part I don't have a problem with first of all I came from a religion that was very much like here the rules second I came from a home being Iranian where I learned to submit to Authority third you know but the but the intent behind it changed you know my I understand even before I was a Christian I understood I need boundaries without boundaries no River with without banks is a river it's just a puddle so I knew the power of rules and boundaries in my life but now it's no longer doing to earn its money it's not about doing to earn his favor it's about getting that favor for free by what Christ has done and then everyday just letting that become an evidence of of my faith and counting in part and the faith is accounting in part for the presence of that ideal that can move in to replace what was there before so faith is just literally me trusting you know him even though I don't see it all and I don't have to know it all trust in truth you know because truth gets people in trouble very frequently in the short term but one one of the things I learned a long time ago was that it was very interesting to live your life by attempting to tell the truth because extraordinarily adventurous things occurred as a consequence it's like the short-term consequence might be all sorts of scandal and it frequently is because to tell the truth often means to say things that people would rather not hear but I do believe that and and this is an element of faith and I think it's akin to exactly what you're describing is that I've decided that I'm going to do my best to tell the truth on the assumption that no matter what it looks like to me right now there isn't a better outcome than the outcome that's generated as a consequence yes truth yes right and that's definitely something that I think has to be placed into the category of faith means rational because you got to think well better to have reality behind you than confronting you yes oh and maybe if you tell the truth you at least have the real on your side that's something yes sir but you certainly can pay a high price for that in the present and I think that idea of faith in Christ is analogous to that I mean there's there's a tremendous relationship between the idea of Christ and the idea of truth for example and well he's literally the embodiment of it he says he says in John 14:6 above us I am the way the truth inner life so the truth isn't a philosophy or doctrine nearly as much as it is the personal it's a mode of being yes yes I think that's true and and I do think there is something I don't think that Redemption occurs and this is the case in psychotherapy as well and it's perhaps where the psychotherapeutic and the Christian religious endeavor dovetail I don't think in psychotherapy there is any redemption without the truth psychotherapy is a search for the truth in the past search for the truth in the present and a search for the truth in the future and it is what sets people free even though it's tremendously difficult and there is a place where those conceptual worlds touch right there so yes sir you're brilliant and we love you and please come back to Liberty University and I enjoyed the convocation very much it was very interesting to see 13,000 of your 15,000 students or their boats all gathered together for for a unified experience yes or no and I think it's very I think it's very wise it looked to me like an a very effective exercise in building a coherent community yes and that's something and it's interesting too that despite the fact that you're fundamentally a Christian institution that you've been doing it in a manner that's substantive Lisa killer no I mean the opening the opening ceremony involved the worship yes yes describing songs to the learner but you have all sorts of speakers yes sir and so you've done a very interesting job of combining the communal the religious and the secular into one ceremony that unites the entire campus and I did mention to your students that it was quite refreshing I mean visiting University campuses isn't one of my most favorite occupation yes sir you know it's it's often very stressful and sometimes insanely stressful and here I felt a real absence of that cold premature world-weary cynicism that seems to affect so many people on university colleges campuses nestled and it was a delight to see the absence of that and so it was a pleasure to its the Lord what you saw is the very best moments that you saw and the experience is Jesus gets all the glory of that because he's our great model it's also easy to be hospitable to someone like you you just are gracious and compassionate and you brought your mom along who's 80 years young and it's been fun watching you just navigate off stage with your mom you're such an honorable man and so we've learned a lot from you sir and can't wait to sit under your teaching again what is the next book gonna come out January 2020 awesome it's about two-thirds finished so I think I'm and my editors seem happy with it so I think I'll be able to manage it we'll see yes sir we love you thank you great you

Channel: Liberty University

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Keywords: Liberty University, LibertyU, Liberty, Jerry Falwell, Jordan Peterson, Dr. Jordan Peterson, Dr. Jordan B. Peterson

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Length: 38min 26sec (2306 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 08 2019