Jordan Peterson Comments on the Queen's Passing

how could the death of the queen affect the boundaries between english communities around the world how could the death of the queen affect the boundaries between english-speaking communities around the world well i suppose it could go one of two ways you know one is that and this would be a terrible thing it's such it's such bad timing in some sense you know i think for for what happened today to have happened um i'm a great admirer of the of the constitutional monarchy system i think there's a wisdom about it especially the way that your country has managed it which is more it's worked better than how any other country has managed it maybe ever that's really something you know there are obviously monarchical systems constitutional monarchies still left in europe but they're kind of a pale reflection of what you've got in the uk and when tammy and i were in kentucky a couple of months ago we were invited there by the former ambassador from the u.s to canada and she was and her husband were fundraisers for donald trump um and he he he runs a coal mine so you can imagine why he's republican and and so we were we were at the kentucky derby which is quite the show the americans they're very theatrical man they can put on a show like no one else and the kentucky derby is definitely a show people wear the most preposterous outfits you know these wild lime green suits and these amazing sort of victorian costumes for the for the women and they're all dressed up there's like 160 000 people at the racetrack and it's quite the spectacle and we were up above the racetrack about three floors in this glassed-in cafe and uh the second day we were there trump was going to come to the cafe to the restaurant and i had flown out that morning to give a commencement address at this conservative college in northern michigan and then i flew back and just after i got there they closed the airport so i just got in they closed the airports because the president is coming to town the former president but they still call him the president and so really the whole city in some real sense was locked down and then i go out to the derby back to the derby and just in time because they're going to lock down the whole derby so that meant no one 160 000 people no one gets in or out and then the army came in and there was like 300 guys in camouflage quite armed and they were taking up their stations and this is like three hours before trump showed up and then the secret service came in and by that time i had made it upstairs to the restaurant where tammy was and she'd been there uh waiting and everyone was buzzing away about the fact that trump was coming and the atmosphere was electric you know and i thought sitting there i thought this must have been what it was like to be well around the kennedys say in the 1960s that level of fame i've been around famous people a lot now and there are definitely tears of fame you know there's there's not famous and that's normal and then there's celebrities that are maybe known locally and nationally and then there are celebrities that are known internationally and then there's celebrities like the queen who everyone everywhere in the world knows who among famous people they're hyper famous and trump is in that category and he's a very strange person in that category i would say because he's not just famous for being president which is already something that makes you pretty damn famous but he was really famous as a as a businessman before that and as a nouveau riche sort of businessman and as a kind of brash entrepreneur and a character and he was very famous for that but then he got even more famous as a tv celebrity for like 15 years and that's actually really hard you know regardless of what you think about it ethically or you know whether you think the kind of entertainment that he did that he involved himself in was worthwhile i don't care about that that's not my point my point is that managing that successfully for 15 years is exceptionally unlikely and difficult and he was extremely famous as a consequence and that was sort of laden on top of his fame for on the business front and then he became president and so that's a lot of fame man and when when that much fame surrounds you your life is very weird and the probability that people are going to respond to you in a normal in the normal way that helps keep you sane is very low especially maybe if you're also an intimidating person to begin with with a bit of a proclivity let's say towards disagreeableness because maybe then you chase away the people who would have enough sense to tell you when you go a little bit too far anyways we were up there in the restaurant the place was just buzzing and then trump came in and it was you could just feel the energy the electric energy and i thought this is not good this is too much man this is too much for anybody to bear and the thing about the monarchy that's so cool you know in the united states there's the judiciary and the legislative branch and the executive that separation of powers and the checks and balances that are part and parcel of that and that's a bright system and then you also have the states and they have their power against the federal government and that stops anything from becoming too tyrannical in principle but here and in canada although less so in canada because we're you know modern and trying to dispense with the monarchy modern confused dim-witted and untraditional um and casual and careless and then we have the french english problem which makes things more complicated on the monarchical front you have four divisions you have executive legislative judicial and symbolic and the monarch holds the symbolic weight and that's really smart because it separates it to some degree from the political weight you know you see what happens in the united states is well first of all is the president tends to turn into this to the czar you know because they have this idea in the united states now like first lady it's like what the hell is that we don't have that in canada nobody knows anything about about justin trudeau's wife and that's been the history of of canadian politicians it's like just because you're justin trudeau's wife doesn't mean you're queen but in the united states it's like well you know hillary clinton maybe she's queen and that's and that's partly because there is that demand for the symbolic weight that the leader should manifest and you also see that to some degree in the united states which is a star worshiping culture obviously with the glitterati and the royalty of hollywood and it's better put there it's better put there in the entertainment section even though that's also somewhat dangerous because it tends to elevate actors into pronouncements of ethical ver pronouncers of ethical virtues say but better there than in the political realm trump he's like king and president all rolled up into one and that's just too much and so and so i really admire the monarchical system and i think that for whatever reason the uk has done a wonderful job of maintaining that and i think a very economically canny job too because i know the economic analysis indicate that the royal family generates way more income than they spend you know because they're a major and everything they're associated with here's a major tourist attraction it's this tradition that you have here this monarchical tradition is something that's tremendously attractive to people who don't have that canadians for example americans and because it's it's just it's so theatrical and so unique and then you had queen elizabeth who man i mean that's quite the woman there what how many 13 prime ministers and so you had someone around to intimidate all your prime ministers that's a really good idea and i'm sure she did a fine job of that you know and so yeah you know and you you can imagine you can imagine how useful it was psychologically in some sense for the prime minister who has monarchical temptations in some sense like trump did to have to go on a regular basis to this remarkable person who'd seen this immense span of political history and confess in some real sense right and to be subject to her cautious and wise judgment because i think she was a woman who was traditional and cautious and wise in the highest degree and there were scandals in her family but like you have a family if people knew what your family was doing don't you think there'd be scandals and so but she was remarkably free of scandals over that entire period and that's that's a hell of a thing to manage for 70 years and so well so what will happen now well that the most likely thing is that your monarchy will disintegrate like most of the other ones have i i'm not saying that will happen i'm certainly not saying i want it to happen but because that sort of thing is so hard to maintain especially in the modern world and because you need someone so remarkable to manage it the probability that you'll get another one is relatively low and so i wish your new king the best that's for sure but you know maybe maybe you'll get lucky and maybe your monarch and maybe with your support will rise to the occasion and your country and the rest of the british commonwealth will recognize that what they have in the shared bonds that unite them based on english common law and the great democratic tradition that's so much a function of this country and this country really in particular i mean you're the birthplace of both canada the us australia new zealand india these amazing countries these free democratic productive generous societies it's quite the accomplishment and i see in england and europe but in england too in great britain such a such apprehension about that such refusal to note the greatness of your country and its contributions i mean you know no one in the united states ever talks about the fact that the uk was the country that er that eradicated slavery like that's that only happened once in the whole history of the of the human race you know when your country did it it took 175 years and a huge economic yeah you know it was it was your country and the great people who were were spearheading that movement at the time that established once and for all on the political and economic front that that was not to be tolerated and then you know it took a while for that idea to spread everywhere it still hasn't because there's there's plenty of slaves in the world the estimate's 30 million at the moment by the way but there are very few people who will come out forthrightly and say that it's that it's right that it's okay that you know might makes right and your country was definitely one of the moral forces in the world the primary moral force on the political front who established once and for all that that was no longer acceptable and so and and and and yet mostly what characterizes a fair bit of self-image in great britain is shame and you know every country has things to be ashamed of but not every country also has things to be proud of so so what do we think what's going to happen with the commonwealth well maybe we'll wise up and recognize that we have something absolutely precious to guard and uh and then maybe we'll guard it but to do that we're going to have to defend ourselves against unwarranted accusations of of guilt not that there's not something to be guilty about you know because we're all the beneficiaries of the atrocities of history and we have to atone for that in our personal behavior but by the same token man you're supposed to separate the wheat from the chaff and not just call it all chaff and when you look at your own history you think we stumbled plenty you know but we still walked up hill and you in your country you can say that more than most you

Channel: Jordan B Peterson

Views: 3,763,757

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: _5os9bT9zuo

Length: 14min 5sec (845 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 09 2022